Love's Blush

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  He almost ran flat out at the King, but managed to pause just before Alistair. They stood so close, he could reach out and kiss the kid, who suddenly realized that fact and scampered back. Reiss moved towards him, a hand on her hilt, but the kid shouted out, "Sire, I come bearing news."

  "I'd hoped it was that and not that a trio of bears were chasing you through the palace. What is it? Maker's breath, Harding didn't already get the assassins did, she?" Alistair honed in on the kid who felt a dozen very interested eyes drilling into him.

  "Assassins? No my Lord, I know nothing about any assassins. I...Sire, your Highness."

  "Yes, yes," Alistair rolled his hand through all the ways people could not say his name. "What is it?"

  "It's the Grand Enchanter," the kid spat out.

  "Oh," Alistair's interest fell off a cliff and he wanted to slump back into his chair in a sulk. Instead, he picked at the arm, "Let me guess, she sent another letter admonishing me for sending her little 'let's kill the Queen' mage back home." He'd received a good dozen and ignored them all. Eamon glared at Alistair's interpretation of the events, but didn't yell at him. Maybe even he was getting tired of the mage's power games.

  "Ah," the messenger's eyes glanced around at the room before landing back on the King, "No, my Lord. She's here."

  "What?!" Alistair whipped back around and he grabbed onto the man's lapels. Hauling him up to his face, he sputtered out, "Here, here? Fiona's here, in Denerim?"

  "She's waiting in the atrium," the poor kid sputtered, his toes scrabbling to reach the ground, but Alistair didn't notice. Here. How could she...? Why would she even...? And Karelle blighted knew she was coming and didn't think to tell him!

  Alistair released the kid to the floor and pounded his fist into his hand. The Chamberlain and he were going to have a few words later. She may think she knows everything about how to control her flippant King but on this matter he would have liked, no he needed some warning. Fiona. Finally in the same room as him. Sweet Maker, what was he going to do?

  "Sire, what should I, uh, do?" the messenger asked, darting back away to keep from being snatched up by the King.

  "I...I have no idea," Alistair admitted. How could she be here? He'd worked through what to say to her, how to talk to her, but it was always while in the bathroom or alone at night. And most of it sputtered into a rage that'd be certain to get him into trouble with the college and all his advisors.

  Eamon was quick to step in, "Send the Grand Enchanter up, but limit her party to only two."

  "No," Alistair interrupted, "Just her. And all of the rest of you, leave us alone."

  "Sire, is that wise?" Eamon turned his surprised and unimpressed face on him. Normally, Alistair backed down at that, but this time he stood up against the man.

  "I mean it, Eamon," Alistair thundered from behind the chair. He clung knuckles tight to it, digging into the flattened padding and ruffling up what had once been a very deep green velvet. Now it looked as if a mold sprouted across the wear spots.

  Eamon blinked a moment before tipping his head, "As his Majesty says. We shall all excuse ourselves for a private meeting. You," he turned to the messenger doing his best to not shit his hose, "go and guide the Grand Enchanter here."

  "Do I have to? She's, I mean, she's one of them," he sputtered.

  "For the love of...!" Alistair roared, his anxiety snapping him like a cheap blade. The shrapnel reverberated through the room, causing nearly everyone to slink back. Glaring at the kid, he shouted, "If you can't do your damn job...Eamon, think you can lead a single mage up here?"

  "Yes Sire, I can," he smiled before turning a curt look upon the man scared of mages, "And we shall have discussions with you later." The messenger only eeped quietly while the Chancellor drug him out on his ear without having to touch the man. That was Eamon's true speciality. One by one, the rest of the people that always surrounded Alistair, who kept the country humming and him somewhat on track slipped through the door. The clerks picked up their books they'd been hard at work on to try and find somewhere else quiet to scribble down whatever they did all day.

  Alistair didn't hear any of it, he couldn't see beyond the white spots picking apart his vision. This was what he wanted, right? Why he kept inviting her to the castle to get answers from her, to learn why she abandoned him. Why she never thought to tell him the truth. Why she let him flounder alone without anyone to care a whit for him.

