Note: Surprisingly enough, I found that the song "The Memory Remains" by Metallica fits quite well with Leandra's . . . situation. The title was chosen before I had a look at the lyrics, though. This is written mainly to get it out of my head so I can concentrate on the broader story I have in mind. Curse my non-linear imagination.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own twisted ideas.
The Memories Remain:
"Tell me about your mother."
The question took Anders quite by surprise. Its delivery was surprisingly calm, and considering the sheer quantity of tears that had soaked through his shirt, his coat long-since discarded to the floor from where he'd tried to wrap it around her shoulders in some misguided display of gallantry, he was dubious as to how much Hawke actually cared at the moment. He couldn't even see her face from this angle to judge her sincerity.
"Do you even remember her?" the tinge of sadness colored her words, and he knew he had to tell her something, if only to distract her from more tears.
"I do, actually," he replied honestly, kissing the top of her head and rubbing her arm as he cradled her tighter against him, nearly prone as they both were on her bed, "Most of my best memories from before the Circle involve her."
"What was she like? Was she pretty?" he could tell by now she was only half interested from the way she mumbled and played with the wrinkles of his shirt. He could say anything right now and it wouldn't matter.
"You just want to hear the sound of my voice, don't you?" he goaded with his characteristic disarming charm. He had to admit, it was more a reflexive defense mechanism than anything else by this point. Serious conversations, especially about his childhood had never been comfortable for him, if not downright depressing. Even as a kid newly minted as a Circle apprentice he didn't talk about it, and he'd been in good company.
"Can you blame me? You're . . . you're all I have left now, and there's so much you never say. Just talk, damnit." In this state, her articulation left so much to be desired, but the demand was clear.
His head clunked solidly against the headboard, and he sighed as he closed his eyes. This wasn't an argument he was going to win. His first impulse was to get up and leave at her probing words, but . . . he couldn't leave her. Not like that, and especially not right now.
And she did ask.
"Yes, she was pretty," he began cautiously, almost sorrowfully. He'd never truly realized how much he really didn't want to talk about this, "unconventionally so, anyway. I think most people would have considered her plain, but she never minded. She did have long and lovely hair, though, a few shades brighter than mine. She always kept it done up, but not always the same style. Sometimes a ponytail, sometimes a bun, sometimes a braid, but always something simple she could do on her own. I think the villagers couldn't have stopped staring if she left it down when she went into town. The life of a farmwife . . . I don't know if it ever really suited her, as if it was too easy."
"If she had your eyes, I don't know how anyone could have thought she wasn't gorgeous," there was no hint of teasing to her tone, but he did feel the ghost of a smile through his shirt, trying to imagine this ghost of a woman so close to the man she clung to. It was a way she had, to flatter him just so, and it always went a long way. At least it raised his spirits enough to continue.
"It never really occurred to me to compare them while I was there, but yes. Her nose, too, I think. Also her mouth, as in what comes out of it. Isabella would be hard-pressed to come close to the things I heard my mother say on occasion. In at least three different languages, no less." He smiled slightly at the memory.
"Profanity? From you?" her brow furrowed with the thought that didn't seem to jive so well, "Is that where the 'knickerweasels' thing came from?"
"You didn't see me when I first got to the Circle. Imagine a sailor's vocabulary from a twelve-year-old who was too stupid to know when to quit. They, uh, didn't take to that sort of language very well," he cleared his throat, "Most of them knew the languages I was referencing far more fluently than I did, too. I was slapped more times than I can count by teachers and quite a few times by a gauntlet . . . so I had to get creative. Turn my intention into something silly instead of outright crude so they could laugh it off or be outright confused instead of cuffing me. Mother probably would've been proud."
"It sounds like it," Hawke murmured her agreement, "My mother would never stand for it. In spite of who she ran off with, she was always so proper. Even after we got to Kirkwall, she reprimanded us like we were little kids if we used foul words. Gamlen, too. You should have seen it! It was always so . . . hilarious," she hiccupped on the last word.
He held her as she shook again with grief, tremors calling forth tears he didn't even think she had left, soothing her and gently rubbing her back. "I know it's hard now, but you'll cherish those memories later, love. All the good and all the bad."
She hiccupped again, but nodded. "My mother was raised as nobility, but sometimes I swear she didn't teach us manners. I'm sorry I'm asking you all this, putting all this on you . . ."
"Don't be, love. I'm here for you," he assured.
