Disclaimer-- As much as I wish otherwise, I do not own DAO. I do not own any of the characters there-in, including the female Cousland origin character, though I would like to think my interpretation of her is my own. I do not own the environment, events, dialogue, etc. I expect and will receive nothing from this story but the joy of paying homage to excellence. (Imitation, after all, is sincere flattery.)
Dialogue for this fic is taken from/modeled after lines in DAO, though I have tried to keep this to a minimum.
Nonetheless, I do work hard on my little stories, and I love them. Please don't repost or reprint them without my knowledge. Further, like all fanfic writers, I am fueled by reviews. If you like and want more, please encourage me by telling me so. If you see something you dislike or think needs to be fixed, I will be happy to learn...but please be gentle!
Note-- This fic is a fragment of what or may not eventually become a longer, more comprehensive fic. If I waited until that fic was in a condition to post, I would never post at all, and I wanted to post.
It was quiet. It was too damn quiet.
The voice murmuring through her had been nothing like the taint in her blood—the taint maddened, it burned, it screamed of fear and it stank of despair—this voice...well...the despair was there...and yet, the despair was different...it was warm, imploring...affectionate? It drew her and comforted her...she struggled up toward it...up through the darkness and the pain...but as she drew closer, it vanished.
Elan woke with a start, nearly cracking the woman leaning over her in the nose with her head. Any other time she might have been apologetic, but she had bigger worries at the moment. "Where am I? What happened to the darkspawn?" Oh, curse the darkspawn, as if I cared! What happened to Alistair? And where's Woofus?
"We are in the Wilds," the woman said, sounding reasonably calm and friendly under the circumstances. "I am Morrigan, lest you have forgotten, and I am bandaging your wounds. You are welcome."
Normally Elan would have blushed at the remonstrance, but nothing about this situation felt normal in the least. She stared at the woman in disbelief. "I remember you...but..."
"How does your memory fare, then? Do you remember mother's rescue?"
"I remember being overwhelmed by darkspawn," Elan said, clinging to this fact, the only certain thing in a ridiculously uncertain world.
The dark-haired girl nodded.
"Loghain...didn't come." Elan said, slumping back into the pile of furs and blankets. "The field...was overrun...we were overrun..."
The girl nodded again, looking pleased, presumably with Elan's ability to recall as much, rather than with the circumstance. "Just so."
"Then...everyone died? The king? Duncan? The other Wardens?" Elan thought she might be sick. She wished she were hallucinating, but somehow she doubted it.
The girl nodded a third time. Maybe I am hallucinating at that; why else would that nod resound through my head like a death knell? Elan shook her head a bit wildly, desperate to clear it.
"Your friend," the girl—Morrigan?—said a trifle disapprovingly, "he is not taking it well."
"How do you take something like this well?" Elan demanded, her voice veering dangerously close to frantic. "This is horrible!" Then her heart gave an odd sideways lurch. "Wait...did you say my friend?You mean Alistair?"
The girl looked relieved, as if this question heralded some return to reason. "The suspicious dim-witted one who was here with you before, yes. He is outside with Mother. She wished to see you when you awoke."
Elan looked down at herself in her small clothes and up at Morrigan.
Morrigan smiled slightly and walked over to a small chest near the wall. "Here are your things."
"I'll go then." Elan struggled upright and began to dress.
Her armor felt like a burden she thought she had finally set down, only to pick up again...and heavier than before...but the burden...well, maybe it didn't feel entirely unwelcome. She was still alive. She still had a chance to do her father's bidding, a chance to pay her debt to Duncan as a Grey Warden. A chance to make Arl Howe and Teyrn Loghain pay.
Elan took a deep breath, musing over the lingering tightness beneath the dressings where a couple of arrows had pierced her lung. She straightened her shoulders and pulled the door to the little hut open.
"Thank you, Morrigan...for taking care of me." she added, feeling awkward and inadequate.
"I..." the witch seemed surprised, "I am no where near as skilled as mother...but..." she smiled shyly, "you are...welcome."
Elan took a few steps away from the hut, the door squeaking shut in her wake.
Alistair was standing among the tall reeds a few feet away, his profile limned on the rosy sunset like the image on a coin. Elan paused in mid-step, her breath catching in her chest.
"You see," Morrigan's mother said without turning around. "Here is your fellow Grey Warden. You worry too much, young man."
Alistair turned toward her, disbelief and wonder warring in his face. "You...you're alive!"
Elan stared back, drowning in relief. Hers and his.
"I thought you were dead for sure," Alistair said.
So did I. "I'm fine," she said, sounding considerably more nonchalant than she felt. "I appreciate your concern," she added, including the woman who was watching them in the comment with a glance.
"This...doesn't seem real," Alistair sighed, staring at her as if he was afraid she might vanish if he blinked. "We should be dead on top of that Tower. If it weren't for Morrigan's mother—"
Elan barely heard the witch's remonstrance, nor the exchange that followed, though some part of her did register a certain realization that under other circumstances, she might have found the whole exchange rather humorous. As it was, however, she could only wonder....
"So why did you save us?" Elan asked warily, remembering the price Duncan had placed on her life.
"Well, we cannot have all the Grey Wardens dying at once, can we?" The witch retorted, almost flippantly. "Someone has to deal with these darkspawn. It has always been the Grey Wardens' duty to unite the lands against the Blight. Or did that change when I wasn't looking?"
So...the price was to be the same. One life, one price. One duty. Elan supposed that was something. Unfortunately, she'd proven a miserable failure at living up to this duty so far. If she hadn't, she and Alistair would hardly have been in need of rescuing.
Easier to focus on someone else's failings than to admit how much she feared and regretted her own. "The land is hardly united, thanks to Loghain."
"It doesn't make any sense!" Alistair protested. "Why would he do it?"
"Now that is a good question," Flemeth said, her dark eyes assessing him. "Men's hearts hold shadows deeper than any tainted creature. Perhaps he believes the Blight is an army he can outmaneuver. Perhaps he does not see the true evil behind the threat."
"The archdemon," Alistair whispered, his eyes returning to Elan's. The dragon she'd seen in the Joining seemed to hover between them.
"Then we need to find this archdemon," Elan said, her voice thin and faint as a single thread in a tapestry.