Chapter 14 – What a Difference Six Months Make

Mina spent nearly every hour, outside the classroom, in the library having books read to her. For the last six months everyone had been taking turns, but no one complained. Reading to Mina was far less dangerous than having her stalk, kiss and grow angry because you made no ants. And it was all due to the arrival of a bard, there to visit Wynne with news from Orlais and beyond. Before Wynne could even counsel Leliana about Mina, the bard had already begun picking out gowns and slippers for her to try on.

The first week she was there, Leliana began telling the girl tales and reading to her. Mina could sit for hours just listening to the tales. No one, it seemed, was more grateful for her new interest than the Templars, who'd been taking daily beatings from her in the practice yard. Everyone, in fact, was greatly relieved Leliana had come to visit and spent so much time with Mina.

For her part, Leliana seemed to revel in fixing the girl's hair and dressing her in gowns, most which the mages blush and all of the Templars look up at the ceiling when she passed. It seemed the girl taught Leliana much as well, about camouflage and the use of daggers. For three months, until Leliana had to go back on the road, the two were inseparable. And although Mina didn't cry, she seemed rather sad to see Leliana go.

Wynne watched the girl blossoming even after the bard left, however. Like a child becoming an adult, only in Mina's case it was a shorter process. Wynne supposed she could attribute the incredible changes to the books Mina had read to her. She spent so much time in the library; she usually fell asleep and needed to be prodded to bed.

On one such night, Wynne found Mina curled up asleep in a chair. Careful to be gentle, for she'd had a bad experience with the girl's daggers, Wynne woke her up.

Mina woke up to a voice calling her name softly and shaking her shoulder. She yawned, stretched and nodded for the reader to continue, but was greeted by silence. She couldn't sense the apprentice who began reading to her earlier, but she sensed Wynne close by.

"Sorry Wynne, I did it again"

"You must stop overdoing it, child. You cannot make up for a whole life in such a short time, though it seems you will try your best to do so." Though Wynne was using a scolding tone, Mina could detect the warmth beneath it.

"Yes Wynne" she smiled.

"Oh, don't try and placate me, child, you're still young enough to go over my knee."

"Oh, believe me, I remember" Mina said rubbing her bottom, as she stood. Apparently sleeping potions in the Templar's dinner cups were the last straw for Wynne.

She tucked her arm in Wynne's and let the mage lead her to her rooms; though she could find her way there quite easily nowadays.

"Wynne", she said as the climbed the stairs to the second floor.

"Yes, child?" Sometimes Mina would ask a question just to hear Wynne respond with those words. Today, however, she didn't have to think of a question. She suspected Wynne knew why she phrased hers the same way, in either case.

"What is blushing like? I understand the idea behind it, and books describe it, but no one seems to be able to show me."

Wynne had a wonderful laugh, dry and raspy but whole hearted, and Mina never felt laughed at, only with. She laid her head on the mage's shoulder and somewhere, in the dark recesses of her mind, she felt like she had a mother again.

"Child, all those kisses you were giving out when you first got here, I'm going to guess you felt blushing quite often?"

Mina thought for a moment and then she understood. She nodded and grinned. When they reached her room she brought up something she'd been thinking about for some time, and had actually been her question, but she had avoided it for some reason. She pulled a gold locket from the folds of her robe and rubbed over the top of it.

"Wynne, I know I'm needed here and there is still much to teach, but, well you did say I was free to come and go, did you not?"

"Yes, Mina. You're always free to go. Are you so unhappy here that you wish to leave"

"Oh no! I haven't actually been happy since my mother died, until I came here. I'll never want to leave again, it's just that…" She paused "Wynne, you know where you come from, who you come from, but Flemeth took everything that belonged to my mother, everything except…this locket." And she held it out for Wynne to see. When Wynne took it, she took a deep breath, "I want to know who I am, Wynne. I know why my mother brought me to the wilds and I know I'm no prize for any family, but I just want to know, who she was, where I came from. Do you understand?"

"I understand, Mina, if you think you can handle this, even if they don't accept you or want anything to do with you…?" Mina nodded "Then I think I can help a little. The engraving on this locket seems to be a blazon"

Although she'd heard of the word in some of the books she'd read, she didn't understand exactly what that meant.

Wynne obviously saw her confusion. "A coat of arms. If this was your mother's then she was most likely nobility." She hadn't the heart to tell her it might have been stolen. "I'm not familiar with this particular one, but I'm sure there is a chantry scholar who could help."

"Thank you Wynne," she embraced the older woman, tightly, "And one more request?"

"Yes?"

"Which Templar would accompany me to Redcliffe, do you think?" And they both laughed.