  "Alistair," a cold hand landed upon his shoulder and he glanced up into Reiss' darkened eyes. They burned with concern as she stared down at his clenched fists. "Are you okay?"

  "I...yes," he tried to throw on a smile, but she frowned at it, "Maybe. I don't know."

  "Are you worried that the Grand Enchanter won't believe you about why you removed Linaya?"

  Shit. What if that was the only reason she really came? Did she even care about the boy she abandoned all those years ago? Think about it? Wonder about him? Maybe she didn't know it was him, thinking there were other bastards kicking around. What were the chances hers wound up on the throne? What would he do if she hadn't thought about him at all?

  "I, I," he clung to her gauntlet, squeezing against the cold metal and wishing that he could throw his arms around her instead.

  "Sire," Eamon's voice boomed from the door, drawing both their attention. Reiss slid away naturally, but it took Alistair until the end of the tether to let go of his rock. "May I present Grand Enchanter Fiona and President in Standing for the Enchanter's College."

  Alistair held his breath while glancing up at the woman who looked so much frailer than he expected. The last time he saw her he wasn't in the happiest of moods having to fight through a horde of evil Tevinter mages only to learn the damn people he was trying to save went and sold themselves into slavery. Not to mention fighting to get back his uncle's castle for the second time in his life. He couldn't remember much of the Grand Enchanter during their quick meeting beyond the accent and dark hair.

  It was greying now, even that elven blood couldn't keep age at bay forever, but her eyes sparkled as she folded her hands against the staff clutched in her grasp. "Your Majesty," she bowed her head to him, the lines on her face aged like a fine sheet of leather delicately folded in the linen cabinet. While time came for her, Fiona wore it well, with a grace that she'd no doubt used to navigate all the politics over the years.

  "My...Ma'am," Reiss stumbled at what to call her while stepping forward, "I shall have to confiscate your staff in the interim while you meet with the King."

  "Whatever for?" she chuckled mirthlessly in that foreign accent. Would he have spoken with it if she'd kept him?

  "For his safety," Reiss said in her stern voice. She called it the 'Getting her brother to eat his damn dinner' one when they were alone.

  Alistair shook his head and waved a hand, "It's all right, Ser Reiss. She can keep it."

  "Ser," Reiss spun around, her eyes honing on him. He focused away from the miles they ran off to to watch her mouth 'Alistair' before continuing, "Are you certain?"

  Summoning the cocky soul he kept hidden away for emergencies, Alistair chuckled, "I highly doubt the leader of the Mages is going to fireball me down in my own home. It wouldn't look so good for the rest of them."

  "Nor would it be polite," Fiona tacked on.

  Reiss looked like she wanted to argue, which was just what he didn't need, but she tucked her hand away and sighed, "As you say, Ser."

  Grateful that she'd given in, Alistair glanced over at her and said, "If you would be so kind as to leave us."

  "I..." her eyes darted over to the woman who stood pointedly in the doorway, seeming to fill it. Fiona was short standing next to Reiss, and no doubt was dwarfed next to Alistair. Somehow that fact didn't do much to comfort him. Reiss focused on him, and he saw the concern that something was clearly wrong wafting across his face but he had no way to explain it, and feared opening his mouth would cause only a great squeak to erupt.

  "Very well, I shall just be on
the other side of the door," Reiss assured him while tugging upon the handle. She was slow to close off his only means of escape, Fiona carefully watching until the click of the latch falling into place broke over the suddenly silent room. What was he supposed to say? Should he be the first to say anything? Alistair began to rock back and forth on his toes and found he'd scurried behind the chair as if it gave him some protection should the mage suddenly turn on him.

  He glanced over the Grand Enchanter, dressed in thinner robes than what he came to expect from the elite of the Circle. It seemed the higher up one moved, the more furs and shiny bits they added to your outfit. Perhaps it was her traveling outfit, or she was dressed in deference to the heat creeping across Ferelden. They were not a people who liked it hot.

  "You don't have a staff blade," Alistair pointed out at random, his mouth moving before his brain through to real it in.

