He looks like his mother.
The boy is tall and thin, with skinny limbs and hair as black as a raven's wing. He has her small nose and strong jaw, and the eyes which stare out at him are golden-red and wary. His clothes are rough, but sturdy-looking, pants that seem to have been altered several times and a few necklaces laced with beads and polished teeth and bones dangling from his neck. One the templars nearby holds a staff made out of what looks like rune-carved birch, and all three of them watch the small figure warily.
His thoughts seem to jumble, one piling up over the other until he doesn't know where to even begin. How did the templars find him? Where is Morrigan? What was he doing in Ferelden, alone, like this? What even stands before him – Morrigan's son? His son? A demon? A god?
But somehow, the only thought which actually escapes his mouth is…
"You look like your mother."
The golden-red eyes narrow, and looking closely, he can see that the pupils have a slightly peculiar shape to them. He's glad the templars seem not to have noticed. Had they, they likely would have branded him demon-possessed from the outset, and he would not have been brought to the tower at all.
"A lucky guess," the boy replies, haughty and defiant, even unarmed in the face of three grown men. He will be eleven in a few months if his count of the years is accurate, though he looks a little older. "You don't know my mother. She wouldn't consort with your type."
One of the older templars lets out an incredulous sound. While the specifics are hugely unknown, rumours did begin to spread when Morrigan vanished so suddenly, and talk of a dark-haired witch-woman who was heavy with child began to reach Ferelden ears.
He gives the templar a look, but replies evenly enough. "Your mother is Morrigan, daughter of Flemeth," he says, and the boy's eyes widen, as if he has just had the wind knocked out of him. Gaining some confidence, he takes a step forward, and moves until they are more or less facing one another. "What's happened to her?" he asks.
The boy glances back towards the templars, and his mouth forms a hard line. Ah, yes. Of course. Say nothing to the pawns of the Chantry. That would be his mother's wisdom. After some convincing he manages to get them to leave – likely they cooperate because they suspect the relationship between the two of them – although they insist on taking his staff with them. The boy does not seem best pleased at that.
He keeps quiet until he's managed to guide him onto one of the narrow benches in the tower's room. He had been wondering why his dreams – so normally filled with the mindless hoards of darkpawn – should suddenly begin to feature Kinloch Hold. Were they mildly prophetic, he wonders, or was the boy actually heading here on purpose?
"I know your mother would not have fallen to templars," he says. "I also know that she wouldn't have given you up to them freely." Not for all the gold in Ferelden, he wagers.
The boy shrugs. His eyes dart down a bit, and one of his hands comes up to fidget with his necklaces. There are similar such trinkets around his wrists as well. He's a bit of a magpie, then, just like she always was. "…She doesn't know."
"Doesn't… you ran away?" he guesses.
After a few seconds, the boy nods in agreement. He looks conflicted, nose scrunching a little and deerskin boots scuffing against the stone floor. Nothing about him seems terribly god-like, although he supposes that could be an illusion.
"I wanted to come to the tower," he admits, and in return he feels his eyebrows shoot up as if someone had tied string to them and pulled.
Wait.
What?
"You wanted to come to the Circle Tower?" he asks. "Does your mother not still despise Circle Mages?"
And if that is indeed true, it doesn't quite explain why the templars had been looking at him like he was a time bomb set to go off at any moment.
The look the boy gives him is more annoyed than anything else. "Of course she does," he snaps. "She doesn't like anything but the stupid woods and the stupid animals and she wouldn't even let me keep the ring I took from that fat merchant," he explains, as if this should be a great affront on any man's sense of decency. "So I decided to run away and join the Circle."
For a moment only pure, shocked silence reigns throughout the room, like the quiet before the ringing of a bell.
Then he bursts out laughing.
The boy gives him a sour look, but he can't help it, and soon enough he is clutching his sides and trying not to topple off of the bench as the reborn-archdemon-come-would-be-Mage-Apprentice gives him the stink eye. That only seems to drive him into further hysterics, until the boy is looking more vaguely alarmed than offended and he is forcing himself to take deep, calming gulps of air.
"Have you gone mad?"
He shakes his head. "I apologize," he says. "I'm afraid the joke is one which requires the perspective of years to understand."
