"This is important," big girl snarls at me, "don't interrupt with your selfish prattle". Apparently I have really gotten on her nerves, but I don't care. I'm not being selfish and she is not the only one who has problems.
"Get of your high horse," I reply, "I have problems too."
But she just laughs.
"Ha! What drink should I order," the next words that come out of her mouth struck me like a punch, "and who's the father?"
My face grows red and without thinking I raise my arm to slap the living life out of her. How dare she?
"Oh you little…" luckily, that is when Hawke interrupts us; before I slap Big Girl and reveal how much that had hurt. Because I had known who the father was. How could I not have when she had had his eyes?
…
I was young when you were born, my little one. Too young to know how to prevent these things, it had terrified me at first but as my stomach had grown so had my affection. Everything would have been fine if it hadn't been for the pesky man, the man I loved, your father.
He wanted to marry me, ha! Can you believe it? I was finely free of Luis and he wanted to put me in shackles again. I won't do that. Not even for you, my sweet, sweet girl. He yelled at me in the night, saying I would never be able to raise you on my own. He was right, of course, and I knew it. But I hoped and wished that maybe he could be wrong.
I grew big and lazy but felt more powerful than ever before. Pregnancy does that to you I suppose. The first time I felt you kick was after a particularly bloody fight, you were a pirate child right from the start. You kicked like you wanted out already, so eager to join your mother.
I felt ill of course, and my body started aching. I could no longer seduce but I never blamed you, I even stopped drinking after hearing that it is bad for you. I found myself taking less and less risks, my belly got in the way of fighting and I was worried somebody might hurt me in a way that would harm you. It felt as if something were to happen to you I would die. I loved you so much.
It was only when I was told that I was going to be a mother that I panicked. I didn't realize that having a child would make me a mother. Forgive me, little one, but I can't be a mother. Mothers hit you, they starve you, they sell you to the highest bidder and trap you in a loveless marriage. That is what a mother is to me, what it will always be to me. I can't be a mother. I told you that, as you slept beneath my heart. I don't know if you could hear me but I whispered and told you how much I loved you, I told you who your mother was and why I couldn't keep you. Turned out the bastard was right, I cannot raise a child on my own.
I bled and hurt and cried to get you to this world. You cried and bled too and I held you in my arms and we cried together. My beautiful baby girl; with his eyes but my skin and a pair of lungs that has to have come from me. I stayed in bed for two days, nursed you, held you, rocked you. You slept occasionally as babies do, but I stayed awake the whole time. Looking at you and taking you in. All of you; your curved nose, your little eyes, your mouth, the patch of black hair on you head, and those pretty little hands.
I like to think that you survived the blight.
When you were two days old I left you there, in Ferelden. It was a good family, the mother had at least a kind smile and your sisters and brothers looked happy. The mother had milk too, having lost her baby so she could feed you. I gave the family all the gold I had. I kissed your little hands and whispered a quick Rivaini prayer with my lips to your forehead.
When I left you started crying, and it felt like I died. It sounded like you called my name, Naishe, Naishe, Naishe. Tears were running down my cheeks too and I found my lips muttering "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." It didn't matter though. I was no mother. I had no daughter. I wiped you from my mind. And I didn't turn around.