There was a long pause before she spoke again. The only reason he knew she wasn't asleep already was how she kept curling and uncurling her hand across his stomach and how every other breath hitched in her throat. At any other time, he might have been . . . encouraged by this touch, this closeness, but even his body seemed to know such a reaction was inappropriate right now.
Maybe you do have some restraint, after all.
Shove off, you.
"I don't think Mother ever liked living on a farm, either," she finally said, "It was pretty obvious once we got to Kirkwall."
Anders didn't comment. He knew it wasn't his place, even if he'd only known them in the city. Leandra had been so comfortable in this house, it was no wonder.
"What did your mother do on your farm?"
It had been a long time since he'd tried to remember anything about his mother besides her face and voice, so he took a deep breath and started slowly, "Lots of things. Mostly, she tended her garden, I think. Herbs, vegetables, flowers, she had a little of everything, but enough that she hardly ever had to go into town for anything she needed. Lavender was her favorite. She'd cut it and dry it to hang around the house during winter, put it in soaps, even cook with it. She slaughtered the animals for dinner, too, making use of nearly everything. It was almost scary the way she could handle kitchen knives, but hypnotizing to watch. Maybe in another life she'd been a butcher. Oh Maker, the very thought of her sausages still makes my mouth water.
"That wasn't the limit to what she could do with pig intestine, either . . ." he smirked at the thought, certain the woman in his arms would appreciate the coming story when she didn't reply, "It was one of the few things she'd do that she wouldn't let me help with, but I still watched when I was sure she wouldn't notice. She would cut the intestine into sections and sew one end tightly together before treating and drying them, then take them all into town to sell. I didn't realize what anyone could possibly want with those things until years later on one of my escape attempts from the Circle, and a girl I propositioned insisted I wear one."
He felt her tentative smile as she caught on, "You can't be serious."
He chuckled, "Completely. Even after I told her I was a mage and had a spell for that. Can't fault her for being too careful, I suppose. It reminded me so much of my mother that I accomplished my worst performance ever that night. Well, that, and I doubt the girl's last partner decided to wash it afterwards."
She grimaced against him, but didn't comment.
"She was a marvelous cook, though," he sighed, getting back on topic, "my mother, I mean. Never could so much flavor be coaxed out of such simple fare. Meat, potatoes, cabbage, noodles . . . If the Divine herself had tasted my mother's cooking, she would have made her a saint on the spot.
"After dinner, she would sit by the crackling fire and let me read to her or just tell her about my day while she mended clothes or embroidered. She'd made a few quilts, too, out of leftover pieces of cloth or even old clothes. One time, she made a grand blanket for me out of the biggest single piece of cloth I'd ever seen, all black and gold with a huge black griffon on it with wicked red talons and beak. I loved that blanket. I even gave the griffon some silly name and jumped on the bed pretending I was flying on its back after my parents went to bed. You can just picture that, can't you?"
He felt her smile.
"I'd tell her the gossip in the town while she was sewing," he continued "what my friends' parents were doing, what latest bawdy tavern tale was making the rounds of the old soldiers and bann's men at the tavern, even things I never told anyone else about. She was the first one I told how I was teaching myself magic and what I did with it. She was the first person to realize I was a mage, and she didn't hate me for it, saying it was a beautiful gift, what I could do. That was probably the best part about her, I think. She never thought I was a monster, never thought I should be taken away. She loved me for who I was and was proud of me and what I could do." Tears welled in his eyes, but he blinked them away, swallowing.
"She would sing me to sleep sometimes," he continued roughly, "even after I claimed I was too old for it. Other mothers didn't sing to their sons like that, I was certain. Then again, other mothers weren't her. She didn't have the sweetest voice, either, probably a little too deep for any superficial man to truly adore, but it was hers. And I . . ." he found he couldn't finish the sentence. His throat had suspiciously constricted all on its own.
"You miss her," Hawke finished quietly for him, needing no confirmation. It was the same thing she was feeling, and it probably meant the world to her to know that someone else understood, and deeply so. That motherly love could still be felt even years removed. That those you kept in your heart were never truly gone.
Her hand had stilled over his stomach. He hadn't noticed when the faint caress had ceased, and that fact mildly upset him. She probably would have moved her arm around him and scooted up to bury her face in his neck by now if she hadn't used all her energy on tears already.
"What happened to her?" there was an unspoken plea in the question "please let someone's family be all right in this crazy world, even if they're torn apart, Maker, let them be alive."
