Kathyra

"What do we do now?" Kestrel asked, her voice carrying the fine edge of exhaustion.

I turned my head to see her and Leliana leaning against the wall of the cabin, both of them staring into separate distances, pasts, and even different presents.

"We wait. We pray. We endure." Leliana rested her hand on Kestrel's knee. "This is a moment and a time you will face all too often, should you persist as a templar. Lives are lost in battle. Those...those we love are tormented by the spectre of death as it haunts their every waking moment...it rests in their eyes and looks out, a prophesy to the world of what we can never escape."

How deep is your capacity for love, I wondered as I listened to her words, words tinged by grief and hope and desperate, fragile memories. How can you look into the eyes I saw that night in Highever, eyes that chilled me to my core, so cold were they, so rife with death's own essence?

"I...I could see that happen to her." Kestrel looked to Rylie's sleeping form. "I'll do anything, Leliana, anything to see that she retains her joy...her innocence."

"While that is admirable, she will not thank you for it." Leliana cautioned. "Keep her joy and her innocence within you, locked in your memory, safe and secure...for the moment when she needs it most. It is...it is so easy to lose your way in the world, whether soldier or templar, noble or bard."

"You speak as one who has lost their way." Kestrel observed.

Instead of hanging her head, Leliana lifted her chin, resolute, unafraid, staggeringly beautiful. "So many times." She agreed. "But not just my way...I lost myself. Until that moment, that moment where I looked upon one who reminded me of all that I desired to be, who let me learn and accept parts of who I was that I thought worthy of revulsion."

"The one with death in her eyes?" Kestrel asked, showing her eerie powers of perception.

"The one who walks with death as a friend, harboring it...never letting it touch her." Leliana's tone lightened and turned wistful, layered with hints of longing.

Death touches us all...and stays its hand from none...not even the best of us.

I could feel death near me, close enough to reach out and touch. But I...I wanted to live. I wanted to live, because I had seen that though death had touched the one who taught me to love, to live...such a love was still present in this world. It dwelt in Leliana's ocean blue eyes, the touch of her callused and scarred hands, the heart that had been torn open...one time too many. The heart that knew the true definition of sacrifice; that it was not death...but living in love, no matter the ultimate cost.


Giselle leans on the handle of a broom, yawning and rolling her shoulders. The clinic is quiet for the first time since the sun rose this morning. It is long after sunset, and I can feel the fatigue pressing in on me, as it must be on her as well.

"Sit down." I take the broom from her and the corners of my lips turn upwards, through no will of my own. "I'll finish the floors."

"You don't need to do that." Giselle shakes her head, but another yawn gives her away. "We've both worked too hard today."

"You worked." I tug the broom away from her, grinning as she throws up her hands in defeat. "I merely handed you things and observed."

"Learning is the most exhausting of pursuits." Giselle pulls her hair back and ties it, revealing the delicate points of her ears, something she often keeps concealed.

Her features are decidedly human; it is only the tips of her ears and the color of her eyes that give her heritage away. In order to keep our human patients at ease, she leaves her hair in place to cover evidence of elven descent. I find that this disturbs me on a level too intimate for comfort. There is nothing about Giselle that should be kept hidden, nothing about her that warrants reproach or concealment.

"Be that as it may, you work yourself to exhaustion each and every day." I begin sweeping the floor, turning away and hiding my face and the color stealing over my cheeks.

Her nearness, her voice, those eyes...they spark feelings in me that have no name. A flutter in my heart, a tightness in my throat, a thrumming in my pulse that is not fear, but something very like it.

The door of the clinic bursts open and a huge, hairy brute of a man enters, leading a young boy who can be nothing more than eleven or twelve years old, by the shoulder.

"Do something." He growls. "Boy here broke his arm."

Giselle straightens and the exhaustion flows away from her as concern lights her eyes. I have worked with her long enough to know that the injury of a child is close to her heart.

"This way, ser." She keeps her voice even, but I see the glare in the man's eyes.

"Ain't no knife-ear gonna touch my boy." The father growls and Giselle takes a step back, uncertain of what to do. All of the other healers have departed from the evening...except...except me.

"Forgive me, ser." I walk forward, hoping that Giselle will forgive me this use of my bardic talents, the ability to wear any skin I require. "My servant was merely attempting to expedite progress, for efficiency's sake. Please allow us to tend to your son."

Giselle stares at me with a mixture of awe and confusion, wondering who I am. My voice rings with false confidence, as I slip into a role, take on a new persona, a skill I honed to razor-edged perfection beneath Leron's torturous tutelage. I lead the boy to one of the beds and Giselle fetches the appropriate tools, two flat pieces of board and strong linen for bandaging.

I look at the boy's left arm, wincing at the awkward angle, the dark purple of the bruising around his wrist, not consistent with the location of the break. His eyes are frightened, flitting from me, to his father, to Giselle, and back to me. There are tear-streaks on his face, not unusual from the pain of a broken bone...but the child is quiet now, and does not seem the type to cry from pain.

"What happened to cause the injury?" I inquire, looking at the boy.

"Fell out of a tree." The father states, but he does not meet my eyes, and the boy's body tenses, his spine going rigid.

