Chapter 11: A Perfect Taint

(This chapter has been changed from the original file at AO3 to be PG13 rather than Explicit and trigger situations. This is the safer version.)

Leliana rubbed eyes that burned with exhaustion. Maker take this whole damn night, she thought, looking around at the rest of the equally exhausted people huddled around the war table. Morning hadn't brought any chance at rest as they dealt with the ramifications of the attack.

Josephine looked small and drawn, huddled in the chair dragged in from her office. Cassandra looked as though she would set the huge table on fire with the ferocity of her gaze. She moved her consideration to Maxwell. The Inquisitor stood completely still, only the crackle of the green at his palm showing his internal struggle.

Cullen paced, eyes feverish and armor still splattered with the black blood he'd spilled during the night. Clearly he was taking the attack as a personal assault on his ability to keep Skyhold safe. Leliana's gaze came back to him. Something was wrong with him. Why did no one else notice?

The last person in the room, Varric had slipped in with them and stood with hands behind his back, looking at no one.

"How did this happen?" Cassandra's voice was as fierce as her gaze. Cullen straightened and answered. He looked like he was expecting a blow, Leliana thought. "Tunnels, just below the surface of the cliff face. The rudimentary openings were hidden by the waterfall."

He pinched his eyes. "It's my fault. My poor call to have no real guards stationed at the opening. They used our own scaffolding to climb up to the dungeon. I should...I should resign my post."

"No!" Maxwell's voice was firm and echoed by Cassandra's. "We could have had no idea that darkspawn would attack. Since the last blight they've nearly disappeared on the surface."

"Why did they attack?" Josephine's voice sounded less confident than usual. She'd seen battle before, Leliana knew, but perhaps not the horror that were darkspawn. Varric answered her, no banter in his voice, whatsoever. "They weren't after food. They weren't after hostages. They only took one thing. One person."

Maxwell's voice took over from Varric's, low and still. "Angelica." Leliana nodded, her heart clenching. Why? Why would darkspawn want the Voice of the Maker?

"Someone must be controlling them. They must have been sent. But why?" Leliana asked the question she knew was on all their minds. Varric responded. "For once, even the writer in me doesn't care why, Nightingale. How do we get her back?"

''She's likely dead, or a ghoul already." Leliana spoke grimly. "I traveled with the Hero of Ferelden during the last blight. It was horrific what they would do to captives." She couldn't help swallowing at the memory of Hespith and the horrors they'd found in the deep roads. "Especially to female captives." She couldn't continue. All eyes dropped to the floor rather than look at each others and the truth of what that could mean.

"No." Maxwell's voice was firm, not betraying the emotion his clenched fists showed. "We will not abandon her that way. We will find her, and if she is no longer saveable, we will make certain she has a swift and painless death." Finally the conflict inside showed in his voice as it broke. "I can't just let her suffer."

A knock on the heavy door interrupted his words. When it opened without invitation all eyes turned to the intruder. It was Mother Giselle, her face so grim that the censure Cassandra had clearly intended seemed to have died on her lips. Behind her, a dark haired man peered in the doorway and Varric stiffened. A quick glance at Cassandra and he was out the door like a shadow.

The Revered Mother spoke without preamble. "Chantry representatives have just arrived. If we are to stop the damage that an apparent attack on Skyhold will do to their confidence in us, we must address them now." Josephine groaned and Cassandra struck the table in frustration.

Maxwell moved to stare piercingly down at Mother Giselle. "We have more important things to deal with immediately, Revered Mother. One of our own is missing, taken in the attack. My first order of business is to pursue and rescue her."

The Revered Mother did not seem cowed. "Do you really want the might of the Chantry against the Inquisition? Yes, without the templars their fighting power is limited, but their ability to sway the public against us could all but destroy us. Imagine, no more trade. No more new recruits. No more access to those who are just barely now beginning to trust us." She stepped away from him, confident in the rightness of her words. "Inquisitor, we are still new. And as such, vulnerable."

Josephine's sad voice chimed in. "One person against the fate of the entire Inquisition. Even one so important as the Voice of the Maker doesn't balance the harm that not dealing with this now could do." The petite Antivan placed a gentle hand on Maxwell's tense arm. "I'm so sorry, but you are the Inquisitor. They will need to speak with you."

The fight seemed to go out of Maxwell's body all at once. "I understand." He slumped against the table, looking at each of them in turn. As if to make sure they understood the shame of abandoning one of their own.

