Author's Note: This was written to save my sanity from my Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines fic. It's set pre-Dragon Age: Origins, and is basically my take on the dark side of the Cousland family – with added rivalry, scandal, intrigue and general Macbethiness. (Because it's my personal mission to screw up EVERY happy thing in EVERY video game I play, apparently…) Not sure what form it will take just yet. But I hope you enjoy!
Do keep in mind, though, that this tale is rated 'M' and will contain content that is both graphic and… really strange. My tale portrays House Cousland as a family whose heraldry is rooted in ugliness, violent coups and blood.
Yes, "Adira" is indeed male Cousland. And he is a mama's boy. Technically a warrior, but I'm not so sure that does a good job of encompassing him…
Anyway. Thanks for reading!
WHITE LAUREL
The Last Days of House Cousland
He Lived
Adira Cousland was born in a killing snow.
Eleanor labored violently through that night, midwives wiping the sweat and sable hair from her brow. They did not hold her hands or whisper kindly. They did not discreetly hide the heaps of soiled blankets stinking like war in a corner. Young doe-eyed maids all, they did not think to soothe the creases from their mistress's cheeks and assure her this torment would pass. For Lady Cousland, the world had narrowed to a searing blur of salt, hot water and cream-colored sheets. She could not see the harvest moon from where she lay buckled across a birthing bed, body bare, pores ripped open with pain. She could not see her soles digging into the fifty-pound chestnut footboard. Head spinning, this noblewoman now had only up; so she racked her skull back against a purple mass of buckwheat pillow and stared. The black window overhead glowed darkly, indifferent. It took no interest on her screams or lurching muscle, her writhing tangle of guts, the teeth chattering in her jaw. It did not care how loudly she wailed or how tears began to make the cushions reek of berry dye. And, because her country had no hollow comforts for its heaving Teyrna, she fought for sunrise very much alone – watching the thick white flakes drift to melt upon Ferelden mud.
Chartreuse eyes rolled into Eleanor's sockets. The wild shapes flaring behind her lids frightened Cousland's wife; she had no other option but to peel them again, drinking in the mellow tones of bedchamber. She saw skin between her sore breasts glisten over ridges of sternum. She saw her legs, shaking pale in the candlelight, dotted with red oil and death. For a clear, clear moment, the Teyrna felt her child screech deep within – from her core, through her bones – and she knew that one of them would not survive.
Adira Cousland was born in the bitter northland cold; he did not slide into being like a summer's babe.
He bled her. From the first wet, harrowing kick to her womb – brief and angry, like a horse hoof – Eleanor knew one of them would kill the other, siphon the life from beating veins. The woman's nails stung in the chill, but everything else sweltered. Hoarfrost caked the glass. Her howls were like ripping silk curtains. She thought she would faint. She thought she would die. She wanted them to cut her belly open – slice shears from the naval to ribcage like a grey sturgeon – and pull this person out of her.
Adira Cousland was born at two-sixteen in the icy Highever morning. He was wan – with dark baby hair, skin a sickly carmine – and his newborn curls of fingers were cold, cold, cold.
Eleanor lived. The priestesses gathered her insides and pasted them back within her spent cadaver, witchcraft in the rime, they had torn out the heart from a warmblood colt and made a wicked tonic of it; she did not know. The Teyrna knew only that she had lived. Servants rinsed the child and brought him into her arms a week later, when she had strength enough to sit and nurse. He coughed horribly, until his toes turned blue; Mother Mallol thought it was unlikely the babe would see a year. Lady Cousland did not care. She wanted him. He was tightly-packed and tiny and breathed in great, valiant gusts. Eleanor would watch him suck on her thumb and chew with new, toothless gums. She crushed lungwort leaves and dripped them into his milk. She bundled him in green swaddling cloths and dabbed away the blood that would run from his small shapely nose.
The bed had been soaked to its frame. Bryce made a pyre of it.
Adira Cousland should have been returned to the earth, but he lived – and he grew into a beautiful, beautiful boy.
Their youngest son was ruddy and thin. His features pointed. His feet clapped the flagstone halls. Those colorless brambles upon her child's head bleached to gold and then to a flame-rich mahogany, darting around corners, roaring in the study torchlight. Scrunched eyes broadened into a briny oceanic blue – the hue of sea storms and failed romance. His legs stopped flailing; though she would not permit Adira bound madly about the courtyard with the castle's other children, fearing pneumonia or cracked ankles, calves began sticking to the backsides of lengthening shins. His hands unfurled and became elegant fingers with blunt, smarting claws. His wheezing faded into a sinewy chest. He had perfect ears with tips that rolled ever-so-slightly out from his scalp. He had perfect pink lips; the cherries and peeled oranges Eleanor fed him made the boy's mouth look like blood.
Lady Cousland loved this second child. She sat Adira in their dusted library for lessons with old Aldous, who taught him the songlike languages of Orlais and Antiva. She played her fiddle for him and drew charts of all the stars she knew. She stole the youngster away from Nan like a chicken thief, all giggles and shushed exclamations of love.
Eleanor never quite said it, but nevertheless made it very known: she did not want rough, wiry Fergus playing with him. In their heir's heavy hands and stickball matches was Bryce – his rakishness, lumbering stature and ungentleness. She loved these things about the Couslands, in a distant way… but they were not nearly as precious as a child who looked to his mother and ricocheted youth. Adira looked like her. The woman would clutch him to herself and smell that decades-disheveled cottage in a yellow, unimportant stretch of Ferelden moorland. She would cup his royal chin in her palm and find no trademark Cousland cleft. There were only the Boeric eyes to link them both back to Teyrn Highever. And when he closed them: nothing, nothing. They were free.
When Adira was eight, he fell ill with a wasting fever. Jaundice crept into tall and shallow cheeks; dullness glazed over those wild staring eyes. Eleanor sat endless, excruciating nights with a child who would eat only broth and quaked beneath three layers of wool. Fires would crackle at all hours in the nursery and she would sleep in that stout little bed with a hand draped before his muzzle – so the Teyrna could feel him breathe.
Adira Cousland was brought into a barren and bellicose world; he vomited scarlet to no avail, choking into crimson-flecked handkerchiefs. It was no use – the climate could not kill him. He was doomed to die by a blade.
So he lived.
Adira Cousland was a beautiful boy, a miracle boy; for many hours would Eleanor sit in the large bedroom window and comb her fingers through his soft, soft hair.
AFTERTHOUGHT: Well, I'm done creeping it out for one night. I'm gonna' call this a short intro-chapter a wrap. Thanks again for reading!