Giselle lays the supplies out on the edge of the bed and I catch her eyes. "I need to talk to you." I whisper, and she nods, following me into the adjacent room where the clinic's supplies are kept.

"Kathyra, what is it?" she asks, quiet. "You look positively wrathful."

"That boy did not break his arm in the manner his father said." I reply, my voice trembling. "I have seen bones broken in that same way many times...and his wrist is badly bruised. "

"His wrist might have been bruised when he broke his fall..." Giselle begins, but I shake my head and her eyes narrow. I normally cede diagnoses to her. But not this time. "Tell me how."

"It...it is not easily described." I hesitate, but she offers herself, opening her arms.

"Show me, then."

My mouth goes dry as I step behind her and firmly grasp her forearm, near the wrist, and, in a smooth motion, I pull her arm behind her back. I am careful not to apply the true force of this technique. Even so, Giselle gasps in pain and I relinquish her wrist, feeling guilt wash over me. She rubs her arm, shuddering, and I know that she felt exactly where the bone might be broken...exactly where the break is in the boy's arm.

"Who...who would do that to a child?" she asks, rolling her shoulder, looking at me with the slightest hint of fear in her gaze.

Who would do that to anyone? I wonder, heaping recriminations on myself. Except for me...

"Most often, the one who conceives the lie is the reason behind it." I mumble, remembering the countless lies that can be attributed to me.

"Oh no." Giselle leans against the doorway and lightly thumps her forehead. "The father?"

"That is my only assumption." I state.

Giselle pushes herself back from the doorway, gathering her composure with a deep inhale. "You know enough to set the bone and splint the arm." She says. "I will return shortly."

"Where..."

"Take care of the patient." Giselle orders, her voice more stern and cold than ever I have heard it.

I nod and return to the infirmary, forcing myself to smile for the sake of the boy, whose face is pale with pain and fear. I sit beside him and attempt not to notice the aura of hostility emanating from his father. I feel along the bone, finding the point of the break, sighing in relief as I realize it will not need to be set.

I splint the wound, admiring the boy's bravery as he makes not a sound. As I tie the last knot of bandaging, the clank of armor echoes across the stone floor and I glance up, shocked to see Giselle standing between two of Val Royeaux's city guards.

"Take him for questioning." She says, and one of the templars takes the boy's father in hand, leading him from the room.

"What the hell are you doing!?" He shouts, struggling in the templar's grasp. "You knife-eared bitch! That's my son! You will pay for this, I swear by the Maker!"

The boy's eyes widen as a guard kneels before him, smiling affably. "How is your arm?" he asks, sounding kind.

"It doesn't seem to hurt as much, ser." The boy stammers, looking up at his father, who is being dragged away. "Why are you taking my father?"

"You are in the house of the Maker, son." The guard says. "No falsehood can dwell here, so tell me true. Did your father hurt you? Is he the one that broke your arm?"

The boy bites his lower lip and my heart goes out to him. I watch him grapple with protecting the man who hurt him, or gaining the chance to be free from that abuse.

"Yes." He nods, choosing the more difficult option. To attempt to find freedom. "But I don't mind it. If he hurts me, he doesn't hurt my mother or sisters."

"Heavens, hells, and angels." I hiss, quickly removing myself from the situation.

I cannot bear the thought of a child subjected to the same manner of suffering that I endured. I cannot remain and see in him the prayerful, frightened, bleeding hope that his sacrifices and wounds would buy respite for those he wishes to protect. I know that hope. For me, and in me, it died.

I watch as the guardsman asks a few more questions before patting the boy on the shoulder and helping him to his feet. "Sister Giselle, I am escorting young David home. His mother will be worried for him."

"Of course." Giselle tries to smile. "Thank you."

The guardsman and the child leave the clinic. Giselle and I turn towards each other, witnessing the tears in each other's eyes.

"I wouldn't have known." Giselle whispers, and I see that her hands are shaking. "Kathyra...I wouldn't have known. I would have let his father take him back...back to that...back...oh Maker, no."

Giselle flings herself at me, wrapping her arms around my waist and holding me close. The reaction beings, the burning, the fear, the need to run. But I feel the trembling of her body as she weeps, and I realize that she needs this, that even though she is so strong, strength can fade.

Hesitant, slow, I wrap my arms around her and pull her closer to me, inhaling the scent of herbs and sunlight in her hair, screaming at myself a silent order. To believe that this is all right, that all will be well.

"You saved his life, Kathyra." Giselle whispers. "You saved that young boy's life...I would have failed him."

"It...it isn't your fault, Giselle." I assure her.

"Yes it is and I..." She removes her head from my chest and stares at me, realizing what she has done. Alarmed, she pulls away. "Oh. Fuck. Kathyra, I'm sorry. I should never have...I was just so overwhelmed and...wait...one moment." Her green eyes spark and narrow in my direction. "How did you know? Kathyra, how did you know that his injuries were caused by that particular technique?"

I do not know how to explain. I do not know how to inform. All I know is that I can lie...but I do not want to lie. Not to the woman who is saving me and who cares for me. I cannot lie. I cannot hide. This time, I do not fight.

I run.