#side by side of my tabristair drawing from this year and my drawing of my tabris from like two days ago and its. not just a style change

[faroresson]

*pointing at myself in the mirror* Draw characters consistently

[crisontumblr]

Fic Doodle: So Alike, I Cannot Tell the Difference [Dragon Age]

Related Reading: Tabristair Masterpost

Born out of a conversation with the lovely @celeritassagittae that basically amounts to, “So what if Alistair went looking for his dad--but as a Grey Warden?”

And then I wound up writing about the aftermath of embarking on that journey instead, because my brain is weird.

This one was a challenge to write--not for any particular reason outside of the fact that I just haven’t really written in a while. I’m happy with it, though. Obviously, I am; you wouldn’t be seeing it, otherwise! XD

How strange that even now, after so many years and so many miles traveled, there still exists someone hoping to put a crown upon his head. His own father, still perhaps awash in the fantasy forced upon him by the Fade—

But what else did Alistair expect? Surely not some heartwarming reunion with tears and warm embraces! Father or not, they are as much strangers as kin. Besides, how could Maric have kept up with the outside world, trapped as he was? He couldn’t have known!

This entire journey has been nothing like how Alistair had hoped it would be, and now this—the man they came to rescue, shackled and bound to the large wheel; his body worn away by time and Maker only knows whatever dark magic the magister was using to accomplish his goals. And all Maric can tell him, in a rasping voice and with gasping breath, is how proud he is to know Ferelden will be safe under Alistair’s rule.

He could lie to the old man. He could pretend. He should, shouldn’t he? It would be easy. It would even be the right thing to do, wouldn’t it? All things presently considered?

“I’m no king.” Alistair shakes his head. “Ferelden sits in safe hands, but those do not belong to me. No, I’ve— I’m a Grey Warden.”

Maric tilts his head. “A Grey Warden?”

“Yes.” Alistair’s voice is low. “I went my own path—”

“Ahh…” But it sounds like a hiss, or maybe like a last breath leaving the body. Maric shuts his eyes. The ghost of a smile flickers across his dried lips. “A Warden. Consider! The grand legacy… Your mother would be proud. Following her steps…”

His mother? What is Maric talking about? Alistair glances to his companions, who look just as confused. He shakes his head again. “She was never—”

“Warden, careful. The old man is on his last,” Varric warns him quietly. “Maybe he’s even past his last. His mind may not be right.”

Maric lifts his head and looks directly into Alistair’s eyes. “My son…forgive the lies… We had our duties. She wanted—”

The old man's body seizes as he gasps and chokes on what remains of his life. Alistair’s chest tightens. His gaze goes to the machine keeping his father alive—if barely that. If he destroys it, Maric will surely die. Even if he survives, what life would exist for him as he is now? How much longer would he even last?

“I did not fail. Fiona… Our son…” Maric sounds eerily serene. “I did not fail you.”

Alistair swallows hard, but he moves towards the fiendish machine with resolve and with purpose. He knows what he has to do. It is the right thing.

That’s what he is able to tell himself, at least.

Thunder awakens Alistair from slumber. Even as he keeps his eyes closed, he considers this a blessing.

“Are you awake?”

Aeron’s voice is soft and comes from farther away than he would like. Reluctantly, he reaches out across the mattress and finds her side of the bed empty. Cold. How long has she been up and away? He knows why. He can hear the soft clinking of the glass jars as she arranges them on the ledge jutting out from the windowsill. Every time it rains, without fail…

It’s proof, Aeron said once (perhaps with more than a little bit of pride), that it doesn’t matter how far an elf is from their Alienage; the vhenandahl’s roots are forever wrapped around their ankles.

“Come back to bed.” Alistair fights against a yawn. “You’ll catch a cold—” He loses. “You’ll get all sick and cranky, and it will stress me, and I will wind up with grey hairs.”

Aeron makes a small sound. “More of them to match, then.”

Alistair responds with a small groan. She is coming back, though, isn’t she? He can barely hear her footsteps against the large rugs they put down around the bed—their joint attempt to keep the winter cold from advancing while they still have most of autumn to get through—but soon the blankets briefly lift and the mattress shifts on her side.

