SPOILERS! This section of the story takes place after Halamshiral, as Skyhold is dealing with a variety of odds-and-ends missions. I've been writing this story under the assumption that you have played the game before.
Some parts of this story depict sexual acts, but I hope in a tastefully vague way. (This particular chapter is mostly clean, with discussions of the implications of sex) If you're not okay with that, then at least you were forewarned.
Please review! This is my first time ever posting to this site. I've written and drawn other stories, but this sort of blindsided me from nowhere. I'm just hoping others enjoy the story as I try to spin it out of my head.
LASTLY! I do not own Dragon Age or the characters, nor do I receive compensation for this work.
Habrynn slowly walked over the eastern parapet of Skyhold. Her left hand was idly tracing each outcrop. First, passing over the top, scraping along uneven wind-worn bricks, and then floating as she reached a gap, before slapping against the side of the next projection, and then lagging behind the rest of her body a moment before tracing over the top of the next.
Concern churned in her mind as she walked, but it felt far away as she concentrated on her outing. The rhythmic slap of her hand on stone and the soft percussion of her slippers against the pebble ridden paving stones was soothing as she tried to sort through the usual mental stew of unease, guilt, and nagging worry.
The air was still and windless, and as she sniffed the air, she noticed a strange nothingness about her. No pollen or waft of cooking smoke or the hard oxide stench from the forges. Before she could make sense of the absence, a soft droning began to overcome her surroundings. It forced her body to pause, while her hand continued to feel over the stonework in a habitual way. An uneasy realization crept into her soul now. The stone was neither cold or warm to the touch. A tactile memory stirred within her. She audibly sighed, and her voice echoed around her as if she was in a narrow hallway.
"Again?" She huffed. "Maker spit on this fade-touched hand…"
She pulled away from the lifeless dream-stonework, and looked at the mark, where it appeared like a strange gap of air inside her hand, instead of the shattered green glow it took on in the real world.
"How can we?" a male voice echoed from further along the parapet. Habrynn could barely make out two figures at the distant end of the walkway, and even from where she stood she could see their horns.
"Qunari?" Habrynn hissed in confusion as she jogged forward to get a better look. The battlements stretched out ahead of her as she ran. She sped her pace, but the distance between her and her targets closed infinitely slower.
The man had his arms to the woman's sides, looking down below her chest. Her eyes closed and the woman raised her hands to the sides of his head and pleaded, "I know, it's not my place. It's not your place to know the child…" The woman tenderly placed a kiss on the man's forehead, and the soft Qun Tammassran scarves draped over her shoulders brushed over his rough working tunic. "You owe me nothing," She whispered.
The skies became dark and rumbled with far off thunder a moment, before enormous scenes began to play out like projections on glass. Habrynn could see the woman's features more clearly now. She was like a burning pine, with dark green eyes and dusky gray-brown skin. Her curls were flame red and fell down her back in fluffy lumps. "Mother," Habrynn whispered.
Her mother was tending to holy ceremonies. She picked up babes just born, and wrapped them in the color of the duty they were expected to fill. Her hands worried over copied manuscripts under the light of a single candle at night. The man concentrated on a lathe in a sunlit workshop, where other Quanari men like him worked at other small tasks, shaping wood, fitting pieces to repair furnishings or replacing damaged weapon hilts. She traveled down rigid geometric streets as other Qunari passed in all directions on their given task. He looked up at the sky calmly as he considered the next line to draw on a schematic spread out across several angled surfaces. The next moment, she was in a quiet cloister with other women with the same robes as her, carefully reading from the same scriptures as they knelt in organized rows. A flash of blue, and Habrynn's mother was standing before the same meek looking artisan, as a third Qunari introduced them to each other.
Neither one of the figures on the parapet looked to her, even as she raced nearer. They were fixed on each other, even though their eyes didn't meet. She could see the man now, a hair shorter than her mother, but stocky and simple, with golden skin, pale wispy hair and eyes a sky blue. "Father," Habrynn breathed. "No, this is too weird," She sputtered, digging her heels into the ground as she turned and back away. "I don't really want to see this-"
The images shifted around Habrynn, and then her mother was kneeling at a low table while other Tamassran women huddled around her. "It should not take so long," One hissed. "You have relieved men before. Surely you know how-"
"It will simply take longer," Her mother said. "Or you can chose a different Sire."
"No," An older, graying Tamassran Qunari snapped. "The Arishok require this. They have been very specific."
The golden-haired Quanari sat, in a different room, receiving a similar chastising. Though separated by space, Habrynn heard them both agree, "As you command. We will meet as long as it takes-"
Habrynn spun in place to see that the parapets had fallen away. Somehow she was standing on one of the towers overlooking her young parents again from a higher angle. The Qun clothing they had been wearing before had dissolved away, to be replaced with haphazard scraps of different types of clothing that looked more like what Habrynn grew up with. Scarves with the patterns of ethnicities they had no right to claim. No gems or jewels or status symbols, and garments that were always torn, dirty, and ill fitting. Second-hand charity from the Chantry or altered cast-offs from the Nobles they had served.
