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Title: Elysium, Chapter Sixty-Two — Consequences
Rating: Overall - AO/NC-17 This chapter: T/PG-13
Characters: Alistair, Zevran, Morrigan
Pairing: Alistair/Zevran
Words: 4344
Content Warning: none
Summary:
Overall: In the aftermath of the Orlesian occupation, young Teyrn Bryce Cousland married the daughter of a dispossessed Fereldan merchant whom he found working in an Antivan brothel. A generation later, his daughter Rìona confronts the Blight equipped with a noblewoman's ambitions and a courtesan's approach to diplomacy that will bring her into conflict with politicians, the Chantry, and her fellow Grey Wardens.
In this chapter: Alistair leads the army in a campaign against the darkspawn and prepares for the final assault.

If you wish to download this, or any of my other works, in a format suitable for a portable/e-book reader, you may do so at rcd_anon

Thanks as always to my betas darkrose and scarylady.

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A pavilion. They had him sleeping in a sodding pavilion.

He hadn't really had time to attend to arrangements for his own accommodations in those final weeks preparing to march from Denerim. Perhaps he'd simply assumed they would be the same as they always had on the road, this past year. Eamon had apparently had other ideas. The silk tent was nowhere near as sumptuous as Cailan's had been at Ostagar, but there was enough room inside it for a table around which he and his advisers gathered with maps for consultations, and a curtain partitioned off the end, which hosted his thick, comfortable, roomy pallet.

He couldn't escape the idea that he would have dearly loved such comfort when it had been only their small party traveling. The idea of sharing that pallet with Rìona, or Zevran, or both, sent a pang of longing through him that made it difficult to sleep at night, even if the nightmares about the archdemon hadn't been becoming more persistent. He was keenly aware of the fact that Zevran was only yards away, in a much smaller tent he shared with Sten. That awareness wasn't doing his sleep any favors, either.

For the most part, Zev seemed to be keeping to himself. He and Alistair never spoke, but he was always there, somewhere behind Alistair in the vanguard of the army, as they made their way day by inexorable day across the Bannorn, driving back the encroaching arms of the darkspawn horde, turning them south. Alistair heard Zevran in battle, when they engaged the darkspawn raiding parties, mocking their enemies as he slew them with his customary verve. In a way he had never done before, Alistair could now see that in the heat of a fight, Zevran truly came alive. For all that he was an assassin, whose skill lay in the administration of quiet, subtle death, it was in the open fight, staring death in the teeth and daring it to claim him, where Zevran flourished.

In that way—as with so many other unexpected things—they were alike.

Being apart from Zevran no longer felt like a much-needed respite to sort out his conflicted feelings about the way Zevran had killed Anora. It felt like stupidity, willful stupidity, and a waste of rapidly dwindling time. But Alistair didn't know how to cross the distance he had created, now that it was there. Discretion meant he couldn't go to Zevran, and Zev wouldn't come to him without an invitation, that much was clear. But inviting Zevran to his tent felt wrong, also. Presumptuous, perhaps, or maybe even a seedy assertion of royal prerogative. If the king summoned an elf into his tent at night, there would be talk of the sort he really didn't want there to be about Zevran.

But it ached, to lie there on his large, empty pallet at night with Zevran so near, and yet out of his reach.

The march across the Bannorn was brilliantly successful. The might of the darkspawn lay in their unimaginably massive numbers, not in their prowess. Even the largest raiding parties were easy pickings for a well-trained force, and whatever else Alistair's opinion of Loghain, the man had kept the remainder of the royal army in top form. Ser Cauthrien was ridiculously competent and the army had little trouble routing even the largest bands of darkspawn and driving them south.

It took over two months to drive the darkspawn out of the western Bannorn and reach Redcliffe Village. By the time they had done so it was full winter once again, and the army was being threatened by the effects of the cold and the limited food supplies they had been able to collect on their way across the Bannorn. Fortunately, Eamon's Orlesian in-laws had come through with a caravan of foodstuffs, and Redcliffe Village had been hard at work all year laying in stores, which meant the army would be well-provisioned for the final push south.

First Day was less than a week away when they arrived in Redcliffe. In consultation with Eamon and Ser Cauthrien, Alistair agreed that a small reprieve, and modest celebration, would do wonders for morale, and so they would remain in Redcliffe until after First Day before beginning the final campaign.

