Chapter 39) Trapped
Nuada POV
Fire danced in the air, twisting into flowers and animals racing over the ceiling. Ice crystals lingered against the pillars, tracing out shapes of people and battles. Lightning sparked, making the audience jump in surprise. Elspeth, beside me, tried to hide from the lightning. She hated storms, ever since we had to ride through one, but it would be rude to show discomfort. The two of us had to be the perfectly behaved children of Bryce Cousland, diplomatic representative of King Maric Theirin, even if she was scared, and I wasn't sure how much I liked how the templars glared at the mages who were entertaining the Viscount's guests.
Another bit of lightning flashed through the air, marking a transition in the show. Elspeth's face locked up behind her mask of stone. I kept my smile on, clapping in feigned delight. The Viscount complimented Father about how well-behaved we were. It was just another day.
So, behind door number one was… a bunch of corpses. Behind door number two was… more corpses. Behind door number three was… oh, look, it's even more corpses. You knew things were bad when you weren't even surprised by it anymore.
I knelt down and picked up the body of a child, shifting my hands to hold their body together as I realized they had been cut in two. Sticky, congealed blood clung to my hands as I set them to the side, and checked the body hiding beneath. They were even younger, barely five, staring up at the world with frightened eyes, even in death. The hole in their chest was bigger than their head. I moved them next to the other and continued checking the bodies as meticulously as possible. A couple, I had to guess which body went with which head, but hopefully, I wasn't horribly off. There were also the two I had to carefully pry off the vanity, the caked blood almost gluing them to the mirror, but I managed to rest them on the floor, by the wall, just like the other fifty in the room. At least none were stuffed in the closet or dresser this time.
"How goes it with you two?" I asked as I walked out of the room. I wiped the blood on the walls. It wasn't like anyone would notice a little more blood. "Have you had any luck?" I poked my head inside the room across the hall and found Layla silently crying over some of the bodies, and Leliana whispering prayers. "I'll take that as a 'no'." I leaned against the doorframe, waiting for them to respond. My fingers dug into my arm as I realized the bodies Leliana was praying by were children no older than five, but I kept my expression still. Someone had to be the strong one here, and it was wrong to expect it to be Layla. Leliana had also fallen into tears upon the first child's corpse, so that left me. I wished I could be surprise, but this always happened. Why would it be any different among the Wardens?
"Oh, Nuada…" I focused on Leliana when I realized she had turned to face me. "Did you fare better?" she asked. I shook my head and she sighed. "I see." She glanced at the still crying Layla, and promptly switched to Orlesian. "I almost wish I was back in the Game. Cruel as it was, it made more sense than this." I didn't quite agree, but this really wasn't the time for a debate. "This is too much. I would not subject even an animal to such terrible fates."
Yes, but now was time for a subject change, before I cracked. "There are more rooms up ahead." Leliana sighed heavily, drooping. "Come on. Maybe it's tenth time lucky?" She mimed a blow at me and I grinned. I made sure to pat her on the shoulder as she walked past me, and she gave me a bitter, but gentle, smile in return.
As she walked down the hall to the next set of rooms, I moved to Layla's side. We really had to keep moving. This wasn't the time for mourning. There was too much to do.
"I never talked to them." I stilled when she suddenly talked. She glanced at me, briefly, before returning her attention back to the corpse in front of her. "I was always scared," she whispered, running her fingers through their matted, tangled hair. Even with the blood, the sunburst brand on their forehead shone. "I did not think them people. I did not think them alive, in the truest sense. I thought them dolls that just looked like people I'd known." Her voice shook and all I could think of was how I'd been angry, that day on the road she asked me about them, when I seemingly knew more about them than her. Of course, I would've. I wasn't threatened by the Rite of Tranquility, so it was easy for me to talk to Tranquil. "I was scared of becoming like them. I was scared of my friends becoming like them." It was stupid and short-sighted of me to have been angry about that. Thank the Maker I wasn't in a habit of speaking my thoughts. "I wish I had talked to them. I wish I had not been so scared." She laughed softly, and it sounded so broken. "I don't even know their name."
"Learn it when we get out of here." She looked at me in confusion, so I repeated firmly, "learn it when we get out of here, with whoever survived." Her wry smile screamed she had just about given up. "Hey, don't give up on them yet." I held out my hand and she took it with some hesitation to let me help her up. "There's still a chance for a miracle." This wasn't like… like the thing I wasn't acknowledging. They would've focused on protecting and persevering. "Come on. They taught you, yes? Then they must be strong."
