torch, flambeau@strangeplaces.net
February 2019
Disclaimer: these made-up characters are not, in fact, wearing make-up. Do not archive without permission.
a finger's worth
"But why do I have to share a tent with Zevran?"
"Because there's snow in the air," Lyna said, "and I don't want my companions to lose toes because some Andraste-obsessed arlessa thinks I have to find a pot of ashes up here."
"But why do I have to share a tent wth Zevran?"
Lyna glared. She was good at glaring. "Alistair, don't whine. Do you see me whining because I have to share a tent with Morrigan?"
"You like Morrigan," he pointed out.
She put a hand in the middle of his chest and pushed. Lyna Mahariel could move mountains if she put her mind to it. Alistair was no mountain; he went where she wanted.
Crawling into the tent, he was met with a sorrowful look. "And here I thought you wanted to share a tent with me because you like me and feel concerned about my welfare. For shame, Alistair! I am saddened and disillusioned."
"No, you're not," Alistair said without thinking. "You were never illusioned to start with. Wait, is that a word? Illusioned? It sounds weird." Then he did think. "You mean you could hear that?"
"Let me give you a professional tip," Zevran said, "speaking as an assassin with a long and successful career." Alistair opened his mouth, then closed it again, because it wasn't worth it. "Tent walls are a gift to eavesdroppers. People talk next to them as if sound is blocked by a piece of canvas the way it would be by bricks and mortar, and that is truly not the case. Also, you can stab people through them."
"Oh." Alistair tried to find a good way to dispose of himself in the small amount of space available to him. "Don't say that to Lyna. She'll start shooting people through tents and practice on us."
"I'm sure our fair warden already knows the most efficient ways to put an arrow through someone." Zevran adjusted his blankets, raising one edge. "Come, let us cosy up for the night."
Alistair spluttered. "I'm not going to cosy up with you! It's bad enough that we have to share a tent." He tried to make himself as small as possible, lying only on his side of the tent. Zevran's nest of blankets did not look inviting at all.
"Fereldan men, I swear," Zevran said. "Very well, if you don't wish for us to lie entwined together, our arms around each other, sharing breath--" Alistair spluttered some more. "--then we can at least sleep back to back in a manly, not at all suggestive fashion, and stay warm that way. Perhaps a brute-force warrior such as yourself would not miss a finger or two, but I assure you I would feel the loss keenly."
Alistair huffed, because he would definitely miss a finger, or a toe, come to that. He liked all his body parts right where they were. Then he huffed again -- more of a deep sigh, really. Other people presumably felt the same way, and Zevran was smaller and thinner than he was, besides. Not a whole lot, but maybe a finger's worth.
"Back to back," he said grudgingly. "And don't try to entwine anything." He wouldn't like that. At all.
"I shall be as rigid as a golem," Zevran said. "And speaking of things that are large and rigid--"
"Shut up." Alistair put his own blanket on top of Zevran's blankets and edged in underneath, back first. "I mean it."
"I only meant to say that our golem friend will be standing watch." Zevran's voice dripped with fake innocence, which Alistair imagined as a gelatinous and unpleasant substance, like old boot-polishing grease. "So there is nothing for you to worry about."
"I can think of plenty of things to worry about." The warmth was nice, though. Zevran had turned over, too, and now they were pressed together from shoulders to buttocks, with their legs in somewhat looser connection. "We're heading up into the Frostbacks on the word of a woman who has despised me since she met me. I think Lady Isolde would be happy if I froze to death."
"My poor Alistair." Zevran sounded about half as if he meant it and half as if he was mocking Alistair's very existence. As usual, then. "But she wants her husband to live, and surely her feelings about your continued existence are not stronger than that." Alistair could feel his shoulderblades move when he spoke. "Or so I hope. I would be very put out if I were sent to my cold and miserable death on account of you."
"I thought assassins accepted that death was inevitable," Alistair said. "None of you expect to live to an old age, and all that. You're fearless in the face of death and spit in its eye. Does death even have eyes?"
Zevran's breathing hitched ever so slightly, but he didn't laugh. "A very important question, I'm sure. The point I was trying to make was that I would rather face death on my own merits than as collateral to your feud with the arlessa."
"It's not a feud." Alistair cautiously straightened one leg. "I mean, I'm not feuding, unless you count that one time when I was seven and I put a pebble in one of her shoes. And, wait a minute, that doesn't make sense. Don't assassins always operate on someone else's behalf? You face death because you're sent to murder Lord Fancyname, not because you're so unique and special."
