In the turret bower:
For their luncheon, Aron sent up a light entrée of chicken, uncooked tomatoes, and olives chopped together and served over pasta. It was a good day as far as Hawke's appetite went, these days, and with luck she would keep it down. Anders had warned her that the treatment was likely to make her feel sick, and he had been right.
"Ouch! No claws, May-May!" her mother exclaimed . Forking up a bite of chicken, Twyla looked over at her and smiled. Leandra had one kitten in her lap and another playing with the tassels on her sandals.
"Anders told me about a friend of his who—well, that part's complicated, but his friend knew nothing about cats and told Anders it was wrong to keep an animal enslaved," she told her mother.
" How ridiculous! Anyone who knows anything about the human-feline relationship knows it isn't the cat who's the slave…Speaking of which, what a little sweetheart you are, Mitchie, yes, you are…" Leandra paused. "What do you have planned for the afternoon, dear one?"
"Oh, the usual. Somehow I've gotten into a routine. I get up, have breakfast, make sure none of my experiments have done anything untoward during the night, then it's two hours with Merrill and two hours with Feynriel after that."
"With Fenris in attendance to make sure neither goes mad, turns into an abomination and attacks you," Leandra added.
"I think he gets more out of it than that," Twyla defended the elf in absentia.
"I'm sure he does. He gets to be near you for four hours—."
"Mother.." Twyla began.
"—and further his education by listening to you explain things to them." Leandra finished. "Why? What else did you think I would say?"
Hawke quirked an eyebrow and otherwise ignored that remark. "Then I have lunch with you or Aveline and often both, not to mention the Princesses of Chaos and Disorder here."
"You were asking for trouble when you named them. 'Mischief' and 'Mayhem'? No, you don't have to jump down, you little darling. Oh, you want to attack your sister? Go to it." Leandra let Mischief leap from her lap and sipped her chilled tea.
Twyla went on ticking off the details of her days. "After lunch it's four hours of concerted work with Dagna, then an hour to discuss finances with Varric, by which time dinner is ready. If I don't talk about the clinic and the outside world with Anders then, I do so afterward. On clear nights, I often stargaze; other times, I read or listen to Orana play her lute. Such is my life. Oh, I nearly forgot. Varric proposes to add to this mad whirl of debauchery a quiet hand of Diamondback or Wicked Grace now and again."
"I think you left out that Feynriel joins you for the stargazing, Fenris never fails to have some question regarding a word or a reference in his own book that requires your assistance for him to get the meaning, and Anders likes music so much he's trying to learn the lute himself." Leandra's face was turned so she seemed to be looking out over the city, yet her eyes cut sideways to observe every flicker of emotion that crossed her daughter's face.
"Merrill always joins us for stargazing, to point out Elven constellations and share how and why they were so named, Dagna is still decoding the subtleties of surface life and also needs help understanding what she reads, and Aveline likes music too—as do you. I lead a life more chaste than a Chantry Sister does, Mother."
"A pity, that," Leandra replied, "Oh, you want up now, do you, May-May? Here you go." She lifted the kitten into her lap.
"…What did you just say, Mother?"
"I mean that Tevinter inheritance law allows the Head of a House—that's you, dear one—to choose any heir who has sufficient magical ability, whether they are born of their lawful spouse, a concubine, a mistress, or even a passing roll in the hay. They can even adopt if none of their children is Gifted. Of course, they assume the head will usually be a man, but in essence, any child of the Head of the House is automatically legitimate.
"There is no man of magisterial rank in all the Tevinter Empire who I would be glad to see you marry, not one I would consider worthy of your hand—but it would make me profoundly unhappy were you to go through life alone, sleeping in a cold and empty bed, never to know the joy of holding your babies in your arms."
"…." Hawke's face was contorted with shock and unbelief.
"Now Feynriel is still a stripling, but in a year or two, he will be a very handsome young lad. I think the world of Fenris. While we traveled together, I got to know him rather well, and he was always ready to listen to me ramble on about our lives. Whenever I spoke of you, though, he paid more than mere polite attention. He drank in my words as thought they were as needed as air. Varric, now—."
"What? Varric, too?" Hawke interjected.
Leandra ignored her outburst. "—has many excellent qualities. He's intelligent, charming, witty, and has a mind as twisty as a corkscrew. In his own way, he's very attractive. I like him very much. While I've known Anders the least amount of time, he reminds me of your father in his determination to be free. He has a real compassion and concern for his patients and how people live, judging from the dinner conversation you mentioned. It cannot be denied that he is also a very handsome man—although I think his hair is starting to thin into a widow's peak high up on his forehead."
"He is not more handsome than Fenris," Hawke protested, "—but, wait, what exactly are you saying, Mother?"
"At this time, nothing. I only want to put these ideas into your head, so you can turn them over and do what you do, which is to make them uniquely your own." Mayhem, from her place in Leandra's lap, made it known that she wanted to be petted NOW, and Leandra obliged. The kitten responded with a purr so loud it could be heard across the room.
After a few moments when the only sound was that expression of feline contentment, Hawke said, a bit hesitant and awkward. "…Are there precedents for female Heads of Household to so flout tradition and do so successfully?" She shook her head. "I didn't put that very well, but it expresses my state of mind, so I will not amend it."
