Part 2: Hope

Chapter 26: Parent

Teharel opened his groggy eyes. A gnawing pain ate away at where his right leg should have been. Instead a bandaged lump protruded from his pants. He wiggled his stump of a leg and sighed. He glanced at the wrinkled skin on his arm- it had yellowed slightly.

The old elf lay in the bed of his old house, where Hijaya and Jarat currently lived. He could still smell some of the food by the table. Judging by the smell, he had just missed breakfast. Teharel scowled upon seeing that the married couple had removed his liquor cabinet.

The second thing he felt was the soft head of his daughter resting against his arm asleep. Had she been by his side the entire time? Jarat slept in a chair father back in corner. The elf scoffed. Show a little more love son in law. At least sit next to your wife and show some care for me as well, thought Teharel.

Still standing and looking over Teharel, however, was Aedan. The young noble rubbed at the bags under his eyes and grunted half-asleep at Teharel.

"Oi...Aedan, I see I kept you up all night with worry," coughed Teharel.

The young man crossed his arms and scoffed. "Don't kid yourself. I saw you getting up and I decided to stand over here." Despite his rather cold statement, Aedan smiled, albeit sadly. He handed Teharel a glass of water and the parched elf guzzled it down. For five whole days the old elf had slept without sustenance.

"Such hurtful words once I wake up." The elf tried to slam down the glass on the nightstand, yet couldn't muster more than a soft thud. He doubted that simple prolonged inactivity caused such strength loss. "Don't you know how to treat the dying?" His eyebrow raised. "Or am I not?"

"I got you the antidote." Aedan no longer smiled. His bangs covered his face as the young man gazed at the floor. Aedan couldn't bear to meet Teharel's eyes.

"But?" Teharel asked.

"Whatever organ inside that deals with toxins and such, it's been damaged by your years of excessive drinking, as well as all those additional poisons you've had over the years. Because of that, it didn't process the poison well enough. It did a lot of damage to your insides. The mages gave you one year."

"Ah." The elf rubbed at his arm. "One year then."

Silence passed. Aedan fidgeted with his sleeve till he found the courage to speak. "I'm sorry. I assume this means you'll be quitting."

"I suppose so." Teharel held the glass and sipped again. This time he put it down gently.

"It's been a good year."

"What do you mean 'It's been a good year'?" Teharel threw a nearby book at Aedan right in the face. "Don't just go killing me off like that. I'm not going to garden that mess of a house anymore, but I'm still expecting you to come down and show me how your training is going every once in awhile."

The young noble chuckled at the elf's energy. "I don't think you should push yourself too hard, Teharel."

"Even with one damn leg, I can still beat the shit out of you."

"Sure."

At his feet, Teharel noticed a rather familiar bundle by Aedan's feet. An envelope filled with documents- with a single stain on the front. Teharel remembered how he had accidentally spilled whiskey on the envelope before storing them in D's warehouse. "The documents?" he asked.

"D gave them to me. Said they're more trouble than they're worth."

"He's not wrong. Did you look at them?"

"Yeah, and the only thing in there is gibberish. Made up words and scrambled letters."

"Not everyone is as stupid as you. It's encryption; you need the correct sequence of letters to decode it. Not that I was the one who encrypted it- that was a teammate of mine."

"Not an expert in that field."

"I didn't think so."

"Considering neither of us can read this, are you sure you don't just want me to burn this?"

Teharel eyed the envelope again. "No. Adair wanted that information. I need to know why."

"Why can't you just tell me what the information is?"

"The documents there, are not just mine. It's all the reports that all the members used. I haven't gone through all of them, because they were coded before I could read them, and it's hard to decipher them at first glance."

Another silence ensued. During training, they cursed and swore. Compared to that, Aedan and Teharel weren't used to opening up like this. The two rubbed at the back of their necks, looking down at the floor.

"Did D tell you...about what we did?" asked Teharel, his voice quiet.

"Bits and pieces."

"Ah." Teharel's grip tightened on his sheets. Aedan looked at the pensive elf. Teharel had made his choice long ago, and whatever he had done had been set in stone. Aedan could make his own decisions regarding the elf's morals.

"Give me the cipher code," said the noble.

"What?"

"Hurry up, you geezer."

"Calm down you shemlen piece of shit," said Teharel, "Are you sure?"

"Until we know what Adair's plans were, we can never conclude this. So I'll take that burden off of you. You've done enough."

Not only did he owe a crime lord, Aedan was now translating dangerous documents that could put him in the crosshairs of dangerous people. Such misfortune, he thought, but it's worth it. For Teharel, Aedan would do what Fergus had done for his little brother. Take care of things.