Inwardly, Alistair felt uneasy with the decision, no matter how much sense it seemed to make. The taint within his blood, his inner sense of the darkspawn, made him restless. His nightmares were getting worse, and for some reason the prospect of moving south toward the horde felt wrong. He didn't understand it. When he had been in the Deep Roads, moving toward the archdemon and the horde, it had felt right, as though something within him yearned to join the horde. Why should it feel wrong, now that he was on the verge of doing just that?

On the eve before First Day, the casks of ale and wine allotted to the army camped in the valley outside Redcliffe were unrationed. It was bizarre, the way dwarves, elves, mages and soldiers all mingled. They each had their own enclaves within the encampment, and yet as the spirits flowed, the boundaries became less defined. Only the Dalish, who did not celebrate First Day, kept themselves apart. As evening fell, Alistair toured the camp, putting in an appearance, mingling, talking to the men and hearing their concerns and hopes, before returning to the castle for the modest feast Lady Isolde had arranged.

He drank rather too much wine himself, feeling restless, frustrated and lonely, even in the midst of all these people, and retired early rather than stay up for the midnight hour to arrive and usher in the new year. He awoke only a few hours later, the archdemon's roar still echoing in his head, calling to him. Not south. Not south. Maker, where, then?

Anxiously, he rose from his bed and, shivering in the chill of the room, drew on a pair of breeches and stoked the banked fire. He went to the window and looked out, across the sliver of the lake that separated the island which housed the castle from the village proper. Torches and bonfires still glowed in the darkness of the valley beyond the village, which housed the army encampment, and no doubt would do so well into the night. Strangely, despite the fact that it was winter, something about the encampment looked warmer and more inviting than the castle presently felt.

Growling with frustration, Alistair pulled on a linen shirt and reached for his boots, intending to take a walk around the castle until he stopped feeling so damned restless. But just as he was sitting down to don his boots, a rap sounded upon his door.

"Riordan." Alistair couldn't help the note of surprise that crept into his voice to find the senior Warden standing outside his chamber.

"Your Majesty." Riordan gave a respectful, if brief, bow of his head, the courtesy somewhat belied by the twitchy way his eyes moved. Unless he missed his guess, Alistair wasn't the only one who had just awoken from a nightmare about the archdemon.

"Please. Just Alistair," he corrected quickly, frowning. Riordan had kept to himself a great deal during the campaign, often disappearing for days or even weeks to scout amongst the bands of darkspawn, returning with efficient reports about their numbers and activities. His activities had been a large part of the reason the campaign to purge the darkspawn from the Bannorn had been so successful, but it had not provided Alistair with an opportunity to get to know the more experienced Grey Warden, as he would have preferred to do.

"May I come in, Alistair? We have important matters to discuss." Riordan frowned, looking both grave and anxious. Alistair nodded and gestured Riordan inside, and poured them both goblets of spiced wine from the flagon a servant had left to warm upon the hearth.

"Bad dreams?" Alistair asked with a wry twist, seating himself in one of the large, comfortable chairs before the hearth.

"We cannot march south," Riordan announced without preamble after drinking deeply of his wine. "While we have been in the north, progressing west, the bulk of the horde has been far south of us, moving east. By the time we reach the Hinterlands, only stragglers will remain."

Alistair tipped his goblet, taking a deep draught of the mulled wine, then nodded slowly. "That explains a lot. But why weren't we aware of this before?"

Riordan shook his head. "I did not scout south far enough to see what they were doing. With so few Grey Wardens here, I could not risk the horde sensing my presence in numbers too great to evade. Not until we had located the archdemon. If not for tonight's dream, we might still not know, except for a vague feeling of something being amiss as we moved south."

Again, Alistair nodded. "I know tonight's dream made my... sense of something being amiss... stronger, but I wasn't left with any sure knowledge, such as you seem to have. Is that just experience, then, or did you get something out of it that I didn't?"

"You cannot understand the archdemon then?" Riordan asked with an inquiring lift of his brow. Alistair shook his head, and the senior Warden nodded. "Not all Grey Wardens can do it, but I am able to. Tonight, it became very clear that the archdemon is commanding the horde east, Alistair. I believe they intend to attack Denerim."

"What?" Alistair didn't notice as he missed the table when attempting to set his goblet down. It clattered to the floor, the sound and the wine soaking into the rug completely insignificant as he shot to his feet. "Rìona is alone there with practically no defenses! I've got the whole bloody army here!"