"Yes, that is true," Zevran said, though he somehow managed to make it sound as though it wasn't. "We are mere tools for other people's murderous instincts."
"Rich people. I'm guessing poor people can't afford to have anyone assassinated."
"No, not really. Assassination is something of an all-or-nothing proposition, you understand. The Crows do not have lower rates for merely making someone a little uncomfortable."
"Too bad," Alistair said cheerfully, "you're so good at it."
"All natural talent," Zevran assured him.
Alistair even more cautiously straightened his other leg. "Maybe there could be a sliding scale, from putting salt in someone's tea to slitting their throat."
"Mm, I don't think so." Zevran sounded as though he was considering the idea, though. "Would the Crows be feared and respected, would there be the same dark glamour about being an assassin, if Crows went around putting salt in people's tea?"
"Oh, I don't know," Alistair said, warming to the idea. "They'd know they could just as easily have been poisoned. It'd work as a warning, I bet."
"Yes? And then they'd mend their ways, would they?"
"No, then they'd hire more Crows to go put salt in the other people's tea. You'd get more money out of it, too." Alistair felt quite taken with his own brilliance. "I mean, once you kill someone, that's the end of things. No one's going to pay you for killing him a second time. But this way, you could get years of tea salt payments first."
"I can see that you have put a great deal of thought into this. I look forward to hearing all about the success of your new organization."
"You're making fun of me," Alistair grumbled. There was an uneven bit of ground just under his hip. He started to shift away from it. "You know perfectly well that I won't start a tea salt organization." Then he had to grab the edge of the blanket to keep it from slipping.
"It does seem as if you have more important and urgent matters to deal with, but perhaps if you-- Alistair, for the love of the Maker," Zevran said in sudden impatience, "do stop squirming."
"I'm not squirming," Alistair said. He tried to move just a tiny bit forward. "There's something under my--"
Zevran somehow twisted around in place and clamped an arm around Alistair's waist, pinning him where he was. "Stop moving and shifting the blankets. You are letting the cold air in. And if you cannot hold still because you have lice, I am going to regret this."
"I don't have lice. There's something under my hip, I told you," Alistair said petulantly. "A rock or a root or something. And you're breathing on the back of my neck." Not that that was entirely unpleasant.
"Yes, you can put salt in my tea tomorrow as revenge."
This position was even warmer, Alistair had to admit; they fit together very nicely, and the blankets tucked better. But he still had that uncomfortable spot under his hip. He squirmed a little, experimentally. Zevran clamped harder. Alistair could get himself free, of course he could, but the necessary wrestling would probably upset the tent.
Upsetting the tent would mean upsetting Lyna, and the idea of an upset Lyna Mahariel dragged away from her chosen spot with Morrigan to deal with Alistair and Zevran was enough to make Alistair lie very, very still.
He wondered if this counted as lying entwined together. Maybe what Zevran was doing counted as twining, in which case Alistair was the one getting twined on. Did that make him a trellis? It wasn't how he would have chosen to spend the night, but there were definite advantages to being warm. Like, um, being warm. The more he was warm, the more he realized how in favor of being warm he was. He still wanted to move away from the probably-a-rock lump in the ground, but that would also mean moving away from Zevran, and then he'd be colder.
Alistair settled on saying, "I'll tell everyone it's your fault that I'm limping tomorrow."
"Oh, yes," Zevran said with great cordiality. "You should definitely do that."
Alistair jerked an elbow back into Zevran's side, but not hard enough to actually push Zevran away. "That's not-- No one will think that!"
"No one will think what?"
"What you're trying to imply they'd be thinking!" Alistair scowled down at Zevran's hand and arm, since that was the only part of Zevran he could see.
"No, probably not." Zevran had that light, matter-of-fact tone that Alistair could never work out whether it meant mockery or not. "They know you, after all."
"That should be a good thing," Alistair said. "Right? They'll know I'm not the kind of person who says that kind of thing and means that kind of thing." He decided to just ask. "But I can't tell if you mean it's a good thing, or if you're just making fun of me again."
"No, Alistair." Zevran's voice was both resigned and fond now. "You're right, it is a good thing, this forceful innocence of yours. I would not dream of trying to corrupt it." Then he was back to sounding like the old Zevran again. "At least not tonight."
