Warning: This chapter contains torture and rape.

There are relatively few things I own in this world… DA is not one of them. I do, however, hold a firm grasp of English Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics, as well as a fertile and dirty imagination. Please enjoy.

~~X~~

Chapter 7

One of Alistair's earliest memories was bringing Arl Eamon a goblet of wine after dinner. He then spent the rest of the evening watching the arl work in his study, answering questions of the estate that the arl would ask him. This became a nightly ritual, and Alistair relished this time, treasured it, needed it. It reminded him that he was more than, at first, who his father might or might not be, and then, after he had been told the truth, who his father was.

Lady Isolde had been the arl's wife for a little over a year and Alistair's evenings with the arl remained one of the few unchanged things since the cold Orlesian had taken over the household. He was eight years old and navigating through the corridors, taking care not to slosh the wine. He was about to round the corner, in the home stretch, when disaster struck.

Lady Isolde was standing just on the other side and one of them—Alistair could never quite decide which of them it had been—caused the collision. Alistair's fingers let the goblet slip to the ground, wine covering the arlessa and the horror-struck boy.

"Fool! Look what you've done!"

"I-I'm sorry, Lady Isolde! I didn't mean to."

"That was the last of the wine my father sent as a wedding gift! There were only two bottles of the vintage left in Thedas!"

Alistair could feel the tears welling up in his eyes. He stooped to pick up the goblet. "I'll clean it up! I promise!"

Lady Isolde smacked the goblet from his hand. "You've done quite enough already. Report to the stables. A night spent with the horses may teach you manners we'd expect to come from an arl's son."

Alistair's eyes grew wide, causing his tears to fall. "But, I'm not-"

She made a slashing motion with her hand and, for just a moment, Alistair thought she might strike him. He flinched. "You are an arl's ward, are you not? You shall act accordingly. Tell Master Farlin that he is to prepare a stable for you to sleep in tonight. I do not want to see your face until supper meal tomorrow. Do you understand me?"

Alistair stared at her shoes. "Yes, Lady Isolde."

"Well? What are you waiting for? Go!"

Alistair spun on his heel, nearly losing his balance in the spilled wine, and ran as fast as he could until he was in the stables.

Master Farlin hadn't seemed surprised to see Alistair. "Ar, lad, ya bed's all ready for ya in Ole Bessie's stall." He lifted the latch to the stall and Alistair sniffled as he looked inside. There was a pile of straw in one corner. In the other was a pitcher with a tin mug beside it. "Bessie was a clean girl, a right an' proper lady. Ya can rest assured she took care of her stall. Redcliffe never had a better lass than what she was, so ya've been granted quite an honor to use it. Go on in." He gave Alistair a little nudge forward. Alistair stumbled and turned around to look at the stable master. Tears that had dried up while he was running through the castle were falling fresh. The wizened old stable master sighed and knelt down in front of him, his joints popping. "Oh, Maker, what I wouldn't give for a new set of knees. Cold's comin' tonight." He put his hands on either of Alistair's shoulders and fixed him with a kind look. "Now, lad, I know ya don't understand what's going on, an' it's not my place to tell ya, but just know that ya done nothin' wrong to be out here tonight. Nothin', ya hear?" Alistair wiped his eyes and nodded. "There's a good lad. Now, I can't give ya a lantern an' it's too cold to open the windows, but if ya was to look in the hay, ya might find summat in there to make the night pass a bit easier. I'll be back at first light. Ya can stay with me tomorrow. Keep ya chin up."

Alistair nodded his head again. He was about to turn around when something occurred to him. "Won't… Arl Eamon wonder where I've gone? I was supposed to-"

He stopped talking as Master Farlin shook his head. "No, lad, I'd not rely on him to rescue ya from the stables this night, nor would I be lookin' to spend anymore evenings in his study."

Alistair's heart shrank a little at this news, but he knew deep down that Master Farlin was right. Lady Isolde had been a whirlwind of change when she had first come to the castle. Alistair thought he had been safe from those changes, but he was not. He could try and cling to the hope that things would go back to normal, but Alistair was not a stupid child.

It was a horrible memory for Alistair, and, as an adult, he would tell the asker that, yes, this was the night his childhood had ended. But, as horrible as the emotions surrounding the night were, the experience wasn't completely terrible. Under the hay, Master Farlin had left a blanket folded up for him, along with a cloth wrapped around a chunk of Alistair's favorite cheese. In the twelve years since that awful night, Alistair had never had cheese taste quite so good as that gift had.

The poison—or was it the Fade?—bastardized this already terrible memory and changed it into something infinitely worse.

Just as the Zevran-turned-Cleric Fade experience had taken place in the meadow and the chantry, the Redcliffe stables were merely superimposed over the meadow.

Despite this familiarity, the Fade felt different from any of his previous experiences. This had been an actual memory from his childhood. And though Alistair was no longer eight and could quite easily have escaped the stall, twenty-year old, Templar-trained, battle-hardened, Grey Warden Alistair could no more escape than the little boy Alistair could have. He was crouching on his heels. The night air was close and charged. Dread filled his gut. Lightning lanced the sky, momentarily illuminating the stall, and the resulting thunder caused him to jerk and nearly lose his balance. Before he could recover and slow his heart, another lightning strike illuminated the stall and Alistair was no longer alone. He did not hear the thunder strike that second time. He was too afraid to process anything.

"Alistair, stand up, you stupid boy." Zevran's voice was devoid of warmth, the cold of it spearing Alistair. Lightning flashed once, twice, and on the third time the stall remained lit. Zevran did not move from the doorway of the stall, but Alistair flinched as though he had. Zevran was dressed in black riding leathers, his arms crossed over his chest. There was something different about him, and Alistair knew it was more than just his inability to give Zevran a passable Antivan accent.

