Chapter 11 - Skyhold Pranks 2
Lace Harding was about to open the door to the tavern, having just returned from scouting detail out in the Western Approach, when the door slammed open, hitting her in the face and almost knocking her to the floor.
A boy came running out, he ran past Lace, paused, and turned around.
"Sorry!" He yelped. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, what…" From inside the sound of Iron Bull's voice, interrupted by Madame Vivienne's sharp tones. Lace saw as the boy's eyes widened.
"Sorry!" He cried, and ran towards the keep.
Madame Vivienne stepped out the door, followed by Iron Bull, who seemed to be trying to calm her down. Vivienne looked around, striding over when she noticed Lace.
"Did you see where he went?" Vivienne asked.
"I…" Lace started to say, unable to continue when she saw Iron Bull frantically shaking his head. "I don't know?"
Vivienne snarled, and took off, heading towards the keep. Iron Bull stepped in front of her.
"Vivienne, don't you think you're overreacting just a little?"
Madame de Fer did not say anything, she only looked up at Bull. Lace could not see Vivienne's face, but she could see Bull's face go pale. He stepped aside.
"What happened?" Lace asked, turning to Iron Bull once Vivienne had left.
"Prank gone wrong," Iron Bull said, shaking his head. "Kid was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And giving the wrong advice for a prank when the wrong person was there to hear it."
"Oh," Lace said. "Shouldn't we do something?"
"Kid's gone to find his mother," Bull said. "Can't think of anyone better to protect him from Viv's wrath."
"She seemed out of sorts," Lace said. "Madame de Fer I mean."
"Yeah," Bull said. "I've never seen her lose it like this over one of Sera's pranks. And to be this angry at a kid. Something must have happened."
—-
Cullen was reading in the garden, unsteady hands holding the book as he tried to keep his mind off the box in his desk. The words were blurring together, unable to distract him from the cravings, the voice in his head overriding any comprehension or attempts at distracting himself. He kept as calm an outward appearance as possible, it wouldn't do to let the people of the Inquisition see their Commander show weakness. He would have gone back to his room, where he could suffer the cravings in private. But he did not trust himself to be alone. Better to risk being seen as weak, if it meant avoiding the call of the box.
The sound of light, rapidly approaching footsteps jolted Cullen back to awareness. He looked up just in time to see Lady Morrigan's son, Kieran, run into the garden. He stopped at the spot where Morrigan usually spent her time, looking around frantically. Kieran noticed him, and walked over towards Cullen, who set his book aside.
"Have," Kieran started, panting, out of breath. "Have you seen my mother?"
"I think she is in the library," Cullen said, wincing just a little. Even while talking distracted him from himself, it was getting harder not to show the effects of his cravings. Kieran was looking around towards the entrance to the gardens, nervously. But when Cullen winced he turned back to look at the older man.
"Are you okay?" Kieran asked.
"I'm fine," Cullen lied.
"You're not taking the lyrium," Kieran said. "It's hurting you."
"Who told you that?" Cullen asked, he had only told Cassandra and Maxwell, and he knew neither of them would have told a soul. He supposed Leliana could have found out, she always found everything out eventually, but he could not imagine that she would have told anyone herself. Especially not a child.
"Nobody," Kieran said. "I can see you don't have as much in your blood anymore. Your body needs it now."
"You can sense the lyrium in me?" Cullen asked, amazement somewhat replacing the throbbing ache. "That's quite the ability. You'd make an impressive Templar. Or a Seeker."
"I can't," Kieran said. "They lyrium gives me terrible headaches. And mother wouldn't like it if I became a Seeker."
"Well, consider yourself lucky," Cullen said, as another wave swept through him. "That you'll never have to worry about what comes afterwards."
Kieran looked like he wanted to say something, but they heard the sounds of more approaching footsteps, and he ran off. Cullen looked towards footsteps. Vivienne had entered the garden and was casting her gaze around it. She violently shook her head and turned around.
Cullen, left wondering what had just happened, found that somehow his lyrium cravings weren't quite so important anymore. He stood up, intent on finding out what exactly had just happened.
—-
Morrigan sighed, putting aside yet another useless tome. Worth reading in the future, but not relevant to her current pursuit.
"I know," a voice next to her said. "The selection here is simply dreadful."
Morrigan turned to see Dorian Pavus standing next to her, perusing the books on the next shelf over.
"Truly," she said. "And requisitions take so long to arrive."
"If they ever do arrive," Dorian said, turning to face Morrigan. "Tell me, your son was in here not too long ago. He had the strangest questions about Tevinter. Seems like an odd topic for one of his age. A flattering one as far as I am concerned, most don't take the time to really learn about my homeland beyond, 'They started the blights and the whole entire country is run by blood mages.' So I was a little curious, however, how that topic came about."
