#*anora

SERIOUSLY THOUGH

i love the idea of them developing first this mutual grudging respect but with like.  you are now an extension of me politically and socially speaking and i'm savvy enough to understand that and know that i have to cover your ass sometimes and protect you at least for the sake of our kingdom and people and for myself if nothing else. and then growing through that and through proximity into that becoming understanding and then trust and then somewhere along the line that trust becomes other kinds of trust

my interpretation on cailan is that like. anora and cailan knew each other growing up and he wasn't a terrible person but he was incompetent in a lot of ways and kind of just like. don't put a frat boy on the throne and expect it to be all sunshine and rainbows/???? and that's basically all he was. and he's canonically like... he wasn't faithful and she knew it but she was discrete and just asked him to be and she loved him in ways at least at some point and whether or not she loved him and it was his betrayal and eventual loss and what happened with loghain (esp in timelines where loghain is executed) and she feels just really alone in the world and like why should she trust or love anyone again when they all betray her or disappear? 

but alistair is so committed to doing what the warden has set him out to do and he trusts their judgement even if at first it scares him and he hates it and he doesn't want to be king it's too much responsibility and he can't do it and he just wants to be with his friends and not have to grow up but

he has to

and anora i think had to grow up at some point all at once too and eventually i think they'll melt into this understanding and realizing that not only do they care for each other but like... they have an unprecedented amount in common. they care about the same things and they're both scared of being hurt and being alone and not being enough in different ways but also the same??

in different places they are both vulnerable and incredibly strong and it takes a while for them both to see and recognize and value and understand those parts of each other but i can't believe that it wouldn't happen and that once you gain that understanding that it wouldn't turn into a deeper trust and a deeper bond and a deeper connection and in the end they're really the only people in the position that they're in together who can fully confide in each other and fully understand the burden of command so to speak

it isn't ever easy to be a ruler but it's even harder to be a rebuilder and to face all the different slanders and rumours about each of them on top of that and i think they'd gain a lot of just. they start protecting each other and at first it's this self preservation - by protecting each other they protect themselves because in terms of reputation what is left unguarded with one is a weakness for the other as well

slander against anora reflects on alistair, and vice versa, and that's something they can't afford, especially early on in their rulership

but without realizing it really that protection becomes less selfish - alistair doesn't leap to defend anora's honour because she's the queen to his king and because no one should do that to a woman, any woman, but especially one who is deserving of their respect and even fealty, but also because she is... truly his queen. because he not only believes it is right for their subjects to follow her but because he does. and he wants to. he doesn't just ask her advice because he knows she is surpassing him in knowledge and skill in ruling, because she's better at this and she's done it before, but because he values her and he loves to hear her speak and teach him even if she is somewhat exasperated and he can tell she wishes he just understood even as she is endlessly grateful in her own way to see that he never stops asking her opinon

and as for her she finds that while she keeps trying to convince herself and remind herself that he's just a fool and she deserves this and what did he ever do but be born some royal bastard who never had the skill or knowledge to get what she fought for and had it handed to him when he didn't even want it but she'd do anything to have gotten here and she owes her life to the mercy of a stranger more or less and she's glad of it but there's lingering bitterness, and more from both cailan's loss and his more... unfortunate treatments of her

(i like and understand several interpretations of how he might have treated her and can never decide which one i prefer? there's cailan who was a careless philanderer, distant from her but she cared for him in spite of herself and  just asked of  him to keep it discrete as possible. there's cailan who was mostly kind to her, or entirely, but was a fool. there's cailan who she disdained for his foolishness and may have loved once but had stopped long ago, only realizing a rekindling of that in some way once his foolishness got him killed. and then there's cailan who spent his nights too late and who she dreaded returning to their bed on those nights when he had not indulged enough without her, the cailan who made her cringe when alistair touched her, the one who made her grab away her hand at her second wedding not only because she feared coming to a day when she would want to have taken it, but also because she cringed at the mere thought of hands that resembled the hands that had hurt her, even if she told herself he didn't mean it and he was a different person when he'd been drinking or had become one through some other way... i think they're all interesting to explore and to explore how anora relates to intimacy and to alistair on each one....)

and then i love the idea of along the way they help each other both heal (especially because my main canon is with a martyred warden who, while they were never in a romance with alistair, they were very close. estel was alistair's best friend, and he won't ever forget them and it hurts to know that they died when he might have to spare them and he knows it would've hurt them to be the survivor but they might have felt a little less alone than he does at least at first?)