When his gaze fell on the Commander, they traded glances and Cullen nodded. What was that all about? Leliana wondered as she raised her eyebrows questioningly at Cullen.

He spoke to them all instead of her. "I need to check on the clean up and wounded. Make certain the Chantry representatives see us at the best that is possible right now." With a pointed look back to Leliana he exited the room. "What?" Josephine's voice rose just a very little in panic. She's going to be angry, but she can handle this, Leliana justified to herself as she slipped out of the room behind Cullen.

"Alright, what's the plan, Commander?" She whispered to his back.

"So, now you know about my more recent adventures. What have you been up to?" Hawke's piercing gaze moved from the view of the mountains to Varric's face. "Besides saving the world, that is."

"Funny man. Right now I'm having trouble saving even one person." The dour nature of Varric's response made Hawke just a little angry. So help him, if this Inquisition was doing badly by his friend…

"Care to talk about it?" Hawke offered the dwarf a bit of emotional privacy by looking out over the wall of the battlements rather than at him. When Varric didn't answer after a few moments he grew even more concerned. Time to investigate.

"So, I ran across a runner at the tent camp yesterday. Had this really odd package for a certain dwarf...so I figured I'd help a friend out. Though what on earth you need these for...would likely make a good story?" The tall man hefted a bag at Varric, hitting him in the chest and startling him out of some form of reverie.

"What? Oh...you brought me a gift? Sorry, still won't get me to sleep with you. My heart is taken." Varric's delayed humor was even more interesting.

"Yeah, yeah, I know Bianca would have my head if I got anywhere near your manly bits." For all the banter in his voice, Hawke paid close attention to the dwarf's expression as he opened the bag and pulled out the first doll. "Because I'm your friend, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt on the whole 'manly' part. Especially if those are for you."

"Naw, I've given up my doll collection. It was worth too much money on the open market. I couldn't resist. These are for orphans." Varric stuffed the doll back into the bag as Hawke choked back a surprised bit of laughter. "You're taking in orphans now? So when did the great Varric Tethras, rogue extraordinaire, become a pillar of the community?"

The dwarf grimaced. "On, don't worry. I'm still the lady killer reprobate with delusions of creativity that you know and love."

"Or, I've finally rubbed off on you." Hawke grinned. "So, are they really for orphans?" Varric grimaced. "Yes. I promised one to a bright young lady, and found that the rest of the pack got bloodthirsty when they were left out."

Their combined laughter felt good. "It's been too damn long, my friend." Hawke laid a warm hand on Varric's shoulder. The dwarf nodded. "Yeah, it has."

"It will be like old times. You and me, off to save the world." Hawke grinned, but noticed that Varric stepped out from his hand, eyes troubled.

"Yeah, about that. I...won't be going with you and the Inquisitor to Crestwood. Hawke's jaw dropped and Varric looked pleadingly up at him. "There's something else I need to do."

"Something more important than stopping Corypheus from corrupting the Grey Wardens?"

"More immediate. If I don't go now, a very special woman will die...horribly." Varric sighed, shrugging helplessly. "Trust me, Hawke."

"Always, my friend." The tall man smiled wryly down the dwarf looking up at him. "So, lets get the Inquisitor out here to chat, and I'll take it from there. But when we all get back, you better introduce me to this 'special' woman."

The Largest of the Mother's Children sat on his haunches, watching the Light sleep.

A human sleep, now. Not the twisting torment the Light had been going through since he'd slain the rest of the horde to keep her alive.

He'd returned from collapsing a part of the tunnel behind them to find that the horde had let instinct overwhelm the Mother's commands.

They'd forced their tainted blood on her and had been close to performing the ritual rape destined to turn her into one of the brood mothers. The Light had been fragile already, and this violation may have killed her before he could bring her to the Mother.

In rage at their unthinking betrayal he'd slaughtered them all. Better to face the long miles alone than to risk the loss of the Mother's prize.

It had been a near thing even without allowing the violation to continue. The human women they'd taken in the past had died in the dark by the many hundreds. Only a few having the strength to become the mothers. But this one was different. She would not become a mother. Her body had not begun it's change even with the tainted blood working it's way through her veins.

Something else had changed instead. A song, her song that filled his mind with such sweet music, such pure music, that it had called a bank of surface plants to grow up around her like a thing alive while her body had twisted and suffered accepting their taint.

He'd spent hours, perhaps days there listening to her song as it had changed and grown with her taint. He could barely bring himself to leave to feed.

