Disclaymer: As much as I lament Dragon Age: Origins isn't mine, I'm just borrowing it for a while. Will put it back just like I found it. Promise.
Authors Notes: Just a short one-shot, nothing special, hadn't originally planed on putting it up but in one of my 'What the meh' moments I did. Hope everyone enjoys it.
***
In all her years of training, all the lessons her mother had thrust upon her, all the hours, days and months observing, nothing had prepared her for such a thing, such feelings. She lived by a simple philosophy: Survival of the Fittest, it had been so in the Wilds and more so in the world of men. Power was everything.
And yet as she wandered the snowy mountain peaks, the tempest brewing in her womb, she couldn't help but turn to face the east every so often, her thoughts drifting back fondly to the only weakness she had ever allowed herself. And now as nightmares even she couldn't understand plagued her nights she chided herself for considering however briefly that perhaps, by just a slim, unforeseen possibility she had made a mistake. Her gloved hand rose from her side to hover just over her bellybutton.
As the slightest feeling of dread spread from a deep rumbling in her spirit she wondered. Perhaps she ought not have left the lowlands. Perhaps she ought not have followed the oh so clear path she had laid out before herself. With a shake of her head and a small sneer she banished those futile thoughts from her mind, blaming the elven Warden for somehow instilling in her such change, one could even say she had developed a very mild case of a conscious.
She continued her march in an attempt to find a safe place to spend the night. As a flash of pain and images coursed through her very blood she fell to one knee, grasping her staff tightly for support, not making a sound. Her God Child held such power. She had felt pain as this before, coursing through her like fire, each like a bolt of lightning striking her and taking longer than the last to ease away from her body, the images burned into her minds eye: fire, destruction, the sound of flapping wings and the ear-splitting roar of an ancient entity.
But as she struggled along her path she allowed herself, in times such as these, when the pain overwhelmed her and she felt almost like pieces of herself were slowly being burnt away, to remember some of the last words spoken to her: 'You know you'll always be able to trust me... Right?'. At the time she had felt... touched by the words, a feeling of, dare she say it, affection blossoming in her then frozen heart. When there had come a promise that she would be searched for her face had betrayed her emotions even as she insisted that not only would it not be wise but that she would never allow herself to be found. But now, now that her nights were fraught with daemons and doubt crept into her days she took comfort in those same words for she knew, deep in her thawing heart she knew that her one happy regret would catch up to her, that the one person she would allow herself to draw strength from would find her if she was ever in real need. In her chest a small flame of hope kept her warm.
Yes, her sister would come for her.