"…I really do not get you." I smiled wryly. It wasn't the first time I heard that. "You say those words so easily." She looked me in the eye. "Do you believe them?" Honestly, I didn't. But there was no way I was going to let her know that. "Why say them?"
"You asked for help, and I keep my word." That, at least, I was confident in. "Let's catch up to Leliana."
"…Very well." She took a breath and rubbed roughly at her face. I didn't have the heart to tell her she just smeared blood over her cheeks. "If I can save even one person…" She nodded and marched past me. Shaking my head, I followed her into the bloodstained, corpse-riddled hallway, trailing behind to see if there was someone breathing. Of course, there wasn't. Maker, what had I been thinking telling that Knight Commander to let us in? Ah, well, I did it, and told Layla I'd help, so I'd better stop whining and get moving before something happened.
As if on cue, a strangled scream caught my ear from up ahead and I bolted down the hallway, realizing I couldn't see Layla or Leliana. Were they under attack? I shouldn't have lingered, damn it. I had better armor and a shield. How could I be so stupid as to let them go a-
I swung into the room and my thoughts stilled as I blinked slowly, trying to process what all I was seeing. One, this was a rather extensive library. Two, there were… quite a few survivors. Certainly, there were more than I expected. I would guess we'd just changed the living to dead ratio from a flat zero to something around one in twenty?
The second thing was that the leader here was Wynne, from Ostagar. I was honestly quite surprised to see she'd survived, considering how that battle went. Since Layla had her face buried in her chest, I wondered if the 'scream' I had heard and simply been a surprised yelp. "You're alive… you're alive…" I could hear her sob, even as Wynne embraced her warmly. "Oh, Maker, you're alive…"
"Oh, there you are." I glanced down to see Leliana at my side. I chose to ignore how misty her eyes were. "Let's give Layla some time," she suggested. I sighed and nodded, reaching back absently to fix my ponytail. "Do you want to see what information we can find?" That… was a very good idea, actually. "I'll check on this half." She pointed to the left, and I shrugged to let her know I didn't care. "Meet you in a bit." Yeah, that sounded good.
With another shrug, I wandered towards the right, glancing at the books as I passed. Of course, I had barely taken three steps before I promptly found my legs accosted by tiny children. Well, this was awkward.
"I need my legs, you know," I told them. They just stared at me, poking repeatedly. Were… they checking if I was real? Oh, Maker, what did you put this kids through? Damn you. "Here." I lifted one of them up in the air, making them shriek in laughter, and set them on my shoulders. I'd done this enough with Oren. "How's that?" They just laughed, gripping my hair tightly. "Ow, hey, I do feel pain." One of the other three decided to suddenly jump and latch onto my arm, swinging and almost knocking me off-balance. "Whoa!" As I stumbled to adjust my footing, the remaining two little imps giggled and attached themselves to my legs much more firmly. Oh, I give up. "Okay, I get it. I'm your plaything." At least they were laughing.
"I swear; they do have manners." I carefully turned, the four children laughing loud enough to echo, to face a mage wearing yellow robes. "Sorry that they're bothering you," they murmured with a sheepish smile. I just smiled back, not really having another non-verbal way to reply. "I'm Petra, a senior enchantress here." She bowed to me. "You are…?"
"Nuada." There was no need to say my family name here. "I'm a Warden, like Layla. Leliana, the other redhead, is a traveling companion." I wondered how her investigation was going. "Do you mind telling me what happened here?"
"Sadly, I don't know much." She sighed, drooping. But she perked up again when the children swung about in laughter, and giggled when I stumbled under the momentum. "It all began when Uldred returned." Oh? "He tried to convince Irving and Greagoir to join forces with Teyrn Loghain." So, he did try to get the mages. "Irving and Greagoir, however, believed the Warden Commander's word of this being a true Blight, and thus refused." Ha! That was wonderful to hear! "Their position solidified when other Circle survivors returned from Ostagar." I would not think of how many managed to survive that only to die here. "Their description of the Archdemon was… horrifying, but in line with the texts." I wondered if they were conscious for Flemeth starting a dragon fight. "Though Wynne also mentioned a griffon?" Ahaha… ha… I was not commenting on that. "There was supposed to be a meeting, but then…" She shrugged. "Abominations, demons, blood everywhere… We all took some bad hits. I'm surprised Wynne is even alive." Hmm? "She hit the ground hard after protecting me from a Pride Demon." Clearly, Wynne had a hard head. I assumed she was fine now, due to being a healer.
