In the Shattering of Things, Ch. 62: Vertigo
Summary: Rose navigates the fall out of her handling of Crestwood's mayor, her intensifying liaison with Hawke, a surprise that comes from Skyhold and meets yet another legendary warrior.
Fic Summary: Lady Rose Trevelyan's idle, aristocratic life blinks out in a haze of irrelevance when the breach destroys the Conclave. She may be soft and coddled when she joins the Inquisition, but there's a fierceness inside her she's yet to fully recognize. Armed with only a few relevant skills and the mark that makes her a legend, she is thrust onto a path delivering hope where it’s long been scorched away and finds comfort in the grumpy, handsome stick in the mud charged with her protection and training. As she stumbles her way across southern Thedas, she begins to realize she's tangled at the center of machinations she barely understands, and she's not alone in that. Enter Hawke.
Excerpt below the cut 👇
When Hawke returns, he motions for me alone to follow. We walk silently together ducking protrusions and stalactites and shimming through narrow passages, the lightness of yesterday, the brightness between us cast in the shade of today’s revelations. The doorway we push through is marked with a whitewashed skull with a red streak across its eyes, the old smuggling ring’s stamp.
“It’s us,” he says. A man rises from a makeshift table covered in scribbled and crumpled notes, his features overtaken by the kind of beard one doesn’t choose to have. His armor is nondescript, his Warden credentials hidden away for safety’s sake.
Alistair Theirin.
Another legend.
Perhaps this time I can keep it together. He looks about my age, with dark blonde hair and a noble brow, but his overgrown beard and generally haggard appearance make him look worn beyond his years.
“Maker, man, you look like shit,” says Hawke with a grin.
“Cave chic,” he answers, yanking Hawke in for a firm handshake that quickly escalates into a bear hug. Alistair’s hazel eyes land on me next, nearly as bright and mischievous as Hawke’s and then jump to investigate my hands. At this point it feels like my blush is merely part of my uniform.
“You must be looking for this,” I say, holding up the anchor.
“Maker’s breath ,” he says. “I’ve always maintained there’s too much bizarre shit in the world.”
“That’s me. Bizarre shit,” I laugh. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Rose, Alistair. Alistair, Rose,” says Hawke. “We’re good with first names here, right?”
“Of course we are, Garrett ,” says Alistair pleasantly and I suppress my smile. He comes forward to shake my hand. “I’m glad you’re here. I wish it was someplace less— moldy. And you’ll have to forgive my looks. The combined effect of fugitive life, cave life and a missing wife is pretty potent. If I’d known you were coming I might have broken out the fancy soap.”
“I’m just happy we found you before the Wardens did,” I answer.
“As am I, my lady Inquisitor,” says Alistair.
“Well. Here we all are,” says Hawke. “I’m as eager as Rose is to hear what you have to say about the Wardens. I haven’t heard from Carver. Last letter I received was from the Anderfels. I asked Aveline to try and track him down to convince him to stay far from Orlais, but I’m assuming he told her to fuck right off.”
“As far as I know Carver is back in the Marches,” says Alistair, “But that was months ago. Who knows how far this nonsense has spread.”
“Then we can’t waste time,” says Hawke.
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direct follow up from this post.
I like to think of Alistair visiting the Hero of Fereldon pretty often even as a king. The tomb is said to be pretty grand in Weisshaupt Fortress. Always bringing her a bouquet of roses in hand and he talks to her about his life without her and his troubles. Counting the days before he's called into the deep roads. In hopes of joining her finally in the fade.
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one of my absolute favourite tiny details is cousland’s nan insisting the warden start the telling of a childhood story, and instead of, i don’t know, “once upon a time”, cousland’s cultural go-to is before our fathers’ fathers came down from the moutains. cousland has chantry tutors but at their nanny’s knee it was alamarri folk tales, not andraste and the wyvern. i think that’s so interesting and it’s one of the jumping-off points for my take that highever let andrastianism colour its culture and traditions more so than change them, in contrast to a centre of pilgrimage and of royalty like denerim, which is more closely interlinked with, and perceived by, andrastians outside ferelden’s borders. cousland to me is always saying some slightly off brand stuff they don’t realise is weird (read: heresy) while alistair and wynne raise eyebrows at each other
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