When I Look at You (a Dragon Age fanfiction)

Precipice

In the next few days before the Landsmeet, Una was busy all over Denerim, visiting the nobility. She brought Alistair along with her so that he could get used to the people he'd be needing to work with once he became king, and did everything she could to bolster his confidence before each new visit.

Zev and Leliana were busy, as well, scouting out secrets and trying to determine how the Wardens stood in the Landsmeet. Eamon kept trying to 'talk' to Alistair, which frustrated Una because every talk ended in Alistair feeling he couldn't possibly be king, that he wasn't smart or talented or skilled enough. If this was the way he had been treated growing up, Una couldn't be surprised that he had turned out with so little confidence in himself—if anything, she couldn't believe he had ended up with as much as he had.

Riordan had gone out scouting for the darkspawn horde, promising to return as soon as he knew where the Archdemon might be. The Queen remained in residence at Eamon's, speaking little and listening much, particularly to Alistair, which made Una uncomfortable for a number of reasons.

By this point, all Una wanted was to get the Landsmeet over with and get back to fighting darkspawn. Even bandits—anything straightforward she could hit with a big hammer. Ruefully, she thought that that probably wasn't the way a future queen of the realm should be thinking. She should be thriving on all these machinations. But the stakes were high; if they lost, she and Alistair would likely be thrown into prison again, and it probably wouldn't be so easy to escape the next time. And if they were taken out of commission, then no doubt the Blight would spread and take over Ferelden.

Una groaned, looking out the window across the rooftops of Denerim. Maybe she should have just stuck to being a Grey Warden and fighting the Blight, instead of all these politics. But Loghain had forced this issue, she reminded herself, not she. He had been the one to call her and Alistair traitors and begin hunting them. Had he left them alone, maybe they'd have found and defeated the Archdemon already.

Behind her the door opened and closed, and Alistair leaned back against it, groaning. "Honestly, you would think he was trying to make up for all the lectures he didn't give me in the last ten years. Tell me, Una, how old am I? Because I'm suddenly feeling very ten."

She looked at him over her shoulder, grinning. "You don't look ten, trust me."

"You want to tell Arl Eamon that? Feel free to be detailed."

"After tomorrow, assuming all goes well, you'll be the King of Ferelden, and you can tell him yourself." More seriously, she added, "I would recommend choosing someone other than Eamon as your royal advisor, however. He doesn't seem to have quite the right approach to get your best effort out of you."

"No," Alistair agreed. "He makes me feel like I have dirt on my nose. I don't, do I?"

"Let me see." Una left the window and went to him, putting her arms around his neck and kissing his nose. "Not a speck."

"Good. Besides, I thought you were my royal advisor."

"Do I make you feel older than ten, and with a clean nose?"

"Most definitely. You're hired." His arms slid around her waist, and he leaned his forehead against her shoulder. "Are we going to win tomorrow?"

She gave him the answer she wanted to give him although she wasn't sure if it was the one he wanted to hear. "Yes."

"Do we want to win tomorrow? It's not too late to back Anora."

"After what we've seen? You can't possibly think she's displayed any ability to rule without Cailan. The country's falling to pieces."

"I suppose you're right." He lifted his head and looked at her seriously. "How much of this is about Howe and what he did to your family?"

Una winced, but she tried her best to give him as balanced and thoughtful an answer as she could muster on that particular topic. "More of it is about the reaction to what Howe did to my family, or lack thereof. He was allowed to profit from what he had done, and no one lifted a hand to punish him for his crimes." Tears stung her eyes and she tried to fight them back, but it was no use. "All these people pretended to be my parents' friends. They ate at my mother's table and drank in my father's study, their children played with Fergus and me. But as soon as something went wrong, they just pretended it never happened and let my parents' murderer take everything. Because it was easier," she finished bitterly.

Alistair put his arms around her, holding her tightly, but he couldn't think what to say. She wasn't wrong; from everything he knew about Ferelden politics, from everything he understood about her parents, they deserved to have had their deaths prosecuted, at least, if not outright avenged, and instead there appeared to have been widespread apathy. How much of that was due to the Blight and the Civil War and the death of Cailan was hard to say, and he thought eventually Una would come to forgive her fellow nobles because of all the turmoil ... but he couldn't blame her for her anger and her hurt against those who should have stood and fought with her and had instead cowered in safety, pretending nothing was wrong.

He kept those thoughts to himself, settling for simply holding her and letting her get all that pain out.

After a long time, she lifted her head off his shoulder. "I'm sorry," she said, sniffling. "That was incredibly poorly timed."

"No, it wasn't. You needed to get that out."

"Yes, but ... you can't afford to be distracted now. Neither can I."

"I beg to disagree," Alistair said softly. He lifted her hair off her neck and kissed the soft skin he'd revealed. "I think this is the perfect time for distractions. Tomorrow is coming whether we like it or not, and we've done all we can to prepare. For now, I think the best thing we can do is think of something else and try to take our minds off whether we will win or lose tomorrow."

"Well ... you may be right." Una dug out a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her eyes and nose. "Obsessing over the Landsmeet is probably a good way to go crazy before it gets here."

"Before we get too distracted," Alistair said, "I just wanted to say ... thank you."

"For what?"

"For believing in me. For making me believe in myself."

"Have I made you believe in yourself, Alistair?" Una asked him, studying his face.

He smiled. "Sometimes."

"We'll have to see if we can't improve on that in the future and make it all the time. Meanwhile, thank you, too."

"For what?"

"For giving me something to live for. I mean, the Grey Wardens, yes, important tasks ... but without a family, without someone to love and care for ... I grew up with that, and to have lost all the people who made life worth living ... You gave me that back. Thank you," she whispered, closing his mouth with a kiss before he could reply.

Alistair's hands closed on her hips, holding her against him as the kiss deepened. Still kissing, they stripped each other's clothes off, hands stroking and caressing the sensitive areas they revealed. He lifted her into his arms, her long legs wrapping around his waist, and pressed her up against the wall, finding her center easily and sliding in with one practiced thrust. The climb to the peak was slow and steady, both of them finding it together, but once wasn't enough. Not tonight, not when tomorrow's events promised so much change no matter how they went.

Tonight, they were Una and Alistair, two Grey Wardens, for the last time. By the time the Landsmeet ended, they would either be the future King and Queen of Ferelden or two traitors to the throne, imprisoned. As far as Una could tell, there was little chance of anything in between. And so tonight she would cling to him, to what they had shared, while she could.