“Did you have the dream again?” Aeron asks, and that is when he finally opens his eyes. She looks worried. “You were tossing about for most of the night. Whispering things—”

“I’m sorry.”

“Mm?” Aeron blinks. “Why would you be sorry?”

“I—” Alistair sighs. “I don’t know.”

And he wonders how long this has been happening, that she no longer has to be specific when asking him about the dream. How long has it been since he returned home from the search for his father? How much has he actually slept—or rather, truly rested—since then?

How much has he actually told Aeron about what he saw? How much does she know about the things he did, felt he had to do?

The answers make Alistair shut his eyes again and seek comfort wrapped up in as much of her as possible. Soon, he promises himself. Soon he’ll tell her everything. He needs to—wants to, truly—but the details are still just too fresh! Too vivid! They wrap tendrils ‘round his throat and strangle him until he surrenders to silence! And so, he suffers. Continues to suffer.

But maybe…if only for a little while…

It goes some ways towards his relief that Aeron yields when he pulls her close to him. She slips her arms about his shoulders and says nothing when Alistair hooks her right leg over his hip. Oh, but how she shivers when his fingers slip under her nightshirt and skim up her bare side…!

“Is this a formal request to change the subject?” Aeron asks.

“Mm.” Alistair had only half-considered it, but now it sounds like a grand idea. He presses a kiss to her collarbone. “Is it working?”

Aeron breathes a sigh of her own as his mouth moves upward; now her neck, now along her jaw, soon just slightly behind her ear. His left hand finds its way to her right breast, and she shifts under his gentle kneading.

“Well, you’re certainly making it quite a challenge to say no, aren’t you?” There is an exchange of small laughter as his mouth at last meets hers. “But is this—?”

“Hm?”

“Alistair.“ Aeron brings his gaze to hers. “Is this you? Are you really sure you want to?”

“Mm-hm.” Another kiss. “Very sure, my love. Very…”

Alistair finds encouragement in the way her skin warms with more gentle touches and kisses. He relishes the little moans he draws out of her when his fingers finally slip between her legs. When Alistair at last shifts onto his back—their nightclothes abandoned and forgotten—he has the weight of Aeron’s body pinning him to the bed. She takes his wrists before he can reach for her again and holds them down on either side of his head, and it…

He likes this, being held down like this; being grounded before he can risk drifting from himself. And oh, how the morning light makes her white hair glow as it spills over her brown shoulders!

“Maker, but I have missed this,” Alistair breathes.

Aeron smiles down at him. “Have you?”

“I have—” He gives up the ghost of a moan as she kisses him. Her fingers move up to slip between his and he clasps her hands tight. “Oh, but I have missed you.”

They make love in a languid fashion, with the gentle rocking of hips and light kisses. Alistair trails lazy spirals over Aeron’s skin as he reacquaints himself with her body. He willfully drowns himself in the sweet taste of her mouth and in her scent; her name is a whispered prayer delivered from the depths.

How could he have forgotten the pleasure of this? To be set whimpering and trembling as if before something so incomprehensibly divine as to be driven mad, yet kept sane enveloped in such love and safety… This, truly, is what Alistair has missed and craved! And as they draw nearer towards that blissful edge, reaffirmations of his love for Aeron rise from his throat like hymnals for his precious goddess. He clutches at her hips and holds steadfast until she’s lost herself first, until she is shaking and calling for him so sweetly that he can only follow—

And in the aftermath?

Silence.

For the first time since coming home, Alistair’s mind is quiet.

He feels…almost at ease.

He tries not to think about how long this might last.

“He said a name, this time.”

They sit across from each other in the bath, the water warm and soothing. Most of Aeron’s hair sits piled on top of her head in some hastily-pinned bun, but pieces of it still sit in front of her ears and frame her face. She looks at him as if startled, though not without reason. It is one of the only things either of them has said since they climbed in about half an hour ago.

“In the dream,” Alistair explains, “Maric said a name.”

“Was it one you knew?” Aeron asks.

“No.” He runs his fingers through his hair, scratches the back of his head. “I think it started with an F or something. Um…‘Fin’ or maybe ‘Farron’ or—”

The vision of Maric in that awful contraption flashes across Alistair’s senses, suddenly and impossibly fast, but he remembers.

“Fiona…”

“Fiona?”

