[ There's a stretch of pleased silence while she gets through that, then: ]
Thank you, thank you. Here's another funny thing: my mother's alive. And she has a hundred very good reasons for hiding that from me, so I can't fairly be angry, and yet.
[ Angry is the wrong word. Hurt, more like. But that sounds more pathetic. ]
Do you want to go for a walk or something? I could throw things and you could try to zap them before they fall. I think I'd feel better.
[His mother is alive and she doesn't know what to do with that except what she does with it. Her mother is also alive. Estranged and awkward, but alive.]
Yes. Let's go for a walk. Meet you on the battlements over the gate? I'll bring you lots of pinecones for zapping.
You're wonderful. I'll let you know when I'm close.
[ Because it's a decent hike, but organizing the logistics are boring, so at some point he does let her know and meets her above the gates, bottle in hand--only wine, and he hasn't had much at all. ]
Do you just keep a supply of pinecones handy for this sort of thing?
Yes. [Really, she is willing to chalk it up to her being magically able to produce whatever people need. It's what she was raised for.] Here. [She hands him the basket of pinecones to chuck about as he pleases.]
[ He wiggles the bottle down into the edge of the basket so he has a hand free for said chucking, which he starts immediately, rearing back to fling one over the wall. He has a good arm, on account of the muscles, if not particularly good aim.
[She zaps the pinecone traditionally--electricity, since fire is a little less natural for her. She's an ice person. The shock incinerates the pinecone in a satisfactory manner.]
[ He almost laughs--a repressed exhale through his nose, smile stretching wider--at mosquito, then lifts another pinecone to toss and catch it one-handed, putting off throwing it for the moment. ]
[ That's a genuine ha, which is closely related to his sarcastic ha but distinguished by the accompanying grin actually reaching his eyes. He throws the pinecone in the next moment, without warning her--she's quick, she'll be fine--and the next question is as light and casual as the jokes. ]
Dragons? [she asks with a laugh. This is a fun exercise. Keeps her on her toes. She zaps that pinecone and realizes he does not at all mean dragons. His mother is alive. Which necessarily means his mother was not there for his upbringing, his formative years, his life. Everything that was important. She sobers quickly.]
I...used to say they didn't have a choice. But they did. And meeting them and then leaving was always torture. They loved me, but not as much as they loved...whatever it was that kept us apart. Tradition, the system, whatever it is. They had greater respect for that than for the sacred bond of parent and child. But I don't think they knew they had any other choice. I don't really know. Maybe I never forgave anything. I just started blaming something else. Myself, most of all.
It's not your fault, [ Alistair says automatically, maybe hypocritically. He hasn't sat down to wonder, in as many specific words, what might be wrong with him that makes it so no one faced with a choice ever chooses him (except Duncan, except Zevran—thus the unwavering loyalty)and if asked he'd say it isn't his fault either. But it's a hard sense to shake. ] Would they have been allowed to keep you if they'd tried?
[ That seems like such an easy thing to him now, leaving one clan for another clan. Probably because he doesn't know much about the distinctions between Dalish clans. And because he's twenty years removed from being the child who threw a years-long fit over being sent away from Redcliffe. And not thinking of it correctly—it would be more like leaving the Wardens than leaving a place. But he's not thinking of it that way, and it sounds easy, and for a moment he looks indignant on Pel's behalf, before her question makes him try to smile and mostly fail. ]
Zevran found out and told her she had to tell me. She's here. We'd spoken before. [ He picks up another pinecone, tosses it up once to alert her. ] She couldn't have kept me. She's a mage. [ He flings the pinecone as far as he can, at an angle. ] Could have written, though. She knew where I was. Everyone else was lying for her. She says she made Maric promise—I've hated him so much.
[ That's a lot of words, for him, without a joke in sight. When he notices, he wrinkles his nose and says, ] Why are high dragons so irritable?