"That lines up with what I learned." Leliana popped over to my side, and thankfully removed the children attached to my legs. "Come on," she cooed when they protested. "The nice warrior will have to be heading up soon." So, was the staircase near or something? "There's a barrier." She looked up at me, jaw clenched. "I can understand, but…" This whole thing was a 'sacrifice the few to save the many'. Father thought like that…
"Have Layla and Wynne finished up their reunion?" I asked. Shifting, I swung the child still hanging off my arm, over to Petra, who caught her with a laugh. Then, I lifted the last child off my shoulders and flipped him to the ground, smiling at their laugh. "There we go. Be good for everyone. I'll play with you again when we're done here." Oh, there was a promise. Here was hoping I could fulfill it. Now that I thought about it, didn't I promise Layla I would do cartwheels or something in full armor?
"Oh, you'll regret that promise." Both Leliana and I turned to see Wynne had joined us. Layla was still sniffling, rubbing roughly at her face again. Did I have a handkerchief somewhere in my pack? I should look, huh? "They're very rambunctious," Wynne continued, eyes dancing. I just shrugged, hunting through my pack. I doubted they had enough energy to wear me out. "Layla told me about Greagoir's words." Oh, good, she had been able to make that out through the crying and shock. I was impressed. "I will accompany you up." Wait, what? Oh, please tell me I wasn't going to have to fight off two well-intentioned healers. …That was a selfish thought. Two healers meant higher chance of people surviving. Nuada, get it together. "Are you ready to depart?"
"We are when you are." Producing a handkerchief at last, I passed it over to Laya. She quite quickly hid her face in it. "By your leave, ma'am."
The second floor had even more dead than the first. My stomach rebelled when we saw eviscerated bodies just steps away from the barrier Wynne took down, but I bit the inside of my mouth hard to keep from throwing up. This was just all sorts of wrong.
"…This was my room," Layla murmured as we passed a room with four bodies thrown inside. I assumed four, at least. The bodies were dismembered, but there were only four heads. "Well, it was supposed to be my room, but I was recruited by Commander Duncan the day I was to move in." …If Layla hadn't gone with Duncan that day, would she have died here too? I didn't much care for that thought. "Irving's office is down the hall."
"Sadly, though, I doubt he'll be there," Wynne sighed. She had taken lead here, due to having experience with making barriers. The fact that we hadn't encountered a single abomination or demon, despite all the evidence that they had been here, was incredibly unnerving. "We might try the chapel here, though. It's the largest room on this floor." So, it would've had plenty of room to maneuver.
"There's a shimmering light up ahead." Leliana's observation made us all pause, and she took the opportunity to point it out to us. "See? Right there," she murmured. Her eyes lit up. "It's like that barrier!" Did we seriously find more survivors?
The answer was 'yes'. It was a group of mages all around Layla's age and younger, huddled in what I assumed was the chapel Wynne just mentioned. It certainly bore enough resemblance to the chapel in Highever, at least. It was dustier than Mother Mallol would've ever… leave the thought alone, Nuada.
"Demons…" I heard someone murmur. The mages inside were all shaking. I couldn't blame them. Who would've expected rescue here? "Desire demons again?" The 'again' just reinforced that there should be demons around. Where were they?
"No, they don't smell like demons." Layla gasped at that voice, and an elven mage limped in front of the group. Though her coloring was different, her face bore a strong resemblance to Aiden. "Even a demon's hallucinations carry their stench," she continued, smiling wanly. She looked… really strained. Was she injured? "Layla to the rescue! You're even wearing armor!"
"Neria!" Layla lunged forward, stopping just short of the barrier. "You're alive!" she laughed, smiling a bit too wide and eyes tearing up again. They didn't fall this time. "There are others below!"
"Thought so. Saw the barrier, at least." Wynne shifted uncomfortably. That had to have been a hard decision to make. "Well, if you're here, you guys can fight off anything that comes, yeah?" I think you had a little too much faith in us. I had never fought a demon or abomination in my life, and I doubted Leliana had done the same. …Oh, Maker, I didn't like that reminder. Would our fighting styles work on them? "I'm going to take down the barrier. I've wounded, and not enough know healing magic." I had a sneaky suspicion that every mage here was going to learn after this.
Neria gestured, whispering something under her breath much like Wynne had earlier, and the barrier flickered away. Neria collapsed mere seconds later, but Leliana moved fast enough to catch her before she hit the ground.
