There is no moralizing like the moralizing of the damned.
For Those Who Hunt The Wounded Down, David Adams Richards
Summer
1
Like many illnesses, the first sign was a feeling of unease. Victims felt a strange sense of anxiety creeping into their bodies, their heartbeats running slightly too fast, their mouths drying slightly too quickly after a drink.
Aria Tabris did not think much of it at first. Her father had been nervous about her upcoming marriage, but they both had. The letters back and forth had promised a dashing young man, a strong man. Nelaros sounded of someone who Aria could find herself falling deeply in love with. She was a little embarrassed to have developed a crush on someone she had yet to meet. When her heart raced beneath her skin, she thought it only the excitement. Skipped beats and missed breaths slipped past her mind.
Nelaros had moved in with them shortly after the wedding. They spent a week in her father's home before Nelaros carried her across the threshold of their own house. It was a small place, big enough for them and their first child. It was in that first month the cough started. Just a tickle at the back of her throat, just a flush of pink in her cheeks. When Nelaros grew sick as well, they spent a few days in bed, cuddling under the blankets as they sweated out the illness, ignoring the rest of the world. Eventually, Aria grew stronger and left her sickly husband in bed, his heart beat fading to her touch. She was going to find a healer when she opened the door and saw the Alienage. The sick and dying lined the streets, the smell of death hanging in the air like incense at the Chantry.
Aria threw up in the bushes. Her knees shook slightly as she made her way back to her father's house. She could not find either of her cousins, but saw her father curled underneath the blankets, shivering. She carried his weak frame in her arms back to her own home, bringing him in to lie with Nelaros in their bed. She had gone back to the kitchen to begin a broth when there were feeble knocks on the door.
She opened the door to see three small children, their voices mixing together as they pleaded for help. Aria brought them inside, lying them down by the fire as she looked for more blankets. As the day continued, she found more children at her door. The word spread quickly that one of the adults had gotten healthier, that they might live yet. She fed the ones she could, keeping them indoors as the summer rains began to fall around them.
The days blended together as the storm continued. She could not tell the days apart as they died around her, their hearts in turn stopping. Nelaros passed quietly in his sleep, her father finally closed his eyes in her arms. The plague picked off those in her care, one by one. She prayed for the Maker to take her too, for her suffering to be over.
But every day she woke up and she kept breathing, her heart beating.
And one of those days, after being alone for so long, she heard the shouting out in the streets. She raced outside, armed with merely a dagger. She had no one left to protect but herself.
She saw the five men on horseback, their blue and silver armour distinct against the carnage around them. She heard one order the others to capture her.
Aria was too weak to struggle, making only a halfhearted attempt to cut through a man's armour. She eventually was brought to the leader, an older man who examined her with great care.
"Is she infected?" He asked an elven woman beside him. The woman placed her hand on Aria's forehead and replied, "She was. Her body has cured itself."
"Bring her along," he stated, "We need another specimen."
Aria tried to speak, but instead, tears streamed down her face. The man pulled her into his saddle, holding her like he would a child, and they rode out of the Alienage.
They captured Juin Mahariel in the forests outside Denerim as she ran to find help. Two days ago she had left the clan, carrying the body of her bonded mate in her arms. The keeper was dead, her first disappeared. Juin was still strong enough to run, strong enough to find another clan. The sickness had not claimed her as the others. They warned her she would spread the disease to other clans, but she did not care. Tamlen was dying.
When she first saw the shemlens, she thought she had found help.
They ripped the dying body from her arms as she screamed at them in Elvish. She remembered being knocked into the mud, watching Tamlen being thrown to the ground.
The elven woman grasped her chin and muttered a few words to the commander. Mahariel cried out for Tamlen, and he weakly looked up at her, his hand out stretched.
"He's dead anyways," the woman replied, ignoring her tears.
Noam Surana knew almost immediately that she was immune to the plague. All it took was one sick Templar and the Tower was infected. All other Circles had shut down in time it was said; only this one would be lost. They waited for the Rite of Annulment, since soon there would not be enough Templars to care for the dying mages.
For two weeks, they waited, but no word came.
For two weeks, Surana slept in his arms. Who would say a word against them when they thought the world was ending? For two weeks, she listened to the beat of his heart against her ear, listened to his steady breath.
Yet when the Wardens came, storming through the gates of the Tower, they only took her, leaving Cullen to kneel by the door, his head in his hands after they tore her from him.
The elven woman smiled at her sympathetically, taking her arm as they led her into the boat.
"Your sweetheart will live, do not worry, child. He has no plague," she said kindly, "He is very handsome. He reminds me of a young man I used to know."
"Who are you?" Noam asked, hands shaking.
"My name is Fiona, of the Grey Wardens. I have been sent here to save Ferelden."