That was definitely a Zevran-normal thing to say, and he should be used to that by now. Alistair tucked a hand under his cheek and felt the heat there. One advantage of this position was that Zevran couldn't see him turning pink. "Good. I don't want to have to move."
"And here I thought you did want to move, to get away from this mythical rock in the ground under your hip."
"It's not mythical!" Alistair scowled some more. One disadvantage of this position was that Zevran couldn't see him glare.
"This rock of mythical proportions, I meant to say." Zevran moved back, and before Alistair could complain about the sudden absence of heat along his spine, he was tugged backwards, too. Not far, but far enough to make a difference to his hip. "There, my fussy prince. Is that better?"
Taken by surprise, Alistair protested without thinking. "I'm not a prince!"
"Fussy bastard, then," Zevran said obligingly. "But that has rather a different ring to it."
Alistair sighed. He'd told Lyna about his parentage in confidence.
On the other hand, Zevran's actions were a small kindness, even if his words were annoying. Alistair patted the arm wrapped around his waist. "Yes, it's better. Thank you. But really, I'm not a prince."
"Ah, but you are a prince," Zevran said. "A fussy bastard prince, but still a prince."
"No," Alistair said helplessly. Now he didn't feel so comfortable anymore. The rock under his hip had been better.
"You don't think it makes for a better career opportunity than being a salt-dispensing assassin?"
"It hasn't so far." Alistair really didn't want to talk about it. "Not that I've ever been a salt-dispensing assassin, so I can't really make a good comparison. Maybe I really should start that organization."
"I thought you were content being a Grey Warden," Zevran said. "About being a bastard prince, of course, you do not really have a choice, as such."
"I wish people would stop harping on it," Alistair said sulkily. He meant to change the subject, and instead he found himself saying, "Are you only cuddling up to me because I'm a prince?"
Zevran chuckled, and it sounded like one of his genuine chuckles, not a mockery. "Most certainly not. I am cuddling up to you, as you put it, because you are warm, and because you have not objected." He paused for a moment. "Do you wish for us to go back to our previous positions? It is entirely up to you, my prince."
"Call me that one more time and I'll make you sleep outside the tent," Alistair said.
"And if I don't call you that again?" Zevran inquired sweetly.
"We both get to stay warm?" It wasn't as if Alistair got nothing out of this. Being warm was great, keeping Zevran warm was a bonus, which carried the additional bonus of doing what Lyna had asked. Those were very clear and obvious reasons.
"Hmm, yes, true. Though it really is unfair, the way you constantly speak to my baser nature."
Alistair decided not to overinterpret that. "Everything speaks to your-- No, you know what, I'm not going to go there. Let's just sleep."
"I know you are not going to go there," Zevran said. "It is a constant sorrow to me."
Alistair stared blankly at the sloping canvas of the tent wall in front of him, lit by the last glow of the campfire outside. He could probably pretend to misunderstand that, too. He could.
"I'm starting to think I should have kept on refusing to share a tent with you, even if it upset Lyna."
"Ah, I have made you uncomfortable." Zevran's voice was light and unconcerned again. "I do apologize." He pulled his arm back and turned himself around again, settling back to back with Alistair again. "I trust this is better."
Well.
Alistair held onto the edge of the blanket and turned over himself, not as fast and definitely not as gracefully, but he took care not to let any cold air in. While he still had momentum that could pass for bravery, he put his arm over Zevran, though it wasn't anything like the firm way Zevran had gripped him.
"No," he said, got a mouthful of Zevran's hair, and tried to blow it away from his face before it could choke up all his casual words. "That wasn't better. Can we sleep now?"
He could feel the surprise in Zevran's body. Surprise, and something else.
"I am not sure I can ever sleep again. Alistair, do you--"
"I don't want to talk about it," Alistair said with the taste of desperation in his mouth. Desperation apparently tasted like the soap Zevran used on his hair. "Sleep."
"Just as a point of curiosity," and Zevran started out slowly but then the tone of his voice grew into a sort of polite delight, "do you not want to talk about it more or less than you do not want to talk about the prince thing?"
"I hate you," Alistair muttered, tightening his arm. He should have gone against Lyna's wishes and slept alone and let the toes and fingers fall where they may. At least that way he wouldn't be lying here with his mouth full of hair, unsure of what he'd really said and making ill-advised gestures that he couldn't take back. That he didn't really want to take back.
Zevran relented. "I suppose that is a problem for another day. Good night, my prince." Alistair made a growling noise. "Alistair."