"Exhaustion," Wynne immediately diagnosed as she knelt beside them. Layla and the others hovered over the three. "I thought she was showing strain. She never had a large amount of mana." Yet, she held the barrier and kept them safe. Was she Aiden's cousin? I could believe it. "Oh, away, children. You need to let her breath!"
"Nuada and I will check the other rooms!" Layla declared, eyes even brighter than her smile. Well, someone was feeling better. "We will be back in a bit!" She bolted, snagging me by the arm along the way and actually knocking me off balance with how hard she tugged.
However, her enthusiasm died when we made it to whatever large room she dragged us too. I sighed as I looked over the sea of blood trickling slowly into the cracks. The bodies weren't even recognizable. I supposed they would be identified simply by being 'missing'.
"…You are too calm." That… had to be the first time anyone accused me of that. "Say something!" Of course, I had no idea how to react to Layla suddenly shouting at me. What did I do this time? "React! Do something other than looking at everything calmly or with a smile!" She was facing me now, and I chose to focus on how stained the bottom of her robes were. "There are children dead!" I was not blind, Layla. I could still see the numerous dead. "They were ambushed, ripped apart!" Oh, was that why the two of us were standing in a veritable lake of blood? I hadn't noticed! "Do you not care?!" Oh, for crying out loud…
"Someone needs to keep a level head," I replied, moving my hands behind me so she didn't see my fists clench. "That will not be you." Why would it? This was her home, and she hadn't gone through years upon years of reinforced training. "Leliana-"
"What is level about this?!" That wasn't my point. "You did this with Ostagar too!" You were very much not in my head, Layla. Make assumptions as you like, but do not throw false accusations at me. "Then there's Highever!" Hey! That was off limits! "Do you not care about them?!" Excuse me? "Going about with a smile even just days about everything fell like you do, you really must not!" ENOUGH!
"What do you know about me?!" I finally yelled, glaring right back at her. I clenched my fists hard, some part of me praying that my temper wouldn't turn violent here, that it would just stay with words. I did not want to react as I did with that soldier in Lothering's tavern. "What do you know about being alone among a crowd, only having one person to depend on?! What do you know about having to swallow back tears and pain because if you so much as breathed wrong, you could mess up complicated diplomatic endeavors?!" I needed to calm down. She didn't need to hear this. It was wrong to inflict my whining on her. But I couldn't stop screaming. "What do you know about people expecting you to be invicible just because of your family name? What do you know about having to hide everything for the sake of diplomacy?" Then, of course, when I couldn't hold back anymore, I snapped and just caused more problems. This would be the same. I needed to shut up. "Yes, I remember everything! I remember that my home fell, that my sister-by-marriage is dead, that my parents are dead, that my nephew is likely the same, that the one knight I could call friend probably died trying to save a corpse! I remember the person behind that massacre is someone I had always called 'uncle'!" I was yelling at the bloody ground now. This was pathetic. Maybe I should have died back in Antiva, if I was going to be this annoying. "I know my brother is most likely dead in the Wilds, food for the scavengers! I know my king, who I adored as a brother, died while I was away! I know that another 'uncle' of mine died on the field, alongside the rest of his order. I know that the person who taught me my stances, who taught me strategy, who I also called 'uncle', is the one who left them on the field and who in bloody flames knows whether it was the 'right' decision or not!?" It was a 'betrayal', but was it a wrongful one? I didn't know. I honestly didn't. It hurt too much to think. "But I can't be trapped by those memories! I can't think on them! There's too much to do! We have duties!" I jerked my head up, and to my surprise, she looked… really calm considering I was rambling and yelling. Ha… didn't this all start because she complained I was too calm? "There's nothing to learn from the memories that I haven't already learned many times over, so they're useless memories at best, and chains at worst!" There was no time to be even yelling like this, damn it!