The boy rolls his eyes, as if he has been told some variation of that sentiment quite often in his young life. Which he probably has.
Straightening himself up, he asks another question – albeit not one of the big ones. "Do you have a name?"
He gets another wary look for his efforts, but after a moment, an answer as well. "Yes. I am called Urthemiel," the boy tells him.
Well, he will grant Morrigan this – she certainly didn't shy away from his heritage.
"What about you?" Urthemiel counters.
He considers his answer, leaning back a bit and regarding the boy speculatively. "I have a name as well," he admits with a slight grin. "But most people just call me Warden."
Urthemiel wrinkles his nose. "Why?" he asks. "Do you keep a prison, or kill darkspawn?"
He feels something in him twist a little bit. "The last one," he says. "What do you know about Grey Wardens? Did your mother tell you anything about us?"
"Not much," the boy shrugs. "She said you kill darkspawn, and that you're all dangerous and I should avoid you. But she says I should avoid everyone." He rolls his eyes. "I don't see how you could know her. I thought she never left the woods. The way she talks you'd think everyone out here was just waiting to catch up little boys and lock them in cages."
"Well, some are," he feels the need to defend, even as a strange disappointment sinks into him. He's not even sure why it's there. It isn't like the boy is anything close to a normal child, however much he might seem like one right then, and it's almost a relief to know that Morrigan hasn't filled up his head with… er, the truth. Which would probably be somewhat off-putting for anyone to learn. Yet, the idea that she made no mention of any particular Grey Warden who might, in some way, be special, does sting a little bit.
Urthemiel shrugs. "I haven't seen any," he sees. "And I don't think it's sensible to believe in something you haven't seen. I got all the way here, after all, and even had to prove that I was a mage before they'd let me in."
He quirks an eyebrow at that. "Prove it?" he asks. "How?"
The boy casts an unhappy glance towards the doorway where the templars disappeared with his staff. "I lit the floor on fire," he says. Then he gives a gusty sigh. "That carpet was so ugly. I don't see why they got as mad as they did." This comment is delivered with a very ten-year-old sort of petulance.
"…Er, people usually don't care for having their possessions destroyed, even when they aren't very attractive," he explains, while he feels less surprised than he maybe should. After all, the boy's got the soul of a god – or something very near to one. It would probably be ridiculous if he couldn't light a stone floor on fire. Though that does explain why the templars were giving him the 'Maker-help-us-all' looks.
"If it's ugly, who cares?" Urthemiel demands.
"It's a matter of personal rights," he replies, almost on autopilot now as the surreal qualities of his situation really start to catch up to him. He's sitting in the Circle Tower, talking to this child. "Whether or not something is valuable or beautiful, when it belongs to someone else, they're the one who gets to decide what happens to it. If you take that away from them, you're essentially robbing them."
He finds himself on the receiving end of a scrutinizing look. Then Urthemiel wrinkles his nose. "Oh," he says. "You're not someone who thinks that a child belongs to their mother, are you?"
The implications of his distaste to that idea are fairly obvious.
"Only to a certain extent," he replies, biting back another laugh. "People, unlike objects, belong to themselves first and foremost."
"Slaves don't."
"Which is why enslaving someone is considered offensive and punishable by law. Just like theft…"
Their conversation takes off from there, and before he knows it, he finds himself walking a strange, circuitous route of words with the boy beside him. By the time the templars return to check on them, they have moved from slavery through murder, onto mercy, and are broaching the complicated topic of debt and repayment. While initially wary, it isn't long before Urthemiel is looking at him as if he is a goldmine of some sort.
"But how is debt different from slavery?" he asks, and just as he is about to get his answer, one of the templars clears his throat.
The First Enchanter, apparently, has arrived.
"Wynne," he greets, smiling as he stands, and receiving an answering smile in return. The silver-haired mage turns her gaze towards the boy, and he can see the recognition in her eyes.
"This is…?"
There is a pause, as the three of them look to one another, and everyone seems to momentarily flounder a little.
Leaning over, he raises one hand and whispers to Urthemiel. "Tell her your name," he advises.
Blinking, the boy looks between them, and then does as told, identifying himself politely enough. When Wynne raises an eyebrow at him – is this Morrigan's child? Is this your child? – he knows what she's asking, and after a second, inclines his head.
