Thank you all so much for continiously reading this journey of a story, through my lack of time to edit properly and the many overly cheesy paragraphs. I appreciate every ounce of it so very much.
Aurora's unbuttoned blouse kissed the edges of her hips, giving the older woman the ability to check her thoroughly. She twirled a finger over the pulled taunt skin, encompassing around what she was sure was a little foot. It was a strange feeling, carrying another life within, creating a new life in general. She had destroyed a dragon with the soul of an old god, fought monsters from the very pits of the earth, decapitated abominations, and yet this simple thing was her greatest advent yet.
Turning back towards her after humming softly, Wynne's cool hands pressed against her abdomen with a slight pressure. Beneath her palms a faint green glow painted her skin, not an artificial color, something like vegetarian and life. Her eyes were focused, lips pressed into a white line and pale brows furrowed as her hands smoothed from just below Aurora's breasts to above her pelvic bone.
"Is everything alright?" Aurora felt a bit startled, anxiety's that she had kept buried crawling to the top and taking breaths of life.
"Oh, yes, very much so. You're the splitting image of a healthy pregnancy. It is just that...well," She didn't seem sure how to continue, removing her hands from the rounding promise of life to over the young woman's heart, keeping it their for several beats.
"The very first time I healed you when we met within the Circle, I could feel the taint pulsating off of you in waves. It was like the blood that flowed through you was a hurricane, I've felt it in every Grey Warden I have ever been around, the older they are, the worse. Yours though now, there's nothing; the taint is mute. Your body gives off no indication of having any of it, not even slightly."
"That can't be possible."
"No, it really should not be. Yet, here we are. You have to be at the least six months along, which places your date of conception sometime around when we were in Orzammar."
Aurora felt her cheeks go pink, thinking back to their stay beneath the Frostback Mountains. Showers, as it had seemed, contained many more uses than just for cleansing, nor was it just the showering chambers that got extremely...steamy.
"I've had all the senses that come with being a Warden though, especially at the end of the Blight. Maker, how was the baby not harmed when I struck down the archdemon?"
"You didn't notice the absence of your monthly cycle?"
"No, it would go absent for months at a time from all the physical endurance my body was shocked into."
"Well, it seems the Maker was smiling down upon you when you became with child."
"But Wynne, if there's something that ended the negative symptoms of becoming a Grey Warden, we have to get it to Alistair. He has a Kingdom to protect and lead, he has to have this cure."' She swung her legs over her bed, buttoning her blouse up and standing. A hand firmly laid upon her shoulder though, stopping her from continuing further.
"You are not in any state to go marching off to Denerim, not in the slightest. Besides, do you not think there is other things you should tell him first? Like the impending birth of his child?"
She hung her head at this, frowning, "You have to understand why I didn't at first..."
"I do, my dear, I very much do. What happened, it was not easy for the either of you. You have to break past that though and continue forward. This child deserves it."
"I know, I am. It just is not the sort of thing I really want to break to him over a piece of parchment paper. Even though seeing him face to face will be difficult, and Maker, speaking to him...I have to. Fergus sent a letter to Teagan, he's been mentoring him as King for the last few months while Eamon spends some final time with Connor. He asked him in the letter to not tell Alistair, but rather request that he sends him here, to Highever." She breathed out, trying to cool all her nerves with a single gust of air.
"Would you like me to be present with you once the time comes to break the news? If he tries to question his role in Fatherhood to your child, I will ensure him that there is no possible way he is not. I could also set his hair on fire, but only for you." She smiled softly, grasping Aurora's hands in her own, "You need to calm your inner demons, my child, for good. I have seen you struggle and conquer first nearly two years. You can not defeat your adversaries only to let them rise up against you once more. You serve as a perfect Teyrna, but you must heal your own mind as well."
Tears clouded Aurora's vision, turning Wynne's aged but still beautiful face into a melting pot of features, "I'm trying so hard, but I am petrified. I do not know how to be a good Mother to my child, even though I want them more than anything in this entire universe. I am terrified Alistair will reject me once more, and overall, I am so afraid of letting down my family more than I already have. When I saw my Father's spirit while we were looking for the Ashes Of Andraste, I thought for sure I had found inner peace, that I had forgiven myself for my sins. Now though, I just feel as if I have reopened long closed stitches and they ache even more." A final sob escaped her throat, strangled and tarnished with such an amount of anguish she finally sat back into the plush safety of her bed. Making no effort to cover the fast falling liquefied torment, she stared off through her bedroom window and wished for a moment she could simply rectify herself as the air; a felt existence, but entirely invisible from the world.
Wynne sat next to her, wrapping an arm over Aurora's shoulder in a motherly fashion, one she wished so much she could do with her own child. Summoning all the wisdom she could in her sixty years of existence, she spoke with such a depth that she prayed to Maker she could find entrance into the impenetrable walls of the shattered woman's soul, "I have never seen a woman as strong as you are, nor do I think I ever will, even if I did manage to live another three centuries among the many lands of Thedas. You survived, through every battle scar and thing that said you should not. You have defied all odds, changed the path that was set for you and refurbished it in a way you found fitting, but not for yourself. You changed the acts of time to save a world that did nothing but spit upon your back as soon as you turned. Through murder and treachery, demons and humans, you have seen and tasted every hardship of life but yet here you stand. Good mother's do not fear being bad ones, they do not face their greatest fear for the sake of their children. You would risk getting yourself killed for a complete stranger if they called out for help, Maker can only imagine what you will do this for this baby." Brushing the woman's tears away, she looked deeply into her midnight and storm harboring eyes, "You are a fighter, and not only that, but a Vanquisher and a Hero. The only thing you need to do now, is be those things for yourself."
Aurora was left speechless, searching for words that would not illustrate themselves no matter how hard she attempted the act of thought. Wynne had always applied a but of pressure on her, not in an unkindly way, but like that of a parent who was constantly pushing their child to meet the success they new was achievable. She had complimented her before, but not like this, not in such an uplifting and honest way. Each word seemed to require no thought when it had left her mouth, coming with such ease she had to have thought them before.
"You must see all these things on your own, my dear. In the end, your opinion on yourself is the one that matters the most. Do you see, now?"
The woman shook her head, the foggy blindness that had incarcerated her mind for so many years finally beginning to melt away. Not because of the man she loved, not because of the compliments of an elder woman, but because for once she began to see the girl that others had witnessed for so long.