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She looks at him, her mouth opening and closing but unable to form words.
After all they've been through. After all they've been. She even had the bloody crown.
And now something inside her is collapsing, silently and slowly, and she can't... she can't breathe...
She thought nothing of it when Eamon so desperately protested against her taking the throne, or of Morrigan's words the night of the ritual.
"He has no thought for consequences, no inkling of what is to come. He thinks love is enough." The witch scoffed, then looked at her, golden eyes dark even in the firelight. "He is already to rule this unfortunate land. Do not let him rule you." And there was sympathy in the woman's eyes, for one silent moment, almost as if she knew what was to come.
Even his own words, about how it'd be hard, perhaps even impossible, to conceive, if they were both Wardens...
She laughed. She laughed. Told him they would try, and try plenty, with a smile worthy of Zevran.
And oh, she would have held to her word. They were so ready to try, sitting late at night in the library and flicking through the books of names, trying them in their minds and on their tongues. Smiling despite their uncertainty, his hand resting on her shoulder as if it was designed to. His fair hair, they decided, and the green eyes of hers he had complimented so much during the Blight. It couldn't be that hard, surely. They knew of all the necessary... mechanics.
But there was always one more week, one more month, just until things were settled, there was still corruption, all this business with Kirkwall's knight commander and the Circle there...
It crossed her mind, briefly, that he might be stalling. But she dismissed it, easily and quickly. He didn't lie to her. He never lied to her, he wasn't good at lying the way she was. It was as he said it was, the unrest and the Blight's remains and the...
Always another excuse. She wonders what Eamon whispered in his ear to make him pause, what arguments they used, which women they appraised together. Whether they laughed at her, the foolish wench who thought herself a queen.
She is certain they did. Oh, they forget she is a Cousland down to her bones; she has seen more of politics, far more, than he.
The words are vague, almost unreal to her, floating in the air between them; she can stay in the palace, or go down to Amaranthine, he doesn't mind, but he'd like to keep her around, if possible.
Rage rises in her, fast and boiling. As something on the side? As some pity post, some "ambassador of the Wardens"?
He watches her with sorrowful eyes, as if this is far more painful to him than her. It twists the knife further, even further than she had thought possible.
She wants to hit him, to scream at him, because he hadn't even told her. No warning, all those nights in the royal bedchamber. No warning, the day that wonderful weight of gold had been laid upon her head and he'd held her hand for the nation.
Instead, she fights it, lays a hand upon his cheek, and tells him quietly, "I understand. I will always understand, love." The emphasis on the last word is calculated and deliberate, and she sees something in his face flicker. Good. "I... need some time. Please."
He nods, looking at the floor because he can't bear to meet her eye (as usual, something deep and sour in her that she doesn't mean whispers, such a coward, she even had to push him onto the throne herself), and murmurs to the elaborately embroidered rug, "I'm sorry. I'm so, so, sorry." His exit, as his entrance was, is quiet, without ceremony, and she watches him go, feeling something bitter and barbed grow inside her.
She waits until his footsteps have left the corridor to break, to let the tears fall. No, she won't give him this, the sight of her vulnerable. He can no longer offer her any comfort, and he is a stranger to her now. Or, even worse, perhaps he can, and she'll let him in again.
The Queen of Ferelden sobs - loud, hiccuping, wrenching cries without dignity - into her pillow.
It takes her a few minutes to pull herself together, the dark, twisting emptiness seeming to grow inside her. She can't let it, she decides, and it will if she has to see him, his lovely new bride. She can't lose control, give in to the pain and the despair. She remembers the night after Howe's men...
After she lost everything.
She does what she wanted to do then, because she is no longer important, no longer has half the weight of a country upon her shoulders.
The simple chainmail. The cloak. The daggers and the clothes she'll need. The small, carefully handkerchief-wrapped parcel that she can't bear to open for fear it will make her stop, think, give in to him; she is appalled at herself for taking it. Food from the kitchens, for herself and Steed, that the servants are happy to give her - at her quizzical looks, she just mouths, "He's hungry."
It never used to be a lie, after all, the two of them sneaking down to the kitchens and grabbing all the food they could in the middle of the night. Damn Grey Warden appetite.
The thought hurts, the thorns pricking into her heart growing, and she pushes it away, smiles at them, and leaves.
Steed, named after her first horse (it perished in the blaze along with her parents, she remembers suddenly, and the ache of it has her fighting back tears she thought she had shed long ago), whinnies softly as she saddles him, climbs quickly onto him. She hushes him, stroking his muzzle, pulls up her hood against the rain, and sets him at a walk, glancing back at what was once her home, the place she thought she'd grow old with...
Her eyes stray to the window that used to be theirs automatically; when they first arrived, she spent a long time counting, just to work out which was the royal bedchamber. One of her strange little habits, he called it. She pointed at it, voice embarrassingly loud as she announced that she'd finally found it. He laughed, took her hand in his own and kissed it; then he suggested, voice low and wry in her ear, that they make use of the room.
It hits her like a stab in the heart, nearly knocking the breath out of her.
He was Alistair long before he was king, and even after this, she still loves him.
It's what's making this sharp, dark thing grow in her chest, what's making the memories come and her eyes water. What made her take... it with her. The flower burns a hole in her pack, soft and harmless as it is. He can toss her aside, but it won't be so easy for her.
She wonders where she should go, if there is anywhere for her now.
The Keep? No, more responsibility, and the Order that was always his rather than hers. Pitying looks and whispers in the corridors.
Fergus? Part of her wants to, cries out for family, and she knows he'd try. He will always try. To be the big brother, and comfort her, and diplomatically avoid the subject. But she knows him too well for it to fool her, and it would still be somewhere everyone knows her name.
Anywhere and nowhere, she decides, a smile beginning to twist her lips. Ride, walk, crawl until she has to stop. Somewhere no-one knows her name.
She has already shed the crown. Now she sheds the Cousland name with a thought, feeling it fall away, ignoring the memories biting at her heels. Silently, anonymously, she rides on, the small, fragile plant in her pack the only reminder of a life ended before its time.