“Fiona.” The more Alistair says it, the truer it seems. He nods slowly. Then he notices that Aeron looks as if he’s just mentioned they share a family member. “Something familiar about it to you?”

“No—not… It’s something I just…” Aeron shakes her head. “It’s just strange coincidences, Alistair. Nothing to worry about. Still, it is a bit strange.”

“‘Strange’ is being polite, I think.” Alistair rests his head against the back of the tub, slightly surprised the metal hasn’t gone cold. “Truth be told, it’s first time that’s ever…happened? Come up. Something like that. But I still can’t figure out if it’s all a dream or part of a memory of what actually happened or if…

“Because I mean, it’s all so real, when I’m in it. When I’m in the moment, I just—it’s so…vivid, Aeron. All of the little details are there. It’s just like it when it happened, almost, but…” He makes a fist of his right hand. “And I can’t shake it off. I want to. Maker knows, I’ve tried—!”

“You’re being too hard on yourself,” Aeron offers. “Alistair, this is— It was your father. Whether you barely knew him or not, it—he’s still your father.”

“And I know it would have been worse to leave him in that state. I know. But the questions start. ‘Could I have done more? Could I have well and truly rescued him?’ They just…linger there, hiding at the back of my mind—”

The tub makes a dull sound as his fist lands heavily against the copper rim. He lets out a short breath and lifts his head.

“Can’t even get five minutes of peace before I start circling ‘round it again. Ever the great bath time companion, aren’t I?”

Aeron reaches forward and takes his hands between hers. “Alistair, look at me; you’ve only been home a month, my love. I don’t know what happened on that journey—”

“And I plan on telling you—”

“—but the details are not my present concern. I trust you to tell me in time, just as I know there will always be secrets we take to our graves. It doesn’t… You are my concern, Alistair. Your well-being as you recover from this…” She gives his hands a gentle squeeze. “We’ll get through this together. Hm? Hey—” She tries to catch his gaze. “Look at me.”

Try as he might, he can’t resist meeting her gaze with his own. He gives in.

“Do you remember us at Weisshaupt?” Aeron asks. “The first time, I mean, just after I finished in Amaranthine. I was a mess.”

Of course, Alistair remembers. “You weren’t—” He takes interest in her loosening bun. “I wouldn’t use the word—”

“Mess, Alistair. I was a right—proper—mess. Crying, sleepless nights, paranoid for no reason—”

“Plenty of reasons, as I recall, actually—”

“—but I had you.” Aeron’s gaze has gone soft. “Every step of the way, I had you. Making sure I ate, holding me tight, soothing me through the nightmares; you waited with me until I could come back to myself—and to you.”

“And I would do it again,” Alistair tells her.

“I know you would. I believe it,” she answers, “and I just…hope that I’ve been giving and can give you the support you gave me in those days. You’ve always been ready to carry everyone else’s burden on your shoulders, without complaint or thought to your own well-being, and I…

“Let me do this for you. Even if it's only the weight of what it means to be a Warden, the way you once did for me…let me begin to repay that favor.”

Maker, but what did he do to deserve this woman? Why was he so special that Aeron chose him out of all the rest?

“Come on.” Aeron rises from the tub, and Alistair is certainly guilty of letting his gaze linger. “If we’re lucky, there might still be breakfast in the dining hall—or, if you’d prefer, I can ask them to bring something up and we could stay in? Take the day for ourselves—”

“You want to?” He chooses to scale down, worried he sounds a touch too keen on the idea. “I mean…true, things at the Keep have been…rather quiet lately—”

“And things at the Keep will stay quiet, even if I make Oghren acting commander for the day.”

And as he watches Aeron wrap a towel around herself, Alistair wonders just how close, and how often, Vigil’s Keep has been to coming under Oghren’s control. He decides, almost in the same moment, that he would rather not know the answer.

“If you think we will endure, my love, then I’ve no objections—” Alistair resists a shiver as he emerges from the water. “—especially if it means I get to have you to myself.”

“Then it’s settled! A day in, it is.”

“So it is.” Alistair takes a towel Aeron offers and bends to briefly kiss her. “I am still the luckiest of men, having you at my side.”

“And it’s a good man you prove yourself to be,” she says, “that you haven’t forgotten.”