Morrigan shrugged. She suspected why Kieran had been researching Tevinter. Odd, and troubling that he had not mentioned that to her. "Tis simply that I wish my son to have the best education I can afford him. Relying on chantry approved topics is hardly in the interest of that goal."
"How open minded," Dorian said. "Though I suspect that shouldn't have come as a surprise."
"You would be a fool to be surprised," Morrigan chuckled.
They continued their respective searches for a while.
"You know," Dorian said. "Your son is lucky to have you."
Morrigan raised an eyebrow, looking over at Dorian. "He could do much better than having me for a mother. Why the sudden compliment?"
"You give yourself too little credit," Dorian said. "Raising a mage child, in southern societies, all the while being an apostate. It takes a great deal of dedication to do that."
"Tis hardly remarkable," Morrigan said, pulling a book out from the shelf, examining the cover, and putting it back with a sigh. "Keeping a child safe tis but the bare minimum expected of a parent, is it not? I have hardly done anything remarkable."
"Sometimes the bare minimum alone is remarkable," Dorian muttered. "Tell me, would you try and use blood magic to change him if he turned out other than you expected?"
Morrigan turned away from the shelf she was examining, eyes wide, face uncharacteristically twisted into a horrified expression. "Never!" She cried.
"Well there you go," Dorian said. "That makes you a significantly better parent than one I could name."
Morrigan frowned at Dorian. She had heard rumors of the mage's past with his family. The thought of turning against a child in the manner his father had her thinking of her own mother.
"I know how that must feel," Morrigan said.
"Do you?" Dorian quirked an eyebrow, though from what little she could read from his face Morrigan knew she was in dangerous territory. No one liked when others assumed they knew their pain. "Do you really?"
"Well, I do not know if what my mother planned involved blood magic precisely," Morrigan said, quietly. "But I did discover a lost tome of hers that detailed how she had raised me for the sole purpose of stealing my body once her own had grown too decrepit. So yes, I can somewhat relate to what it must feel like."
"Oh," Dorian said. "That must have come as a shock."
"Somewhat, yes," Morrigan said. "But it was hardly as if she had raised me with love and care, she had a specific purpose in mind for me. Anything not in the pursuit of that purpose was irrelevant. At best I received indifference from her. At worst…"
"I see," Dorian said.
"I cannot say," Morrigan said, turning to Dorian. "What your relationship with your family was like before what happened. But, if at any point they treated you like their true child, consider that more than some have received. Sometimes mistakes are made out of love, and tis a terrible thing. But tis far better than something done out of deliberate, cruel intention."
"I," Dorian started to say. "I suppose you do know how it feels."
"Indeed," Morrigan said.
"And yet you raised a well adjusted boy," Dorian said. "If nothing else, your mother provided an excellent example of what not to do."
Morrigan laughed. "She did at that. Kieran is fortunate enough to have at least his father who was raised by a loving family and knows how to do more than not be a bad parent."
Dorian smiled. "Yes, he his lucky, but for more reasons than I imagine you are willing to admit."
"If you insist," Morrigan said. And with the conversation done she turned back to her examination of the bookshelves.
AN: Hey there you lucky people. Because the previous chapter and this one are short, the next one is also short, I'm posting this chapter halfway before I normally would, because nothing is worse than a great fanfiction that has a consistent schedule but posts chapters that are too short to really feel satisfying. So, hope you enjoyed.
Reviews:
Mr. Martin – Oh don't worry. It's coming.
The Poarter – Sera, not my favorite character, but I do enjoy how well written she is. So here's hoping I did her justice. You know, I feel like I should be annoyed at the slight disapproval, but that's just so Morrigan that I can't help but be enchanted by it.
Guest – "So far" huh? Well here's hoping that so far goes all the way. I have been waiting for the exact same thing, and nobody was doing it. You'd get a chapter or two here and there, but nothing to the extent of what I wanted. So, much like Thanos, I grabbed my glove and said, "Fine, I'll do it myself." Glad you like the backstory ideas, I try to keep it as true to what I think we all love about Morrigan and the Warden, so I hope it succeeds. And yes, I have ideas for a modern AU involving them. But it's currently stuck in the traffic jam of all the other ideas I keep having for them.
Spazapho – Glad someone gets my sense of humor. People keep saying I write funny stuff and I sit here thinking, "What really?"
