This story was written for "Dragon Age Fanfiction Writers" January challenge. As the summary already makes clear, it's an AU set into an alternative DA universe. Enjoy!

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NEVER LET ME GO

Memory, turn your face to the moonlight
Let your memory lead you
Open up, enter in

If you find there the meaning of what happiness is
Then a new life will begin

Fiona had no idea how she had actually accomplished that. One moment before, the Comte was weighing on her with his full weight, possessed by lust and focused on tearing her blouse; the moment later, he had shattered her herbal amulet, the only remnant of her life in the alienage, in the process and, as simple as it was, Fiona had decided that she would have swallowed no more. She had been overcome by a vision of the Comte dead on the floor, his heart ripped out of his chest and enclosed in smoking ice. Second by second, that crimson desire had filled her like a raging ocean, and the moment she had laid her hand on his chest shards of ice had actually begun to surface upon her skin. No. Her skin had started to generate ice. Before the slob could even realize what was happening, Fiona had gleaned from years of whipping and abuse and thrust her hand into his chest. Deeper, deeper, deeper until his cries had become of agony, of insufferable pain. Until he had begged for his life, promised her he would have freed her. That had been when Fiona had twisted her wrist to the right, discarding Comte Dorian's heart by its arteries.

As the hot, red blood of her abuser had started to drop on her and her own heart had started singing in glee, Fiona had realized, in utter horror, that her own ice was covering her hand as well. A frozen panic had almost gotten hold of her before she had realized she didn't want to die skin by skin with her jailer.

Managing to stop her own flow of magic right before the Ice could reach her heart, Fiona knew.

Magic had been her salvation. It might be her pass for freedom.

Cumberland sea was roaring, wild, barely contained by the city's cliffs. Fiona stared right into its eye, into its blue mask. Cumberland sea looked everything she had ever wanted to be. And now she could.

No more hallways so narrow that the walls almost seemed about to crash upon her. No more nightmares that left her breathless as her awakening, craving for more air than the Circle could provide. No sexual favors to become Enchanter – after all, in what other way could an elf hope to make something of herself, even at the Circle? Fiona wouldn't have allowed them to turn magic into her prison.

They had chased her all along the coast, but now she was about the be free. Fiona had managed to pay for a voyage to the Free Marches. All she had to do was wait for the sunset, to set foot on the ship.

Fiona looked into that blue – or maybe it was green? - eye once again. Her first act of freedom, she decided, it would have been to be embraced by the only unlimited element of nature.

Fiona jumped from the cliffs, freedom's song echoing in her mind.

§§

Once again, she had been subjected to the Chantry's law. To a human law. Enchained, powerless, she had had to remain silent while the Knight Commander of Montsimmard had requested for her to become tranquil, as he had branded her a dangerous element. She owed her life to the First Enchanter, but he had not been able to spare her to humiliation to be actually treated like a criminal. At the Knight Commander's request, two templars had been assigned to her surveillance and ordered to follow her wherever she may have ventured and to act as sentries at her door while she was sleeping. Fiona hated those Templars as much as, she knew, they hated for not being allowed to join their comrades in the barracks for lunch, or for a quick chat before their shift.

Day after day, Fiona had been holding her breath. The moment the First Enchanter had announced that Grey Warden Commander Genevieve of Orlais would have visited the Circle with the purpose of searching for a recruit, and would have chosen him, or her, through a proving, Fiona had recognized that as her opportunity to leave her prison. Of course, the Warden Commander had warned them all: the Circle was designed to offer them all protection and a quiet life, while being a Grey Warden meant to live side by side with danger for the rest of the years we have been granted by the Maker. But Fiona spat on the Maker and its gifts, on his concessions and his punishments. No Maker could ever transform her life into something more miserable than what it already was.

Fiona would have been that recruit. The Senior Enchanters watched her as she kept training, more, more and more, wondering if she had finally accepted her destiny as a mage of the Circle. They couldn't have been more wrong.