It's almost like flicking a switch, the way her expression softens, and she regards the boy with new eyes. Utterly unaware, of course, of all the details about him. "My dear child," she says, falling every inch into 'grandmother' mode. "I hear you have come to the tower in hopes of legitimizing your talents?"
Urthemiel nods. "My mother said that if I ever became a Circle Mage, she'd drop dead. I'd like to try," he admits.
There is another awkward moment of silence.
It's hard to resist the urge to drop his head into his hands.
Oh, Morrigan.
Wynne falters a little bit, but recovers admirably. "I see," she says, and of course now she looks more like she's trying not to laugh. She clears her throat. "Well. Either way the hour is quite late, and I'm sure that after all of your traveling and – the, ah, rug incident, you must be tired."
"Not much," he replies, yawning nevertheless.
Wynne manages to cajole him into going with an initiate to the childrens' dormitories after a few tries, however, and as he does he throws a sort of curious glance back and catches his eye, as if there are questions he still wants to ask but simply hasn't had time for.
The templars return to their normal duties after that, leaving him alone with Wynne to contemplate what has so unexpectedly transpired.
"This must certainly be very strange for you," the First Enchanter notes.
You have no idea, he thinks, but only nods instead. "Morrigan will come looking for him," he replies. "She won't let him stay here. Not if she can help it."
"No, I don't suppose she would," Wynne agrees with a sigh. "Still. We won't turn him away. The templars would be forced to hunt him otherwise." She sends him a sidelong glance. "Most children are encouraged to break ties with their families when they come here."
He snorts. "Yes, of course. Unless you're the son of the arl of Redcliffe," he retorts, recalling Connor.
"Or Ferelden's most famous living hero," she adds, utterly unaware of the effect the word 'living' has on him. After all, he knows who he's got to thank for that, doesn't he? When he looks over, Wynne is regarding him with an expression she usually reserves for apprentices who have just been injured. "I believe the tower shall be playing host to you for a while now, won't we?"
He has duties to his order that he must tend to… but they are not terribly pressing, just then. "Thank you," he replies.
She shakes her head. "It wasn't fair of her to just run off like that," she says softly.
He can still remember the days after she left, not knowing if he should feel guilt or hope or remorse, only certain in the feeling that he had lost something incredibly important. "She had her reasons."
"I'm sure she did. Somehow, that doesn't lessen my desire to smack her across the mouth," Wynne informs him, and then before he can do much more than blink at her incredulously, pats him on the shoulder and leaves him to his own devices in a whirl of emerald green robes.
The tower is stark and cold at night, with the sounds of the lake drifting in through the walls and the howl of wind in the higher chambers. He's too edgy to sleep. So instead he heads for the large double-doors that mark the lone entrance and exit – barring the windows, of course – and slips out onto the banks of the manmade island. Nothing grows on the small circle of earth surrounding the structure, but the ground is miraculously dry and free of mud, despite its proximity to the water. He supposes it must be part and parcel of the same magic which keeps the whole thing from sinking.
Moonlight glints off of the top of the lake. Further out there is only the shadowy outline of the shore, but even so, he feels like there are eyes watching him. Golden ones. Whether it's his paranoia or some kind of strange, twisting hope, he isn't sure. There is a glint that he thinks might be eyes. A slight, shadowy movement which his mind turns into the shape of a silver fox.
Surely a ten-year-old boy wouldn't be able to give her the slip? Or maybe she let him go, thinking it the work of some small childhood exploration – not unlike the ones which she embarked upon – without realizing his true intent.
That seems the likeliest explanation, actually.
He watches the shoreline until dawn, regretting it when the cold stiffens his muscles, and the bones in his arms begin to ache. Slaying the archdemon might not have been fatal to him, but it hadn't come without it repercussions. As the small settlement begins to stir, he makes his way back inside. The boy will likely still sleep for awhile, but there is surely some busy work he can do in the tower to bide his time until then.
He sends a message to the keep via one of the tower's carrier birds, and makes use of a practice room for several hours before agreeing to help Dagna sort several parts of the tower library. It is midday before he has opportunity to chance upon Urthemiel again, trailing behind a rather confused-looking apprentice as he guides him through a tour.
