Disclaimer: Everything belongs to BioWare and EA.

Trigger Warning: This story focuses on the life of an original character in the Dragon Age universe, and focuses on healing from trauma. There are mentions of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, details which might be upsetting to some readers, throughout the story. If you continue to read, please bear this warning in mind, and feel free to skip whatever passages might be troubling or disturbing.


Kathyra

I struggled to remain awake; to cling to a fading consciousness. Pain spiraled up and down my side in a nauseating rhythm and I struggled to even take a sip of air. This is bad, I detached myself from the situation, attempting to analyze my condition as I did the wounds and illnesses of others. Pierced on the left side...at an upward angle. My heart is not compromised, which is a small mercy, but my lung might well be damaged.

The pain returned with a roaring ferocity as the woman who had struck down Cassandra Pentaghast, the Right Hand of Divine Beatrix, turned her attention to me. A mercifully warm hand brushed my cheek and I closed my eyes against the onslaught of agony, focusing on the comfort of her touch.

"Still with me?" Leliana asked, and I struggled to open my eyes, to look into the wells of peace in her gaze, to see what had so long been denied me. Friendship, companionship, concern.

I opened my mouth to speak, but could find no words, and the shallowest of inhales fired needles through my chest. I blinked, hoping that she wound understand. Leliana reached out again, stroking my hair away from my face...the movement of her hand traced the same path as a ghost's. She cradled my head in her hands and lifted it with great care, attempting to spare me any further discomfort.

So deft, so practiced, I thought, even though her hands were stronger than any woman's I had ever known. How can she say she is not a healer, when she has striven for nothing but to save us?

The cool edge of molded clay brushed my lips. "Drink." Leliana urged. "It will ease the pain and help you sleep."

I could smell the bitterness of elfroot and I managed to conjure a grin. "I know."

The light in the room was dim, my vision blurry, but I could see a smile cross Leliana's lips. It lit a fire in me that had nothing to do with the wound in my side or the fear in my heart. I drank the bitter liquid and struggled to swallow. When I had finished, Leliana eased my head back down onto a pillow that she had pulled from...somewhere.

"Hush, fool." she set the cup aside, clay striking wood with a dull thud.

There was a fragility in her movements that belied the great strength in her heart. The strength that had kept her from breaking when Cassandra tore her from her warden's side. The strength that had forgiven me when I revealed my identity...the sister of the woman who had betrayed her, locked her in hell, and had her tortured. The strength that had defeated the Right Hand in single combat. The strength that had faltered with the advent of darker dreams.

She is lovely...beautiful as I have never before witnessed. Marjolaine ruined all things she touched...all things. How did Leliana escape that damning embrace?

Using what little energy I had left, I reached up and took the former bard's hand. I could feel the scars and calluses on her fingers, badges of her skill in archery. "You...continue...to amaze." I breathed, feeling my eyes close of their own volition. "No one...heals...the physician." I mumbled old words...words that would mean nothing to her, but they thrust me backwards.

Backwards into darker dreaming of my own...


"Where," Leron's voice is ice and shivers trill down my spine as his eyes flash with a glow of magic and lyrium, "did you manage to acquire this?"

His hands, hands that have invaded my mind and body with ruthless abandon, which have torn from me memories and innocence and blood, took the bag of gold that I held out.

"Is that necessary information, bardmaster?" I ask, trying to control the tremors in my hands and speech. "All you need know is that the gold is clean. Untraceable."

He sets the bag on the table and stares at it, running his well-manicured hand through lank, stringy, unremarkable brown hair. He scratches behind his ear and my gut twists, knowing what the gesture means. As a child, homeless, alone, and hungry, I had learned. I had learned to satisfy his hungers, to indulge in his wants...to read his body.

Soon, it will be better. It will be over, I promise myself. At last, I can free myself and Marjolaine. We can take what we have learned and make our own lives...and I will at last be able to remember.

"That amount could keep a family fat for years." Leron grins, revealing yellowing teeth that his magic can do nothing about. "What do you want, pretty thing? Hmmm? You've never prayed at my altar before. At last," he winks, "not willingly."

"I...I want my freedom. Mine and Marjolaine's." I state, my voice trembling like new leaves against storm winds. "That," I indicate the bag of gold, "should be more than enough to cover the cost of anything you have done for us over the years. And more."