§§

Fiona, apprentice of Montsimmard Circle, stood in line with a dozen of her fellow mage companions. The youngest of the candidates, the only one who wasn't an enchanter yet. To her, it was perfectly clear that the First Enchanter had allowed her to duel the Warden Commander only because he was sure she would have never been able to stand out and catch the eye of the Commander. He had been wrong about one thing, though: Fiona had actually managed to catch the Commander's eye. As she was frantically, obsessively reviewing the spell at her disposal, Fiona recalled every detail of their meeting. Her introduction. The Commander's mistrustful frown. Her fervent plea. And finally the Commander's severe response.

The Grey Wardens are not a charity institution.

We are the army. And what good would do to any army a mage unable to follow even the rules of her Circle? I don't need people unable to take orders.

A pang of discouragement run through her body. She was the younger, the less experienced and, probably, the one candidate the Commander deemed the most unfitting: her pining blazed higher than any of her companion's, but, after all, wishes don't make a reality. Fiona stared at Warden Commander Genevieve as she entered the Harrowing chamber. The Commander held her head up high, her eyes shining with coarse determination, her sharp facial features looking even sharper by the tight, long braid of white air. Step by step, she reached the center of the Chamber. Confident, powerful, respected: everything Fiona wished to be. Merely her armor was enough to throw in Fiona's face how desperate her task was. The griffon upon her plate seemed to defy each and every one of them to defeat centuries-old order. The Commander was a seasoned warrior, whose sword had met thousand of darkspawn. A Grey Warden. She had merely killed a man in her short life. The Comte's face flashed in Fiona's memory: his pleas for mercy, his unplanned death, her chains shattering. Maybe, after all, her blazing pining would have granted her desire once again. Maybe, she could prove the Commander that her powers were just what the order needed.

Warden Commander Genevieve unsheathed her longsword. Fiona of Montsimmard looked her right in the eyes and took one step forward.

True to her word Genevieve had offered her no warm welcome. Upon their arrival at the Grey Wardens's headquarter, she had ordered Fiona to get ready for her training and sent her to the barracks to get her new equipment. As she was surveying the mage staffs at her disposal, testing her grip on each of them, a sound of quick steps nearing captured her attention. No. Not steps. Paws. Fiona turned, only to find herself face to face with a mabari hound. The beast, almost as tall as her waist, was staring at her with intelligent eyes. It cocked its head, without moving further in her direction. A mabari. A mabari was a beast of nobility. The mere thought of being under the same roof with a noble made Fiona crawl back, seeking refuge in the nearest corner. Whimpering, she covered her face with arms, waiting for the lashes the Comte was certainly about to administer her. Trembling, she raised her eyes the moment she felt the rough tongue of the hound licking her arm. A bald man had crouched by her side, a concerned look into his clear eyes. His name was Kell ap Morgan, he was second in command to Genevieve and he swore to not let the Commander know how Fiona had crushed under the weight of her past. When he offered her his hand to help her up, Fiona knew she had made her first friend amongst the Wardens.

Her bones were aching and her body desperately craved some rest, but Fiona couldn't bring herself to close her eyes. She caressed her son's soft cheek, she stared into his chestnut eyes, she let him hold her finger with his tiny, delicate hands. The moment she pressed a kiss to his forehead and smelled his innocence, Fiona laughed heartily. Finally, she had done something grand of her life. Finally, she had managed to tear the stifling cloak of her past. She had finally understood that not every nobleman was a disgusting slob. As sleep finally claimed her attention, Fiona thought back of Kell and Hafter. Their last run to battle, the unconditional friendship they had offered her since the first glance. If Kell hadn't chosen to go after Genevieve, she wouldn't have been able to love Maric and, therefore, hold her son in her arms. As much as she cared for them, she would have watched them run to their deaths a thousand time if it meant for her to give birth to her son.

And then the baby's quiet breath turned into agonizing, desperate cries.