  Fiona didn't need to stare at her own staff to know the truth, "I do not require one as this staff is mostly ceremonial. Shall I be the bigger person and begin this or do we keep waiting in silence?"

  "Bigger...I don't even know why you're here," he scoffed.

  "My intentions were made perfectly clear in the letters I sent. The ones His Highness deemed unworthy of answering," Fiona responded. She was trying to be deferential to him, but there was a venom in there that no doubt had been stewing for months. Too bad for her Alistair had his brewing over decades.

  "Oh, is that so? It only seemed fair given how you never bother to answer the ones I send."

  "I always respond in a timely manner to every missive from the King's estate," she was quick to bite back with.

  Alistair began to nod his head back and forth, that strange concoction of anger and fear bubbling over in his gut. It tasted like gassy iron at the back of his tongue. "Right, uh-huh, they're always those polite 'No, I didn't read this. I made one of my under secretaries write out something noncommittal and stamped it.'"

  "Are you accusing the College of not taking its role with the Ferelden allegiance seriously?" she piped up, clinging to duty like it was a dusty old shield. As if that was the reason she came. Shit? Was that the reason she came?

  "Tell me why you came here and then we'll get to who's not taking what seriously," Alistair tried to do the bardic shuffle a few of his advisors taught him over the years. The trick was to never say anything and always ask a lot of stupid questions. He was a lot better at the latter than the former.

  Fiona seemed to catch onto his ploy and folded her arms up, her long nails clutching tightly to her staff. "You are well aware why my presence is required after you so unceremoniously removed our arcane advisor from your court without even petitioning a single member of the College."

  "I have to ask now if I need to put up with your castoff dregs?" his eyebrows shot up at that idiotic protocol, as if they were all in Orlais or something.

  "She was hand picked..."

  "She was an idiot, barely capable of simple spells, often claiming to have knowledge of things far beyond her," Alistair began to pace behind the chair as all of Linaya's faults fell into his memory. He'd excused a lot of it at the time because he didn't really much care. They didn't need a mage, and if there was someone he was going to turn to for vital magical advice it wouldn't be the woman force-giggling so her chest bounced.

  "The woman was trained by our top instructors, past her Harrowing, accomplished in matters of alchemy, chosen for..."

  "Oh, I figured out why she was chosen," he wasn't listening to her, didn't care, the anger taking hold. It was rare for Alistair to let it stew like this but he needed to get it all out. "She's what, barely twenty five, if that? And seemed to spend all her classes capturing the perfect way to curtsy while scooting backwards. Even I know more about the transmutation of spirits into healing...Flames, I actually do." That caused him to pause, a flutter rising to his stomach from all the mages in his life who'd tried to get Alistair to understand a lick about magic. He never thought any of it took, but, looking back he could see Linaya's sloppy technique so evident that any senior enchanter would have groaned at it.

  Fiona blinked at his realization, her mouth working quickly as she seemed to be weighing through various ways to curse at him without saying them. One of the few perks to the job, he only got called a bastard behind his back. "We did not send the girl here because she is considered unteachable."

  "No?" he began to pace again, needing to feel something under his shoes to distract him from the pins riding up his shins. "I hadn't even considered you were dumping her on us so she didn't accidentally blow up the shiny new College. She made it pretty evident from her first meeting why she thought she was sent packing to Denerim. 'Oh, let me bat my eyelashes at you, your Majesty. I seem to have tripped and require you to carry me, your Highness. Help, half my dress ripped off and I fell into this puddle!'"

  He all but forgot Fiona was in the room, needing to hear himself complain, until she growled, "It was made evident to me what happens to mages that fill the position of arcane advisor in this court, which I took into consideration."

  "Great, that's not..." he was about to call it weird for his mother to pick out a mistress for him, but paused. The word perched upon his tongue, waiting to come flying free, but it wasn't breaking off. Instead he fell back to Linaya. "I don't even care. Maidens can flirt, given enough time she'd probably have found some other knight to turn her overbearing affections upon."

  "Then why remove her? Was it due to her lacking abilities? I didn't realize sitting around in court required a highly trained mage to grow fat on the spoils," Fiona groaned.