"I don't know." He tried to breathe normally, tried to be stoic about it and just state it all as fact. "The last I saw her, she was cursing at the templars who hauled me away to the Circle for the first time. They told her she could never see me again, never even ask about me, or she'd be thrown in prison, maybe worse. The only thing that kept her from running after me and stabbing them to death was my father's arms around her waist." He swallowed roughly. Even knowing his mother as he did, he honestly didn't think she could have won such a fight on her own, not against trained knights.
The fact remained that his father hadn't helped her, hadn't stopped them, made no protest at all. To any boy, his father was always the strongest man in the world, but his hadn't even said one thing since the templars arrived. If anything, he'd helped them.
Thankfully the memory didn't bite deeply enough anymore to make him truly angry, too overwritten by sadness as it was now. If it were otherwise, he might fear for the safety of the emotionally fragile woman in his arms. Sometimes he thought that was the only way she could ever be fragile, and he was somewhat grateful for that. It was one thing to piece refugees together for a living, but quite another to have to reconstruct your lover on a daily basis. "No mother should ever have to go through that, no matter the reason. Yours is lucky it never happened to you."
He felt her swallow painfully, and she shivered again.
He closed his eyes, preparing himself for the next part, knowing he really could have left it there, but unable to stop himself this time, "I did go back there, though. Two years after, I took a dive into Lake Calenhad and left the Tower behind for the first time. I hitched rides on farm carts, tracked through fields and forests, begged, borrowed and stole my way back home. It took me a week to get there, but when I did, it was for nothing. She wasn't there anymore. The locals said they'd all picked up and moved the year before. I never even knew where they went. Some said Denerim, some said Orlais like they were some sort of occupation sympathizers, or the Anderfels, but most just didn't care. It was last year's news and they'd already forgotten." Anders let out a shuddering breath. He didn't tell her what he had found: a gravestone. Under his favorite tree, where he'd broken his arm once trying to save a cat.
It had his name.
"The templars caught up to me, then. It was the only time they actually seemed understanding, I think. Then again, I didn't have it in me to bait them. Maybe that was the difference. I was actually quiet without them having to knock me senseless first."
"What a waste of such a clever mouth," she mumbled into his chest, offhandedly. In spite of his story, pouring his heart out to her, she was finally starting to drift off to sleep, "and such a nice voice."
"I'm sure they never thought so, love," he remarked around the lump in his throat.
"I bet your mother did. I know mine did. Talked to her once about you," she stroked his stomach again sleepily, sending a warm rush through him that was welcome and totally inappropriate at the same time, "I think she approved."
"I'm glad. Your mother was a unique woman, love," he stroked his thumb against her back again, "You were so lucky. You don't even know how much."
"You were lucky, too, I think. Your mom sounds wonderful. Would she have liked me?"
"How could anyone not love you, dear?"
"Because I do strange things to her precious son," she purred contentedly at him. It was almost as if the serious exposition on his part had never happened. "Some mothers would have my head on a pike."
He chuckled at her light-hearted self. She would recover in time, maybe even enough to let her come to terms with her mother's death like she had her sister's. "You love her son. That would mean more than the world to her."
"Hmm? When did I ever say that?"
"In your case, sandwiches speak louder than words. To an underfed Grey Warden, it's the sexiest thing ever, might I add. I just read between the meat and cheese."
"You're one to talk about cheese," she sighed and smiled against him, "Tell me more, something happy, a fairy tale, anything. Just let me listen to your voice some more."
"A bedtime story, huh?" he smirked down at the top of her head, "You're such a little girl," he teased, and was immediately sorry he had.
"I think I'm allowed," she replied sadly, and he suddenly wondered how much progress he'd undone by one silly comment, or how much the playfulness from a moment ago had been an act, "Please, Anders."
He squeezed her shoulder to him once again and soothed, "All right, but it won't be as good as Varric's."
"Varric holding me like this would be pretty awkward, don't you think?"
He chuckled at her and felt her smile again as he settled into a storyteller's cadence, recalling a beloved tale from his childhood. He didn't know why, but for right now, it seemed fitting. "Once upon a time, there were four old animals, a donkey, a rooster, a cat and a dog. They were coming to the ends of their usefulness on their farm, so they decided to leave for the free city of Hossberg where they would not be judged on appearance and could live out the rest of their lives as musicians without pesky human masters . . ."
The morning would find them entwined with each other in the same position, too exhausted to rise with the birds, and Bodahn would quietly close the door to let the two lovers continue to mourn in peace while the house woke around them.