He has been changed from his ragged forest clothes into a set of pale blue robes, though he has managed to keep all of his odd necklaces and bracelets on himself. When the boy catches sight of him, his expression shifts from one of interest to recognition, and without so much as a by-your-leave to his guide, he dashes over.
"You're still here," he greets.
"Yes. I will be for some time, actually." There's no need to mention why. He's not even sure what he would say. Dagna and the apprentice both watch them with some obvious curiosity as Urthemiel gives what could only be described as an approving nod.
"Excellent. I shall have more questions for you," he is informed. Then, before he can think to reply, the boy dashes off again, somehow managing to herd his 'guide' back out of the library without touching him or even breaching his personal space. The poor apprentice looks like he is seriously considering just making a run for it.
After that he lunches with Wynne, who seems to waver between making well-intentioned suggestions on parenting and looking wistfully out of the window, no doubt dwelling on thoughts of might-have-beens with her own son. He retreats into the lower storeroom after that, checking on the supply of archdemon blood sealed into its vaults, alongside the creature's bleached white skull.
It is a surreal moment as he thinks of how everything is tied together. The ring on his hand itches, and he stares down at it, wondering if one of Urthemiel's trinkets is enchanted like it.
Wondering, also – as he has before – why she would give him such a thing, and not once ever use it to find him.
With a sigh he puts the thought from his mind. It's no use to dwell on such things. Her intentions are, in the end, something only she understands. Instead he triple-checks to make certain that everything is secure and not behaving strangely – like, say, if the blood were to begin glowing, for example – and then returns to the tower proper, brushing some stray dust from his person.
It isn't long before Urthemiel finds him again, wearing that wrinkle-nosed expression of his and looking a little annoyed. He marches straight up to him, folding his arms across his chest.
"Are mages slaves?" he asks, right in the main hall, with little to no preamble or anything resembling volume control.
The room goes dead silent. It would be possible to hear a pin drop.
"Um," he blinks, before clearing his throat. "Well, that's a complicated… ah, let's go talk about this someplace else, shall we?" he suggests, and eventually manages to get them away and into an empty practice room. There a still a few fresh scorch marks on the walls.
"If mages are slaves, does that make templars criminals?" Urthemiel continues rather tactlessly.
He feels a headache coming on. "Not as such, no," he replies, before barreling head-long into a rather complicated explanation that starts out in Chantry politics and somehow ends up in him explaining how something can be wrong, but still garner public approval anyway, and that what people agree is the right thing to do isn't always right just because of that, particularly when they are acting out of fear rather than reason.
It takes them an hour to get through it, by which point Urthemiel is sitting cross-legged on the floor and looking at him speculatively as they go over the concept that templars – the ones given to the Chantry to raise, at least – don't have much more in the way of choice than mages do, and that the root of the problem is much higher up than that. His right hand is busy representing the Crown while his left hand stands in for the Chantry. "So you see, Andraste's caution against magic's dangers translated into caution against mages, which combined with the Chantry's increasing influence over Ferelden politics and the kingdom's need for magic in order to defend our borders against Tevinter and Orlais, and led to the creation of the Circle. Which, yes, began its existence as essentially an institution for the enslavement of mages, but things have gotten much better in recent years."
Urthemiel tilts his head slightly. "Oh," he replies, rather ambiguously. Then he frowns a little. "You're skilled at fighting, aren't you?" he asks.
The abrupt change in subjects takes him aback for a moment.
"Yes," he frankly admits.
"Good," says Urthemiel. "Show me how to be skilled at it, too." He stands up on that note, looking at him expectantly.
It takes a moment for his brain to catch up with this new development. "Why?"
The question earns him a rather tolerant look. "Because I wish to learn, of course," he says. "Are you going to say no?"
He probably should. All things considered, Morrigan has likely taught him to be lethal enough without any additional help. But somehow what he says is, instead, "Very well, but we should probably finish getting you settled in first," and then they are leaving the practice room and somehow or another wind up in the main dining hall. The young initiates and mages throw Urthemiel and himself curious glances as the boy takes a seat next to him, and proceeds to ask after any and all of the food and cutlery he doesn't recognize. Which is a fair amount of it.
