Open RP Post

[ombranera]

SFW, NSFW, AU, OU, etc. Drop a prompt like it's hot and let's go!

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[byblow]

Alistair doesn't connect the dots until he sees him.

He should have been able to, probably, but in his defense—first of all, the idea is preposterous. Second of all, he's very tired. He has a lot on his mind and several angry, armed people on his trail, and if it weren't for the letter from Zevran in his pocket he might not have paid any attention to the zealots in Haven until Hawke brought them round to his cave to visit.

But he does have the letter, so there is no cave. There's snow and ice and familiar trails, a swirling green wound in the sky, and a very odd look from the guard he talks to at the gate. I'm looking for an elf with, ah, he says, twisting three fingers through the air near his cheek. Fifteen minutes later he's sitting in a room in a chantry waiting for something called a Herald of Andraste, which feels an awful lot like sitting in another room in another chantry and waiting for a Grand Cleric. That never went well for him.

Maybe Zevran has killed someone or other, he thinks, and now Alistair will have to explain that he didn't know and wasn't involved, and they won't believe him and won't care that he's a Warden and he'll hang. Hanging wouldn't be the worst thing that's happened to him this week, but he could still do without, if it's all the same to everyone invol—

The door opens. His inner monologue stops, his eyes snap up. Three seconds to take in the armor, the deferential guard, and the glow; then the dots finally connect. Twenty different things happen on Alistair's face in smudgy overlapping succession before he settles into a baffled, worried half-smile.

"I was going to say, Zev, I'm in a little trouble—" A line in itself unremarkable, but with his plan to lean nonchalantly on something or other while smirking, maybe it would have been charming and scampish, who knows. Instead he's standing up straight, no smirk, only a concerned search of Zevran's face and glowing green hand. "—but it looks like you have me beat."

[ombranera]

It's been- difficult. Go to the Conclave, a contract said, it will be easy money, it said. Zevran went and did as he was paid to do. Made certain one person died and someone else did not. Or- that'd been the plan.

Zevran has never been terribly good at the whole 'planning' business, or at the very least sticking to them. Ten years to improve a skill he never had in the first place and while he is past the oldest 'they ambushed us, come quick' actual ambush plan he is no military mastermind. Or even assassin mastermind. Something went wrong, he cannot recall what and now...he sympathizes keenly with everything Alistair and the Warden went through ten years ago. Suddenly he is no longer cracking witty jokes from the side but the one to which witty jokes are cracked.

Occasionally they are even funny.

An army of the faithful and he is as a devout Andrastian as an Antivan possibly could be (highly) while being an assassin as well (moderately). He needed help. So- he wrote the one person he could think of, and well. He'd not written Alistair since he told him "I'm off to this Conclave on a job, I will write back when I'm done".

And then three months went by.

But he remembered, wrote, gathered his very own merry band of misfits and this much? he knew how to do. Befriend them all (or at least bribe them into liking him), run every errand, do every favor. Having one person he actually trusted and cared for on hand to speak to without the oppressive weight of being Thedas' Last Hope is not so much to ask, is it?

"I thought as much." He lifts his hand, the glowing one, and waves. If Alistair cannot manage the humor, Maker knows that Zevran can. "I apologize for not writing sooner. My last job became terribly...complicated in short order."

[byblow]

"Apparently," Alistair says, doing Eyebrow Thing #29, which means I don't see how you can be so calm about this but I'm not going to panic and look ridiculous in comparison.

He's heard things. Not many things, busy ferreting after corrupt Wardens and red lyrium and poking his fingers into the wasps' nest of inprisoned darkspawn magisters and their purported deaths, but—things. Reconciling the Herald of Andraste with Zevran will take him a few minutes (or hours or days), and in the meantime he looks at the guard in the doorway with obvious uncertainty, unsure whether Zevran is being guarded like a prisoner or guarded like a dignitary.

"Are you all right?"

[ombranera]

To which Alistair earns Eyebrow and Smirk to the 6th degree with a chuckle in G minor. Or: I am slowly going out of my mind but, you know, never let them see you sweat. Unless it's sexy sweat. The guards are lost somewhere between the eyebrow thing and the smirk and he would have thought they'd become acquainted with his particular brand of humor- but alas, not just yet.

"What, this?" Zevran gestures in a way that clearly means shoo but does not actually look like he's attempting to shoo the guard away. They even leave in a timely fashion! Leliana will likely be cross with him but at this point, when isn't she? "I am fine. A little more magical than when we last spoke, but well enough. And you?"

[byblow]

When the guards go, Alistair's shoulders relax, but he hasn't had time to smile fully before Zevran asks. His face tightens, and he doesn't answer. He doesn't dream he's fooling anyone, but there are more important things. Zev's hand is glowing. Alistair holds his own, non-glowing hand out with an air of expectation—give him that—and belatedly finishes smiling, at half force.

"Does it hurt?"