And through him, the Mother could hear it. It buried her words to him sometimes, but he could feel her longing for it as well. The Light must survive to bring the song to the Mother. To bring it to all the mothers and all the mother's children.

Almost without meaning to, he touched her. His tainted blood pushed him to take her. To feed her and force the change. But he was the first, the Largest of the Mother's Children. He could control himself for the Mother's sake.

At his touch her eyes opened, unfocussed and confused. They found his face and after a moment, widened in terror. She began babbling sounds at him in the ridiculous mewling of the humans.

Then the Light scrambled away from him, causing him to growl. She could not be allowed to leave. He stood and easily grabbed her, lifting her to her own swollen feet and pulling The Light close enough to control her flight.

Humans, even this one, were so weak. He roared, shaking her as gently as he could. Stop struggling he said without words as she thrashed against his grip.

Suddenly she stopped thrashing. The Light looked up at him and the song became overwhelming. She uttered words he didn't understand and then she touched him.

And everything went silent. For the first time in his entire, tainted life, he was alone in his own skull. No Mother, no brothers, no one but himself.

Terror filled him. Panicked, he grasped her arms tighter and tighter until the Light cried out in pain.

Pain. Why did it bother him that he had caused her pain? He must take her to the mother, that was the answer.

But he could not find the mother in his mind. He could not feel her in the world. He must find The Mother!

With a wordless wail, he dropped the Light and fled into the darkness.

Best that Varric could tell it had been three days of swift travel underground. They'd made the decision to move hard and fast to catch up to the fleeing darkspawn.

Andraste's perfect tits, he hated being underground. "I hope Frosty appreciates this." He grumbled out loud as they finished digging their way through a rudimentary attempt to collapse the tunnel.

Speaking as if she wasn't dead almost made it feel like a possibility. He knew the internal lie. After three days in the hands of the darkspawn, that was all but impossible. But right now, as the unannounced scouting group slipped through the darkness, he decided that self delusion was the more worthy choice.

Unannounced scouting group indeed. He glanced around at the silent figures that he, himself, moved silently among. Leliana's and Cullen's best available had apparently slipped through the dungeon and into the dark tunnels below without alerting the rest of the Inquisitor's companions, the guard or even the sharp eyed Chantry representatives. He had to hand it to the Nightingale and Commander, they had been sneaky as fuck to get past the political blockades to a rescue mission.

He and Sera had slipped into the tunnels on their own. The plan to sneak through the remainder of the horde and steal her back. Or, if she had become a ghoul, a swift death with an arrow through her head. When the other scouts had ambushed them, surrounding even the two sneakiest members of the Inquisitors inner circle, he'd had to laugh.

Well, after he'd nearly shit himself.

They'd tried to send he and Sera back, he and Sera had threatened to disembowel them in their sleep if they did. So in the roguish detente they'd all decided to work together to complete the mission.

Save the girl. Or kill the girl…or perhaps they were the same thing.

He'd already worked out three different speeches to tell the children that their caretaker wasn't coming back. He wasn't happy with any of them. Too dour, too dishonest or too vague. You know, he thought to himself, maybe I'll just turn that part of things over to the Inquisitor. He'd kind of earned it, really.

"Darky-spawny shits. Smell like they've been swimming in Celene's sewers."

"Dirthara-ma, Sera." Leliana's agent, Zelen whispered back at her. "We are too close."

Varric wrinkled his scarred nose. "What the hell smells that bad?" His words a growly breath.

As they cautiously rounded a corner, faint firelight reflected on the stone through an opening ahead of them. Slowing to their most careful approach, they edged up to it.

Peeking out, a wall of stench hit Varric with the force of a blow. It was all he could do not to swear out loud as he ducked back behind the dubious protection of the tunnel. Once his eyes stopped watering, he poked his head around the opening again.

"Holy Maker's puckered anus." All the wisdom in the world couldn't stop himself from cursing out loud at the sight that greeted them.

A naked, blood smeared Angelica crouched forlornly on a bank of roses in the center of a small cavern surrounded by a ring of viciously slain darkspawn. The stench of their decay indicating it wasn't a recent slaughter.

"Frosty, you're making me think I need to start dabbling in the horror genre."

With a surge of disgust at the dark blood dried to her body...followed by a very different kind of emotion, Varric found himself holding the naked woman. With an inarticulate cry of desperation she'd thrown herself into his arms and begun sobbing. Maker help him, he hoped she wasn't a ghoul, because he didn't think he could kill her like this.

"It's okay. You're safe now."