Title: Clear Sky on Still Waters
Author: Jade Sabre
For: Leah, as a belated entry in the 2014 Dragon Age Holiday Gift Exchange
Notes: Sometimes you set out to write a fic and it's the wrong fic, and then you have to try and try again until it is right. Still, this gift is unspeakably late and for that I apologize. I've never attempted a Morrigan romance fic and hope I've done it justice; I appreciated the opportunity to try my hand at it, and I ALSO appreciate you recently linking to Gabrielle Aplin's "Home," which is gorgeous and which can be found on YouTube here: watch?v=1pLsb1YMsKE. I hope you had happy holidays and that your new year is off to a great start!
Morrigan sees a person in the lake.
She is not supposed to talk to strangers and since the only person she knows is Mother, the right thing to do would be to ignore the person in the lake, to slip quietly back amongst the reeds at the lake's edge and scamper her way home. On the other hand, the person has definitely noticed her, is staring up at her as intently as she stares back, eyes wide and mouth solemn; and they're in the lake, which is an unusual occurrence worth investigating. She can hardly go home and tell Mother she met a person in a lake without reporting how such a thing is possible.
So she steps closer to the water, and more of the person comes into view: a girl, not very tall, almost like a little Mother, with black hair and pale skin and bright yellow eyes, and a pointy nose, but wearing a sackcloth dress like Morrigan and she looks like Morrigan feels—curious and suspicious and wondering, all at once. But she doesn't speak, and Morrigan isn't going to be the one to break the silence; she creeps closer, hoping to be shouted at or greeted or—
She startles a bullfrog who jumps into the water with a resounding splash, and just like that the girl is gone in so many ripples and Morrigan realizes that of course, just as the water reflects the sun and sky and even the reeds it reflects people, too, and what she has seen is no less than herself.
.
It's not important, she tells herself, it doesn't matter, it's too small a thing to have meaning for anyone other than herself, and if she thinks she is lying to herself, that Flemeth will think this a very big thing, well, the deed is done, the mirror in her hands and the lady in the carriage far, far away. Still, she's not quite brave enough to bring it home, not yet; so she sneaks away instead, tucks the mirror safely in her belt and ducks within a grove of wild trees, scaling the one with the lowest and most comfortable branches and settling herself in to inspect her prize.
The mirror is heavy, which should not be so surprising as it is; the handle and backing are gold and thick, the handle tipped with ivory. The back has a large round red stone surrounded by smaller tendrils of pink and yellow stone, the late afternoon light catching all their facets in sharp glints of dizzying color, and the gold gleams, warms itself in her hands. She has never held anything so breathtakingly lovely in her life; she did not know how much she longed for it until it came within her grasp.
And the other prize...
Slowly, carefully, barely aware that she is holding her breath, she turns the mirror over in her hands, and for a moment the smooth reflective surface catches nothing but light, white and pure and blinding but even as she squints against the flash it is gone and she is squinting at a girl with a thin sharp nose and slits of yellow behind her lashes. She stops squinting and holds the mirror farther away, taking in the brush of black hair across her forehead, her pointy chin with its angry pimples, inspecting herself with little frame of reference—not that it matters, not that she couldn't walk into any village with enough confidence to turn heads regardless of her face—but she likes her face, unfortunate blemishes on her chin and all. She curves her lips, sharp and dangerous, but her teeth are pleasingly straight and her eyes crinkle up and she knows this and yet cannot conceal her delight, her smile as bright and warm as the mirror itself.
.
The Circle Tower is full of mirrors.
Morrigan isn't sure why, other than the fact that so-called civilized peoples seem to prize being able to see themselves whenever they please; still, she cannot divine what pleasure having one's captivity reflected at every turn could bring. Perhaps pleasure is not their aim at all; perhaps the templars wished for the mages to be unable to see themselves without stone walls at their backs.
Her speculation is moot, in any case. The mirrors are shattered, polished glass crunching under her boots as they pick their way amongst the wreckage of the Circle living quarters. Amell leads the way, his face white as the sheets once were before all the blood. One of these beds was once his, and the others those of his friends, if these are not their very corpses, mangled beyond recognition, at their feet. She watches his lips form the shapes of names unspoken, feels his magic writhing under his white-knuckled grasp, and yet he remains silent. The older Circle mage does not speak, either, though she does give way to stifled gasps and quiet, anxious noises of regret; even Alistair's ever-wagging tongue is still; and she herself, though of the opinion that this wreck was of the Circle's own making, catches a splintered glimpse of herself in a mirror's jagged edge, meets Amell's haunted eyes in the glass, and says nothing.