[ombranera]

"If I say yes will you kiss it better?" Drawling and teasing, scrabbling for whatever threads of normal are left. Leliana cold and determined, he suddenly the hero- Alistair must be the same. Or at the very least he must be similar enough that Zevran can look at the world without screaming. Bu no; he's tired, he's not sleeping well, Zevran remembers that haunted look.

So he teases. He tries, offering Alistair his glowing hand.

[byblow]

For his effort Zevran gets a brighter smile, sharper, and a burst of an exhale that might have elevated to a laugh under better circumstances. The hand, Alistair takes like a curious object, something fished off of a corpse or out of a crevice in a cave; he bends his head to examine it, then pokes the center of the glow with his thumb and the look of a man who is half expecting an explosion.

None comes, and Alistair isn't sucked through a sudden vortex into the Fade, and Zevran—presumably—does not die.

"Huh," he says, and looks up from Zevran's palm to his face. "Andraste herself, was it?"

[ombranera]

There's the usual dull ache that radiates from palm to elbow- not quite so intense that he needs to grind his teeth against it but not so insubstantial the subtle tells Alistair might remember are entirely absent. An edge to his smile, a stillness to his hand, a slow, measured exhale. He won't tell Alistair to let go, won't make a fuss. "I honestly could not remember. It makes for a marvelous nightlight, however."

[byblow]

"If you find eerie green light soothing, sure," Alistair says. He does read the signs, does relinquish the hand—with an air of apology, for the poking, but not too much of one. He won't fuss. Not so blatantly, at least. After a moment he decides, "This would happen to you."

Wrong place, wrong time, big names and luck that could either be very good or very bad depending on the angle it's viewed from. It fits right in with his other stories, really, even if the scope is a bit more—monumental. Maybe Zevran will wind up with a statue of his own somewhere. Maybe. They might round the ears off.

He puts his hand on Zevran's shoulder—the other one, the one not attached to anything that glows, subtle fussing—to give it a bracing squeeze. "So," he says, "can you protect me, if I need it, or should I be asking someone else?"

[ombranera]

Zevran is momentarily caught offguard by that- and has his mouth open to ask 'what do you mean' before the meaning sinks in and he simply must laugh. Louder, realer- far more honest for the thready edge of hysteria that coils through the mass of it, rough and weary and slightly helpless before he drags himself back to some somber measure of composure. Even then? It does not laugh. "You know, now that I think of it? I cannot imagine anyone else having this sort of luck."

Terrible luck. To be Spared, to drive out the Crows, to survive against all odds. And now he is the one making the difficult choices.

Impossible ones.

It'd been easier when Jonas made them, but Jonas is not here. Zevran slips a hand up to squeeze Alistair's wrist, smile less pained. "Have I not always kept an eye on your flank, Alistair?"

[byblow]

Alistair doesn't wiggle his eyebrows, because that would require energy and levity and a comfort for that sort of joking that he doesn't currently possess, but he does quirk them up, just once, as if to convey that the possibility of wiggling has been considered. "You are good at that," he says. "I've been declared a traitor and so on. Again. I think I managed to lose the Wardens who were following me—I know these mountains better than they do—but if they find out I'm here, I'm."

In trouble. But not nearly as much trouble as Zevran seems to be in. That's almost comforting.

[ombranera]

"Again? Whatever have you done this time- eat the Wardens out of house and home?" It had to be serious, whatever it is. Wardens do not often call one another traitor- but they have all apparently gone missing.

Except for Alistair.

Something else to add to his increasing pile of everyone else's problems only he can solve. Maker's breath, when will it end?

"If they come for you, they will not find you. I am not about to hand you off to just anyone, especially when we've got so much to catch up on."

[byblow]

"Thank you," Alistair says. There's no relief, because he wouldn't have expected otherwise from Zevran, but it is earnest. He knows he's bringing nothing but bad news and trouble. Or almost nothing but that. Bad news, trouble, and a hand for Zev's trouble. And witty one liners. And—

The point is that he's grateful.

"It's a long story," he says, releasing his grip on Zevran's shoulder. "I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours."

[ombranera]

"Wrong place, wrong time. There is an explosion I do not quite remember and then? I am in chains and accused of causing said explosion." So- honestly? The usual. He motions for Alistair to join him at the table, a half decent bottle of wine waiting for them and scullery maid on the way to the kitchens for something more substantial to eat.

"More than that is terribly dull, to be honest. What of you?"

[byblow]

"Doubt that," Alistair mutters, because nothing is ever dull when Zevran is involved, but he's sitting, he's being asked about—he shakes his head with a rueful little smile and rubs his eyes with one hand, pinching toward the bridge of his nose.

Does Thedas have adhesives? Whatever. Bandage, ripping.

"Warden-Commander Clarel called every Warden in the South to Orlais. We're all hearing the Calling. There was something about blood magic, and I... yelled." It was a lot like the Landsmeet, except he wasn't trying to leave. He tried to stay. He was going to fix it. But then—"then there were guards. Swords. Dead or alive. I made it out by pretending to be you."

