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Alistair felt for sure he was floating.
For days he'd considered how to confess his feelings: what exactly he should say, the right place to approach her, and most importantly, how to get through it all without babbling out something ridiculous or losing his nerve. Or perhaps just collapsing in a petrified faint. Either seemed equally likely.
As it was, despite his rehearsals, all his plans went out the window the moment she put a hand on his shoulder to get his attention. He found himself stumbling into his speech in the middle of a cave full of slaughtered drakes and darkspawn -- because really, what else were you supposed to do to keep yourself sane under the circumstances? Actually think about the bloated demon corpses you were picking your way through, or shut it out of your head and fix as firmly as you could on something beautiful instead?
And if the most beautiful thing of all approaches you and makes that whole mess disappear, well….
He couldn't help himself. Couldn't be blamed for it, either, really.
But for all of this fuss to be over a flower…. what a ridiculous notion.
Love does make fools of us all, he thought on his way back into camp, echoing a lecture he'd been subjected to by a frighteningly stern Reverend Mother. If her word was to be treated as gospel, Alistair thought, men and women ought not to be allowed on the same continent, let alone in the same room, or to be doing anything so reckless as speaking of anything more intimate than the weather. He'd wondered more than once how humans were ever meant to be born in the first place, the way she went on about sinning and forbidden pleasures and temptations of the flesh. But there had to be something more to the subject, surely? Something more honest and pure than everything he'd been taught to cast from his mind?
Because the way his l -- well, he couldn't be too presumptuous -- the way the other Warden looked at him when he offered her that rose….
Alistair stopped to linger over the memory. It was still so clear: that sweet, shy smile, the way she'd blushed as red as the petals when she took the rose from his grasp, and the way her fingers had brushed just so against his, ever so briefly, before she drew away…. he could feel it still.
Oh, yes, he thought. He was definitely floating.
Or at least he was until a lilting voice interrupted his reverie:
"Alistair? May I have a word?"
He turned to see Leliana, who'd been along on their little mountaintop jaunt -- if a dragon-slaying outing could be termed as such. She looked entirely too impish for someone still spattered so liberally with blood. As usual with Leliana -- the very picture of mad innocence, he thought -- he braced himself, and tried a friendly smile out of sheer self-defense.
"Yes?" he said. "What's on your mind?"
She sidled up to him, evidently trying to be casual. "I saw your little conversation back there, you know."
Oh. Well, she probably had. The others had been picking up interesting trinkets and… well, other things… from the dragon egg cache at the time (he hadn't wanted to inquire too deeply into the nature of anything they'd found). So he'd mostly written them off as "busy" and "not paying attention" and hoped for the best. That said, no, he hadn't been particularly covert, what with the near-panic and all. So she probably had been able to see everything.
Fantastic.
"Er," he said -- and how terribly eloquent, Alistair, an inner voice amended. He rubbed the back of his neck. "You didn't… listen in, did you?"
"You were very sweet," she said, which of course meant she had. He winced. "You make an excellent suitor. Gentlemanly, romantic, going for the big gestures… she must have appreciated it, no?"
Alistair began to feel a little flustered, not least from hearing himself so described. "All right, now; if you were eavesdropping on me, surely you heard her replies? Do I have to repeat this?"
"Of course not! That's your business."
"Imagine that," he murmured.
"But I couldn't help but see something," she said, actually poking his shoulder. It was well covered by armor, of course, but he had the feeling that the little jab would have made quite the impact otherwise. "I saw you give her a gift. It was a rose."
"Er… yes. People do that, I've been told. Unless I missed some important detail and I should have given her a skunk cabbage."
"You said," Leliana went on, more forcefully, "that you picked it in Lothering."
"You really were hanging on every word, weren't you?"
He was trying, not too successfully, to maneuver away from her, but Leliana made a neat pivot and planted herself before him, blocking the entrance to his tent. He felt suddenly grateful that the other Warden was still busy cleaning things up in Haven with Wynne, so as to miss this little interlude he had going. How exactly had he gotten stuck in the middle of this conversation? Couldn't I have been left to the floating? he thought, a little plaintively.
"Alistair," Leliana said, with a certain earnest patience. "You do remember what I told you when we met, don't you? What I said of why I had to join your mission?"
