#in the back of my mind i always have this au where alistiar and brook and maybe uriel are coparenting stella together

[arsonmurderandjaywalking]

Pls tell me me about alistair/uriel 🍵

this ask is like Pandora's box for me. Thank you, Plant.

Well first things first, I don't actually have any concrete plot or setting for them and the rest of the cast so there will be things that are incredibly vague.

But anyway, I first conceived Alistair as a play on the whole mysterious missing dad trope. He's the all-powerful chosen one of a previous generation through some sort of bloodline magic shit, he disappeared under mysterious circumstances, he had a child with a normal, civilian woman who didn't know anything about his status, and everyone thinks he's dead. He also -and this is absolutely critical- sucks absolute shit.

He's never wanted to be the hero, ever, and he has such a massive imposter complex due to a lifetime of being put on a pedestal he's convinced himself that no one actually knows him due to it, up to and including his childhood best friend who's known him since he was born, Uriel. He also uses this sense of disconnect from everyone to justify his manipulative and inconsiderate behavior, because, well, it's not like anyone actually cares about him past what he can do for them, so why should he care about them? As mentioned before, this behavior also extends to Uriel.

But the thing is that Uriel knows Alistair better than Uriel does himself some days, and is also so horribly head over heels for him and is fully intending on taking that secret to the grave. Alistair's already figured it out though, and while he's also so terrifyingly in love with him he feels like he might throw up sometimes (though he insists it's just a crush and that it'll go away) (he's been saying that for years), he's also insisting that Uriel isn't actually in love with him, just the (false) version of him inside his head and that it'll go away eventually. He also has a tendency to manipulate him and act in ways that specifically play on Uriel's feelings for him because, as mentioned above, he sucks.

Anyway, when they're like 18-19, Alistair starts a relationship with a human girl named Brook (the vague idea of Alistair's powers is that he can like teleport, especially between like dimensions/worlds. Don't interrogate it too much) (another thing I forgot to mention is that Alistair has this very intense wanderlust) to run away from his feelings for Uriel and other issues. He doesn't love her, but he does like her, she's funny and stubborn and dedicated to the people she cares about and completely willing to yell at him when he's being an ass, and he thinks he could maybe love her, someday. (He's describing Uriel. Everything he could see himself maybe someday loving about her is something he already loves about Uriel. There are differences, of course, she's loud and expressive and impulsive where he's solemn and silent and carefully thought out, but still. The relationship was doomed from the start.) This is absolutely not something he's supposed to be doing, so he hides it from everyone but Uriel knows that something is up, he just doesn't press on it too much because he knows that Alistair won't tell him and that he's been feeling the pressure of everything especially lately so he doesn't want to stress him out even more. This backfires on him spectacularly when Alistair and Brook run away together and start living in a van together, giving no explanation to his family or Uriel.

At some point on the road, less than a year, Alistair accidentally gets Brook pregnant. Alistair, who's been spiraling ever since they went on the road due to his issues getting worse and worse and worse and the cracks in his relationship with Brook starting to show and can not handle the idea of bringing someone with his pedestal to stand on, his burden to carry into this world, leaves without a word the morning after she tells him. Brook had been kicked out by her parents before leaving because they never approved of Alistair and other underlying issues between them and the fighting just got worse and worse until they gave an ultimatum of staying under their roof or staying with him and she chose to stay with him. The only reason they excepted her back was because she was pregnant. Brook never stops being angry at him. She loves her daughter (not his or their. He didn't want to be in either of their lives, so he doesn't get the privilege being a father) but she never stops being angry at him, not once in 15 years.

Back to Uriel, he's practically catatonic for about a year and a half. Alistair was the most important person in his life. He's centered so much of his life around him, so many of his plans for the future around him. And Alistair just left him. Uriel's technically still a functioning member of society, but there's nothing behind his eyes. He's just going through the motions. He's stuck in the what-ifs for over a year. What if he stopped him from leaving, what if he noticed how bad he was doing sooner (and the secret, stupid, traitorous question: what if he convinced Alistair to take him with him) but he can't stay like that forever, he has things to do.

He gets an apprenticeship with a local blacksmith, makes friends with his coworkers, gets his own place, works on personal projects, gets new hobbies, lives his life. But still, he never quite forgets about him, never quite moves on. Years pass, and people start assuming Alistair's dead. Uriel never quite accepts it, not because he thinks he's coming back, but because he thinks that Alistair just finally decided to run away. He says finally because this was a common pipe dream for a young Alistair. He's a bit angry at him- how couldn't he be- but he gets it, gets why he needed to get away so badly. If he ever saw him again he'd probably hit him, but they'd be fine after. Just like they always were.

But then 15 years later, he (somehow. Don't question me on how this happens) meets a girl with Alistair's eyes and chin and his platinum blonde, practically white hair named Stella, who's freshly 14 years old and ostensibly human and awakening to magic she doesn't understand (and why would she? humans aren't supposed to even have magic) and that Uriel has known since he and Alistair were 5. The girl tells him she's never met her father, because he left her mom while she was pregnant. He decides that if he ever sees Alistair again he's going to kill him.