Iris Amell was four-years old when she saw her first dead body.
Her mother and father took her to the market that day - the same day a man was being hung from his neck in the center of town.
Before then, Iris only ever experienced death as a faint whisper. She knew of it from the taxidermied animals her mother was so fond of or the various skulls and bones her father kept around his office. Death was clean, perfectly preserved, distant, beautiful.
But that day in the market was the first time she ever looked death in the eyes with all its ugly reality. The execution itself wasn't particularly gruesome. She missed the initial snap of the neck. She only saw a glimpse of the hanging corpse before her father pulled her away. It was the first time she truly thought about death, not as the subject for her mother's favorite poems, as an ending. A man who walked the same ground she did, who woke up that morning just like her, was no more.
Her mother tried to console her as they sat together in the lily garden. The man was a criminal, she explained as she plucked a single white lily and tucked it into Iris' dark hair. He hurt people. The execution was not just a punishment, but a method to keep people safe. Iris nodded. It made sense.
...
Iris spent more time staring at the murals of Andraste than she spent listening to the Chantry sermons. She didn't look anything like the man she saw in the town square. She stood dignified with her long blonde hair and flowing white dress as the flames engulfed her body. Everyone always talked about her sacrifice in the same way she was used to hearing about death. It was a symbol. Even the most devout Andrastians would only discuss what her death meant for the people of Thedas and how she should be honored. Iris could only ever see a woman being burned alive.
The Chantry hall was lined with hundreds of flickering candles which had an almost hypnotic effect. Fire, the same fire depicted in the paintings, murals, and tapestries. Andraste was able to face the flames because she was the Maker's chosen. Nobody else would understand her sacrifice.
The sermon distorted into background noise as Iris leaned over one of the benches so she could place her hand over one of the lit candles.
They stopped going to the Chantry after that.
…
The second time Iris saw a dead body, she was five-years-old. It was her mother.
When her mother first fell ill, Iris barely saw her father anymore. He worked tirelessly to try to bring her back to health. It got to the point where he was no longer healing her, but preserving her. Her father was a talented mage, but it wasn't enough. Iris discovered her own magic around this time. Maybe if she developed her abilities sooner, she could have helped.
Iris didn't see her mother after she died until her extended family heard the news. Iris hid behind the stairs as her mother's family came to claim the body. Her father begged and screamed, claiming that there was still more he could do. The last Iris saw of her mother was a pale, veiny arm falling limply as she was carried out of the estate.
Iris didn't know how to interpret her death. Her mother wasn't a bad person like the hanging man in the square, but she wasn't sacrificing herself for something noble like Andraste.
Her father wouldn't be providing her with any answers. He spent the days following her death locked in his office, working tirelessly on something she couldn't understand. Sometimes, Iris would sleep outside his door in an effort to feel closer to him. In a way, it felt like she lost two parents that day. It felt like her father was throwing himself on the pyre.
…
The next time Iris saw her father's face was when he was telling her they had to leave. He never told her why. She never asked. After she packed up all of the clothes and toys she could stuff into one bag, she took off with her father into the night. The large estate she grew up in was nothing but a comforting memory in the various hovels they would take shelter in. She didn't know if her father was running from something, or to something. The threat of Templars looming over their heads was a constant threat to them.
Most days, Iris would wake up forgetting which city - or even country she was in. But those nights when she would curl up next to her father as he stroked her hair and lulled her to sleep with with the reassurance that everything would be okay, those were the nights when she remembered what it was like to have a family. The family he always promised she would have again some day. He just needed more time.
But those were the rare nights when her father was actually there. There were many nights when he would have to leave. He told her it was for work, and she believed him. On those nights when he would leave, he would instruct her to hide under the blankets and to not make a sound. She always listened to him. If she bundled the blankets tight enough around her, it felt like she was being held.
One night, the door opened and Iris knew it wasn't her father returning. He was always sure to be gentle when he opened the door. Most of the time, she would sleep through his return and wake up the next morning to see him. Sometimes he would return with a toy or a box of pastries, either as a treat or an apology. It usually worked.
But this was different. The sound of the door slamming open against the wall woke Iris up. She was told to stay as silent and as still as possible, so she did. The inside of the blanket became stuffy and hot from her controlled breathing. She listened and waited. She could hear the faint clinking of metal as multiple people moved throughout the room. It sounded like they were looking for something, but the thick fabric muffled whatever they were saying. Iris dug her teeth into her lower lip as she tried to keep her cries as silent as possible. Where was her father? When will he come back? When can they just go home?
Those cries stopped being silent when an armored hand pulled the blanket away.
…
The Circle caught up with her eventually. The Templars took her that very night without giving her a chance to say goodbye. She was told she could write to her family, but her father moved around so often that she didn't think that would be possible.
Her life in the Circle tower was cozy and she thought the purple robes she was given were very pretty. The Circle was never a home, but it gave her a chance to study her magic with a roof over her head.
But death was everywhere in the Circle. Of course the symbolic, abstract idea of death was present in the countless references to Andraste's sacrifice adorning the paintings on the walls and the poems on paper. But the idea of death as a real, definite ending was drilled into her mind again and again.
If she showed signs of possession, the Templars would strike her down.
If she was using forbidden forms of magic, the Templars would strike her down.
If she failed her Harrowing, the Templars would strike her down.
When she was a four-year-old girl seeing that man hanging from his neck, she thought that it would be difficult to commit a crime deserving of that kind of punishment.
She grew up in the Circle, always one tantrum away from a Templar's blade. Did they see her like the people saw that hanging man in the square?
…
When the Circles fell, Iris traveled back to the last real home she ever had.
Kirkwall.
It was unlikely that her father would have returned there, but she was hoping that she could find some clues to his current whereabouts.
People seemed willing to help her find her father, but then she would tell them his name. Smiles would fade. People would shift awkwardly in their seats. Offers to help were taken back.
The longer her search went on, the less she would hear her father referred to by his actual name. Instead, they called him something else.
The Butcher of Lowtown, or simply The Butcher, was the name she heard most often.
The White Lily Murderer was the name preferred by those who were more intrigued by his tale.
Iris didn't want to believe it. She wouldn't let herself believe it. But that desire to remain ignorant was being chipped away after she spoke to more and more people. The story was always the same.
Everyone had their own particular twist they would add to the details, but the main story was always the same. Stories of murder and blood magic. Stories of lost love and white lilies on doorsteps. The story of a man who was so broken by the death of his wife that he used a horrific form of necromancy to reconstruct her body. The story of a local hero whose mother was unfortunate enough to wind up as one of his victims. The story of what happens when mages are left to their own devices.
Iris' desire to learn the truth brought her to an abandoned foundry in Lowtown. She was told that the murders took place in the foundry basement. She was told that this was where her father last stood. She was told that the basement was burned down to get rid of the stench of rotting corpses.
People tried to warn her about the foundry, citing everything from demonic curses to safety hazards for reasons why she shouldn't investigate. She ignored them, and ducked under the wooden planks barring off the foundry entrance.
There were no bodies to see. Iris stood in the middle of the basement amidst piles of ashes and soot that coated the floor. There was nothing to be salvaged, but he was there. She could feel it.
Those words her mother told her in the lily garden all those years ago echoed in her mind,
He was a criminal.
He hurt people.
Now that he's gone, people are safer.
She repeated the words in her head over and over until the word father was replaced with the word butcher . Murderer.
His ashes were somewhere dirtying up the foundry floor, but the father she loved died along with her mother.
It was years before Iris could see a white lily again without feeling sick.
At least she could be assured that she was better at handling loss than her father.
Her father: the butcher.