Two years. Two years she has been gone, from court, from social grace, from the living breath of the sky, and it has been a long road back through mud and murk, along roads that have left her weary in more than just body. When she forces the doors of the great hall, with the guards hovering at her back, the knockers clang in their rivets, wood booms against stone, and she stands there, framed by the light in gore-stained travelling clothes.
The chatter of Ferelden’s nobility falls away.
On the far dais, King Alistair turns, his genial smile frozen on half-formed words. He forgets to breathe. One step, then two, stumbling – he wobbles on disbelieving limbs – but she’s here, past the point of almost all hope he had of seeing her again.
Straight-backed, head high, she comes to him, grit and steel and the stately determination that let her face down an archdemon and live, each solid plant of her foot a defiance to the blisters and the bruises. She’s here, she made it back, she will never be parted from this soil again.
Nobody quite sees the moment their self-control breaks. Steps become strides become running into each other’s arms. They grip so tight, Alistair lifting her armour and all clean off the ground, her sword still buckled and swinging round to slap the back of her knees as she buries her face into his neck and whispers words for him alone. What care they for the startled disapproval of their onlookers, for courtly propriety? She has been gone so long, and loneliness has gnawed at both of them like ice at a mountain.
You cut your hair.
I think I like the beard.
A thumb brushing away tears down a cheek. A palm searching for a heartbeat under layers of cloth. A forehead touch, knowing they will never be lost again.
Mayerine 