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All For Nothing
A Dragon Age fanfic by Kissy

A/N: I swear, this game gives birth to more plot-bunnies than any other fandom I've ever written for.  The 'Choose Your Own Adventure' feel of the game is the reason, I'm sure.  There are so many different ways to waste one's time with Dragon Age, isn't there?  I don't write drabbles, really, but this is as close to one as I'm going to get.

Fair warning.  Not all fairy-tales have happy endings.

1

The young man sat at the bar of the deserted tavern and nursed his tankard of ale.  He hated ale.  What he wouldn't give for a cool glass of wine.  He loved red mostly; what he loved more than red wine was the means of how he procured it.  The last time he drank deeply of Bacchus's Brew was the time he stole a vintage bottle from his local Chantry.

He grinned to himself.  Ahh, there was nothing sweeter than the fruits of one's own labors, wasn't there?

At the other end of the bar, the barkeep eyed the stranger warily.  He wiped at the same patch of planking, and watched as the stranger made love to his tankard.  After what felt like an eternity, the stranger looked up at the bartender and waved him over.  The barkeep nodded once and walked slowly to the other end of the bar.

"What can I get you, friend?" said the barkeep in his flowing Orlesian accent.  "Certainly not ale, I see."

"No," said the young man.  "Ale doesn't sit right with me."

"You drink it too slowly.  Once it warms, it tastes like donkey piss.  Wine, perhaps?"

The young man's disconcerting eyes lit up.  "You read my mind."  He pushed his half-empty tankard to the bartender.  "Make it red."

"Coming right u…" said the bartender.  An empty liquor bottle interrupted him, as it sailed over the batwing doors.  The bottle detonated like a bomb against an empty barstool.  The young man jumped up in astonishment, as the bartender sighed wearily.  "Tch…not again."

"The end is nigh!  It's coming!  Make peace with the Maker!"

The owner of the besotted, querulous shout stumbled into the bar.  He gave the bartender a tipsy salute.  "Well!  If it isn't my favoritest person in the world!  I need wine, Jerome!"

Jerome the barkeep sighed.  "I've told you a million times, Old Man.  You're not wanted around here.  Go away!"

The graying, bearded man wove unsteadily to the bar, and slapped a half-crown on the pitted surface.  "Wine, my friend. Best you have."  He simpered at Jerome.  "You won't say no to this much silver, will you?"

A bottle of the finest vintage materialized before the sot.  "No," said Jerome angrily.  "You know I won't.  You have what you came for.  Now bugger off."

"Pleasure doing business with you," said the sot, as he staggered to the doors.  "Toodles!" he said over his shoulder.  He walked into—and cheerfully bounced off of—the doorjamb.  "Par'n me, Miss," he said, as he left.

The young stranger watched him go.  "Who was that?"

Jerome spread his hands.  "Local rummy.  Just breezed into town not more than two weeks ago."  He tipped his eyes to the batwing doors.  "No one even knows who on Thedas he is…"

He looked up, just as the young stranger pushed his way through the batwing doors.  He watched the doors swing on their pivots, and shook his head slowly.  "Odd," said Jerome.

2

He found the sot in an alley behind the blacksmith's shop, humming to himself.  The rummy brought the bottle to his lips, and as the young man watched in astonishment, he downed one quarter of the bottle in one swig.   He belched thunderously.  As he smacked his lips, he noticed the stranger.

"Ah, you!  I saw you in Jerome's.  C'mere!" He waved the young man over.  "Come and sit for a spell!  Have a drink, why don't you?"

The young man slowly walked to the sot.  He did not wish to come closer, in truth.  The old man stank to high heaven.  He mustered his will, and sat next to the man.  "Who are you?" the young man asked.

The sot blew a chuff of drunken laughter.  "That doesn't matter anymore.  I have no name, no home."  The old man glanced at the young man from the corner of one jaundiced eye.  "Who're you, anyway?"