and i love the idea that along the way their healing and that trust and understanding, and that the discovery that they balance each other both emotionally and politically, they stand on enough common ground through both pain and through passion, that they want the same things for their country and care about their people both so deeply, that alistair is trying his hardest to be right for her and right for ferelden 

that one day they realize they love each other

and they aren't sure when or how it happened but it's a strange and beautiful sort of thing to have fallen in love after you've been married for all that time already (whether it's months or years or many years it takes - i like to think it's about three or four years from start to finish of them coming into their love for each other, i can't really believe they'd be able to spend so much time so close to each other an their lives so wrapped up together as to keep them from developing that caring for a decade or close to that even if they are both incredibly stubborn and bat at feelings)

and it's just. incredibly comforting to know they can feel close to someone, trust them and enjoy their presence, have someone to hold at night and wake up to in the morning and trust with their lives and their livelihoods and kingdom and not care if they're different and so much is asked of them and they've both suffered so much because they have a strong ally in each other and it's an ally they truly love and have learned to understand so well but are happy to spend the rest of whatever time they have together learning to understand even more

they can accomplish great things together, for ferelden, and for each other

they give each other strength and a kind of peace and its a wonderful thing to have a sanctuary in another person and in the rooms and the lives they share, especially after they both thought they'd go the rest of their lives without one

....this got long and. intense. omg i'm. i have so many alistair/anora feelings and so little time or place to release them bc it's like

one thing i rly like and also find interesting in my fic adventures is finding so many different interpretations of what cailan was like. specifically wrt how he treated anora. and how she felt about him in return. bc obvs i only read. anora/alistair fic lmao


but it rly runs the full gamut like u got everything from "he was genuinely abusive as well as unfaithful" to "a kind of genuine love”, and on anora's side it goes from "she truly loved him" to "she resented him, and was glad he dallied w other women so he touched her less"


tbh i can't decide which i like best but i think i view it as some combination. she loved him once, and she tried to keep loving him, but… as time went on his eyes wandered, his hands wandered, he was unfaithful, and then he was… ungallant. he respected her to run his kingdom, but not as a wife or woman


he kept some decency about his affairs at least, she wasn't made a laughingstock. but after a time, she was thankful he rarely touched her. she remembers, he had touched her gently at first, and she had been slow to ease into it, cautious and terrified, knowing what hurt he was capable of, but he was soft, and they had been friends. he was careful with her. but with time his hands hardened, his appetites changed. and she learned to fear him, to shrink from him as she never shrank from anything else, bitter with resentment that she made him feel so small in those moments.


she did her best and she was strong and resolute and unfaltering, but bruises stay after they fade and shared beds can be so cold sometimes, and no measure of apology can cure wounds that are inflicted again and again, her trust in pieces, her body unwelcoming to any kind of touch, expecting it too hard, too accustomed to nights when he returned and had not had his fill, and she would play the part, the dutiful wife, his queen after all, and she would be glad that at least he never lasted long. 
when alistair first tries to touch her he's so soft it makes her want to run away, back into her father's arms, but he's gone and she's here, and nothing will put the pieces of the life she had back together, not the parts she wanted gone, and not the parts she’d give anything to have back.

but alistair doesn't give up on her. a hand on her hand, side by side in court (she pulls hers away). he always asks before he kisses her, and he listens and draws away immediately when she says no, even when the word never leaves her eyes. he sees, and he listens. and he smiles. he smiles at her even when she does her best to distance him, even to be cruel at first, to try and assure him he’d do best not to try and win her over, she’s no longer a thing to be won. but those smiles melt some small piece of her every time. 


cailan used to smile like that, she remembers, when their lives together were new, broad, open smiles, like warm sunbeams on cold mornings, streaming through partially drawn curtains, and it scares her to see those smiles now on another man’s face, and to know he could be the same. 
anora is strong, she's iron and steel and blood and fire and bitterness. but alistair has a softness she is unaccustomed to.


she knows he doesn't love her & he never wanted this, never wanted to be king, while she desperately wanted to be queen, yet, here they are.

she expects him to be dead weight for her to pull, like cailan was. but he tries so hard to be good for ferelden, and to be good for her. 
the first time she flinches when he touches her, he has a second bed put in their chambers so she can sleep more peacefully alone.

for several months, he does not ask why she wraps herself in ice like armour, distancing herself from all but her duty, and, he notes, perhaps her handmaid. he actually asks erlina for help, admits he has no idea what he's doing, only wants to help. to earn anora's trust, if nothing else. she can see he’s honest, so she says what she can, gives him a thread to work at, but it’s just one in a tangled snare of threads he’s finding hopelessly tangled, and anora is somewhere at the heart. tugging too strongly could ensnare her further, could hurt her, but to never try would leave her there, and he cannot let her sit alone beside him. he cannot live the rest of his life married to a woman he does not know, who does not know him, and even if he doubts by now that they’ll ever have any sort of love affair, he at least wants her friendship, some amount of trust, something to let him reach out to her and not find her withdrawing.  
they're sitting in their quarters together one evening, not speaking. anora has a book open, perhaps a history text. alistair fidgets mostly


finally he gets up and walks to where she's sitting. she goes tense at each footstep on the floor and he cracks her a soft half smile, impossibly charming, nearly disarming, and earnest, always so earnest


