When I Look at You (a Dragon Age fanfiction)

Wounded

Una woke up feeling oddly paralyzed. Nothing hurt that badly, except a dull throb in one leg, but she couldn't move at all. When she opened her eyes, it was pitch dark. Was she in some kind of Fade nightmare again? She tried to remember the last thing she'd been doing. She remembered the emissary, talking to Wynne ... then nothing else. Panic began to rise in her.

Slowly, she became aware of a familiar sound. Alistair, she thought with relief. Snoring. Shifting her right arm experimentally, she felt a warm weight shift with it and heard a sleepy grumble. So that explained the right side. She was lying under some kind of blanket, and Alistair was lying on top of it. What about the left?

Something cold and wet brushed her neck, and she smelled the remains of whatever Grenli had eaten for dinner. Aha, she thought. She grinned into the darkness, feeling very loved. "Do the two of you mind getting off me?" she said, loudly and firmly.

Both of them jumped, startled apparently out of deep sleep.

"Did you say something? Tell me you said something!" came Alistair's voice in her right ear, while Grenli snuffled wetly at her left.

"I said, get off me!" she said in mingled affection and irritation. Both of them hastened to do so. Una stretched luxuriantly in the bed. Bed? Where in Thedas was she? "That's better," she said tartly. "Now, do either of you want to explain to me where I am and how I got here?" Grenli let out a woof, but Alistair cut him off. "I'll handle this part, Gren." The dog grunted. Alistair proceeded to fill her in on the events of the day, ending by taking her hand in both of his, squeezing tightly. "Thank the Maker you're all right. I don't know what I would have done if—"

Una sighed. "Maybe we ought to talk about that," she said. "Because I'd have had the same reaction if our positions were reversed. And if one of us were to fall and the other one fell apart, Ferelden would be doomed and Wynne would be right."

"Wynne?"

Feeling rather more pain in her leg than she'd anticipated, Una sat up, finding Alistair's hands already behind her with a pillow to prop herself up against. "She gave me a lecture one night about how we're Grey Wardens, and we have a higher duty than our personal feelings and what if we had to choose between the world and each other and all that."

"Very gloomy of her."

"She finished it up by shaking her finger at me particularly. Like I was some corrupter of youth, or something, when I'm younger than you!" Una finished indignantly. "At least, I assume I'm younger," she added, realizing that she didn't actually know how old he was. "How old are you?"

"Twenty." His voice was filled with suppressed laughter. "Glad to hear Wynne was looking out for me."

"No doubt about who's her favorite," Una grumbled.

"She does have good taste," he said smugly.

"If I could see you, I'd hit you with this pillow."

"Thanks for the warning."

"Anyway," Una said in exasperation, "my point stands."

"Your point? Oh, yes, the very cheery one about what if one of us dies."

"I know," she sighed, "but I think we have to talk about the possibility."

"The Blight's the main thing, isn't it? We have to end the Blight, whether it's both of us or just one."

"Exactly. The Blight first, over each other's welfare, over vengeance against Loghain and Howe, over our own survival."