"I'm…Medraut," said the young man, taken aback by the old man.  "Just Medraut."

"Andraste's sagging tits," said the old man soggily.  "Who would saddle their kid with a name like that?"

"My mother, actually," said Medraut.

"Your dad had no say in it?"  The sot rolled his eyes.  "Not like I care, or anything."

Medraut took the bottle from the man's trembling fingers.  He could see that this man was too far gone for salvation.  From the cast of this man's pallor, it was evident that his liver was all but destroyed thanks to cirrhosis.  "I never met the man.  At any rate, my father…is no more."

The old man made a small sound of ersatz commiseration.  "Another bastard on Thedas…what is this world coming to."  He tapped the side of the bottle with the back of his fingers.  "Drink up…before I take that from you and drink it all myself."

Fire bloomed in his belly as Medraut drank deeply of the wine.  He licked his lips, and his memory called forth rich vineyards in the highlands.  "This is a vintage year.  How can you afford this, anyway?"

Gray eyebrows vaulted to an equally gray hairline.  "What makes you think I can't?  Just because I look like an insane vagabond doesn't mean I am an insane vagabond."  He glanced to the wall opposite the sodden palaver, and shrugged slowly.  "That's not to say I'm not insane…I'm just saying, is all."

When Medraut sat before the old man and said nothing, the sot squirmed uneasily.  "Spoils of war, boy.  I haven't got much left, but the gold I have left is part o' what I got when I sold my armor and armaments.  Good stuff, too."  He snuffled, ran his wrist against his nose, and spread his palms.  "Are you going to rob me?  You c'n have everything I own.  My stuff is just…stuff, after all.  I can't take it with me…not where I'm going."

He reached for the bottle of spirits.  Medraut held it out of reach.  He tilted his head at the old man.  "I'll bet you're not half as mad as other people have told me—or as mad as you would like people to think."

"Oh, I am mad, Sonny…because of the blood."  The old man snorted tipsy laughter.  "You're a trig cove, you know that?  Quick minded with a smart mouth—I knew someone like that, many years gone.  At least," he finished, "I think she's gone…from this world, I mean.  Thedas is a cruel mistress, and it wouldn't surprise me if most—if not all of my old friends—are dead and their ashes buried."

"Really," said Medraut.  Perhaps this was the man whom he had searched for, all these years?  Could this half-dead souse be the exiled one he sought?  Medraut wasn't too sure of it, himself.  When a man gets to this state, every sot on Thedas looked like him.  "And why do you think that?"

"Because," said the old man, "I wish it."  He crossed his arms across his scrawny chest.  "I was someone, once.  Everything that made me who I am was torn from me, and I became nothing.  My…friends…can all rot in Hell for all I care.

"Damned deceitful little bitch," the rummy spat suddenly.  "I thought…no, I knew…she and I would be together for as long as the death-sentence allowed…but she deceived me," he hissed.  "She promised that she would remain with me, if I won the day at the Landsmeet.  But she allowed a murderer to live, against my wishes.  To add insult to injury, the little bitch sided with Anora…damn her eyes.  As stubborn as I was, then, I left."  He leaned forward and snatched the bottle from Medraut's fingers. He drank deeply from it, and gagged on the purplescent brew.

Medraut sat on his haunches and waited to see if the old man would catch his breath, or just keel over and die.  It mattered little to him.  Medraut's first impression was correct; he had finally found whom he sought.  "And what  exactly happened then, Warden?"

"Well, I…" The sot's brow furrowed.  He raised his red-rimmed eyes to Medraut's countenance.  "I never said I was a Warden…how d'ya know that?"   He peered myopically into Medraut's golden eyes.  Why did the boy's eyes suddenly chime warning bells in the back of his mind?

He has yellow eyes…just like…!   The old man gasped once in realization.

Dear Maker, in all His glory.

"You."  The man drew back against his pile of filth, cringing away from his old nemesis.  "You're a…a man?"

