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“Honor, could you help me—?”
When he turned to ask his wife to help with a stubborn fastening on his favourite set of armour, the king froze, his breath catching in his throat as he saw her.
Well, he saw her reflection. A maid prevented him from seeing her directly as the last touches were done to her hair. But Maker’s breath...Every so often, it hit Alistair anew: his wife was stunning, and he was the luckiest man in the world. How had she fallen for him? How had he convinced her to marry him? ...Okay, that one, she convinced him it could work. But still.
Fiery curls glinting with a sleek shine cascaded down her long, graceful neck and tumbled down over her shoulders, vivid and bright against her pale skin. His wife burned in the sun instead of tanning (unlike him), but there was the faintest dusting of freckles over her nose and cheeks. A mossy green cloak trimmed in gold flowed down from her shoulders and pooled on the flagstone floor, held in place by similar leather pauldrons as on his own armour. But unlike the king, the queen didn’t wear full armour. She combined power and grace, practicality and regal splendour, by wearing a cream and gold samite gown under her cuirass and a golden brocade jerkin over the cuirass. The jerkin was held in place with a leather corset (for lack of a better term) and matching sword belt, which Alistair knew with a quickening heart held one of her favourite daggers. Likely the soft leather boots she wore under her gown hid a dirk or two. And though she wore a delicate golden crown, the only other adornments his roguish queen wore were her wedding ring and leather bracers.
She was graceful as she rose from her seat and smiled to dismiss the maid. Though motherhood added curves to a frame which had been almost painfully lanky at first meeting, the Hero of Ferelden had not let herself get soft in the past ten years. Her sharp edges had mellowed, but Alistair knew full well how skilled his noble wife was.
“You asked for me, darling?”
“Oh!” Alistair was pulled from his wool-gathering and shook his head. “Oh, right. This! Pauldron. Could you help me fasten it?”
She could have laughed as Alistair Theirin, son of Maric Theirin who rebelled against Orlais, proud Grey Warden, King of Ferelden, and doting father, gave her the most puppyish look ever known to human, Elf, Dwarf, or Qunari. Over thirty years old, and those warm brown eyes hadn’t changed a bit from when they first met. Honor shook her head and sighed before replying, “Yes, Alistair: I’ll help.”
His hair was longer and darker now than when they first met, and Alistair’s carefully-trimmed goatee was well on its way to becoming a full beard these days. But the obsession with his hair, that teasing smile behind his beard, and those soft, dark honey eyes were still the same. His freckles still covered his tanned face despite the new lines around his eyes. And while Alistair didn’t need help telling which boot went on which foot these days, he still sometimes needed Honor’s help, which she gave—like now—with a soft kiss when she was done.
“You’re too impatient,” the rogue scolded with a shake of ginger curls. Once upon a time such a phrase might have been said to Honor. But her husband didn’t point this out or object. He simply sighed and stood still while the queen brushed back his hair with her fingers and placed his circlet on his head.
“I don’t like standing still for so long.”
Honor patted the king’s chest with a secret smile. No...standing still wasn’t really Alistair’s strong suit. He’d always been restless whenever they had to wait, whether it be for the members of their party back during the Blight or when waiting for family in more recent years. Somehow he managed to not be an utter pill during Landsmeet sessions or meetings with nobles (for which she was proud). Waiting for however long the court painter needed would be torture.
Green eyes roved over Alistair thoughtfully as the queen stepped back slightly. Time had not changed the couple-inch difference in their heights, though it had added bulk to Alistair’s frame. Some of it was muscle and some of it was fat—a necessity when a warrior like the king was. All of it looked good on him, especially in his practical splintmail armour trimmed in fur, with a gold and brown cloak swirling in the draft left by the maid’s departure. He’d matured in the past decade and settled into his life as king. There hadn’t been any hard edges to wear down on him like there had been on the young queen, but fatherhood had added to his warmth, if possible. The thought brought a smile to full lips, which in turn drew a quizzical glance from the king as he offered his arm to the redhead.
