Alistair grew up minutes from this shore. It had been years since he’d been here, but he remembered everything. The cold current under the warm surface, the way the silt shifted underfoot.
It was his favorite place in the world. He’d wanted to share that with her. It wasn’t going well.
It was easier to bring Emma here to begin with, when he taught her the first thing: to float. Watching her steely calm slip away in the water was brutal. And now he had to bring her back.
Emma stood at the waterline, looking the way she did before a fight—still, watchful, committing to nothing until she understood it. But there was no staff in her hands now. Just a thin tunic, arms crossed tight, shoulders drawn in. Smaller than he’d ever seen her.
He waded in first. Glanced back every few steps, trying to make it look casual. It didn’t.
She followed.
By the time the water reached her ankles, her breathing had already gone wrong. He heard it before he saw it. Too fast, too shallow. He took her hand and felt the drag as she lagged behind.
“We’ll actually swim this time,” he said, gently.
She nodded and kept going, following behind him. Calves. Knees.
The instincts embedded in him, the ones that came from standing in front of nearly everything that had tried to kill her over the past two months, said to stop. Pull her out. He ignored it.
They both knew better.
The wind shifted, and an irregular little wave rolled in. It lapped under her knee. Not hard. She gasped anyway. The sound hit him somewhere raw.
“I’m fine,” she said quickly.
He didn’t argue.
“Come with me,” he said. “It’s still shallow.”
She closed the distance. By the time the water reached her thighs, she’d stopped trying to hide it. Her breathing was loud now. Tight.
Then she grabbed him.
Her hands snapped to his arm, hard, the grip of someone who expected to fall. He turned, caught her other arm, stepped back to brace her.
“I’ve got you,” he said.
“I know,” she said, which would’ve been convincing if she weren’t gripping him like she expected him to disappear. She was trembling as the water reached her waist, then higher–
When her feet left the ground, he felt everything in her seize. Her breath vanished, then came back, gasping. Then her legs kicked once, desperately searching for ground, finding nothing, kicking again.
“Hey,” he said, steadier than he felt. “Look at me.”
She did. Immediately.
“You’re fighting it,” he said. She nodded, like: of course I’m fighting it, legs still kicking with that frantic, purposeless energy. “You’re stiff as a board. You’re holding yourself under.”
Under. Her body reacted. That word was a mistake. Emma was white-knuckling him.
“Just—” just relax. That was another mistake waiting to happen. “Just feel what you’re doing with your arms. Let them float a bit. You don’t need them to hold you up.”
“If I let go—”
“You’re not letting go. I didn’t say let go.” He shifted her for more room, less climbing him. “Your legs are the thing. They’re already doing it. Feel them?”
He talked her through it. Felt her breathing regulate, not calm, but not gasping and spiraling.
“There you are,” he said. “That’s it.”
She found something unsteady, but close to a rhythm. Then, of course, a wave came in and ruined everything, splashing up into her face.
She lurched toward him. He caught her and pulled her against his chest before she finished the motion.
“Hey,” he said. “You’re alright.”
He held her as her breathing spiraled apart again, with her face against his shoulder.
“I was doing it,” she said, eventually.
“You were,” he agreed. “You still are.”
He gave it a moment. Then: “Try again.”
This time it held longer. Not quite clinging. Her body adjusted, frantic but learning. She wasn’t fighting quite so hard.
She was here, in the water she was frightened of, trusting him. And he had to let her go.
“I’m going to step back a little.”
Her eyes snapped to his. “No.”
“Just a little. You’ll follow me.”
She didn’t answer verbally, just held on tighter.
“I’m not letting you drown. I’ll be right here.”
He covered her hands with his, eased her grip loose.
She let him.
He pushed back. Just slightly.
She followed. Immediately. Which was the whole game.
He stayed just ahead of her. She kept coming. And she watched him, used him as the fixed point that kept her from looking down. He moved again. She followed again.
When she looked over her shoulder, he watched her realize the shore was further away than she thought.
Emma looked back at him. This was working. He smiled at her. She huffed as she muddled through. For a moment, they were just there, treading water, looking at each other. Something quiet and surprised in it.
But then there was another wave, she tipped, and he was already moving. already had been coiled like a spring.
“I’ve got you,” he said, for the third or fourth time.
Emma stayed there, breathing wrong, suppressing rigidity, holding tension like it might keep her afloat.
“I don’t want to chase you anymore,” Still shaking. Not hiding it.
“Alright, that’s fair,” he lifted her so she could clasp to his shoulders. He felt her brittle intensity soften just a fraction in his arm. “You did it. That’s enough.”
Alistair heard her exhale as he propelled them back toward the shore. He carried her out of the water into the dry grass, near their discarded clothing.
