This is my first bit of Fan Fiction writing in forever.
I do not own Dragon Age, I have just played along in the world for way to long.
Neria shouldn't be surprised to catch him like that, with another woman, the skirts of both of their robes hiked up as they thrust against each other in the back room of the infirmary. She shouldn't be surprised, but she is.
She knew Anders had slept with half of the women their age in Kinloch Hold, and a good number of the men, but some how she had believed his heated whispers that she was special to him, that he had changed for her, that he loved her. They had been best friends for years, but maybe she was nothing more to him than another conquest. She swallowed down the hurt and pain she felt at this betrayal and waited in the hallway for them to finish.
Solona came out first, a smug look on her face as she came out, smoothing down her robes. She didn't see, or chose to ignore Neria as she hurried off to class. As Irving's favorite student she got away with being late to her lessons in a fashion that would have the other apprentices in detention.
Neria found her nerves again, swallowed the bout of nausea that threatened to betray her true purpose and knocked on the infirmary door. She wanted to smack the smile off his face when he saw her, duck under the arms that wrapped around her in a hug, the hands still smelling of Solona, but she let him hug her and give her a kiss on her cheek.
"Whats wrong, sweetheart" he asked when she didn't return the hug.
I think I'm... she wanted to whisper to him, but the walls in the towers all had ears and this was not a fear she dared breathed to life in here, not to him right now, not after catching him like that. She looked up into his face and searched his eyes for some sign of guilt for what she had caught him doing, but one of the first lessons of survival in the tower was to hide all emotions. The templars would use them against you, and what Neria wasn't letting herself think about would most certainly be used against her, against both of them.
"Take me with you" she whispered against his hair instead, she knew his tells, recognized that he was getting ready to run from the tower again. He had asked her to run away with him previously, promised to show her the world outside of the tower. At the time she had no reason to take him up on it. Now things were different.
"Of course" he answered as he kissed her on the end of a delicate pointed ear, this promise rolling off of his lips as easily as all the rest.
Two days later he was gone.
She was in the entry hall when they drug him back a month later, looking smug, tan and with a gold ring in his ear. He had the decency to give her a guilty look as all the apprentices were gathered to watch him receive ten lashes for running away before being thrown in the solitary confinement for two months.
It was easy to blame her throwing up in the washroom on the shock of seeing so much blood. Her feeling sick at the sight of blood a well touted joke among her friends. She couldn't let them know the real reason, but she feared her secret would be discovered before she could find another chance to escape.
Neria was enjoying a quick soak in the tub. She had remembered to throw her robes over the pep hole that the templars watched them bathing from. The loose robes would hide her secret for a little bit longer in public, but while she was here naked, bathing, her belly showed her pregnancy to any who would look.
"I should have told him when I had the chance" she thinks to herself as she ducks her head under the water to rinse her hair. "Maybe if he knew he would have taken me with him" She had become a master of the "what if" game over the last three months, while she lived in fear that her secret would be out.
"What do we have here?" The voice breaks her thoughts as her Neria's head resurfaces. Its Solona, who is still Irving's pet and spy. Neria isn't fast enough grabbing her towel and covering her belly, getting it soaking wet in the process. Of all the people to catch her, it had to be Solona Amell. The two were hardly friends, and the memory of seeing her with Anders hardly made for grounds to start a friendship.
"It's nothing" Neria replied as she got out of the tub and drew her robes over her wet body, panicking how long it would be until her her secret was known. It was joked that Solona would rat out her best friend Jowan if she thought it would get her ahead with anything.
"Innocent little Neria's not so innocent" Solona said in a taunting voice and a knowing glint in here eyes before asking "Who's the father? Surly not that Templar that follows you around"
Neria froze. She knew that would be the to find out who the father is. Relationships were forbidden in the tower, but they happened anyways. When things like pregnancies happened both parties were punished. Even now, after his double betrayal, her instinct is to protect Anders, but Cullen is one of the few nice templars, it wouldn't be right to throw him to the wolves. Instead she stays silent. Solona gives up tying to get answers and runs off, and Neria finishes dressing before going to her cot in the dormitory to wait. There is no where to run.
The templars come for her that night, dragging her out of the tower, to where ever they hold pregnant mages.
There were two things that replayed themselves through Anders head during his two months in confinement, the memories of that night with a dark-skinned Rivani pirate and a night he would never forget at the Pearl, how he loved the Pearl, and the look of hurt and betrayal on Neria's face when he was dragged back. "Take me with you" she had begged. How easy it was to lie to her and tell her he would. He felt a twinge of guilt at how many lies he had told her before he left. She had been so sweet and innocent, a challenge, yet he used lies to get his best friend in bed because he was bored. Sex was a game in the tower, one he thought she was used to. It wasn't until he had been buried in her that he realized just how innocent she was, how she couldn't know his whispered words of love were part of the game. The first thing he was going to do when he got out was to find her and give her an apology, an explanation. Maybe the second, it had been a long two months, and a dark corner and a willing partner were just as tempting.