Teharel scribbled down a sequence of letters onto a scrap of paper and handed it Aedan. The noble glanced at it. "Utter gibberish," laughed Aedan, wedging the slip into his pocket. "Don't worry Teharel. You don't need to worry about a thing. You and your daughter will be safe. I promise."

"Aedan?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you...for giving me a tomorrow."

As Teharel breathed out, he could feel the fatigue of a previous life, one that he had carried with him all these years. Now, at long last, he could pass on the torch. Teharel hoped, no, knew, Aedan could settle this. The elf knew how selfish he was burdening Aedan like this. As Teharel ruffled his daughter's hair in between his wrinkled digits, he couldn't help but want to be a little selfish for once.

Aedan stepped outside, waited a few minutes, then peered back in. Hijaya had just woken up with a little bit of drool dripping from her face. She flushed in embarrassment at her father's grin and her elven ears grew pinkish.

Oren, Fergus's son, had been about the same age as Connor. Aedan still remembered the little boy pretending to be a monster to try and scare Aedan. As the self-proclaimed 'fun uncle' Aedan always fell over in fright and struggled to hold back his laughter.

Now Aedan truly faced a monster in a child's body.

Connor's neck twisted in an unnatural direction. His jaw extended and he let loose a bone chilling scream that rattled all in the room. His skin, pale and corpse looking, stretched over his tiny face. Aedan tried to fathom the demon that lay beneath those glazed over eyes- yet he knew it to be futile. Such matters would always be beyond him.

The boy's feet lifted off and the boy glided off to the upper levels of the castle. On the floor lay the bleeding Bann Teagan. His guards sat nearby, also battered from their fight with Aedan's group. Isolde ran to Teagan and called, "Teagan! Wake up, Teagan! Please!"

The man could only murmur. Though inaudible, he tried to reassure Isolde, despite his own critical condition. Wynne rushed to the Bann's side and began her healing magic. "He has simply suffered blood loss and dementia from the demonic control. I believe he will be fine in time."

Shaking, Isolde turned to the Aedan. Her eyes plead for her son's mercy. "Warden, please. I know what this looks like."

Aedan put his sword back in his scabbard to try the calm the woman. "Isolde, please calm down. I'm not about to go rush in and kill a child."

"...Do we have any other option?" muttered Sten, eyeing the stairway the Connor had entered.

"Wait-" Jowan ran onto the scene from the other side of the room.

"YOU!" Lips quivering, Isolde raised a dagger at Jowan, yet dared not move towards him. "You did this to us! You...monster!"

"Lady Isolde, you can hate me all you want, but I didn't cause the demon to possess Connor. I want to get it out of him."

He turned to Aedan. "I have a way to get it out of him. Similar to the Harrowing, we'll send a mage into the Fade using Connor's mind as a reference point. From there, they will need to hunt down and destroy the demon."

Wynne glanced at Jowan, and nodded at Isolde. "He does speak the truth. We could rid Connor of the demon that way...but at great risk to whoever goes inside. Furthermore, it's not even possible without large amounts of lyrium and more mages."

Jowan swallowed. "I know...but there's another way to power the ritual. Blood magic. More specifically, the sacrifice of a live human."

Trembling, Isolde looked at Aedan straight in the eyes. She nodded once. Aedan knew what she wanted, and whom she wanted to sacrifice.

With desperation, Aedan rode towards the mage tower. He egged on his horse as much as he could, whipping the reins to the point of abuse.

Faster!

A live human. Sacrificing Isolde was out the question. He wouldn't let it happen-

But was he in the right here, trying to get help from the Mage Tower instead? He had told Alistair and the rest to hold on, while he rode to the Circle of Magi for lyrium and more mages. Each second he rode, the demon lurked in castle of Redcliffe. Aedan doubted the villagers ability to fend for themselves while Teagan, the knights, and Aedan's own group had holed up in the castle.

Was his judgement clouded? Was this risk worth it, or was he letting his sentimentality get the best of him?

Morrigan word's still lingered on Aedan's mind.

No emotional attachment.

Isolde's attachment to Connor had caused this dilemma and countless deaths. Had Isolde just wanted to spare Connor the pain of the tower, or simply spare herself the pain of separation? Whatever the intention, now his life and Redcliffe hung in the balance.

Teagan's attachment to his family led him to rush in with Isolde. Now he lay bleeding on the floor of Redcliffe Castle. He simply wanted to save his family, and yet in doing so forced Aedan and his company to waste effort subduing him.