Riordan nodded gravely. "Yes. The archdemon can sense us, is aware of us. He knows we are divided. He intends to cut her off from us, destroy her, and then fight us from a fortified position within the city. In the process, the horde also gains access to a massive population to corrupt, the survivors of which would then be enslaved as ghouls, or worse, broodmothers."

"Oh, Maker," Alistair groaned, pacing, grinding the heels of his hands into his eyes as he turned a helpless circle, struggling to quell his panic and think rationally. His mind wasn't making it easy as every thought screamed about Rìona and Ella, practically helpless before on onslaught heading toward them.

"All right. I'll rouse Eamon and Cauthrien, tell them to start preparing the army to march at first light. Maker, of all the days for half my army to be hungover. Depending on the weather, we're looking at a three-week march to Denerim. How long until the horde gets there, do you imagine?"

"I cannot say for certain," Riordan said with a frown and a shrug. "They must move out of the deep south and skirt the Southron Hills to the Brecilian Passage. They will be pillaging and destroying as they go, which will slow their advance. We must do everything we can to get there before they become entrenched in the city. We must be with Rìona when the archdemon attacks, or she will die in vain and we haven't enough Wardens to make up for the loss. She does not have the forces to defeat it."

"Rìona's no fool. She won't try to confront the archdemon without reinforcements. She'll be focused on evacuating the city, trying to save as many people as possible. She's an archer. She'll defend from atop the city walls rather than try to fight the dragon."

Riordan gave him a strange look. "She knows what she must do. If she thinks she sees an opportunity to assault the archdemon, she will take it, whether we are there or not."

"That would be insane!" Alistair protested. "She knows she's not effective in that sort of combat. She might send the city guard and the small company of the army I left behind to escort her to Redcliffe against the archdemon, but she won't try to take it on herself."

And then it was Riordan's turn to groan, rubbing his brow with his fingers and looking unspeakably weary. "She did not tell you," he said flatly, when he looked up again, a note of sympathy in his voice.

Alistair stopped his frantic pacing, a sudden terror freezing him in place. His heart thundered in his chest, his breath short and tight, as he looked at Riordan.

"Tell me what?"

---

Later, Alistair would have no memory of rushing to Ser Cauthrien's chamber and unceremoniously pounding on the door to command her to muster the army, or then rousing Eamon to wake the village and put everyone to work packing the foodstores and provisions which would be sent along with the army. Fortunately, since they had actually intended to begin their march south only a day later, most of the logistical work was already completed. It would be a scramble, but the army would be ready. It wouldn't, however, happen by first light, no matter how much Alistair snarled and snapped and railed against the delay. Finally, realizing his desperate impatience was hindering more than it was helping, he stormed off to his chambers to try to get some rest in preparation for the day's march.

Only once he had closed his door did he realize he was not alone.

"It is true?" Zevran asked softly, turning from where he waited by the fire. "The horde, it moves on Denerim?"

Alistair nodded, hanging his head for a moment, wearily, before glancing up at Zevran. That flawless, impassive, inhumanly calm mask Zev had worn since Denerim was nowhere to be seen. There was only naked concern, and in the face of it, under the circumstances, Alistair couldn't bring himself to care about anything that had gone before. All that mattered was that Zevran was here, and that he, of all people, knew and shared Alistair's fear.

"It's worse than that," Alistair replied, crossing to the mantle to get another much-needed goblet of wine. "She means to die."

"What?" Zevran's eyes sharpened, his concern spiking into something keener, more dangerous.

And so, Alistair told him, holding nothing back. It didn't matter than he was revealing secrets known only to the Grey Wardens. Nothing mattered, except that Zevran understood what Rìona intended.

"She didn't tell me, because she knew what I would do," Alistair muttered, concluding his explanation and then draining his goblet in a single draught. "She intends to take that blow herself, if she can."

Zevran nodded silently, and his stillness, his very lack of reaction, told Alistair all he needed to know about just how afraid Zev was. As they had been the night Ella was born, here in this very castle, they were united again in their mutual concern for the woman they both loved. It was almost as if the nearly five months since Ella's birth hadn't happened.

Alistair sighed heavily. "If we can get ahead of the horde, so that they're not between us and Rìona, I intend to send you ahead into the city. Do whatever you have to do. Tie her up and throw her into a wardrobe if you must. Just keep her away from the archdemon."

