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what if we kissed and we were both wardens
[For what feels like ages now, Carver has been fervently complaining that This is worse than Ostagar. He remembers fundamentally little of it after the darkspawn column overwhelmed the king's forces, only a lot of screaming and then feeling sure he would die and then coming back to himself with some horrible taste in his mouth, but: the comparison remains.
He makes the comment a lot. Most often as a joke, when they're camped out in the Deep Roads and trying to make pillows out of their own armor, no matter how many times he's told to shut up already and go to sleep. They're Wardens, he will insist: what else do they have to make light of besides their own terrible lot in life? He will keep making the Ostagar joke, especially over armor pillows.
And then, Amaranthine, as it turns out? A city under siege, and the group of them torn between it and the Keep?
Karmically, probably, it really is worse than Ostagar. To spare the town its wretched fate, to face the darkspawn one last time, to look up at the grotesque mass of the Mother and think only of the faces of the others, left behind to defend the Keep— well, fuck. It's such a horrible problem, to have friends and to care about them. He could kill darkspawn purely because darkspawn need to be killed; it's doing it for some annoying fellow Wardens and their stupid cats back at the Keep that's really so much worse than every other darkspawn battle before. He remembers with startling clarity all at once the terror, wondering what the hordes would do his family, and as he lifts his sword in the depths of the darkspawn nests one last time he has no time to be privately embarrassed that these asshole Wardens here and back at the Keep have become his family, too—
Carver makes it through Amaranthine, and through the Mother (shudder), and he's surly and a touch bloodied over it, but he's made it through. Returning to the Keep- what's left of it- is a fresh jolt of fear (annoying), barely offset by the trickle of survivors that come up to cheer their glorious return.
He doesn't manage to make the joke again. About Ostagar. It's there on the tip of his tongue, It was no Ostagar, don't mother me— it doesn't come. The Keep is a shambles, and despite himself he feels none of the glory and all of the hollow pit of worry in his stomach, that it's just the rank and file soldiers crawling out of the wreckage to greet them and not— mmph.
Stupid. He could just ask someone where Anders is; he doesn't.
He wants to lie face down in his own bed (is it even still there?) and not get up for a week.
He goes to look for Anders, but also definitely not for Anders, just for— someone. With drinks, and if he happens to head for the drinks because he heard the annoying mage turned out to be a real hero as he passed a different soldier, that's unrelated.
He finds Anders soundly losing at a drinking contest, which is so damned ordinary after the rest of this day that Carver is almost at a total loss for words. Almost. He stomps up behind Anders and pulls on his shoulder, hello, don't wobble straight to the ground. He says, instead of anything that might suggest relief that they are both still alive and in one piece,]
Where's your cat?
[where is the little monster, is it okay. not that he cares.]
He makes the comment a lot. Most often as a joke, when they're camped out in the Deep Roads and trying to make pillows out of their own armor, no matter how many times he's told to shut up already and go to sleep. They're Wardens, he will insist: what else do they have to make light of besides their own terrible lot in life? He will keep making the Ostagar joke, especially over armor pillows.
And then, Amaranthine, as it turns out? A city under siege, and the group of them torn between it and the Keep?
Karmically, probably, it really is worse than Ostagar. To spare the town its wretched fate, to face the darkspawn one last time, to look up at the grotesque mass of the Mother and think only of the faces of the others, left behind to defend the Keep— well, fuck. It's such a horrible problem, to have friends and to care about them. He could kill darkspawn purely because darkspawn need to be killed; it's doing it for some annoying fellow Wardens and their stupid cats back at the Keep that's really so much worse than every other darkspawn battle before. He remembers with startling clarity all at once the terror, wondering what the hordes would do his family, and as he lifts his sword in the depths of the darkspawn nests one last time he has no time to be privately embarrassed that these asshole Wardens here and back at the Keep have become his family, too—
Carver makes it through Amaranthine, and through the Mother (shudder), and he's surly and a touch bloodied over it, but he's made it through. Returning to the Keep- what's left of it- is a fresh jolt of fear (annoying), barely offset by the trickle of survivors that come up to cheer their glorious return.
He doesn't manage to make the joke again. About Ostagar. It's there on the tip of his tongue, It was no Ostagar, don't mother me— it doesn't come. The Keep is a shambles, and despite himself he feels none of the glory and all of the hollow pit of worry in his stomach, that it's just the rank and file soldiers crawling out of the wreckage to greet them and not— mmph.
Stupid. He could just ask someone where Anders is; he doesn't.
He wants to lie face down in his own bed (is it even still there?) and not get up for a week.
He goes to look for Anders, but also definitely not for Anders, just for— someone. With drinks, and if he happens to head for the drinks because he heard the annoying mage turned out to be a real hero as he passed a different soldier, that's unrelated.
He finds Anders soundly losing at a drinking contest, which is so damned ordinary after the rest of this day that Carver is almost at a total loss for words. Almost. He stomps up behind Anders and pulls on his shoulder, hello, don't wobble straight to the ground. He says, instead of anything that might suggest relief that they are both still alive and in one piece,]
Where's your cat?
[where is the little monster, is it okay. not that he cares.]