"You're the researcher, not I, my dear one." Leandra switched from scratching the little cat under the chin to rubbing the short-cropped fur on her nose, with a corresponding increase in purr volume. "If by chance there isn't, I am sure you could set one. I have faith in you. But let us drop the subject, for I can see it makes you uncomfortable."
Twyla closed her eyes, reached up to brush the fuzz sprouting on her scalp. The question was not whether she wanted children of her own, but whether her health would allow it. Anders was very good at removing the skin lesions which cropped up, and there were fewer and fewer of them as the potions did their work, but the lump in her breast remained, regenerating even as the healer destroyed its layers. Anders had told her the night before that he feared only surgery could remove it—and then he had explained what that meant. Surgery was the last resort, when death was imminent, because it was too dangerous. People often bled to death or died of shock under the knife. Even should they survive the operation itself, there was the likelihood of dying from an infection. There were things no healing magic could treat, no potion could cure.
Pushing thoughts of her mortality aside, she smiled at her mother, scooping Mischief up off the floor to cuddle her. The kitten squirmed, then found a position she liked and melted into the caresses, thrumming with purrs. "I will think over what you said. But there must be some reason you asked specifically about this afternoon."
"Actually, yes, " From being a soft little ball of purring delight, May-May transformed, as kittens will, into a slashing, biting maniac with what seemed like seventeen paws with steel tipped claws. "No, you bad girl. If you're going to act like that, I'm putting you down on the floor. I was hoping we would have a chance to go through your wardrobe. The fabrics you chose are very good quality, and I understand why you don't want to adhere to the dress codes around here—it's so dreary going around in all black, like a permanent funeral. However, the way your dresses are cut—well, they might as well be flour sacks, not to mention that you've given up corsets altogether. I know the person who called you a Chasind washerwoman was no friend of yours—but she had a point." Leandra offered up an apologetic smile. "I am sorry, dear, but honestly, you can do better."
"It's true, I do favor loose and unstructured clothes," Twyla replied, "but I have my reasons. First, even though I'm healed, ever since I was burned, anything too tight or stiff might as well be a hair shirt like the hard-line Chanters wear under their robes. Some days, even a breast band is too binding. Lightweight and loose garments are all I can wear."
"Oh—oh, darling, I'm sorry, I had no idea." Her mother came over to sit on the bench next to her and hug her gingerly. "Why did you not tell me?"
"Because with all your other sorrows, I don't want you to have to worry about me. It's not as if I'm sick," she lied, "I'm just oversensitive. Like the marquise of the story who couldn't sleep for the dried bean under the mattresses."
"Ah, that old tale. I remember you asking why the tower of mattresses didn't tumble down like a too-tall stack of hay bales. But surely there is some dressmaker that could, well, design something for you with a little more style."
"And that's the other reason," Twyla shook her head. "I saw a dressmaker's workroom by chance, when a door was left open. Every dressmaker, whether she be the smiling and delightful sort, or the sycophantic kind with flattery on her lips, or the scornful, haughty one who's practically a mage with a pair of shears—in their work rooms toil dozens of slaves going blind in half-light, their backs growing hunched and their legs atrophying for lack of use, their hands growing crippled from repetitive motion.
"They work eighteen to twenty hours a day, with no rest days, and they sleep on the floor where they sit all day, fed worse than we would feed a dog. They go from being children to old and arthritic in twenty-five years, through their working conditions and their living conditions, and when they are useless, they are sold to mages, to be sacrificed for what little life is left in them. I cannot stop the practice, but I refuse to support it."
"Oh, Maker forbid…" Leandra looked down at her own Minrathian gown, at the delicate laces and fine beading. "Sometimes I almost forget—but it is everywhere, and in everything. So where do you get—Twyla, are you sewing them yourself?"
"On my rest days," Hawke smiled. "Orana helps, as does one of the laundry women. I never was any good at patterns and piecing, you know that, but I can sew a straight seam well enough. I just sew two lengths together at the shoulders and down the sides."
"My dearest daughter, yet again, I must tell you that I am very proud of you, and a little ashamed of myself. Where do you keep your sewing box? I haven't forgotten how to sew either—and I can follow a pattern. I'll have to see if I can't impart a little style to your flour sacks."
Someone rapped on the door at the bottom of the stairs. "My ladies?" It was Fenris. No one else had a voice half as sensuous. "I ask your pardon for interrupting you, but the district morgue has sent the Watch with a message for the Magistra. They beg that she might come and identify a body for them."
"Come on up, Fenris," Hawke commanded, setting Mischief down on the bench.
"A body? Whose? Not one of our people, Maker, please, no!" Leandra exclaimed.
"No, not one of our people," Twyla predicted, "Quite the opposite. It is Hadriana, as I have been anticipating for some days."
Fenris reached the turret bower. His skin crackled with faint bluish sparks and his face mingled anger and triumph. "So they believe. It seems to be a case of suicide. In the whole of the city, no one else could be found to go and look at her face. Say the word, and I will go in your stead; I beg it of you as a boon."
"You may come with me," she said, skirting the table to join him at the head of the stairs. "But I will go, too. I destroyed her; I must and shall look upon my handiwork."
A/N: Well, last week was a very good week for writing and this week, not so good. Here is my latest offering, and I'm going to go read all those chapters I've gotten updates for now. Bye!