Hope for Dust
Chapter 1
The wind bored, ripped into and shredded at her as she walked. Tall, imposed and nearly bent double at the ferocity of the wind as it tugged at her hair.
"Fenelope! Slow down." her husband called from behind her. Hand poised to somehow grab her attention from the corner of her eye, he waved.
She barely slowed, twisting her head round. "Robert, we have to hurry. The seizures will start again if we're not quick enough."
Robert slowed in numb pain, as he ran to catch up to her.
"Yes, so you've said about our son for the past week or so. Still if we trip and fall in this ice, our son won't thank us for it."
Bitterness wrangled in her mind as she fought to not just run to the nearest straight path she could see. They trudged wearily. The was the tower just ahead. The slope ended. The wood of the dock bounced on their feet as they waded to the templar at the dock.
"Help us. Get us to the tower quickly!" they roared. Anguish marred their eyes.
~
It was dark. Compared to the bright white light outside, the miniature panelled windows seemed to bring too little light. Thin shafts of it poked at her eyelids in fragmented pieces.
She sat up after wearily lying on the bench for a few terse moments while the healers investigated her son's seizures. Frowning, as she glanced quickly to see Robert was not there.
Another woman was. Hunched over she looked old; her knees propped on the lip of the bench.
"Who's there? Hello?" Fenelope called to the to weak- seeming woman.
"Go away." the woman muttered without looking. Folding arms to her chest she looked up. A cold defiance lit her eyes making them hard jewels in the weak sunlight.
"Look. What is your name? I'm here to heal my son. The mages..." Fenelope started.
The woman pressed her lips tight, "They... took my daughter. Them." Jabbing a finger towards her left. "Those metal creatures, the templars, thougght... took her from me. They weren't supposed to."
Her hands jerked, fists balling up. "They weren't supposed to." Her eyes were harder than before.
Jaw clenched, Fenelope saw the barest restraint of anger. She looked ready to rip those templars' arms off. At least, her own son didn't have much signs of magic if any. What a relief she thought mentally, he's just damned sick instead.
"What happened?" Fenelope asked.
"It's a long story." Rosana looked at the high arched window wistfully. "I'm not sure you want to hear it. How much time do we have? I mean... healers and all."
"Enough." Fenelope pressed. "Besides, I'm sure you want to talk or you would have shut me out already."
"Yes I do. It's a long months ago. Years even. The shock is too much..." She coughed and clutched her hands to her knees. Her fingers seemingly grasping at some long forgotten manuscript, or letter that was no longer there.
"You I was once a naive foolish 20 years old. I was exuberant. Full of passion and energy for healing. I wanted to help people, any people, save the world, get married- have it all. I nearly did."
She paused gazing at Fenelope intently. Her hands no longer grasping randomly at air, folded themselves in her lap neatly stowed for what's to come.
"I was working in my father's shop. We were traders and I, being my father's daughter, helped out. I learned his business- how to trade, bribe, market and sell. I wanted more. I wanted not just survival but spirit, a helping one.
Simply put, I thought my father immoral and wanted to be more altruistic as a healer not cold hearted as a business women, uh, trader.
I left. I knew how to find customers and healed them with poultices and herbs, elfroot and flasks, distilled water... the lot.
But then, I sensed some one was ill. Without seeing and assessing him first. It was a dwarf, I remember. A surface one, one of those merchants that you get sometimes peddling their wares in Denerim..." she trailed off.
"Fenelope I don't suppose, being an elf, you don't know Denerim?" she asked clumsily.
"I lived there. I was freed later. I'll confess, I have been out of touch of human affairs for so long, I've almost forgotten my ill- fitting time in Denerim's alienage."
She saw Fenelope cross her arms smartly, wincing in some far- off pain.
"Never mind. While healing that patient, I discovered I could heal eithout poultaces, using magic. I met my future husband there also. I mean in the Denerim market place. We married some 6 years later. Of course we had had three boys by then. My daughter was much later than the other three. By a two years gap."
Fenelope inched closer, nearer to her while Rosana's face seemed flushed. In a panicky sort Do-we-have-to-go-through-with-this sort of way.
"Anyhow, Annabeth was small and slight enough to be trouble. We always had to contain her but the templars found her magic in the end. Took her here. Worse yet they found mine. No-ww- I-i don't kknow..."
Fenelope launched herself off the bench, paced furiously, legs sweeping by the large curved window. She angled her head to the main door off the healing ward to the main entrance hall. With not templars in sight, she settled down to gnaw at her hands in thought.
Strange story, she mused. Wait why was she found out so old? Usually a mage is brought here no less older than a teen. It makes no sense.
She got up, stretched and sat down to wait.