Neria wasn't in any of her usual haunts when he was finally released, her dorm, the library, the little corner outside one of the class rooms she liked to curl up with a book in, so when Anders saw Solona, Nail and Jowan with their heads together at a table in the back of the library, his thoughts turn to plan B.
He was just getting close enough to give a hello and a wink to Solona when Jowan whispered loudly 'Maybe Anders knows?"
"Knows what?" replied Anders, mentally mapping the rout to the closest dark corner he could try to get Solona into. She wasn't his first choice for a tumble, a bit of a brat really, but it had been a long two months and he could be more discerning with his next choice.
"Who knocked up Neria" replied Solona with a cruel smile. "You were always close to her, do you have any idea who the little mouse was sleeping with?"
He felt like he had been hit with a smite, not a real physical one, but an emotional one as he sat down hard on the nearest bench. Neria pregnant? The frantic edge to her voice as a whispered "Take me with you" ghosted through his head. At the time he thought she was being clingy, thinking that sex between them meant more than a quick tumble. The hurt in her eyes the last time he saw her before he was whipped. He shook his head no. It wasn't right. He was always so careful.
"Do you know where she is?" he asked, hoping against hope she was still here.
"They took her away last night" Jowan answered and the hope diminished from Anders. So close. He missed her by one day. Andraste's Flaming Knickers. He was the father, wasn't her? Was she alright? Would her child, his child, be alright? It had to be. Nothing would persuade Anders from the belief that it was his child.
Thoughts and plans went through his head. He had assisted Wynne with childbirth before. He knew where they usually took mages that were pregnant and held them until they gave birth, and ripped the child from their mothers, who went back to the tower never getting to hold the baby, much less know the sex of their babies. Wynne had told him that whispering that information to them later on was cruel in the long run. Better for the mothers to forget their children ever existed. She always looked so sad when she said that it was better for a mother not to know. That wouldn't happen to them, it couldn't. He would get Neria and the baby to safety if that was the last thing he did.
It took a month to get things in order. The fastest he had ever planned and attempted to execute an escape. He would get out, take care of the one guard they usually had on the cottage and then head to Denerim to find his pirate. She had said her plans were to be back in the area in four months, so if he timed it right, they could meet up with her and escape on her ship. Slipping out of the tower was effortless. By the time he made his way to the cottage he could feel how grateful Neria would be when he rescued her and that he was finally taking her away with him. A little late, but he was keeping that promise.
Nothing in his planning prepared him for the heartache he would feel upon discovering she wasn't at the cottage. But a squad of templars were. This time when they throw him in solitary confinement, it is for six months.
Neria wonders if he ever noticed she was gone. Did anyone besides that tattle-tale brat Solona know she was pregnant, or was it assumed she was missing because of a failed Harrowing? Did anyone even care? Over the past few months they changed locations many times, always with a bag over hear had and not knowing where she was. Disorientation was key in case she got it in her head to try to escape. Her current holding area was in a basement cell. The basement of where she didn't know, probably some Chantry in a far corner of Ferelden. It was ironic, after wanting to get out of the tower she got that wish, but all she got to see a tour of prison cells.
Pregnancy was different than she expected it wold be. She was huge, and the baby was active. The little bit of knowledge they were given about reproduction didn't prepare her for that. She gave a small smile as the wee one moved within her belly, and she could see, and feel, something, a head maybe, press out. Other changes in her body surprised her as well. Her once small breasts were getting huge, and were sore all the time, the chamber pot wasn't emptied often enough for how often she had to use it, and for some reason her feet no longer fit in her slippers. The one bright side was the food. She was fed more of it, and better quality, than back in the tower.
After they realized she wouldn't give up the name of the father, the templars gave her the silent treatment, leaving her in basically solitary confinement. The only physical interaction she got was when it was time to change where she was being held.
Her days were spent talking to the wee one, telling it stories about life in the tower. Letting it know that its father was a good, if somewhat insensitive man, even now in isolation refusing to give his name to the babe in case ears were listening, not wanting to give his identity up. She told the babe what knowledge she had of elven history, knowing that despite her blood the child would be human, and she hoped it had Anders kind eyes and gentle hands when it grew up. She can picture a little girl with his blond hair, or maybe a little boy with her own red locks.
Its during the wagon ride to her next location, blindfolded, bound and recovering from a smite that her labor starts.
His days are filled with worry for Neria and the baby. Has she delivered yet? Is it a boy or a girl? Will he ever know. Will Neria even tell him about it when he sees her again? The only breaks in his days are when food is delivered and when the tom cat he calls Mr. Wiggims comes to visit. For the company alone Anders saves bits of his dinner for the cat.
