log; alistair & kallian WHO: Alistair Theirin & Kallian Tabris WHEN: Thursday, September 3rd, just after this conversation WHERE: Their room WHAT: Emotions and hugging. Kallian breaks down a little when she finally realizes she doesn't have any responsibility and they can finally just be together. So cute. WARNING(S): ...Feels?
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For people used to dealing with such horrors, Alistair and Kallian were surprisingly willing to act as if nothing was wrong. It was a matter of time before that broke down.
The ability to be honest was overwhelming. Few would have been surprised to know that Ferelden's monarchs weren't loyal to one another, but it wasn't something to be admitted or flaunted, even when your lover was the Hero. Add onto that their frequent separations, and their love had to be all the much stronger to survive the battering ram that their lives seemed intent on slamming into them. In all likelihood, Kalli had only cracked first because Alistair was just in a perpetual state of being more upset than he appeared. (It was all that sarcasm. Great way to hide your real feelings.)
He abandoned their text conversation to get to her. The digital conversations were more intimate than letters, but still didn't hold a candle to speaking face to face. Anytime they were with each other it was like another reunion (and Alistair was sure that people were getting irritated with them, as if he could bring himself to care), and this time when he found her, the first thing he did was sweep her up into his arms for an almost bone-crushing hug, easily lifting Kallian off of her feet.
Alistair needed the physical comfort as much as she did -- more than she did -- and was happy to act more needy than he actually was if it kept her from feeling too exposed or too sensitive.
Kallian dissolved into his embrace rather than melting: first she slumped against his chest, then her arms wrapped around his waist, and then she began to relax, bit by bit. She was good at acting like nothing was wrong, though not quite so good as Alistair was, but slowly the realization dawned that she didn’t have to pretend at the moment. She could take the comfort that was offered, and it wasn’t going to spell the end of the world.
One of the earliest lessons of the Alienage was that the people were more important than any one person. It hadn’t been that way for everyone, but it had for Kallian, and she had spent the past more than a decade on trying to live up to it. The world was full of real injustice and real need, and Kallian had dedicated herself to fixing as much of that as she could. She was in a position to prevent wars, to keep children from starving, to save lives, and she had to do that. She did do that, because it had to be done. She was glad to be able to do it, because people needed her, and she certainly couldn’t count on anyone else to take care of matters.
But sometimes...dear Maker, sometimes it would be so nice to not have to. It would have been nice to just kill the Archdemon and wash her hands of it all, to walk away with Alistair’s hand in hers and never have to let them all think he loved Anora, to never have to leave him over and over for weeks and months and years at a time. It would have been nice to go into quiet retirement, to just buy a pretty little house house in a quiet part of town and start her own apothecary shop and never think about politics or darkspawn or Callings or any of it. Even to continue being a Warden, but with Alistair beside her instead of thousands of miles away, would have been better. To never have forced him into taking the crown when it was the last thing he wanted, because they didn’t know then if they could trust Anora not to become her father--that would have been nice, too.
So many things she would have liked to simply let go of, and now she was in this different world with none of them to face, and it was more than a little overwhelming. She woke up next to Alistair every day. Her grand quest was cleaning out a few rooms to build a tavern out of a brewery. No Wardens to lead, no country for Alistair to rule, no Blight to end, the means to silencing the Calling out of reach. It was beautiful, and she loved it, and she felt guilty for loving it, and with no one but Alistair to see it she could finally let herself acknowledge the feelings.
“I miss you so much,” she whispered, and tears were welling up in her eyes, but she didn’t care. “I miss you all the time, and here I don’t have to, and I feel like the worst person in the world to be happy about that.”
It was usually Alistair who was losing control of his emotions, crying or fussing or showing enough insecurity that it was clear he was self-conscious about it. It meant that he was immediately supportive, burying his face in her hair and breathing in the smell of her hair.
"If you're terrible, then I'm terrible, too," he said, with a tone that sounded like if you walked off a cliff, so would I. "Dealing with all this political bullshit with Orlais and the Venatori was unbearable without you. I can't even try to feel bad about being here." Alistair had never made it a secret (in private) that he hated politics. He was all right -- better than he thought he was -- but only because he let himself throw things when no one could see him. Anora had her father's love of Orlais, leaving Alistair to handle anything with the Empress, and it had been clear when he'd arrived in Mount Weather that it had left him strung out and exhausted.
Not so exhausted that he couldn't desecrate a hospital closet, but still.
Alistair pulled back only enough to cradle Kallian's face in his hands, brushing his thumbs over her tear-dampened cheeks. They'd been together for over a decade and he still looked at her every time as if he was fascinated that she even existed. "I refuse not to be grateful for you, my love."
Kallian managed a threadbare smile through her tears, because how could she not? Alistair could always make her smile, even when things were at their very worst. Now here they were, and for once things weren’t at their very worst--and if Alistair didn’t feel bad about this sudden relief of their duties, then maybe she didn’t have to either.
“I love you so much,” she said softly, and turned her head just enough to press a kiss to his palm. Kallian tucked herself in for another hug then, settling against Alistair’s chest the way she often did in her sleep. “I’m sorry I’ve gotten all emotional about this. It is what it is, after all, and it doesn’t really matter how I feel about it. If there were ever free rein to simply be happy with you and not have to put the world first, this is it. I’m...I’m just not used to it. Freedom. We’ve never been free ever in our entire lives.”
"You don't need to apologize to me. Or to anyone. Especially not to me." Alistair kept a hand on her cheek, cradling her against his chest while he wrapped his other arm around her. They lost so much time between work and travel that ever physically letting go of each other was a strain.