In for a penny, in for a pound.  "What can I say…I goofed," said Medraut airily. "I wasn't as skilled as Flemeth when casting the magic for the Ritual.  Something went awry, and I…Morrigan…gave birth to a son."

The last of the Theirin line giggled, and nodded at Medraut.  He gestured at the young man with one palsied finger.  "You, my friend, are a death-dream.  I've dropped dead in an alley somewhere in Val Royeaux, or maybe I've fallen asleep by the docks again, and rolled into the Sound.  I'm never gonna make it to the Deep Roads."  He snorted.  "Wonderful."

The young man continued, as if Alistair did not speak at all.  "'Tis a bit odd, to be a man. It wasn't hard to take this boy's body when mine became wizened.  As his body housed the Archdemon's soul, Medraut became very powerful, indeed.  I rather like the sensation of being a magically powerful man, but it will complicate things when I begin to age."  Medraut pursed his lips.  "I suppose I can take a Chasind maiden hostage, and impregnate her.  There is a fifty-fifty chance of her bearing a daughter, so I will be able to get my femininity back.  I should be able to perfect the Rite sooner or later."

The bastard Prince began chuckling, which led to strangled, howling belly laughter.  Cackling hard enough to make his eyes bulge and cause his lungs to wheeze, Alistair clapped his hands to his ears.  "Shut…up!  My spooks are not allowed to talk to me when I tell them to hush so hush up damn it all SHUT UP AND GO AWAY!"

"I am no death-hallucination, Alistair.  You only wish I were."  Medraut reached out, and drew his fingers down Alistair's grizzled face.  "Do you feel it, Alistair?  Can you hear the call?"  Medraut's yellow eyes glowed in the gloom, and Alistair cowered from Medraut, quivering in dread.  Medraut's mouth twisted into a hideous parody of a smile.  "Oh…you do.  Want to know why?"  He grinned at Alistair.  "The last Blight never ended.  The Archdemon calls out to you, because the Archdemon is not dead."

"What…?" Alistair whispered.

"Here, fool," Medraut said, and placed his hand over his heart.  "It is here, all cozy with Morrigan in this body…and Medraut.  He's in here, too.  We're all here in this comfy vessel.  I returned to where you slew Flemeth.  Her soul lay in wait for me to return.  She was no match for the Old God's powers.  All of the Kocari Witches that Flemeth assimilated—and Flemeth, also—are here, in me.

"I am Legion."  Medraut raised his eyebrows in mock-commiseration.  "Poor Alistair.  May I suggest something?"  When Alistair moaned in abject terror, Medraut leered at him.  "I suggest you find a strong length of hemp rope and hang yourself.  'Twill be painless compared to traveling the Deep Roads, such as you are…and under the most recent of circumstances."

Alistair moaned again, and Medraut spread his hands.  "I doubt you'd make it at all, in the state you're in.  More's the pity, eh?"  Medraut stood, and waggled his fingers at Alistair.  "Goodbye, my damaged friend.  Have fun fending off my minions."  Medraut smiled savagely, and left Alistair to his own devices.

Thunderstruck, Alistair sat blinking at the spot that Medraut had vacated.  He sobbed suddenly and began to rock in place, his wasted arms wrapped around his equally wasted belly.  "Nothing," he said in a small, shaking voice.  "Everything I sacrificed.  Everything we did…it didn't matter.  It was all for nothing."

He lay down upon his pile of filth, curled himself into a fetal position, and shrieked.

A/N the Second: Yeah, okay—like you couldn't figure out immediately that the drunk was Alistair.  I'll bet Medraut surprised you, though…yes?  Here's hoping.

Anyone who knew who 'Medraut' was without looking him up wins Five Internets.  Don't worry, it's okay if you had to Google it.  I'm all for higher learning.  You'll have to dig deep, as the legend of Mordred has many twisted (and sometimes contrary) roots.

I told you…not all fairy-tales end well.  This one certainly didn't.  Later.