"Yes, we've been over that." He was sure his discomfort was evident on his face. He'd learned to appreciate Leliana's skills, and sometimes even enjoy her company -- when she wasn't being so nosy, at least, or alarming, which happened just as often -- but some of his Chantry lessons had indeed stuck, and the word "heretic" was rather far forward in his thoughts. "You said you had a vision, and that the Maker told you to join us, etc, etc. What does this have to do with--"
"I said I saw a flower blooming," she interrupted. "That I took it as a sign of hope, and affirmation that my vision was real." Her tone was serious, but her eyes were dancing. "Just how many flowers did you see blooming in Lothering?"
Alistair opened his mouth, and then, at a loss for words, shut it again very, very hard.
"You picked my flower," Leliana said, finding a chink in the armor this time when she decided to poke.
"Ow!" He drew back defensively, but at the same time, he wondered. Lothering hadn't exactly been a verdant paradise… so maybe she was right. Oh, Andraste's flaming sword… "How can you be so sure?" he demanded anyway.
"I saw it," she said, sounding as definitive as she did about the Maker's word. "I know."
Alistair raked a hand back through his hair, not sure what to say, or what to expect next. Was she angry? Was she about to accuse him of soiling something holy? Would she burn him at the stake, or beset him with rabid ferrets? You never could tell, with Leliana. "Um. I'm sorry?"
The little redhead fixed him with a fierce stare.
"All this time. You've been carrying that rose of mine all this time and you never once paid attention? You never considered that this intended love token of yours might in fact have been the very holy sign that--"
"Leliana, I really didn't think...."
"That I was telling the truth? Oh, no, it's just a perfectly ordinary rose, then. Of course."
Augh, he thought. Not this again. He took a deep breath and did his best.
"Leliana, I really didn't mean to offend you. Seriously, I didn't. All I wanted was to prove that I loved her, and to make the big gesture, like you said, and it just seemed like… the thing to do…."
She paused, her head making an inquisitive tilt. "Love her," she repeated.
"Um. Yes." She didn't respond, leaving him flailing for words again. "Maybe? Maker's breath, Leliana, what am I supposed to say?"
"It's just that… I don't quite recall you telling her that, before."
He knew, he just knew, that he must be blushing like a complete idiot right now. He also began to seriously entertain notions of going back up the mountain to find more dragons to behead, or more dragons to behead him. It had to be preferable to this.
"Maybe I didn't say it aloud," he said, feeling pained. "I don't know -- I was already sticking my neck out awfully far, and I didn't want to add to the contortionist routine by sticking my foot in my mouth while I was at it, all right? Can't I work my way up to grand pronouncements like that? I mean, it looks like I've already messed up enough just by giving the girl a bloody flower…."
"Oh, Alistair." Leliana smiled suddenly, the expression lighting up her blood-smudged face. She still looked dangerously crazy that way, but at least she was being radiant about it. "You haven't messed anything up."
"I haven't? Then what's the whole you-ripped-the-Maker's-blessed-flower-out-of-the-ground lecture about?"
Leliana looked as though she were about to explain, but then thought better of it. Her hand lifted again. Alistair expected another poke, but she only patted his shoulder, as if he were a small child. He had half a mind to swat her. "Think about it. I'm sure you'll get the idea eventually," she said. Her tone softened. "And it was a terribly sweet thing to do. She liked it. I can tell."
The last few words made his heart lift. "Really?"
"Really."
She turned to leave, but Alistair, rather to his surprise, stopped her. "Did she… say anything to you, then? After I ran off to stop having a heart attack, that is."
Leliana laughed. "She was too busy smiling to talk. If I were you, I'd take that as a good sign."
"Signs again?" he drawled, reassured enough now that he could collect his wits properly for sarcasm. "A bolt from the blue? Yet another message from the Maker on high?"
"Stranger things have happened, Alistair. Maybe He really did mean for you two to be together." She turned again to go, and he didn't stop her this time, but she cast a few last words over her shoulder as she did. "Something you ought to remember… it's been weeks since we left Lothering, after all."
"And? What of it?"
Her eyes fairly twinkled. "How else do you suppose that flower's stayed fresh all this time?"
He stared at her, gobsmacked -- and maybe, just maybe, beginning to believe -- as Leliana made a brilliant, pealing laugh and finally walked away.