When they're done an Enchanter turns up and takes Urthemiel off for his first group-lesson, which is apparently a mild affair more to do with history and the chantry than actual spellwork. He leaves them to it, and does not see Urthemiel again until the next morning.
The boy seeks him out before breakfast, and all but drags him into a practice room with proclamations that he has 'settled'. They go through a few basic exercises, mostly to ascertain where his skills stand, before the morning bell tolls to wake most of the rest of the tower.
"How did you meet my mother?" Urthemiel asks him, as they sit in the middle of the room, taking a break.
He stills. If he closes his eyes, he knows, he will easily be able to conjure up the image of her standing there, in the ruins of a Grey Warden fortress. Clad in artful rags and stalking past him, like the wild thing she always was.
"It was by chance," he replies, almost unthinkingly. "I was sent to find something in the forest where she lived."
The boy makes a noncommittal sound, idly thumping one of his feet against the stone floor. "Why didn't she kill you?" he asks, and coming from where it does, he supposes it's a valid question.
Still.
"Does she kill everyone she meets, then?" he can't help but wonder.
Urthemiel shrugs. "No. But she kills anyone who's dangerous, and she's always told me that Grey Wardens are dangerous."
He can't help but feel a little stab of ice at that. With an internal sigh, he brushes it away. Does she really think it's in his nature to harm a child? Or is she simply worried what other wardens would do, should they somehow discover the boy's secret? "I wasn't a Grey Warden yet," he hedges. It's true, if only by the smallest of margins.
"It isn't like being a mage, then?" Urthemiel asks, cocking his head. "You aren't born with it?"
Will the child become a darkspawn?
"No," he replies.
Deciding that's enough questions along those lines for now, he picks himself up, and shepherds the boy down to breakfast. The new fare on the table is enough to occupy their conversation for a time, and one of the small child apprentices even plucks up enough courage to ask Urthemiel about his necklaces.
"I like pretty things," he blithely informs her.
She blushes, looks back at her plate and doesn't say anything more to him after that.
Urthemiel examines her for a moment, obviously perplexed, and then with a rather tremendous shrug turns his gaze to the room around them instead, apparently deciding that it is more interesting. After breakfast he is whisked away again into the fold of the younger apprentices.
For almost two solid weeks, things carry on in much that fashion. He keeps himself busy and conspicuous, and between carrying on with his apparent intention to become a Circle Mage and exploring the tower, Urthemiel seeks him out. He always asks questions. Sometimes they're quite mundane – "Why does it always rain so much here?", sometimes they're… less mundane – "If the dwarves ever declared war on the Circle, do you think they'd just 'forget' to refine a few lyrium shipments and kill everyone that way?", and sometimes they drag the past kicking and screaming from its tomb.
"My mother told me that my father was a Chasind man she took to her bed, and then killed," Urthemiel says to him one early morning, as they sit out on one of the tower's few balconies and enjoy the crisp, clear air. He blinks, and suddenly realizes that he is under rather intense scrutiny. "She was lying, wasn't she?"
He has no idea how to begin to answer the real question that is being asked.
"What makes you say that?" he wonders instead.
The boy smiles. It's a rare expression for him, and not a wholly friendly one, either. Particularly when it exposes the slight points to his canine teeth. "I don't really know," he says. "But she lies a lot, and I've been thinking that she lied about this, too." Then he takes a deep breath in through his nose, eyes glittering in the cold, grey light. "I have dreams, and they aren't about the Chasind." His voice is so soft as he says the last. Barely above a whisper.
"…Oh?"
The solitary question does not do justice to the feeling in the pit of his stomach, as if someone has pulled the floor out from beneath him.
Urthemiel refuses to elaborate, however. He goes quite quiet, in fact, and there's nothing more he can pull out of him for the rest of the day, and – to his surprise – when the evening meal comes around, the boy doesn't take his usual seat beside him. Rather, he sits among the other apprentices, watching them with a vaguely curious expression that never once turns his own way.
He supposes he will have to wait until the next morning to carry on their conversation, and grant him the space he so obviously wants. But just as he has finished eating and prepares to go and check on the vault again – for the sake of his nerves, if nothing else – the boy darts up from his seat and over towards him. He takes his hand, pressing something sharp against his palm. "Don't lose it," he instructs, and then without another word follows the other students as they file away from the dining hall.