"Do you ever wonder if we don't know what freedom is? It does feel awkward, not having anyone -- or any dragon -- breathing down our necks." Even as children, Kallian had grown up in the Alienage and Alistair had been shuffled around like an inconvenience, put wherever you would put a bastard prince just in case you needed him but could cast aside in case you didn't. They'd always been watched and monitored and bound by something -- duty or prejudice or even marriage -- and now having what amounted to a blank slate was... bizarre. "We could be anyone. I mean, we're already peddling overly potent alcohol to a bunch of people who are just begging to become drunks at our behest."
Kallian had known, of course, that Alistair would understand. The unnecessary apologies still felt important to her, though. It was a way to let him know that she still cared about his feelings, even if she was indulging hers a bit. She nuzzled his palm where it rested at her face and finally began to relax. Nothing could really be so bad or so frightening or unsettling as long as she had Alistair’s arms around her. For more than a decade now, he had been her anchor, the foot to her compass as she wheeled out around the world. He was home, and that made everything better--especially when they were suddenly free as the wind in a foreign world.
“If we can’t get home and back to saving the world from itself, I say we stick with turning all these people into drunks,” she said, giving a watery smile as she got her sense of humor back under her. “So far, we seem to be good at it. We can turn into tavern keepers who only pull the blades out occasionally.”
"You'll have to take charge, I am a terrible leader and I have no idea how to run a business." Alistair was only half kidding. He'd been on the throne for over ten years and he was still shocked anyone actually listened to him, though he'd gotten better at hiding it in front of important people. "I like to think I can manage to be a good bartender, though, I love gossip."
“And you’re terribly charming,” Kallian agreed. “If I were a tavern patron, I would be hard pressed not to chat you up even though you were clearly at work. I, meanwhile, will distill throat-burning liquor and give orders, because I am terminally bossy even when I am not the boss of anything.” She laughed and looked up at Alistair. “Peter says I’m a hurricane. I think he may be right.”
"King Alistair Theirin: Tavern Wench. You know, without the crown that just makes me sound like a pretentious prostitute." Alistair smiled, apparently delighted. "Peter has no idea. But then, he's never seen you kill an Archdemon. It's a difficult thing to just imagine."
“If you’re going to be a prostitute, you want to be the pretentious kind,” Kallian advised. “But don’t be a prostitute. Be a barkeep. It looks much more fun than being king. Being a hurricane tavern keeper certainly seems more fun than being Warden Commander. You know how many times I’ve been called upon to dispense justice on the land? None. No times. That’s brilliant.”
"Just don't let on that you're good at it. They already roped the Inquisitor into working; best not draw their attention." Finally, finally pulling away, Alistair only pulled back far enough to take Kallian's hand and lead her over to the couch to sit (as fun as it was just standing in the middle of the room) -- though he wasn't very good at leading her and ended up sitting first, immediately distracted when he was about eye-level with her hip and leaning in to playfully nuzzle her. "I think I have everyone convinced I was a sham of a ruler, and no one's asked me to do anything important. Such a relief."
“I think the Lady Inquisitor is better at managing power than either of us,” Kallian replied. She settled in on Alistair’s lap, her legs sideways over his so she could go right back to leaning against his shoulder. His arms would wind around her in turn, she knew, and all would be right with the world.
“And she hasn’t been at it quite as long,” Kallian added with a wry smile. “Seven or eight years ago, I might have charged right into trying to do what’s best for everyone here, too. Now I’m tired, and I’m smart enough to know when other people are doing a perfectly good job running the show.”
"Leave the world to the young, right? She can't even be thirty -- though I don't know, I never asked Sten how fast Qunari age." After a pause, he added, "Arishok now, I suppose. I don't understand how the Qunari get on without names. Do they number each other just in case, or just call each other 'you there' a lot?"
Kallian was barely thirty herself, but she felt around fifty some days. It had been a very full ten years since the day she had set out from the Alienage. That first year, all spent fighting the Blight, seemed like a lifetime all by itself.
“It does seem confusing, if you’re looking for a particular Sten and not just any Sten,” Kallian agreed. “Though I suppose the point is that you shouldn’t be looking for a particular Sten. All Sten fulfill the role of Sten and therefore any Sten should do for whatever Sten thing you have that needs Stenning.”
"It must be difficult to be a particularly talented Sten. Everyone would go 'there's that one Sten who Stens so much better than the other Stens', and then you can't find him. Though that does sound like a good way to get out of something boring, if you can pass it off on some other Sten." Almost meanly, Alistair was suddenly grateful that Sten (the Arishok? Stenishock?) had been the only one who survived long enough to be picked up by their little adventuring group. Their standards had been so low at the time that four identical oxmen who all answered to Sten would have ended up their new best friends.
“Unless all the Stens are trying to get out of Stenning,” Kallian pointed out. “But I’m almost certain that shirking is forbidden under the Qun. It seems like the sort of thing that would be forbidden under the Qun.”
Joking about the Qun and the Stens was already making Kallian feel a little better. It had been a difficult evening, but between the jokes and the hugs, she was perking right back up.
"Cookies are forbidden under the Qun. Maybe that's why they always look so sour." Alistair rested his chin on top of her head, smiling contentedly to himself. "Feeling better? Or are there other friends you need me to make fun of? I can do this all night."
“I do feel better,” Kallian admitted. Maybe she didn’t have to feel guilty about being happy, or having Alistair all to herself, or not constantly working to better the lives of the people beyond crafting a better whiskey mash. Maybe this time she truly was free to enjoy herself.
She smiled, and looked up to give Alistair a kiss. “But you should make fun of more of our friends. You’re so good at it. Do Zevran next.”