When I Look at You (a Dragon Age fanfiction)

Ambush

The next morning they were up at first light, beginning the trek toward the Circle Tower. Una somehow managed to act normally. Alistair tried to follow her lead, but he still felt guilty over the way he had ended their dance, and was completely unable to sort through the complex web of what he felt for her.

Shortly after their lunch break, they ran into a woman standing by the road. She flagged them down, crying out that her party was being ambushed by bandits.

Una ran ahead with the woman, the others following. Alistair didn't see exactly what happened, but suddenly a tree fell. The tree blocked his view of Una, and for a moment he thought it had landed on her. As he ran forward, his heart in his throat, his brain was calling out in panic. He realized how much he had come to count on her leadership, her laughter warming the cold campsites, her hand that had reached down into the darkness of his despair and pulled him out. What would he do if something happened to her?

As he reached the fallen tree, he saw that she had leaped clear and was getting to her feet. He also saw the elf with the knives who had stepped out from behind the wagon and the array of other fighters that suddenly surrounded them. He felt an irrational anger bubble up in him. What had she been thinking, running ahead like that, putting herself in danger and leading them into an ambush?

Alistair put his anger to good use, whaling on the bandits until there were none left. Except the elf, who lay on the ground groaning. Una walked over to him and nudged him, none too gently, with her foot until he was able to speak coherently.

It turned out that the elf was a member of the Antivan Crows, a feared assassin organization. He'd been hired by Teyrn Loghain to kill the remaining Grey Wardens. And in an accent that made Alistair's skin crawl, the elf proceeded to talk his way into the party, convincing Una—somehow—that he would be a good addition. Alistair thought he might have to be sick. A dangerous assassin who had already tried to kill her? Who was, in the bargain, a good-looking elf with a sexy accent who had already made it clear that he was very, very available to the tall, beautiful Grey Warden lady? That's just what they needed to make things more interesting. And yes, apparently everyone did have to flirt with her.

The longer he thought about it, the angrier he got.

Una could sense Alistair's temperature rising. It didn't surprise her entirely that he should object to the addition of the elf, Zevran, but the decision made sense to her. "Leliana, Morrigan, can the two of you take Zevran up to that clearing, maybe see to his wounds and start setting up a camp? We'll stay here tonight and go on to the Tower in the morning. Alistair and I will clean up down here."

There was surprisingly little grumbling as the two women walked off with the elf supported on their shoulders. Grenli went off with them, but he turned around and growled warningly at Alistair before he left. Nosy hound, Alistair thought.

The others were barely out of sight before he turned on her. "What in the name of Andraste were you thinking?!"

"'Keep your friends where you can grasp their hand. Keep your enemies where you can grasp their throats'," quoted Una. "Isn't that what General Cairados wrote?" Methodically, she began to loot the battle site.

"You read The Treatise on Warfare?" Alistair gawked at her.

Now she was angry, too. She straightened up, her fists on her hips. "I am just as much a warrior as you are," she shouted. "I spent my training years studying just like you did. What do you think, that I'm some dilettante little girl playing with the men's toys?"