Curious, he opens his hand once they have gone. There is a small, jagged blue stone in it. The edges are rough, cracked and broken, but in the center it is deep, clear, and vibrant, like lyrium only much darker. Someone has taken the trouble to carve a hole into the roughest corner, and run it through with twine.
He falls back into his chair, staring at the little trinket. Wondering how he should feel, and knowing that what he does feel is not an emotion which should be ascribed to old gods or archdemons, but belongs quite rightfully to sons.
It is probably not wise.
He takes the stone off of the twine, and loops it onto the pendant he is wearing instead.
By the time he retires for the night, sleep doesn't come easily. When it does, he dreams of darkspawn, the untamed hoards scavenging in the deep roads, the pockets of shrieks and hurlocks hiding in caves and forests, calling to him as kin.
When he opens his eyes, his first thought is that he won't be able to stay away for much longer. Not without bringing other Grey Wardens to the tower, at least, to assuage the pull of the taint, but they can't really spare such resources. He takes a deep, calming breath, blinking back the disorientation from his eyes and turning to try and rest again. His mind, he knows, is still mostly caught half between sleep and awareness, and it won't take much to go back to the former.
Drowsiness suffuses him, and so he doesn't even think of it as a cool hand rests against the side of his face. Where usually he would be awake in a moment, instead he only musters the strength to blink and, with an odd sort of detachment, follow the pale hand up, past curves caught in the moonlight, to dark hair and a pair of glittering golden eyes.
"Thought you'd come," he says, sorrow mingling with the pervading sense of near-sleep.
"Did you, now?" she asks him in her musical voice, leaning low so that her face is across from his own, breath ghosting over his lips. "I wonder. Did such anticipation come with dread? Have all these years twisted knives into your heart whenever you thought of me?"
He murmurs something, but it is hardly an intelligible reply, and she runs a thumb lightly over the line of his bottom lip. "I hate you," she whispers. "When one has never partaken of wine, 'tis impossible to miss the taste." Then she is kissing him, somehow sharp and sweet at the same time. In the part of his mind that is more awake than not, he wonders if it is really her, or if perhaps he has fallen prey to a desire demon lurking in the tower's shadows.
Probably not. He rather thinks that one of them couldn't do her justice.
She straddles him, skin as soft as memory holds, and his senses stubbornly addled beyond reason. Her fingers trace along the outline of the ring he still wears, a possessive glint in her gaze. When she presses her lips against the pulse point of his wrist, he feels as if he is back at a campsite just off the road to Orzammar, looking at her face light up in recognition as he hands her a golden mirror. When her nails scratch lightly over the skin of his back, he can see her uncertain expression as he frightens her with his devotion.
It is still there. Like the taint in his blood, he knows he will carry that feeling until he dies. Even if she destroys the world.
By the look she gives him, she knows it, too.
"My love," he murmurs into the curve of her ear, twisting the knives a little bit.
Her gaze hardens on him. She tightens her grip enough to draw blood, and then softens it, weaving trails of fire within his flesh as she caresses him instead.
"I hate you so much," she repeats. "With all my heart."
Come morning, she is gone, of course. He wakes to find himself alone, sheets tangled and room silent. For a long while he simply lays there. Rain patters against the tinted glass of the window. Briefly, he entertains the notion that it was all just a dream. But he knows it wasn't. With the same certainty that he knows the sun will rise and set the next evening, he knows, too, that Urthemiel will be gone as well.
There is no point in going after them, of course. He walked that road once before and it only led to dark forests and distant paths with no answers. Besides which, he has duties and obligations to return to. Things he's likely been gone from long enough.
Sighing, he sits up, untangling himself and running the back of his hand against his brow. He is almost used to the gaping chasm of conflict, resignation, and uncertainty that has taken hold of his heart, not knowing what he seeks beyond the distant acknowledgement that, in all likelihood, it will not end well.
But… perhaps he can afford to pass through Denerim, before he returns to the keep. Maybe see if the marketplace has anything glittering and gold that would catch a magpie's eye.
He does not know if it's better or worse to have hope.