LucasA – It was definitely the roughest of the chapters to get through. I think it's because it had to deal with real emotion, which made it a bit more difficult to write. But I'm glade it made it out of my head at least somewhat intact. And, as far as the locked door. Kieran is a curious lad, much to his mother's chagrin at times. Hope you enjoyed the latest chapter, sooner than I normally would have posted it, to make up for the length.
The Invisible Pretender – We'll have to see if he feels up to pranks after this. I'd have to say that pranks are more the realm of his little sister, who does not exist in this universe, but will make her appearance in future stories.
Verdi89 – Thanks for the laughs, it's what I live for. Hope you liked this newest chapter.
Axular – Okay, first off, wow, you made my day today. Seeing ten whole reviews in my inbox made getting through work a lot easier. I'll try to break my responses up in a way that makes sense. 1) She's madly in love, and she knows it. She just can't help but think back to how she used to be and laugh a little bit at how deep in it she is. Morrigan's romance arc is possibly my favorite thing ever. There's many great fanfics about her, but the current output of such fics just aren't enough for fans that want to obsess over her. Also I intend for my fics to be out there standing next to the ones with headcanons I don't care for. Makes my headcanons feel more legitimate than keeping them to myself. 2) Originally this was meant to be its own fic, and the first chapter was going to be a standalone. But people wanted a continuation and I had the idea for this fic already so I decided to do one of those "start in the future then jump to the past" kind of story structures. So I think there's a bit of a disconnect when you go from chapter one to chapter two. Leliana and Morrigan hating each other always annoyed me. So I hope that my fic provides a possibility for how they could get along in the future. Kieran needed all the screen time in the game! And you'd think he'd be more crucial, but they couldn't really base a story around an action that many players didn't take. 3) Yeah, Kieran inheriting seems incredibly unlikely, but I thought it would be fun to see if I couldn't figure out a situation in which he might possibly be legally eligible to be his father's heir. And I have plans for Fergus. Since the game doesn't mention if he remarried I assumed he did not. 4) I seem to have a thing for scary women. So they're both my favorites. I figured that since Cassandra had a lot of reluctance in her romance it wouldn't hurt to have the expert on reluctance in romance give her some pointers. Having the Inquisitor compare himself to the HoF is an interesting direction to take it, and it would make sense in a fic that is so heavily HoF biased. 5) That letter is personal, neither he nor the audience gets to see what dirty secrets it contains. And again, Morrigan has matured, so she should at least try to make amends with Leliana. My current theory is that yeah, the warden isn't very fertile, hence how none of the other LIs produce children. However, in Morrigan's case it makes some sense if you consider her having used her magic to make herself more fertile. So if you refuse the DR she's accidentally gotten pregnant previously, except was she only pregnant after you refused her, or was she not pregnant when she offered the DR? It gets confusing and then my head hurts. Though it would be interesting to consider that what if she got pregnant earlier on in the storyline. Like halfway through the game suddenly she's pregnant and her DR plans are ruined. And the HoF wouldn't allow her to put herself into danger once he knew. 6) Leliana needed to become more like her old self in my opinion. And so I figured the best way to have her open up is with a little help from Kieran, who reminds her of the Warden she had a crush on but who never reciprocated. Yeah, I'm hoping I don't botch the conversation with Solas. Vivienne has no plans yet. But we'll have to wait and see what happens once she learns more about Morrigan and Kieran. Well, hope you enjoy the multi-warden fanfic, which I totally plan to post tonight sometime. 7) Yeah, I had that exact same question. A newborn child when she was in a vulnerable state, physically and emotionally would have been quite the ordeal. Ruth came from a desire to have a connection between Morrigan learning more about how to be a mother and Aedan. And yes, maybe a bit of Old Nan in there. 8) Well, the idea was that he was referring to that, but I was trying to keep it vague. Cole is difficult to write for, and I don't think everything I was trying to imply came across the way it should have. For this canon I assume that Aedan left about a year before Inquisition starts. For other versions I muddle with the timeline, having him leave when Morrigan comes to Orlais, if I want him home sooner. But yeah, HoF as absentee father is not my favorite thing in the world, but if it has to be then I'm going to milk the emotion from it. 9) Heh. "Wrestling". "Why do adults like wrestling so much?" It's going to be interesting, having to plan out how the companions react to meeting Aedan. We'll have to see how that goes. And Aedan does have a bit of a martyr complex going on, what with being the main character for a while it becomes difficult to let go of that. And yeah, I could see them not getting along. But we'll have to wait and see how I play with it. 10) Glad she worked. She's another one of those characters, along with Cole, that aren't easy to write, so when it works I'm happy that it at least makes sense. And yeah, Kieran's opinions on magic from meeting the Inquisitor for the first time needed to be used on Sera. And yes, Vivienne is furious.