She accepted his hand while her smile gentled and her head tilted slightly. “I was just thinking.”
“About, my love?”
“You, of course.” Honor laughed softly as she glided alongside Alistair. Her feet made almost no sound, while the king’s boots strode decisively down the corridors and stairs. “You may never have envisioned yourself as king, Alibear, but you make a good one. And I’m happy with our family.”
On that, Alistair could agree with his wife. He stopped in the middle of a hallway to lift his wife’s hand to his lips for a chaste salute. “You know: I’d prefer to spend the day with our family...” he sighed against soft skin.
“I know.” When her hand lifted to cup his cheek, the king leaned into the gentle caress. “But we made the appointment, darling. It would be rude to the painter, and a waste of good materials.”
Alas: she was right. And though it annoyed him, her husband knew this, much though he might grumble. Blight take whomever decided royal portraits were a necessary. The gallery could do without their portrait for a while, right? He currently had an eight-year-old terror with freckles splattered all over a young face and coppery curls running away from a nursemaid with a delighted crow of “Papa!” to jump in Alistair’s arms.
A warm rush of love filled the king as he twirled briefly with his son to delighted squeals and laughter from the boy’s mother. “And how did you find us, imp?”
“Uncle Eamon said you were taking too long,” the boy stage-whispered. Ah...good old Uncle Eamon...Alistair nodded sagely when he wished to sigh instead. “So Nanny and Taran and I went looking.”
Automatically, Alistair looked around for his second son and found him holding their mother’s hand. Bryce had Honor’s hair but Alistair’s warm brown eyes and propensity for dark freckles, while Taran had soft curls of a much lighter, soft, warm gold and eyes as grassy green as the queen’s. “Well you did a good job,” the king told his eldest fondly. He set the boy down, careful to not let the youth’s clothes catch on any edges his armour might have, before taking Bryce’s hand and Taran’s other hand.
“Uncle Teagan said we have to wait for you,” the younger of the two boys declared like this was some horrible thing. It was like he’d announced they’d have to hang upside-down from their ankles until their parents were finished, and Alistair found himself meeting his wife’s laughing green gaze over their youngest child’s head. “He said—he said you might be hours and hours and we might have to play with just him today.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.” Ever the diplomat was his wife. Maker, but Alistair missed her back during that near-fiasco with the Orlesians. The Inquisition handled things quite well, but...he always felt better letting his silver-tongued lady charm others. He felt better having her around, period. She was his confidante, his friend, his lover, the person he trusted most in this world, and had been for ten years now. He could happily spend hours watching her smile so tenderly as she did now at their groaning son, or hear her talk soothingly like this. “Uncle Teagan is great fun. I have an idea: you should ask him to go riding with you two. Your ponies will need exercise.”
Bryce grinned on Alistair’s other side at the suggestion while Taran took a moment longer before nodding solemn acquiescence. “C’mon, Taran,” the crown prince urged, letting go of his father’s hand to drag his little brother off towards where their uncle waited. “Uncle Teagan!”
“It’s sad to think they’ll soon be too big for ponies,” Alistair sighed into his wife’s ear. He kept an eye on the boys and their indulgent uncle...great-uncle...uncle...Maker, things get complicated when your sort-of-uncle and your sister-in-law fall in love. But Alistair’s brain skittered away from thoughts of his sarcastic sister-in-law with a shudder and returned to her twin, his wife, whom the king quite happily held in the crook of his arm. “I remember when the only way they could ride was up in front of us on our horses.”
Whatever Alistair expected his wife to say as they took their positions before the court painter, it certainly wasn’t a very soft, “I highly suspect you’ll have another tiny riding companion in about seven months.”
...Yeah, there was no way that portrait was getting painted today. Not with that news drawing a rather un-majestic whoop of delight from the now-grinning king.