Something in Zevran's eyes hardened at that, almost angrily. "So, if this Riordan falls, you will die, then?"

Nodding, Alistair looked down into his empty goblet. "So I'm given to understand."

Zevran looked away, and murmured, "So, who shall hold you in a wardrobe?"

"Zev—"

"How am I to make that choice?" Zevran demanded, looking back to Alistair, his gaze as piercing as a gimlet.

Alistair shrugged, his shoulders heavy with grief. "It's Rìona," he said softly, as if that explained everything.

Almost so soft as to be inaudible, Zevran murmured, "And you think I would mourn your loss any less than hers?"

Suddenly Alistair wanted to weep, his throat tightening, as remorse for the way he had pushed Zevran away flooded through him. It didn't seem to matter, anymore, what Zev had done to Anora. Nothing mattered, no ideal, no principle. He no longer had any certitude, only this frenzied fear that his days were finite and every opportunity was unspeakably precious. He couldn't die leaving Zevran in doubt of how he felt for him.

And so, as he had done on that desperate, needy night in the Deep Roads, he grabbed Zevran and kissed him, and the burden on his soul eased somewhat at Zevran's response. There was no anger, no reserve, no hesitation. Zevran's hands came up to the back of Alistair's head and drew him in as his body pressed closer, pliant and welcoming. What had happened before was forgotten and all that mattered was now.

They did not make love, in those pre-dawn hours. It didn't seem necessary and desire somehow felt inappropriate to the moment. Alistair was weary and Zevran's body beside his helped calm the tumbling of his mind enough so that he could sleep for a short time, until the servants rapped upon the chamber door, bearing water for his bath and food to break his fast before the day's march.

But Zevran was there the next night, appearing silently and without warning in Alistair's spacious tent after Alistair's advisers had left and his manservant had retired. Suddenly, somehow, he was just there, appearing out of the shadows and slipping into the silken enclosure like a wraith. With a muttered prayer of thanks Alistair returned his eager embrace, before pushing Zevran urgently down upon the soft pallet.

The army made good time, marching eastward at speed. The darkspawn horde was apparently taking the Brecilian Passage to get around the Southron Hills, which was both a curse and a boon. It would make the distance the horde must travel to reach Denerim shorter, but it also meant the army encountered almost no resistance as they rushed toward the capital.

During the final week of the crossing, the advance scouts began to return with troubling news. The bannorn closest to Denerim were being overrun. The arling of South Reach had already fallen, and the army would not get there in time to save Dragon's Peak. The good news, if such a thing even existed, was that it looked like the horde might reach Denerim only a day or two in advance of the army. With the city gates closed, it would take the horde time to assail the city proper. They just might make it in time.

The reports did not prepare Alistair for the reality. On the previous march west, much of the wreckage they had seen had been weeks or months old, charred and abandoned husks of buildings, and corpses already long-since gone to decay. Now, carnage was fresh. They heard the new lamenting of survivors for those who had just been killed, and the hopelessness of the people who had lost everything they possessed in the world. They were forced to deliver mercy to masses slowly dying of the corruption—and the ones who had already turned to ghouls.

The tents and clothing and bedding took on the rank odor of burning flesh from the pyres they erected from the timbers that formed the skeletons of ransacked homes.

Alistair had expected the men and women of his army to quail in horror at the necessity of killing not darkspawn, but other humans. Instead, it seemed to imbue them with a grim determination to end this and make the sacrifice worth it.

They made camp just east of Dragon's Peak, less than a day's march from Denerim. Tomorrow, the battle would begin in earnest. It was late when Alistair finally dismissed his advisers and let his manservant remove his armor. Eating his supper of dried, smoked fish rolls and hard-baked bread washed down by raspy wine, he paced about his tent, unsettled—as he had been in the Deep Roads—by how right it felt to be this close to the horde and the archdemon.

He stepped outside the tent, not wandering far, but merely stretching his legs as he waited for the camp to be calm. He knew Zevran would not come until there was no one around to gossip. It would be a while still; on this, the night before battle, there was a great deal of bustle and preparation. Sighing and no less restless than he had been before his walk, he turned and opened his tent flap, only to duck as a hawk swooped over his head and into the confines of the tent.