"Aren't you more chained when you try to deny and forget what happened?" Oh, now she replied, with such a lovely philosophical statement that I had no time to think on! We had a job to do and she was making my head a damn mess! "Don't you just hurt yourself more when you do that?" Andraste's flaming-
"Bloody flames, why does that matter?!" I was so losing it. This wasn't the time. It never was, of course, but there were innocent people dying. "Who cares how much I hurt?!" The words echoed back and it took everything I had to not wince. I needed to take a step back. I was yelling at a girl who was understandably emotionally compromised. I was wrong. I was being pathetic. I needed to shut up. I really needed to shut up. So, I took a breath, closed my eyes, and threw all the frustration, all the anger, into some dark corner in my mind where it could rot for all I cared. "No, forget it. I'm sorry for wasting your-"
"I care." Two words, said so gently, and I honestly could say nothing had quite left me so speechless before. It was all the worse when I opened my eyes and I saw her step forward, stopping only when she was just close enough to touch. "Is that so bad?" she asked, just as softly, with far too gentle eyes. Maker's breath, how had Thedas not killed her yet? "Is it so bad, to care for a friend?" …When in our string of rather awkward interactions had I done something to make her even want to call me 'friend'? Also, how was I supposed to answer that?
Thankfully, I didn't have to. Wynne and Leliana arrived, and the two of us darted apart like we were both on fire. "Everyone is well," Wynne informed us, pointedly not looking at the floor. Layla breathed a sigh of relief, and I tentatively smiled. "They're heading down now." That was good. Hopefully, that wouldn't mean they had a front row seat to templars slaughtering them. "Leliana and I thought we heard yelling, though." Uh… right, I had to have been loud. "Not that we could make out the words." Oh, thank the Maker, because that was mortifying. "Is everything all right?" Um…
"Nuada just voiced some frustrations," Layla immediately replied. She, like Wynne, refused to look at the ground. "It is nothing more, Wynne." Long years in various courts helped me smile sheepishly and nod along to her story. I mean; it wasn't a lie. Though, Layla covering for me wasn't something I expected.
"I can certainly understand that!" Leliana laughed. Her cheer died quickly, however, and she looked quite tired. "The staircase is close." So, we had another floor of corpses to meander through. "Shall we?" Did we have a choice? We were trapped.
I had a headache from all of this. Hopefully, it would go away soon.
The third floor had, surprise, more corpses, and not a demon or abomination in sight. The staircase to the fourth floor, though, had this strange moss growing on the walls in a strangely pretty fashion. Well, it would've been pretty if the 'moss' hadn't apparently been made of flesh. Leliana wasn't the only one who was going to see that in her nightmares.
"I'm become inured to the smell of rot," I mumbled to myself as I checked over another body. I did my best to not react when I realized they were young, thirteen at most, and that unlike the bodies of the mages below, this one bore signs of extensive and painful torture. Why else would all of their fingers be snapped meticulously as each joint? "I can't say I was expecting things like this when I agreed to join the Wardens." My rant to Layla definitely made me far more whiney. Thankfully, I was alone in the room. It was, after all, just a small bedroom. Layla, Wynne, and Leliana had gone to check others.
Sighing, I placed the child's body next to the older templars also in the room. I wondered if they'd taken shelter with veterans. I wondered if they'd been tortured first to break the older ones. Ah, this was just a mess. At least with Howe, I knew his motivation was greed and power. With Loghain, I knew he was doing what he thought was best for Fereldan. I couldn't find a motivation behind this, though. Then again, I was no expert on demons. Maybe I should've asked Alistair for some templar tricks. I hoped Elspeth was okay in the woods with the others. Aiden and Cleon must be having an easier time; I wished it for them, at least. I wondered if Sten and Morrigan were adapting to everyone.
I needed to think better. These thoughts had no purpose here.
Rubbing my temples, ignoring the blood I swore was just permanently ingrained into my skin, I leaned against the writing desk between the beds. Some papers shifted, and a couple hit my hand. Absently, I picked it up, and read it. And then read it again, growing cold with each word.
'It is so hard to take. The ration is too small. I need more. I NEED more. I'm so thirsty, but water doesn't work. It's not blue enough. My body doesn't sing. I'm so afraid. My hands are numb with cold, even as I write this. Everything hurts. Everything is too close, too cramped. Even the Maker-damned sky is pressing down on my head. That young boy Cullen keeps calling for a 'Jacob'. No one answers him. Is it me? Is that my name? I can't remember. I'm going like them, aren't I? The senior templars with the cloudy eyes who can't remember two plus two. What IS two plus two? Ah, maybe I should swipe a bottle from the stores. That'll fix me up.'
…I had always heard lyrium was addictive, and that templars drank it to combat mages. But I never… thought of how it affected them. I never thought about just how much of a leash it was. Were they as caged and changed as mages? I figured they weren't, since they'd made the choice to join, but that recruit there was just thirteen. How could you expect someone like them to make a proper decision with something like this? How many were lured in by the grandeur of 'protecting the people', and became trapped?
