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There was a knock on Keerla’s door. It was quickly followed by “It’s Alistair!”
“Come in!” Keerla said from behind the room divider. She heard the door swing open, and close again.
“Oh, you’re… you’re not ready.”
“Almost,” Keerla said. “If you don’t mind waiting for me.”
“Oh, no worries, we still have time,” Alistair reassured. She heard him cross the room to sit on the edge of her bed. “They told me the food would be there for a while. It’s not like they would snatch the food away from…from the future…the future King.”
Keerla let out a shuddering breath. “Yeah,” she said in a small voice.
“But anyway, I hope they have these raisin pastries I like!” Alistair's cheerful tone sounded forced. “I know they’re hard to get by, but it seems to me that the Capital should–”
His voice died in his throat. He was onto his feet before he seemed to realise it. Keerla had stepped away from behind the room divider, in a brown tunic and grey trousers, a knife in her hand. For a second, he stood there with his mouth open and eyes wide.
Keerla had always had beautiful hair. Bright red, that she’d tie in a bun every morning, and wash thoroughly every opportunity she had. She didn’t let herself have many luxuries, but her hair was one of them. Whenever she let it down so it could dry, in the nights at camp, Alistair couldn’t tear his eyes away. She knew it caught the fire's light and reflected it like the fancy clothes human nobles wore. And when she grew closer to Alistair, he'd find every excuse to sit next to her at camp, brushing his hand through her washed hair, not-so-discretely breathing in its scent.
But right then, in the bedroom of the Denerim castle, there were no freshly washed curls around Keerla’s face.
Her hair was chopped short, messily, sticking up all around her skull like a halo. The knife in her hand still held a few strands of bright red hair, though they fell to the ground when she turned it in her palm to inspect it.
“There’s this girl, in the alienage,” she said, eyes fixed on the knife. “Her head barely reaches my hip. She slips out of Denerim and into the forest to collect wood, and then she swaps it for food. I don’t… I don’t know her name.”
“What happened?” Alistair breathed.
“Yesterday, when the Darkspawn flooded the alienage, she was there. I think… I think she was running towards someone, on the ground. I saw the Hurlock before she did, I shouted a warning, but it reached her before me and lifted her off the ground.” She shuddered. “I would have had time to save her, you know. I’d have slashed the Hurlock’s legs out from under him. My new daggers are sharp. But I…when I launched forward, an ogre grabbed me. By my hair.” She gestured vaguely at it. “It’s not the first time it’s happened. And by the time I could free myself, the girl was gone.” Keerla wrapped her arms around her tightly, head hung low.
Alistair raised a hand in front of him, as though he wanted to touch her, but it hung in the air. “You can’t blame yourself,” he said in a low voice.
“I know, I’m not, I…” She sighed and finally looked back up at Alistair. “I don’t blame myself. But I can’t let it happen again, not if I can prevent it. I should have done this a long time ago.”
Alistair took a tentative step forward, and, when Keerla didn’t move, he wrapped his arms around her.
Keerla let out a shuddering breath. She used to hate how humans towered over her, giving them this sense of superiority they hadn’t earned. But it was different for Alistair. She didn’t need protection, she never had, but she found infinite comfort in this. Face pressed into Alistair’s chest, breathing in the smell of soap and warmth, his arms surrounding her torso. She extricated her arms from the inside of the embrace to wrap them around Alistair’s waist. He let his cheek rest on top of her head, like he always did when he needed more comfort than usual.
Alistair never let go of a hug first. He settled around her, matching his breathing to hers, and for a split second it felt like nothing else in the world existed. No Blight, no Darkspawn, no little girl, just Alistair’s stubble against her head and his fingers pressing hard into her shoulders.
She let out a long breath. She detached her arms from Alistair’s sides, and he let her go.
“For what it’s worth, I think you look stunning,” he murmured, and brushed his hand through her hair. She scoffed and avoided his gaze. His hand cupped her chin, making her look up at him. “You do,” he repeated.
“Thank you, Alistair.” Keerla’s lips curled ever so slightly.
He grabbed her hand. “Now come on, we should go eat.”