As he laid her there, she pulled him down next to her. He draped his cloak around them and held her as she shivered. Every instinct he’d been repressing, as if he could physically block something bearing down on them, recoiled. He curled around her.
The lake kept moving behind them. He could still hear it, the small, restless sound of it. He felt her flinch at the noise.
“You’re out,” he said quietly. “It’s over.”
She nodded against him but didn’t let go. Now there was nothing to do. No instructions. No adjustments. Just… there. Her stiffness seemed to be receding to exhaustion more than anything else.
“That was—Are you alright?”
“I just hate it,” she shook her head. “But you were right. I didn’t drown.”
“No,” he agreed. “You didn’t.”
“You learned to swim in this?”
“Right over there.” He pointed. “The castle groundskeeper. He threw me in.”
“Thank you,” she said, quietly. “For not doing that.”
“I screamed. He didn’t mind.” He paused. “It’s not easy, doing this to you.”
It was honest at least, but he started having regrets as soon as he said it.
“I’m sorry, I know it’s much more difficult for you. But you kept your head above the water, and then some. I’ll feel better if—well, everyone should know how. So I’m also glad. I just meant…You did well. That’s what I meant. I’m babbling again.”
Emma shifted to look up at him.
“You are,” she said. “But it’s… helpful.”
“It is? Because I have no idea where I’m going with this.”
Her hand, which had been gripping fabric like it might save her life, adjusted. Just resting now.
“Are you still cold?” he asked, because apparently he should keep talking, and his brain chose the least dangerous available sentence.
“Not really,” she said.
He cleared his throat. “Good. Because I’m—uh. Running out of cloak to heroically wrap around you.”
“That would be tragic,” she said, dry. More herself. He’d missed it.
“Truly. My greatest failure as a Grey Warden.”
They lay there quietly. Just them and the sound of the lake, the wind in the grass.
“For a long time,” he said, “I didn’t think I’d come back here.”
She took his hand. His thumb moved, once, across her knuckles.
“And now?”
“Not as difficult as I thought,” he looked down at her. “But I wanted to show you something good about this place, and I’m not sure it’s coming through.”
“It is,” she said.
She was watching him with that dark, level attention of hers. The attention that used to unsettle him but became the thing he looked for in a crowd.
“Okay,” he said quietly. Emma shifted closer.
He felt, suddenly, like he was about to say something he couldn’t take back, and had no idea what it was.
She leaned in and kissed him. Her mouth was still cold from the lake.
They settled there, next to each other. The only sounds were the grass and the water and the distant unimportant world.
Alistair fell asleep.
Emma noticed it happen—the slowing, weight slackening, the little twitches. His breathing deeply, steadily against her shoulder. She held still so as not to disturb it.
It was still so strange, how someone else could vacate this side of the veil within 10 minutes. She laid with it all, alone in a way, but not in another. The comfort, nostalgia, warmth, and sadness.
It had been awhile since she’d been this close to someone.
Alistair wasn’t asleep for long. He woke suddenly, the way he always did. She felt him come back—a sharp inhale, tension snapping back to place.
Then he suddenly shifted away from her. Emma was reasonably certain she knew why. One part of him stood to attention before anything else.
She looked at him, and he went very still.
“I’m,” he started. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” she said.
“I’m not—it’s not—I wasn’t trying to—”
He had become very flushed, but then that color almost immediately drained out of him.
“I know.”
“I wasn’t—I don’t want you to think—You’re being very—you’re being very calm about this.” His voice had gone slightly strangled.
“Yes.”
He covered his face. “You probably think I’m—”
“I think,” she said. “Your body made a decision independently of your character.”
“You could have been slightly more horrified,” he said, muffled. “For my sake.”
“Would that help?”
“Honestly? Maybe? At least we’d both be—” he removed his hand, looked at the sky— “uncomfortable together.”
“Alistair,” she said. “We are both adults.”
“That’s a very practical way of looking at it,” he said. “You didn’t have to be so…kind, and understanding, about this.”
“I didn’t have to,” she laid back. “I don’t want to be unkind to you.”
“I—I know.” He exhaled.
She waited.
“I don’t want you to think I don’t—I do. Want to. Eventually. With you, specifically, at some point. Just—not like this. Not yet.”
“We can,” she said, “If you want to. Or when you want to.” He looked at her, unsure how to respond. “We don’t have to decide that now.”
“Okay,” he said, quietly.
“Can I kiss you again,” she said. “Before you decide you need to go stand in the lake.”
He laughed—slightly startled, the version she liked best.
“I,” he said, “yes. Obviously yes.” He came back, through the gap he’d made. “Though I will need the lake afterward, for the record.”
“Noted,” she said, and kissed him.