Her mother was not bulging, but the pregnancy was obvious enough now. Her mother's eyes were red and bloodshot and tears dampened her entire face. Her father's face she couldn't see well, but she could see his shoulders heave in sobs of his own.
"Saarebas… " He wept. "How can you be sure?"
Her mother glanced up and over his shoulder, and her dark green eyes met Habrynn's as if she could see her across time through the fade. "Adarr," She whispered. And in Qun, she finished with, "They did this."
Habrynn gasped, choking for breath as the ground of her room slammed into her side. The covers were scattered everywhere, and she could see a few new tears in the sheets where her horns had torn them in her thrashing.
They made our child a weapon.
She thought the words were in her mind, but they repeated again, from above her.
"They made my child a weapon," Cole stated calmly, while he rolled a figurine from her miniature war-table in his hands. "Disparate parts, brought together for the chance at a unique outcome. Warm and maternal but then cold and severed. Longing, grasping, denying… affirming."
Habrynn bit her tongue before she shouted something unfair to Cole. His intrusion hurt her, but she knew his circumstances. He couldn't help it. And he strove to help others even if invariably, he hurt them first.
Startled by her glowering expression, Cole dropped the figure from the second-story railing he was perched on. "I… no, no-no-no I didn't mean to upset you more! Only to reveal… only to help!"
He must have jumped down, but as often happened with Cole, she saw him one instant on the railing, and then the next, he alighted on the floor next to her, and was kneeling down to touch her shoulder. If it was anyone else, such a gesture while she was almost naked would have been weird, to say the least.
"Cole," She said more sternly than she intended. "Did you drag my dream into the fade? Did you show me my parents? What were you think-"
"No, I only followed you," Cole soothed. "You sought a connection. Love... confuses you. Your emotions… confuse you."
"I… I did what?" Habrynn sputtered at Cole.
"You do not seek love. Do not… think you want love. Don't … deserve love, maybe."
"Cole!" Habrynn snapped.
"Right," He jolted away from the woodgrain he was tracing on the ground, and stared at her fixedly. "You left your parents. You thought the fires were your fault. Thought you endangered them. Thought they were helpless. Farm-hands. Simple life. Younger brother has a swing, but no one to push him. Father draws plans for a larger cottage, but the family does not grow..."
Habrynn blinked back at him as the pieces slowly connected together.
"Saar Ay baas," Cole intoned.
"The Dangerous ones," Habrynn muttered. Her mother was perhaps a dormant mage. Her father, a carrier perhaps? Habrynn thought over what little she knew about the Qun, and remembered Iron Bull's callous comment about the Qun's breeding programs seeking to enhance dominant or recessive traits. She was just a product of their tightly written ledgers. A carefully crafted weapon.
"Yes," Was all Cole said, while staring into her eyes at a slant. As best Habrynn could guess, he had heard her own mental deductions clear as day, and did not feel the need to repeat them this time. Iron Bull's soft chuckle echoed through her mind again, "Adaar. I like it. 'Weapon'. It has a nice ring to it."
Habrynn ground her teeth together. Even knowing what he had given up and how he had changed or at least chosen his sides now, she had the sudden urge to punch him right in his smug face. Of course, she also instantly realized how futile that would be. He'd probably catch the punch, swing her around so she didn't hurt herself… if she was anyone but the 'Boss' he'd just strike her to teach her to punch better next time, like how he trained Krem.
"A kiss in a quiet shadow," Cole pondered aloud, "The smell of grass crushed under foot, and cold, welcoming tile stones. You were nervous, but he was gentle-"
"COLE!" Habrynn shouted. "OUT. Of. My. Head!"
"They loved you… your parents… still… love you," Cole stammered. "You told the Valo-Kos you were alive… but not your parents. They worry you are dead. The child they left the Qun to save."
Habrynn blinked back at Cole, suddenly filled with shame. "I… I was protecting them. I burned... I had to leave! I didn't know what I know now…"
"No… this is sideways. I replaced one hurt for another. I made it all worse. Let me fix it-"
Habrynn slapped his hand away as he reached for her, and pointed at him. "No," She snapped. "You promised me that you wouldn't make me forget. Not ever."
Cole only nodded, stood, and walked down the stairs in that strange silence that his steps often left. Soundless, despite his shoes, like the absent wind in her fade dream.
"Protecting them. I'm protecting everyone." Habrynn growled, gripping the horns at the sides of her head and yanking her head backwards to scowl at the ceiling. Not that she could see it. Her eyes were swelling with tears, and everything was a blur of hot rage.
Habrynn… Mother told me Brynn was fire, and Ha was home… home fire, hearthfire, the warmth that kept a family alive.
"STUPID," habrynn growled. She threw her head back and thumped it against the bed. Her backwards horns pierced the mattress unintentionally, and she glanced at the holes and spat again, "STUPID."