It is not because his grief stirs her pity, or some half-anxious thought in her belly; instead, as they wander the halls, she finds herself marveling most of all that he cares so much for so many people. A weakness, to be sure, for all his seeming strength, the same weakness that spared an assassin's life and continues to laugh at Alistair's jokes, and a weakness that she, for all her many faults and failings, does not share. She is suddenly, fiercely glad to have been spared life in the Circle, or indeed in any community, a thousand thousand lonely mornings a small price to pay for true independence.
Amell stumbles after a battle; being closest to him, she reaches out a hand and he grasps it, his grip as desperate as his gaze. He pulls to standing, entirely too close, looks too deeply into her eyes, and says "thank you" with the depth and quiet courage of a man who sees his death before him, with an overwhelming gratitude she does not understand. She releases his hand and yet he looks a moment longer at her, for what, she doesn't know; whatever comfort he seeks in this desolate place, she certainly can't provide. She wishes he would stop looking at her as if she can—as if she does, marking him not only a weak man but a mad one, as well.
She follows him anyway. Stone walls curve about them; glass crunches underfoot.
.
Amell gives her a mirror, the fool, fool to listen to her stories, fool to bother his head with remembering the details and above all fool to spend valuable coin on trinkets and yet—
she is so desperately, desperately pleased.
She tells him this later, in not nearly so many words, but she makes a game of it, a fun diversion, a passing whim of desire and nothing more, beyond that it passes by more often than not and he, for all his blushing, is quite willing to play, and he is fun to play with, more than she expected a Circle mage to be. And if he occasionally stumbles into affectionate talk he always accepts her scorn with a shamefaced grin that would be endearing, if she cared for anything beyond a simple dalliance, a warm body on a cold Fereldan night.
And pretty trinkets, of course, and mirrors.
He catches her looking at it—not in it, she refuses to be so vain, she knows very well what she looks like—sneaks behind her as she's caught in its golden gleam and laughs, landing kisses on her neck and a hand in her hair.
"You kept it," he says, delight evident in his voice.
"Of course," she says, disdain dripping from hers. "'Twas a gift, and as I said, I was raised to accept such things gracefully."
"So you did," he says. "But you're using it wrong."
"Am I?" she asks, and turns it over so that their reflections peer out at them. He rests his chin on her shoulder, dark hair falling across his forehead, blue eyes alight, his pale skin still faintly tinged with pink from a week of sunny days and no hat—not that he looks like he cares about anything other than the pleasure of looking at the two of them together in the mirror, and that—
She focuses her gaze on herself and is horrified to see a softness in her eyes, the crinkling edges of a smile that are not laughing at him but are rather—she rolls her eyes to the sky and he laughs again and nuzzles her neck and she cannot shake the image of two people who look...happy, together. "Hush," she says crossly.
"I'm just glad to see you know how to use it after all," he says, and she pulls away from the shiver his voice sends down her spine.
"Of course I know how to use it," she says. "But the sight of my own appearance holds very little charm for me—"
"Liar," he says, looking a little shocked with his own audacity in saying it.
"—at least, not as much charm as it seems to hold for you, which seems to me to be quite enough for the both of us," she says, amused and annoyed, wanting to shove the mirror back in her pack but too particular not to wrap it in cloth first. She does this, carefully, refusing to look up though she knows he watches her face and not her hands, and when finally she is able to give in to her initial inclination she says, "We cannot both of us be fools."
"Ah, but one of us still could," he says.
"A foolish choice," she says.
"Made by a fool," he points out. "Could he make any other kind?"
"I suppose not," she says, "but I have little pity for him, just the same."
"Ah, but we already know you're a heartless shrew," he says, laughing again, and she laughs with him and the two of them sound happy together and it is—
A game, and nothing more.
(His smile is brighter than gold, his eyes more precious than any gem, and she may be a liar but she will not be a fool.)
.
She is a fool, and she hopes, yes, 'tis the only word for it, that he is wise enough to accept her offer.
She is fairly certain he will, but even so she babbles all her practical arguments in its favor with all the sharpness and none of the dignity she'd hoped to have. And as she watches him protest her insistence on their parting, then quietly ponder her offer, she realizes that some part of her...fears, fears that some silly foolish part of him—honor or faith or some other such nonsense—will overcome her reasoning, will overcome her, that whatever he claims to feel for her will not be enough and if it is not enough then she is twice the fool for feeling. She is fear and hope and longing and disgusted with herself even as he acquiesces, as he steps forward and lifts her chin to meet her gaze, and in an instant the clamor within her falls silent.
His eyes are pale as a lake reflecting a clear-blue sky, tinged with the green of trees around the edges, and in one moment she sees a curious girl-child and in the next she sees the same fear and hope and longing, quiet and scared and yet free of the self-loathing she cannot quite shake; instead, he trusts, and for the space of a night she surrenders herself to it.