Would Aedan's own attachment to the memories of his family destroy him? Back in Redcliffe, what he had done in blocking off the undead almost killed him. He had wanted to protect the men, but was that just out of guilt for what had happened in Highever? Each time he swung his sword, he kept thinking of them: Fergus, Oriana, Oren, Nan, Mother, and Father. Each time he saved someone, he moved farther away from being the failure of a man who couldn't save his family.

But how many more? A hundred? A thousand? The world? I can't keep living like this- it's barely living at all.

He had seen so much destruction wrought by people like Howe, Loghain, and Uldred. Even before the Blight, there had been harshness inflicted upon others: onto Bann Aberlard's son, onto Isolde, onto Alistair, onto Teharel.

What hope remained if the world lacked goodness? When even those with good intentions cause destruction?

But that wasn't true.

On that fateful night, his parents let go of the child they so cherished. With him, he carried their hope and saved the Circle and Redcliffe. Their sacrifice, and their intentions, had not been wasted. Isolde, Teagan, the villagers, and even Jowan were still fighting, still risking their lives for someone else's happines. Those were people worth fighting for. At the very least, Aedan would show them someone out there was fighting for them too.

He would be their hope, and they would be his.

Aedan whipped the reins once again.

The wait cut deeper than any fight. Each moment Alistair, on edge, guarded the entrance to the upper levels of Redcliffe, the very same stairwell Connor had fled upwards. He only tapped out occasionally to sleep for a paltry hour or two. He had to keep watch, for threats both inside and out. Who knows what would happen if someone decided to go upstairs and kill Connor.

Though a day had past, save for the wounded, Isolde still struggled to hold back her tears. Isolde had resigned herself to silence in the corner of the room. Teagan rested at her feet, now conscious, but woozy and weary from the pain. The blood from the Redcliffe knights still stained the center carpet.

Even though this woman had terrorized him throughout his youth, Alistair knew he should do something. He motioned for Zevran to take over his guard post, then walked over to Isolde and wrapped his cloak around her shivering body. "It'll be okay, Lady Isolde."

She still shook. "He'll come back?"

Alistair placed her hand on her shoulder. "Without a doubt, even if the sky were raining fire, Aedan will be back."

As he turned away, Alistair hid his grimace from Isolde. Aedan wasn't the concern: the question was whether Connor's appetite for destruction had been sated for long enough. Alistair nevertheless wouldn't say such things to her.

A slam against the main door. Isolde jumped out of her seat. The noise wasn't from upstair, but from the gate. Alistair whipped his sword out and stood at the ready. The rest of his companions similarly drew their weapons. Magic swirled in Morrigan's palms.

The group heard the sounds of the gate being drawn up, and the stomping of feet. Aedan strode in, carrying several large sacks of lyrium. The mages followed with their own apparatuses and books.

"Let's get this started. We got a kid to save," heaved Aedan, sweat dripping down his forehead from having sprinted.

With great speed, the mages drew chalk circles on the floor and arranged the lyrium in the center. Whilst the others did their work, Irving limped over to the Warden. "Have you made a decision yet? About who to send into the Fade?"

Aedan's finger pointed in the direction of the blood mage. "We're sending in Jowan."

"What? He's an apostate; a blood mage." Irving turned aside to glance at Jowan. He too remembered the young mage and his escape attempt.

It seemed unfair that Jowan, despite his best intentions, had only suffered. Yes, he used blood magic, yet Aedan didn't truly understand whether such a thing corrupted a person to below human standards. If the man wanted to help, then Aedan would let him. "You wanted your redemption, Jowan? Here it is."

"Warden, I...I can't thank you enough."

Connor slept soundly, his head resting on Isolde's lap. Jowan's trip into Fade took only ten minutes. For someone who had not been expected to survive his Joining, he had made short work of the demon.

"Don't thank me yet." Aedan hovered over the still sleeping Eamon, along with Wynne and the First Enchanter. "If we at least had a sample of the poison, there's a slim possibility we could concoct a cure."

First Enchanter Irving pried open Arl Eamon's eye and checked for any abnormalities. Aedan grimaced at this familiar situation. "How much time does he have?"

"Surprisingly, he is stable. As long as we sustain his nutrients by means of magic, then he could perhaps live as long as any of us. It's almost as though he's sleeping."

"Does that mean the demon actually helped?"

"It's possible. This does complicate the situation. The demon may in fact have cured the poison, but the symptoms may still remain. It's similar to the stories of wishes that backfire. If you're not specific enough, demons will not fulfill exactly what you want. Most likely young Connor wished for the poison to be gone, but not for his father to wake up."

"Tsk. Stingy ass demons," muttered Aedan. "So the antidote method is out of the question now."

"I'm assuming the healer here has tried all the standard poison treatments and salves?"