  He watched a flash of anger in her eyes and a small report darted into Alistair's head about how much the Grand Enchanter was at odds with a certain other mage who was trying to rebuild the circles in Orlais. A mage that wielded the Orlesian court like a sword. "Didn't Linaya tell you why?" he asked, pausing in his pacing.

  Fiona narrowed her eyes at him and sighed, "Very little, she was inconsolable and in tears for nearly a month."

  A nub of guilt burrowed into the back of Alistair's skull at causing her that much pain, but he shook it off. Folding his arms, he glared at the Grand Enchanter, "She told me that it'd have been better for me if the Queen had died. I suppose freeing up the position for her to fill, as if such a thing were ever possible."

  "What?" that caught her, Fiona's eyes startling open. "No one told me that...are you certain you didn't mishear?"

  "There is comes again. Alistair, you must be imagining things. Alistair, it's all in your head. Alistair, don't be so daft. She means well," he stopped rolling his head around to glare at her, "She knew exactly what she was doing, and what she said. At this point, I don't care if you hate me, if the entire College is going to blackball us. I'd do it again."

  "I have..." Fiona glared down at the floor, her eyes working over it while calculations whirred behind, "I shall have words with the council upon my return about this matter. We were informed differently and had been planning -- it does not matter now." For a moment she faded, the energy that seemed to keep her going vanishing to leave a frail and exhausted woman behind. She flexed her aching hand and watched the papery skin fluttering above creaking bones before the glint returned. The tired lady vanished, leaving the same flint hard woman behind.

  "This entire problem could have been solved if you'd answered a letter yourself instead of leaving the College in the dark." As if deciding the problem was over, Fiona turned, about to grab onto the door's handle.

  "That's it then," Alistair's mouth spoke. "You're just done, going to leave, head back to the coast and never come back here."

  "My business is concluded," she said, frozen to her spot. Officially, she couldn't leave unless the King gave her permission. Fiona glared at the door, her hand hanging an inch from grabbing onto the latch and freeing herself from him, from the son she abandoned and couldn't seem to muster a single care to give for him.

  Steam hissed in his stomach as the anger boiled away
while the fear lodged in his throat, stopping up the words he wanted to spit at her. To curse at her for leaving him to think his whole life that he'd killed his mother, that he was the royal bastard no one loved because he was inconvenient. A mistake, best kicked off to the side until, Maker help them all, he's needed. Oops.

  "You know I know," he mumbled, the fight kicked out of him as he all but whispered the words he'd been wanting to say for two years.

  Fiona snapped up tight, her shoulders locking into place as she spun around on her feet. Why did he always picture his mother as someone with big brown eyes and wearing a cap to hide away her curls? With a warm face and round arms to offer up hugs, thin lips to sing songs and kiss away pains. The exact opposite of the glaring and hard woman standing before him. He wanted Wynne and got Morrigan instead.

  "Whatever you think you know..." she began.

  "It's why you wouldn't attend any summits, even when you were needed, when the College was needed. It's why you avoid all matters that have anything to do with Ferelden. It's why you can't even look at me."

  Fiona snapped up, her eyes for the first time landing upon his instead of drifting to a shoulder or out a window, "That isn't...Whatever reasons you believe you know my motives are false. I am growing old, and intend to step down soon. There is little I can add to any conversation for the sake of the College."

  "Just like that," he tried to shake off the tears building in his eyes as the woman kept dodging every plea he threw out, "you'd turn and leave even now. Even knowing that I...I," Alistair threw his hands up in the air and shouted, "You know what, fine. Go ahead. I get what I can possibly matter, what little mistakes in the past are and how quickly they're forgotten, if they were ever even thought of."

  Fiona surged forward, a finger darting into his face like a scolding nanny, "You know nothing about me, about the sacrifices I've made in my life. The pain I've suffered."

  He stared down her threatening finger to find her eyes and shrugged, "And do you know a damn thing about me."

  "I..." she blinked, her eyelids fluttering as Fiona folded away from him. "It was for the...it is for the, there are matters that move beyond your understanding, beyond any that..." Shaking her head, she began to spin around towards the door. "The past belongs where it lays."