He slumbers by her side in the dark for the last time, and she cries tears so silent she might disclaim them, were her eyes not red with the rising sun. And then they are marching and then they are fighting and then he is running full tilt into a dragon's maw while she watches and then there is—
light—
and then she is gone, the magic setting fire in her veins proof enough that her love yet lives, and she is stumbling down winding stone stairs choking for breath against the flame, her heart frantic in her chest, skin raw and burning as she scrapes her hands along the wall for support.
And already she misses him, the cool soothing magic in his hands, the curve of his smile and edge of his laugh; already his voice is a ghost in her memory, the echoes of him haunting her steps as she goes—away. Somewhere that he is not, and in the smoke-clogged streets of Denerim her mind catches on the thought even as her feet carry her over corpse and under falling flaming beam and out into the wilderness she'd once called home.
She is doing the right thing. She refuses to regret. One day, she will believe herself again.
.
Her son—a son! and surely some magic of Flemeth's is broken here—looks nothing like his father, except perhaps in the crookedness of his little nose. He rather looks like a strangely distorted image of herself, even in his round baby cheeks and short dark lashes hiding eyes as gold as the strands around her neck. She is not so vain as to stare at her own reflection; from her son, she cannot look away.
.
Of course he finds her again at the mirror. Of course he closes upon her heels just as she makes her escape, the sudden surprise pulling of his ring enough to stop her short on the brink of—everything she has worked so hard to achieve in the past few years. Of course the sight of him is enough to make her waver, to waste precious seconds answering his questions; of course the sound of his voice infuriates her, for her anger with him at breaking their agreement vanishes like wisp in the wilds. She is so close, and to stumble now, to forget how carefully she has guarded her heart in his absence—
But of course she hasn't been a careful guard at all; of course, their son has pierced her heart as with a sword and now it bleeds a mother's love without her permission, and of course that bleeding heart is all-too-eager to encounter Amell again—an easy thing to ignore when it had been impossible, but now he stands before her in the flesh and she aches, she aches to have him walk this road with her, this road she swore she'd walk alone. She'd be a fool to share its power, and besides she does not truly know where it leads, and while she is willing to risk everything again, and again, for the sake of the change her son will bring, she is not willing—
But he is willing; he is standing before her with his heart in his hands, its steady beating a memory whose comfort she's refused and yet it is here, and his eyes are trusting and his want is so simple she'd be a fool to believe it is all he wants and yet—
She is not her mother. She does not have to be alone.
The mirror shows nothing of what goes behind nor a hint of what lies before; but he stands at her side and that, truly, is all she needs to see.
Epilogue:
"Mother," says a little girl, dark brown hair in pigtails, holding something heavy and cloth-bound in her hands, "what's this?"
Morrigan turns to her daughter—a girl, yes, but very much her father's child, pale eyes and smiles and kind where her brother is mischievous—and says, "Where did you get that?"
"In the chest," her daughter says, but before Morrigan can scold her for poking around forbidden places, Amell ducks in through the door, their son squealing on his father's shoulders.
"What's she found?" he asks, swinging the boy up in the air before sitting him on the table and crouching before his daughter.
"She's been into the chest again," Morrigan says, but she sees his eyes alight and knows discipline is futile this time.
"You kept it," he says.
"'Twas a gift," she says shortly, and he is already unwrapping it, the familiar gold and sunburst gems dazzling in the afternoon sun.
"From who?" the girl asks.
"Papa," the boy answers, kicking his heels against the table. The older he grows the less certain she is that it is only her little boy speaking—but if the knowledge comes from places older and deeper and wiser than thought, the words remain his own.
"It's a mirror," Amell explains, turning it over so that they can look into it together, and their daughter squeals with delight and starts pointing out all the things she shares with Papa (hair, eyes) and the ones she doesn't (those lines on your forehead, Papa), and Morrigan sighs to stifle her smile and watches her son watch them curiously, intrigued and yet content to swing his legs rather close to his sister's head.
Morrigan catches his eye and gives him a look and he stops, and again she marvels that for all his timeless power he is still so easily cowed. She knows change is coming; even beyond the tales from Kirkwall and the mutterings of the Orlesian court she feels it, feels that something at the core of the world has come unbound and her son's destiny will unfurl with it; but for now she is content in her family, content in her work, and if that makes her a fool, well—
"Mother," her daughter says, holding up the mirror, and so Morrigan takes it and joins her in the looking, and though they are not much alike her daughter still points to their noses and giggles. Her son hops off the table and pokes his head between them, and he looks nothing like his sister and yet they shove against each other gleefully until Amell comes behind them and puts his arms around them all, leaning his head against hers and sighing. She meets his eyes in the mirror and he is so grateful, kissing her cheek, and she is equally thankful and if that makes them both fools—
Well, they have already proved what two fools can accomplish, provided they are foolish together. And here, for now, captured upon the mirror's smooth glass, together they are, children and all; and here, for now, 'tis enough.