"Everything. We've tried everything. He...may never wake up." Irving finished his examination, and reluctantly began, "I...think-"

"How about the Urn? The Urn of Sacred Ashes?" came Isolde's desperate shout. Connor turned in his sleep and mumbled at the loud interruption. Everyone turned to Lady Isolde. "It is rumored that the ashes of the holy Andraste can cure any illness," stated Isolde.

Teagan wasn't sure if she was serious."That's just a rumor, Isolde. We can't waste our time looking around for it."

"It's a rumor, but rumors can have basis in reality. By word of mouth, an actual miracle cure may have been mistaken to be the Ashes of Andraste. If we follow these claims of the Ashes, there's a distinct possibility we could find a cure," said Aedan. In truth, he didn't want to bet everything on such a rumor, but they had only this lead. An unconventional situation required unconventional solutions. "But I'm sorry, Isolde, but until you have solid leads on the location of such a cure, I cannot follow up on this. My party and I have to continue preparing for the Blight."

"I understand, Warden. I'll send the knights out to search. Once we have something solid, I will inform you."

"How about you, Teagan?"

"Denerim clamors for the Arl of Redcliffe, and yet he has fallen ill. I will need to take my brother's place in court for now. I will try to hamper Loghain as much as I can for you, Warden."

"What else is there to take care of?" Aedan didn't want to leave anything unfinish-

"What about Connor?"

All five people had a heavy look on their faces when Wynne asked the question. No one, not even those from the Circle, enjoyed being the ones to tear a child from his family.

"He will need to be taught by the Circle," stated the First Enchanter.

"If I may First Enchanter," interrupted Aedan. A plan had formed in his head. "Whilst the Arl is still sick, we'll need a mage on constant medical duty. If we leave a Circle sanctioned mage here along with some templars to protect the Arl, wouldn't you say it'd be a more suitable teaching environment than the current state of the Tower?"

Irving tried his best not to smile. He had to stay composed at all times, yet the suggestion warmed his heart. Stroking his beard in thought, Irving mused, "Yes. That may work. I will speak to the templars about this, and tell them of your idea. Knowing how much they owe you, I think they will take it under consideration." The First Enchanter bowed and took his leave along with Wynne. Once the door had shut, Isolde threw herself at Aedan and hugged him as hard as she could.

"Thank you, Warden." Isolde sobbed into his chest. "Truly." Her tears ran down his tunic and even dripped to the floor. "What can I do to ever repay you, for saving my family?"

Aedan could have probably used the extra sovereigns. Maybe some knights to accompany him. Maybe he could just save this favor for later.

Yet Aedan knew exactly what he needed to do. Not for himself, but for Connor. Aedan placed both hands on her shoulders and told Isolde what had been done for him a long time ago:

"Just cherish him. Cherish him while you still can. Teach him as much as you can. That way, when he finally goes into the world, he'll be ready- because when he goes to that tower, he's going to be scared. He's going to be angry. He's going ask 'why me?' But the more you cherish him, the more he'll remember you. The more he'll remember that outside and inside of that tower are people just like you. People worth fighting for."

The memories of his family constantly ate away at Aedan. Dinner with everyone. Telling stories to Oren. Helping Nan with her errands. Listening to his mother and father bicker. Playing pranks on Fergus.

He had swung his sword for redemption for that night his family died. He had gritted his teeth as their memories powered each of his blows, but no matter how many times he swung, he could never bring them back.

So now, what he had to do-

What they all had to do-

"And eventually, he'll stop looking backwards, and start moving forwards to his tommorow."

Isolde made the saddest smile through her streaming tears. "That's a tall order, Warden," she laughed, wiping away those fragile droplets.

"Sorry, but you're going to have to do it," he laughed. He realized how lame and childish what he had just said was, yet perhaps Isolde needed those idealistic words. The noises of everyone had finally stirred Connor from his long sleep. Isolde rushed to his side and cradled him. Aedan watched and whispered:

"You're his parent after all."

Author Notes

A little heavy on the introspection this time around, but after the last few action chapters (Redcliffe defense, capturing Adair) it felt like a nice break when writing.

Guest: Funny you should mention Sten, Leliana, and Zevran, because the next part of the story is titled Justice, and it focuses a lot more on those three (all of whom have done dubious things). It'll be during the Dalish quest, while the flashback story deals with the trial, interrogation, and motives of Adair. There's actually going to be little or no action in the flashback story, it'll mostly be politics. I've been looking forward to writing this part and the one after, because it's the start of a major arc for Aedan.

As always, feel free to ask question or leave reviews/constructive criticism. Thanks for reading everyone!