[ombranera]

It's easy enough to consider this no great concern- Wardens gathering, that's not unusual. He's pouring himself a glass of wine when he hears that damning word.

The Calling.

Most others wouldn't know what it is if they weren't a Warden but Zevran...saw what it made of men. That explains the bruising under Alsitair's eyes, the pale tint to his skin, the exhaustion. He can't sleep. He only manages to keep himself from overfilling his cup by a hair before he sets the bottle aside, all threads of humor gone. "You...pretended to be me?"

[byblow]

"In my head. Sneak sneak."

He holds his hands out in cartoonish mimicry of a person sneaking around a corner. Bruised eyes, pale, a little ragged, yes, but he's not dead yet. And still in less trouble than Zevran, whose wine glass he steals. That's probably against some sort of rule, stealing wine from the Herald of Andraste.

[ombranera]

It shouldn't make him laugh. It shouldn't- but it does. A halfhearted crackling thing that stops a breath after it starts- his hand slipping out to catch Alistair's shoulder. "How bad?"

The dreams, the lack of sleep, the song. How much longer did they have?

[byblow]

"Not bad," Alistair says quickly, shrinking against the concern. Maybe this is why Wardens don't have many friends outside the Order. "It's quiet. I could have a year." He drinks his stolen wine, unrepentant. "Or it could have something to do with—I don't know. It shouldn't happen this way. Not to all of us at once. I know Wardens who haven't been with us six months yet who are still hearing it. And you have your Breach. Maybe the weakness in the Veil, or."

Something.

"If I can stay here, I can keep looking into it." He nudges his shoulder up under Zevran's hand. "You have to promise not to do the sad eyes."

[ombranera]

It prompts Zevran to actually pour himself a glass. Not quite so full, but more than your average draught of wine. Antivan. Josephine tries to help him feel comfortable however she can, even if he has no idea how she managed to find it and bring it back down this far South. 'Not Bad'. All of them.

It could be whatever's made the breach. Maybe closing it will help?

"This does prove one thing." Zev's hand slips from Alistair's shoulder to his hair, petting it gently like he would a dog. "And you are welcome to stay as long as you like, though I make no promises about the sad eyes. If I must promise? You must promise not to make the sad eyebrows."

[byblow]

"I can't help it," Alistair says. That isn't completely true. He can control his face by emptying it of anything at all, stand there looking blank and stupid, but then Zevran will know, anyway, that Alistair's eyebrows are sad in his heart. Zevran can do masks. That's usually aggravating, but in this case, maybe good. No sad eyes.

Possibly-sad hair petting, on the other hand, is fine. Alistair wrinkles his nose for a moment, like a child having its face cleaned, but at the same time he's leaning into it. Like a dog.

"What does it prove?"

[ombranera]

"You really can't." He cracks a laugh, idle petting twisting into combing and this is why he had the guards leave. What would they say to see their herald petting a Fereldan Warden like a particularly well behaved mabari? "I make no promises, but I shall try."

It is more than he can offer, truly.

"Mmm? Ah- among my inner circle as they are called there is a man that claims to be a Warden by the name of Blackwall. I had my suspicions of course. He sleeps far too well and does not eat near enough- and he speaks of the Wardens with such brightened, fairy tale idealism it made me wonder if he was fucking with me or actually bought the idea. Apparently? He does buy it because he's lying. Curious, that."

[byblow]

Alistair—like a particularly well-behaved mabari, yes, or like a man who wasn't sleeping well even before he spent a few weeks sneaking across Thedas and sleeping sitting up with a sword in his hand—closes his eyes and lists sideways against Zevran's combing, though not enough to make continuing to drink the wine impractical. He stays that way for a bit, eyebrows pinching together at Blackwall but otherwise unresponsive until he finally pries his eyes back open and straightens his neck to frown thoughtfully at Zevran.

"There is a Blackwall," he says. "I've never met him, but Duncan—maybe there's some other—"

Explanation. No. There's not.

Alistair puts the glass down and says, wryly, "I hope he isn't using his name because he killed him. I'd have to do something about that."

[ombranera]

"Whatever it is I'm certain it will come back around to bite us in the ass sooner or later. We've already laid claim to some resources using the Grey Warden Treaties. Not much, not yet, but enough to make it very embarrassing that we did not, in fact, have a Grey Warden among us at the time." Leliana would have a field day with that but...Zevran gets the idea he's running from something different than the casual murder of a Warden.

Such things are not done casually, after all.

"We will work it out sooner or later. For now all I must worry about is sealing the great hole in the sky. Compared to that everything else is just details."

[byblow]

"Is that all," Alistair says, and leans forward, conspiratorial. There is a brief moment when he looks like he might lean all the way--not like that. All the way over to fall onto the floor and fall asleep. But he doesn't. "We could sneak out in the middle of the night. Be in Antiva before the month is out."

He'd never. And neither would Zevran. Alistair has known that about him possibly longer than Zevran has known it about himself.