She gives him form. He exists first as scattered thoughts in her head when she sits at her perch and admires her kingdom. Later he comes when her daughters and her sons sit around and brag of their success, and again when she suggests she'll execute an old thief who snuck into her quarters–and Andruil says she'd have him try to run away first, and Dirthamen chimes in, no, no, let's play with his head in other ways.
He knows her other spirits before he knows himself. There is nurture, and compassion, and fortune first, and then wisdom comes later, when he knows himself enough to call himself pride. Nurture swaddles him for much of his young life in the dreaming world, before Mythal calls to him and June crafts his body. Then he knows arms and legs, hands and feet, taste and touch, and it is her body that swaddles him, not her spirit.
She shows him books, and he reads his first one carefully, tracing each word so that he might hear them–and he learns months later that these stories are fiction and folktale, and this is when he crosses his arms and learns what disappointment is for the first time.
He grows into most of his emotions quickly, but even when he is years past his fledgling days, his pride does not step back.. Compassion joins with him late, and there are whispers whispers about Mythal that he does not like–but when she touches him, only when she touches him, there is wisdom.
She does not touch him much anymore, except when he does something grand, and so he strives to do everything he does as big as he can, just for another taste of her spirits. He does not question her–he has never thought to, except in those few touches, and by the time her hands leave him he has already forgotten.
Now the whispers are in his ear, and he shivers. She is our mother. She will do anything for us, and we must do the same for her. One of his lovers whispers in his ear, too, these sweet words, and there is talk of marriage, and he does not question anything because he knows, he knows her heart is his, and his heart hers, and when she is gone he at least knows the mother loves him. He knows he is not alone.
So he reshapes the world for her. He lies for her. He kills and cries. And then she tells him to sleep, and he does, and he wakes up in a dead world. Still, he tells himself, he is not alone, he is not alone, he is not alone, he just has to fix things and he will not be alone. If he fixes things, she will love him again. She will touch him again. He will have her, and the people, and the world will be right again.
He will take, like the Dalish curse says. He will take and take until there is nothing left of this dead world, even if in the end, there is nothing left of him.