"Hey!" Alistair began to shout, but then he stopped. He had only an instant of awareness, a tingling of his senses that told him the Veil was being touched, in which to brace himself and begin to summon the energy to smite, when the hawk settled on the floor and blurred, resolving itself into Morrigan.

Angrily, he again began to summon the holy energy with which to smite her, but her words stopped him.

"You may smite or slay me, but if you do, either you or your beloved will die. If you hear me out, you may yet be saved."

"After what you tried to do to Rìona, why would I ever listen to you?" Alistair demanded angrily.

Morrigan offered him a tight smile. "Because I know what happens when you confront the archdemon. I know a Grey Warden must die, and I know Rìona intends that it should be she. But, if you are willing to listen, I have a way out. So... will you stay your hand?"

---

I will remain for one hour, in which time you will make your decision. Then I will be gone, and your chance lost forever.

With Morrigan's final words echoing in his mind, Alistair stepped outside his tent once more, walking away blindly, seeking to put some distance between himself and the woman he despised.

The woman who offered him the only hope he had yet found.

He sensed, rather than heard, Zevran emerge from the shadows behind him.

"You heard?" Alistair asked, turning to face him.

Zevran nodded, and held up a dagger, the blade coated with some sort of glistening oil. "Magebane, yes? I was preparing to slip into the tent behind her when she began to speak her proposal."

"I don't suppose I need to ask what you think I should do."

"You know you do not."

Alistair shuddered with revulsion at the thought of what he was being asked to do. "It's not just that I despise her. If that were the only problem, I wouldn't care."

Zevran crossed his arms over his chest, regarding Alistair with a hint of that cold reserve he used when he made himself not care. "Then what is the problem?"

Alistair stared in disbelief. "Maker! You have to ask? This is why she tried to cause Rìona to lose Ella, even tried to manufacture Rìona's death. And now that Ella is no longer an obstacle to her plans, she expects me to give it to her!"

"Principle is all well and good," Zevran said with a touch of impatience. "But will you die to thwart her plans? Or condemn our Rìona to death?"

"You say that as if her plans are trivial! Zev, you heard what she wants. A child, carrying the Grey Warden taint, to absorb the uncorrupted soul of the Old God when the archdemon dies. Morrigan. With control of an Old God." Anxiously, Alistair tugged hard upon his braided queue. "I'm not sure I can imagine a more terrifying prospect. And she says she'll teach him to 'respect that from which he comes.' As if she could teach something she has absolutely no idea how to do!"

Zevran waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. "The fate of the world, unknowable things which may carry consequences decades down the line, these do not concern me. I care only for that which benefits or threatens those who are mine, those whom...." He shook his head. "It is a worthy goal, ending this Blight. It makes the world safe for our Ella. It matters to you, and to her, and so it matters to me. Now, I see only that there is a chance that you may live, when you would have otherwise died. I cannot place the same importance upon the rest as you seem to."

Alistair hung his head, sighing. "I can't be that cavalier about it. I wish I could." After a moment, he looked up again, his eyes intent on Zevran's. "Someday, Ella will have to live in the same world as this child of mine Morrigan wants to conceive, this child with the soul of an Old God. If you're looking for a reason to be personally invested."

Zevran looked as if he might argue, but then he acknowledged the point with a bow of his head. Silence fell between them for a long moment, until Alistair spoke again.

"If I do this, it's because I want to live. Because I don't want to lose Rìona. Because I want to stay with you, and her, and Ella. Because I want some happiness—not a lot, just a little—for us after all we've lost and sacrificed to get here." He sighed again, struggling still to bring some order to his churning thoughts. "I'm not sure any of that justifies the potential consequences. I'm not sure anything could."

Zevran nodded, silently, gravely. Alistair looked at him for a long, searching moment, then turned away.

"I know what you want me to do. But I need this to be my choice."

"Of course. I will return later."

Alistair did not hear him walk away. He stood out there in the cold, surrounded by, and yet apart from, the pre-battle preparations, aware that his time was running out. Finally, unspeakably weary, he turned upon leaden feet to return to his tent. Just as he reached the flap, however, he froze, overcome by a thought more terrible than all the thoughts that had gone before. It paralyzed him, as he stood there, unable to take that final step inside. Not until he heard Morrigan make an impatient sound did he finally break his paralysis, and with a grim face, lift the flap to her his answer.

From Chapter Artwork by DragonReine

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