"my lady i...am no master of words & i have no idea which you need but... whatever hurts lay between us, give me a chance to help heal them"


her walls come down slowly but alistair is gentle and patient & he respects her so much, defers to her in court affairs & personal ones both 
alistair never wanted any of this, but the moment he was set out for it he put in his all, and never looked back. he's young and a fool, but he's infinitely earnest, tenacious in his own way, kind and soft and warm and he never pushes anora where she does not want to go. it's a strange courtship, married first, then a slow, cautious building of trust, closeness, partnership, and unexpectedly, true affection


where one ends the other begins, a perfect balancing act, but beyond their differences, the things that set them to distance at first, they find they're on firm and common ground, with both their hearts rooted deep in ferelden, and its people. their people.


slowly she opens up to him, and he to her, they've both been hurt, both suffered losses of many kinds, and love is hard and unlikely, yet, when anora lets him touch her, his hands are gentle, cautious, like everything about him. he watches her eyes for warnings, moves slowly.

he touches her reverently, carefully, and lets her call all the shots, asks her always for what she wants, needs, feels safe with, and she does, she realizes after a time, she feels very safe with him, knowing he’s there, unfaltering, undemanding, loyal and careful and steadfast to her and to his duties, neither of which he ever asked for, but both of which he embraces as he can, careful not to hold more tightly than they ask of him at any moment, and she comes to realize he is not only gentle - he’s also shy.

she returns the favour he paid her in not asking for so long what cailan did to her that made her shrink away from alistair’s slightest touches, by not asking him why he is so uncertain. they both know, without asking, perhaps, the reasons why. she thinks he can see that she was mistreated, and he knows she can tell he lacks experience, both in ruling and in love.


they kiss, the first time since their wedding day when they're 4 months married, a week after they begin sharing their bed (to sleep only) 
anora finds she likes falling asleep with alistair beside her. he feels warm, and safe, his arms encircling her, but not too tightly.


things build more quickly after they first kiss. there's more kisses, and she let's him know she no longer minds any wandering hands. he still always asks, though, always gentle, the question is always there somehow, if not with words still somehow, just to be sure, he is so careful to never hurt her. she easily takes charge, eases him of that burden of command and that risk of hurt, places his hands where they fit the contours of her body, guides his mouth to hers, reassures him as she reassures herself.


and as time passes, they learn to trust each other, to rule together strongly, as equals, to be safe and happy in each others' company, and eventually they realize that somewhere along the line, while they were lost in it all, not paying attention, they've also learned love.


alistair has the palace gardeners plant her favourite flowers in the gardens under their bedroom window. they constantly touch in public, hands held in hallways and legs brushing under tables in dining halls and anora leaning her head against alistair’s shoulder, both sharing the massive king’s throne in their court after a long day of judgements, made together.

they spend hours talking into the night about everything and find they delight in even things they once found no interest in at all, simply to hear the other talk of it, just their voice, their thoughtfullness, their enthusiasm, that kindles interest plenty. they're happy.


i could go on.... forever........ i should really just maybe write fics instead of all these weird twitter fic headcanon dumb things lmao

as far as alistair and anora like i started out just being like they’re a great balance to rule and diplomacy and etc and alistair could not rule that kingdom on his own so he’d need a good queen like for real poor kid is right he’s not a good leader he doesn’t have leader sense but he does have charisma and that’s important too and together they’d be unstoppable but i also just i’m a huge fuckin sucker for the like. political or arranged marriage that leads to them falling for each other totally unexpected and almost in spite of themselves like they go into it being like “this is going to be distant and lousy and we’re going to just deal with it and like probably have affairs? ugh” but then they wind up just like charmed by each other and. accidentally falling for each other. and realizing after being married for a year or two that they’re madly in love with each other and they have to awkwardly stumble through courtship all that time AFTER they’re married and that’s so cute it’s so delightful and i actually.

alistair could use a strong hand but a caring and thoughtful one and anora is fierce but she’s got a pretty good sense of what is right and what isn’t and she believes in what’s right for her people and she sees them as real people and really as her people and she’s caring and loving and forgiving under that steel, meanwhile alistair is like kind of the opposite?