Chapter One Hundred Eighty-Four: *Reluctant Return
We finally separated, scrambling out of the hammock with a lot of giggling and touching and kissing until we were both decent. And then Alistair picked up my parents' journal, wrapped one arm around my waist, and pulled me sideways into the hammock so we could cuddle and swing.
"Want to talk about it?" He lifted the journal and waggled it at me.
I snuggled closer, pressing my face against his chest, soothed by his soft heartbeat beneath my ear. "They visited here a lot." I let out a shaky breath. "Like, almost every year, I think."
He squeezed my shoulders silently and pushed the hammock with one foot until we were swinging again.
"I was...I am...Elissa Cousland." I hadn't said it out loud yet, and it felt strange. "I still want to go by Sierra though. That's okay, right?"
He hummed. "I think you can go by whatever name you please. I'd find it rather strange to start calling you Elissa, I admit."
I swung for a moment, the words I wanted to say stuck somewhere in my chest. "They..." I gestured at the book. "They loved me. They really did. I wasn't abandoned, just...lost." I swallowed thickly.
He held me tighter and kissed my forehead. "And now they're gone. I'm so sorry, love."
Relieved that he understood – that maybe I wasn't totally crazy – I buried my face in his shirt and let the tears flow one more time. Of everyone we knew, I thought Alistair might understand what I was going through the most; his parents had loved him and yet not been around either, and he had only someone else's word for it.
When we get back to Ferelden, I'm going to find someone to track down his mother if it's the last thing I do.
We sat together until suppertime, cuddling and reading each other snippets from the journal. There were a few tears and a lot of laughs, and all of it was bearable with Alistair holding me like he'd never let go. Avanna finally came crashing through the underbrush – extra loudly and slowly, which made Alistair and I both start giggling uproariously – to inform us that if we wanted to meet Aedan and Zevran for dinner, we needed to get moving.
Getting out of the hammock turned out to be harder to do than getting in, when you were sideways; after several near misses with the ground below us, Avanna ended up having to pull me up while Alistair pushed, and it took both Avanna and me working together to get Alistair disentangled. By the time we had smoothed out our clothes and stopped giggling like a couple of teenagers, we were late and didn't have time to change before dinner.
Alistair thwarted any plans I had to try to sneak into the dining room unobtrusively; he yanked the door open with a bang and tromped inside unapologetically, getting a dramatic eye roll from Aedan and a smirk from Zev. In fact, the only one who appeared bothered was Fergus, and he scowled at us as though we'd insulted his mother.
My mother.
I nearly choked on a slightly hysterical laugh and sank down into a chair without a word.
Dinner was strained; I guessed that Aedan and Fergus must have had some sort of argument, because Aedan wasn't speaking to our older brother even more zealously than before, and Fergus kept on throwing little barbs at Aedan whenever he got the chance. Zevran and Alistair tried to keep conversation going, but it was difficult with no one else helping.
You could cut the tension with a knife right now...Awkward!
Finally Aedan had had enough; he stood up, leaving his plate half-finished, kissed my forehead, and left, with Zevran trailing behind him, shooting Alistair and I apologetic looks. Losing my own appetite, I pushed my plate away with a sigh.
"Fergus, can I ask a question?" Alistair used a tone I'd never heard before – authoritative and unforgiving. I decided, especially given the lack of title – despite his position as Prince, he usually deferred to Fergus and called him 'your Grace' – that this was Alistair's 'prince voice'.
He looked down his nose at us, surprised, I assumed, by the familiarity of the address. Alistair took his silence as permission.
"Do you still truly believe my wife is an imposter? Despite the staff here recognising her and the tattoo and the coincidental timing of when Elissa began disappearing?"
Fergus looked at Alistair briefly then turned to me, our gazes connected as though by magnetism. I was afraid to move or even breathe, waiting anxiously for his response. There was a pregnant pause – I almost caught myself counting the seconds – and then without a word, Fergus stood up, turned, and left.
Alistair looked at me once we were alone and shrugged ruefully. "Sorry."
I crawled into his lap and rested my head on his shoulder. "It's okay. I wanted to ask too – I guess now we know." I wasn't surprised – nor was I that upset.
I can't change it; might as well learn to live with it.
Surprisingly, I slept well that night – for the first time since Fergus had suggested coming to Lhanbyrde – and woke early, refreshed and smiling. After an enjoyable romp in the sheets with an adorably sleepy Alistair, I was lying naked on the bed as my husband got up and said he was taking a shower. I saw him reach into a small bag that he kept his personal items in – like his straight razor, comb, and a jar of some sort of hair product – and pull out a small, familiar vial of grey powder. I remembered back to when Zevran first gave him the bottle of contraceptive powder before the first time we slept together in Denerim a lifetime ago. A flashback of my miscarriage a few months prior hit me, and while it was still sad, it didn't devastate me like it once had.
