#embitteredking

        Living in an actual place, one actual sedentary place is strange. Living in a royal castle is frankly even stranger. Like, just about the strangest thing that had ever happened to her and nothing she ever could have imagined actually happening. She’d had no idea that the ridiculously armored man she’d sassed in Kirkwall was, in fact, the King of Ferelden. She’d been able to tell he was rich of course, that had been the reason she’d talked to him in the first place. It was always good to snag up rich foreigners patronage before any other intel or messenger could and Averill was especially good at charming herself into people’s pockets.

        The nobleman, Alistair she learns, is good to talk to, he has a wit that’s easy to bounce off of. He enjoys her self-deprecating humor and even has quite a bit of his own to match. She finds herself quickly coming to admit that he’s probably one of the best clients she’s ever worked for. He’s kind and he actually pays her what he says, and when he makes fun of her it’s teasing things about harmless things, not jabs at her to establish him as her better. She’s glad she snagged him first and is more than a bit surprised when he offers to return the favor.

        When he finally told her he was heading back to Ferelden she didn’t expect to be offered a real job, either. A job as a page, a proper page, one with real tutors to teach her to read and write, and a real room to sleep in—even if she just sneaks into the stables at night to sleep because beds bring back memories of waking up to burning sheets and a shattered family. Not only that but she’s the royal page, the king’s page, because he values her code and her secrecy.

        Also, apparently he thinks the reactions from nobles who would have done anything to have their youngest sons fostered as a royal page getting to see that the job is firmly in the hands of a grubby free marcher gutter rat is supremely entertaining. After the first few times she can’t say she disagrees, she’s never seen men who’s faces can turn such interesting shades of purple.

        Then the whispers come that she is his bastard—Well he, since everyone is under the impression that she’s a boy and Averill doesn’t see the need to correct them, and really doesn’t understand the implications that being mistaken for a bastard imply until one day she wakes up in the stables with a knife to her throat. She was aware there are people unhappy with her position and she curses her new, cushy lifestyle for making her so off guard.

        The kidnapper, it scares her how grateful she is that they aren’t an assassin, drags her out of the palace grounds with arms bound, a gag in her mouth, and a knife pressed harder than necessary into her gut. This isn’t her first rodeo however and she’s smart enough to grab a fistful of hay. She prays to the Maker that this man is dumb enough that he doesn’t notice her trail.

        They hide out in the slums of Denerim, but apparently Denerim isn’t quite the hell hole that Kirkwall is because when someone spots them they’re actually alarmed and call for guards. This actually shakes Averill a bit more than the kidnapping itself, in Kirkwall she knows for a fact people would have turned a blind eye to a street rat being hauled away to a grisly fate. However, Averill suddenly realizes she isn’t really a street rat anymore, she wears fine clothes and is well kept in a way that calls to the world that she is cared for.

        Averill, for the first time in her life, looks like something of value. Like she is someone of value, a person to be missed and not a thing to be ignored. She isn’t sure when she starts crying exactly but it’s a loud, obnoxious noise. No, pride saving silent tears for her, just loud, wrenching sobs because she doesn’t want to get taken away. She has a place where at least one person really cares about her and she wants to go back.

        Even through her gag her cries are loud and attention catching and she hears the kidnapper hiss threats to silence her but she just can’t. The floodgates of so many years of pain and loneliness have been opened and Averill is in no mental state to shut them. A bag is shoved roughly over her head, muffling the noises somewhat but only causing Averill to panic further. It’s now that she feels magic sing in her veins, laced with panic and fire but before it reaches the point of no return she hears her captive release a wet, guttural noise followed by a thud.

        For once in her life Averill is grateful to be so small because when to bag is gently pulled from her head she finds that she is just the right size to be picked up and cradled like a child of a much younger age, by the very King of Ferelden himself. A man who now mumbles hushed assurances to her as he unties her bindings and carefully keeps her angled away from the bloody mess that was her kidnapper, who is now sporting a fashionable sword in throat look.

        “I wan’ t’ go home.” Is the first thing that comes out of her mouth once she is done sobbing and for a moment Alistair freezes, because he is scared that she doesn’t just mean the palace. That she means Kirkwall and for all that he cares about her he can’t take her back to that place, because he cares for her he can’t take her back.

        Thankfully, though he won’t admit it now, she only goes on to promise to never sleep in the stables and to stop evading the guards he sends to watch her and so many other promises he’s sure she’ll break when she isn’t so terrified. He knows he’ll forgive her when it happens, too. Eamon is probably fuming that he went to chase after Averill himself instead of staying safely in the castle and leaving it to the city guards. Maybe Eamon’s right when he says this little brat brings out something soft in him, though he thinks it with much kinder connotations than Eamon. The king’s arms only tighten around his charge as he moves to return to the castle,

You first, 'Raised By Dogs.'

[ What part of that was okay? Now I have to respond, if that’s okay. ]

Alistair's weight was much easier for Reinier to bear than he'd anticipated, especially since he'd done the complicated task of shedding the King of his armor and arms. It made sense, at least, that the taint was going to affect him more heavily, and sooner--he'd been a Grey Warden longer, after all. 

"That won't do, your majesty," Reinier teased, as he found a good place to rest the bloody and battered and dying warrior. He at least deserved to die comfortable. "You rest. Find a good dream and stay in it." 

Acting on a final impulse, Reinier leaned down and gave Alistair a kiss, without explanation. He could spend his final waking moments dwelling on something much more pleasant than the pain of the taint, at least. Some of the silver that had long since begun to streak through the red of Reinier's hair barely tickled at Alistair's cheek when he pulled away.