Zevran still had the build of a dancer of death. His hair was still golden, his face still beautiful. His eyes, however, were different. And though Alistair still could not recall what color his Zevran's eyes were, he knew that they were not the soul-sucking blackness of the manifestation before him. Alistair felt no love for this man, no desire to reach out to him and dance fingers across his abdomen, kisses across his cheek. He felt only fear and the pervading desire to flee. Alistair backpedaled into the corner of the stall. There was no hay, blanket, or cheese. He realized that he was naked.

Zevran barked a cold laugh. "And where do you think you are going, my pet? Do you imagine you can melt through the walls and escape? I confess it would be amusing to see you try, but I can think of better ways to pass the time. But first, I think I should test the merchandise, don't you think?"

As much as Alistair would have liked to call him otherwise, he couldn't help but think of this thing in front of him as Zevran. The wrongness of doing so filled him with a sick dread.

This Zevran took a step toward him, then another, and another, and another, until he was standing directly over Alistair's huddling form. Alistair cried out as Zevran wrenched him by the jaw, forcing him to turn his head. He squeezed his eyes closed as tightly as he could as Zevran prized his mouth opened as widely as he could, examining his teeth. The hinges of Alistair's jaw ached and his neck protested the angle it was held in. During the examination, Zevran made humming noises, as though agreeing with himself. He forced Alistair to look him in the eyes.

"So far, an excellent specimen. Stand up." He let go of Alistair and took a step back to clear some space. Alistair remained unmoving. Zevran tutted and grabbed Alistair by the hair, pulling harshly and forcing Alistair to surge forward, his knees pressing hard into the ground until he scrambled to his feet. Zevran let go of his hair, then, and yanked Alistair by the wrist, pulling him to stand in the middle of the stall. The lighting was suddenly much brighter, harsher.

When Zevran let go of Alistair's arm, the cringing man couldn't help but hunch his shoulders in an effort to make himself smaller, to hide. He covered his genitals with his hands. Pain ripped across Alistair's back and he arched, drawing his shoulder blades close together. The Fade had shifted. Zevran was standing behind Alistair. Before Alistair had time to recover from the strike on his back, each deltoid received the same treatment. Zevran moved to the front of Alistair, hands clasped behind his back, the tip of a riding crop visible over his right shoulder. "Stand up straight, arms to the side, legs spread apart."

When Alistair didn't immediately fulfill his command, Zevran lashed out with the crop, stinging first one thigh and then the other. Alistair cried out and moved into position. "That's my good boy." He reached out and caressed Alistair's cheek. Alistair tensed to prevent himself from flinching. "Now, let's take a look at the rest of you." He was cold and meticulous as he examined Alistair, running his hands across his chest, his flanks, his arms, his legs, his back. He kneaded his skin, testing the firmness of the muscle. The only time he flinched was when Zevran caressed his manhood and squeezed his testicles. Alistair remained silent throughout the process, trying in vain to change this nightmare and turn it into something pleasant. Although, as Zevran licked a strip of skin over his heart, he'd have taken an archdemon dream if it meant this hell would end.

"Yum." Zevran licked his lips, as though he had just eaten a dessert. "You taste as delectable as you look. Pretty to look at, pretty to eat, but how well do you ride?"

Alistair barely registered what Zevran had said before he was screaming in pain. The screams tore at his through, but they were muted in his ears. If Alistair hadn't been in such agony, he might have tasted blood in his mouth from the bit that was tearing the delicate skin at the corners of his mouth. The pain that was ripping into him from the rape was liquid fire radiating throughout his body and it eclipsed everything else. He realized dimly that the angle at which Zevran was holding him, the placement of his hands, was wrong for him to be fucking him. With ever growing horror, he realized that it was the handle of the riding crop instead. He longed to lose consciousness, to be away from the stables with the reins pulling at the bit and holding his head at such an angle that it could very well have injured him, if this were the waking world. Unfortunately, as he was all too aware, this Fade experience was different from his previous ones that left him blissed out and sated, floating in the darkness. As the rape continued and he felt blood flow freely from his entrance, the words "poison" and "not Zevran" repeated in his mind.

~~X~~

Zevran brought Alistair's hand to his lips and brushed a kiss across the knuckles. Alistair was sweating and moaning. Tears were streaming from both eyes. Zevran had needed to see Alistair after Leliana had told him what poison was used. He needed to know to what stage the Fade experiences had progressed. Zevran had sat by him for what seemed like an impossibly long time, but really had only been moments. His hopes that Alistair was still experiencing pleasure were destroyed with Alistair's lack of arousal and increasingly distressing pleas for the pain to stop. He squeezed Alistair's hand tightly and his stomach turned when Alistair cried out, "No, Zev-Zevran! Please stop!"

"Zevran."

It was Leliana. She knew, as well as he did, that Alistair's dreams turning meant that he was nearing the end. When Alistair started exhibiting physical injuries, their time to heal him would be gone and Alistair's death imminent.

"Zevran." Leliana's voice was more urgent this time. "Please, we have to cure him."

"I know." His voice wasn't quite a whisper. He leaned forward and kissed Alistair's dry lips. "Awhile longer, my love, please: I need you to keep resisting."

He drew away from Alistair—his soul—his eyes finding Analisse's. She nodded her head in understanding and took up Alistair's bedside vigil. Zevran walked out of the room, Leliana behind him.

~~X~~

AN: I made Alistair freaking young, I know… but, I always pictured him as being young, and not just because of his naïveté. I would imagine that at some point in time the Chantry would be like, "Dude, either take your vows or leave. Free-loader" (I figure they've invested too much in him for him to be a lay brother). Since he hadn't taken his vows and they didn't kick him out (yet), I made him a young'un. Well, he's young to me… I'm 28.