He is almost asleep when he hears arguing outside his cell door, which is odd, because templars are always silent on this wing. No use stimulating the mage with any conversation or anything.
"You can not take the prisoner, he is serving out is sentence" his guard was arguing with someone out of his site. One tin canned head looked the same to him in the dim light of the halls.
"We have extreme need of a healer and Wynne is still at Ostagar" came a responding voice in an authoritative tone. Wynne at Ostagar? What in the Maker's name is going on out there? Wynne was one of the mages who would be happy to never leave the tower.
Anders stood as the cell door opened and responded to the rough "Come with me, Mage" that was directed his way from the helmeted man. He followed the Templar down hallways to a cell block that even he hadn't seen before, going first down deeper under the tower, then climbing steps up. To another entrance he hadn't know? They must be in desperate need in deed if they would risk him knowing about this place.
He was surprised when he discovered his patient was Neria, here in the tower with him, so close to him all this time, yet so far away. She laid in a slump on her side, her red hair, usually kept at shoulder length, falling in tangles past her shoulder blades, dark with sweat and exhaustion. Her skin was so pale, and her belly hugely out of proportion on her small elf frame. Her blue eyes widened in confusion as she saw him enter and he did his best to keep his healers mask in place as he realized he would be there for the birth of his child.
"Whats the situation" he asked the chantry sister that was wiping Neria's brow with cool water, doing his best to keep his voice calm.
"She's been in labor for two days, and has been trying to push for three hours. This foolish child refuses to name the father and knows that the Maker would make this easier if she would confess that sin to him" he flinched at the foul tone from the sister's mouth, and mentally shook his head at Neria's stubbornness in trying to protect him, even in this.
"Neria, sweetheart, I'm going to examine you real fast, see how the baby is doing" Anders told her, trying to keep his voice detached as he sent his healing magic through her to take quick stock. The baby's head was in the right position, but her opening was too small for such a large human head. He feared he would have to make a cut to ease the passage, and soon, because it felt like the baby's heartbeat was slowing down. He went over to the basin of water an scrubbed his hands as he took inventory of the tools. He had seen Wynne preform this slicing trick before on another elf pregnant by a human. If this one didn't work, he was going to have to preform a trickier bit of surgery to deliver the child, the mother rarely survived that surgery.
Anders said a quick prayer to the Maker that he wasn't entirely sure existed to protect Neria and the child as he sent his magic through the knife to purify it, then set to making a small, quick slice.
Neria screamed and Anders silently called himself the greatest idiot that ever lived for causing her any of this pain, but the incision worked and soon the baby's head was starting to be delivered. "Push for me" he said.
Catching his son was one of the most magical experiences in Anders life, and he couldn't help give a proud smile as he gave his son a quick once over to see that he was perfectly formed, and most certainly male. He placed the baby in the blanket held out by the chantry sister and watched as she wiped him down and swaddled him, then he set about healing the cut he and made to assist the delivery and waiting for the after birth. It was only after the placenta was delivered , and Neria whispered a weak "The baby?" that he realized something, the chantry sister had disappeared, and taken their son with her.
He stood up panicked, and went to open the door, now locked, holding him in with Neria. The templar stationed outside whispered a rough "You will tell her the baby was stillborn, or else we will extend your stay in isolation by another six months" The world fell out from beneath Anders feet. First they took their child from her, now he was expected to tell her he had died?
"My baby?" Neria asked again, louder, stronger, a mother's worry starting to kick in. Anders went to her, hating himself for the lie he was about to tell her, but knowing he would be able to tell her the truth in two months. He sat down next to her and pulled her into his arms, hating himself as he whispered "I'm sorry, Neri, the baby didn't make it"
"No!" she screamed as she pounded his chest with a weak fist, "No, your lying, your lying. My baby! My baby!" she sobbed against his chest again and again
"I'm sorry" he whispered into her hair, repeating it again and again, sorry for getting you into this mess, sorry for not being able to rescue you, so so sorry for this lie, he thought to himself, as he felt his own tears fall and further dampen her hair. He held her, each cry of "my baby" a stab to his heart, until the templars came for him, dragging him back to his cell. He swore he could hear her horse cry along the entire walk, and even swore he could hear it after he was in his cell, hating himself all the more.
When he was released two months later, he rushed to find her. She was in the library, quietly restocking books, her back to him. He cried her name and ran to her, throwing his arms around her stiff body. "Neri, forgive me, they made me lie to you" he whispered in his ear.
"It's okay Anders." She replied in a strangely calm voice, "my heart does not grieve any more." When she turned around to look at him his heart broke to see the sunburst mark of tranquility upon her forehead.