Leron rises from his seat with the agility of a cat, frightening me. I back away, knowing that he has me cornered, that the weapons I carry on my body can do nothing to protect me against magic. It is swift and ruthless and, in his hands, an instrument of absolute torture that he delights in using.

"Don't run, pretty thing." he cautions, pouring the gold out onto the table and staring at it, running calculations through his twisted mind. "You think I don't know, you little bitch!" the slap comes before I can deflect it and my skin burns from the assault of his hand. "You think I haven't heard about one of my own running amok and earning coin on the side!? And you expect me to believe that it's clean!? I taught you everything; you should know better than to lie to me!"

A wave of force slams against my shoulders, throwing me to the ground, even though Leron has not lifted a finger. Tears pool in my eyes and spill over as he walks closer and kneels down, his hand reaching out, sharp nails biting into my reddening skin as he squeezes my face.

"I will see it, Kathyra." he leers, standing over me, the instrument of torture between his thighs beginning to stir as he exerts power and control over me. "I will see it all."

Purple fire arcs along his fingertips as he presses his hands against my temples. Pain follows: blinding, nauseating strikes of agony as he flaws my mind with a rusted scalpel. Memories wash to the forefront and I grab at them, cutting my hands as they slip out of my grasp and rush into his mind, letting him see, letting him feed as he gazes at the actions I have committed for my freedom. Sacrificing my soul. Whoring my body. Selling what little principles I had left to cling to. He sifts through my thoughts like a miner panning for gold, discovering the truth of my words...nothing I have earned has been marked. He will be a wealthy man, lacking for nothing, allowed to live unthreatened.

The attack ends, leaving me breathless and hurting...while Leron gloats. He understands the expression stamped on my countenance. Fear. Panic. Dread. Pain. He knows the horror that he can visit on me with a simple touch, knowing that all he needs do to control my every thought, word, and action is threaten Marjolaine.

Soon, little sister, soon. I will get you away from him and he will never have the chance to harm you. You will not know my torment. I. Swear. It.

Leron moves closer to me now, the lyrium sheen in his eyes turning their dirt color into something bright and terrifying. "I will take the gold." he smiles, a smile I once thought comforting, promising, helpful. "For your freedom. But, if you wish your sister free as well, I demand one thing more."

Yes! Anything! Anything to be free of this! I have...I have to save Marjolaine. It has been too long; I have failed her. I have to...I have to save her.

"Name it." I dare to gaze into his eyes, ignoring the pulses of pain inside my skull, the terror of having my mind split open and sundered yet again.

Leron's hand snakes behind my head and pulls me close. His mouth covers mine and his teeth bite into my lip until I taste blood. Brutal hands with spidery fingers reach out and clutch my breasts, bruising and kneading my flesh in sick mockery of passion. Bile rises in my throat as I hear animalistic noises of pleasure humming in the back of his throat.

I close my eyes and surrender, willing my mind to another place as he covers me with his body, drowning my senses in a wash of sick-sweet Orlesian colognes. The stench acts as a soporific and I sever myself from my own body as Leron takes what he wants. He has done this for years, but this time...

...this time it will be worth it. After this time...never again.


The ground beneath me lurched and heaved. Hands were on my shoulders, pressing me down. Panicked, still trapped in the dream, beneath Leron's hands, I lashed out, screaming as raw agony shredded across my chest.

"Kathyra," a voice like cool water on a blistering day...Leliana... "Kathyra, stay still. Hush, now. Hush. I am here; you are safe with me, I promise."

Safe? With you? I remember now...you promised you would keep me safe...so did Leron.

My frantic gasping eased, leaving a tightness in my chest that built to a wracking cough. Leliana's blue eyes filled with sympathy and a carefully masked anxiety. Nothing in them spoke of hunger, just of caring. She turned me onto my right side as I continued to cough. The taste of blood filled my mouth and I licked copper and salt from my lips as the spasm eased. Leliana's gentle hands returned me to my back and wiped away the blood.

"What can I do?" she asked. "Kathyra, what can I do?"

I shook my head, begging her with my eyes to understand. I needed a surgeon...or a mage. "Nothing." I rasped, swallowing down another cough.

It would not be suppressed, however, and my body shook yet again, jostling the projectile in my side, tearing skin and rupturing veins. Blood filled my mouth again, a sickening recollection, a repressed memory that would not, in my weakened state, be denied...