"Save that for the very end," Alistair agrees, very wise and experienced in these matters, and drinks half his wine.
***
The end almost comes too soon, with far too much fleeing and not nearly enough drinking. And too much divine providence. Alistair isn't given to mystical thinking, but he saw what everyone else saw—Zevran facing down a dragon and Zevran buried with Haven and Zevran cresting the ridge of the mountain path, frosty but alive, with his blighted glowing hand—and it's mystifying.
So there's a wary distance, when he finds Zevran by a fire in the pass. (It's the first time he's seen him alone, or close to, without any rapturous singing or weird bald elves swooping in for his attention.) The wariness is one third what even are you, two thirds how dare you. Alistair had wanted to go back, an impulse Leliana shared but quieted. Too many enemy combatants still there. Too many people here who needed defending. Too small a chance of survival. It turns out that it is possible for tears (only a few, very quiet and manly) to freeze to one's face, which is something Alistair could have lived without knowing for multiple reasons.
Anyway. There's a fire. No one is singing. He holds out a blanket, at arm's length.
no subject
***
The end almost comes too soon, with far too much fleeing and not nearly enough drinking. And too much divine providence. Alistair isn't given to mystical thinking, but he saw what everyone else saw—Zevran facing down a dragon and Zevran buried with Haven and Zevran cresting the ridge of the mountain path, frosty but alive, with his blighted glowing hand—and it's mystifying.
So there's a wary distance, when he finds Zevran by a fire in the pass. (It's the first time he's seen him alone, or close to, without any rapturous singing or weird bald elves swooping in for his attention.) The wariness is one third what even are you, two thirds how dare you. Alistair had wanted to go back, an impulse Leliana shared but quieted. Too many enemy combatants still there. Too many people here who needed defending. Too small a chance of survival. It turns out that it is possible for tears (only a few, very quiet and manly) to freeze to one's face, which is something Alistair could have lived without knowing for multiple reasons.
Anyway. There's a fire. No one is singing. He holds out a blanket, at arm's length.