[She made the king promise. Alistair could have been king, once, but probably not with a mage's blood in his veins. Politics. It makes cold, awful sense, and makes it even worse that other people abandoned him as well. Of all the people he was handed off to, why didn't just one of them decide to put Alistair first?]
Why? [She sounds distant, but she gets it. Joking helps him cope.]
aha I changed my mind in that tag but now it's in this one
Because when you're a thousand years old, everything seems to drag-on, and on, and on. [ There. He feels a little less whiny. And in defense of his unseen mother, he also adds, ] She's an elf, too. And Orlesian. Loghain Mac Tir would have drowned me like a litter of kittens.
[ That's not true.
Probably.
He might have considered it. ]
Maybe I'll send Her Majesty a letter to keep under her pillow so she can sleep a bit better at night.
Mythal bless you. [Because really, who could have picked a worse mother for a king's son?] If people knew when you were a kid, you wouldn't've stood a chance.
No, [ Alistair agrees, subdued. ] So it isn't her fault, and it isn't his fault. [ He brightens a little, smiles sideways in a half-sly way, like look at him paying attention to what she says. ] It's the system's fault.
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crystal. backdated to... sometime earlier this month.
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Thank you, thank you. Here's another funny thing: my mother's alive. And she has a hundred very good reasons for hiding that from me, so I can't fairly be angry, and yet.
[ Angry is the wrong word. Hurt, more like. But that sounds more pathetic. ]
Do you want to go for a walk or something? I could throw things and you could try to zap them before they fall. I think I'd feel better.
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[His mother is alive and she doesn't know what to do with that except what she does with it. Her mother is also alive. Estranged and awkward, but alive.]
Yes. Let's go for a walk. Meet you on the battlements over the gate? I'll bring you lots of pinecones for zapping.
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[ Because it's a decent hike, but organizing the logistics are boring, so at some point he does let her know and meets her above the gates, bottle in hand--only wine, and he hasn't had much at all. ]
Do you just keep a supply of pinecones handy for this sort of thing?
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[ He wiggles the bottle down into the edge of the basket so he has a hand free for said chucking, which he starts immediately, rearing back to fling one over the wall. He has a good arm, on account of the muscles, if not particularly good aim.
He's still mid-throw when he says, ]
What do dragons call men who come to slay them?
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Dinner? [She guesses.]
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Close. Bites in shining armor.
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I thought that's what you call a mosquito in a tin suit. But why do dragons sleep all day?
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What?
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[It's pretty dumb, but it's one she knows. That counts.]
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[ That's a genuine ha, which is closely related to his sarcastic ha but distinguished by the accompanying grin actually reaching his eyes. He throws the pinecone in the next moment, without warning her--she's quick, she'll be fine--and the next question is as light and casual as the jokes. ]
How do you forgive them?
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I...used to say they didn't have a choice. But they did. And meeting them and then leaving was always torture. They loved me, but not as much as they loved...whatever it was that kept us apart. Tradition, the system, whatever it is. They had greater respect for that than for the sacred bond of parent and child. But I don't think they knew they had any other choice. I don't really know. Maybe I never forgave anything. I just started blaming something else. Myself, most of all.
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casual animal cruelty simile ahoy
Zevran found out and told her she had to tell me. She's here. We'd spoken before. [ He picks up another pinecone, tosses it up once to alert her. ] She couldn't have kept me. She's a mage. [ He flings the pinecone as far as he can, at an angle. ] Could have written, though. She knew where I was. Everyone else was lying for her. She says she made Maric promise—I've hated him so much.
[ That's a lot of words, for him, without a joke in sight. When he notices, he wrinkles his nose and says, ] Why are high dragons so irritable?
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Why? [She sounds distant, but she gets it. Joking helps him cope.]
aha I changed my mind in that tag but now it's in this one
[ That's not true.
Probably.
He might have considered it. ]
Maybe I'll send Her Majesty a letter to keep under her pillow so she can sleep a bit better at night.
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Mythal bless you. [Because really, who could have picked a worse mother for a king's son?] If people knew when you were a kid, you wouldn't've stood a chance.
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