I… never thought about that. I never even considered… ah, this was made all the worse by my rant just a few days ago about how the mage-templar issue buried other important issues. This was something buried in it. How many people even thought about how the Chantry tricked young children into trapping themselves through addiction?
"Nuada?" I jerked my head up to see Wynne in the doorway. "It is Nuada, yes?" she asked with a little laugh. I smiled wryly as I realized she must've been calling my name for a bit. "Is there something wrong?"
"Oh, no, I adore standing in a room with the corpses of tortured people," I immediately deadpanned. I set the note back down on the writing desk and straightened. "To be serious, I was looking to see if they'd managed to write anything down before dying." I loved being able to lie through my teeth sometimes.
"I fear we won't find much." She sighed heavily, shaking her head, and I wondered if she was thinking that old phrase. 'In peace, children bury parents. In war, parents bury children.' "We will have to pass through the exercise area to make it to the staircase. That'll be the topmost floor." So, we'd know soon if there was a way to stop the Right of Annulment or not. "Leliana and Layla went ahead to check for survivors. I volunteered to get you." Oh? "I wanted to apologize." …Huh? "You had asked me, in Ostagar, to check on King Cailan." She gave me a sad smile, and I waved it off. Ostagar was… a tragedy outside anyone's hands. "How are the two elves, though? Cleon and Aiden?" Hmm? "I saw them escape that day. Did they make it?" Ah…
"Hopefully, they're not experiencing nearly as much trouble as we are." If they were, then I was just going to assume getting help from Ozammar and Redcliffe would be even more troublesome. "And hopefully, no one in their group has tried to kill each other yet." Wynne still just smiled, even as I walked past her into the hallway. "Was there something else?"
"Hmm? Oh, no." Still, her hand came up to pat me on the head. "I was just thinking on how hard you were working." I think she hit her head harder than Petra thought. I hadn't been doing much of anything aside from checking corpses and whining. "Shall we join the others?" Yes, that sounded good, weird grandmotherly mage person.
However, both of us knew something was very, very wrong when Wynne opened the door to the exercise area. For one thing, Leliana and Layla were passed out on the ground. I assumed they were passed out. They still looked to be breathing. For another thing, though, there were a lot of corpses here, unusual in that they didn't actually bear wounds.
The third thing was that there was something else in the center of the room. "Ah… more guests…?" I blinked slowly, not quite processing what I was seeing. It was vaguely humanoid, but there was something off and twisted about the form. "Ah… too much effort to entertain," it whispered. Was this an abomination? Was this what they looked like? It wasn't like the pictures in the books. "Why don't you rest a while?" I… was a bit sleepy… suddenly…
"Resist…" That sounded like… Wynne? Maybe? "This is… Sloth…" What did she mean by that? …Oh, wait, wasn't… Sloth a demon or… something? "Resist or we… shall be lost…" That wasn't… I had to…
"It's okay…" The voice was echoing in my head. It was like the Archdemon's song, ringing deep into my bones. I needed to… "The world will go on without you." I had a duty… "But you really want to sleep, yes?" I… "Don't you hate the world that let your family die?" Shut up. Just… shut up. "The world that didn't care how much you and your twin silently screamed? That your father made himself ill to keep up with the work? That never offered help to your mother? That took away the 'uncle' that understood too quickly and too soon?" Quiet… "The world that let your brother die in the woods, and your other brother broken on the battlefield?" Enough… "It's all in your head. Don't you want to rest?" No… "Rest, and have a pretty dream." Shut up. Shut up. I'm a Cousland. I didn't care what happened to me. "Rest…" I didn't. Shut up. I chose the path of a warrior, and I… "Rest…" Quiet! I needed to wake-
"Wake up, Nuada!" What the…? "Goodness, child, what am I going to do with you?" I… knew that voice. I knew that voice so well. But it was impossible that I was… "Nuada!" A gentle kiss fell on my forehead. "Wake up, my little boy." This was…
With an effort, I opened my eyes and could only stare. I was in my bed in Highever. I was in my room in Highever. I knew by the various pictures and books along the walls. But what really surprised me was… was Mother leaning over me with a laughing smile.
"Goodness, are you still not feeling well?" 'Mother' asked, brushing the hair out of my face. The hand was just as warm and calloused as I remembered, and I was crying before I knew what was going on. "Oh! Nuada!" She sat next to me and gently wiped the tears that slipped down my face with her sleeve. "It's okay. You'll get better, and be trouncing Fergus and Ser Gilmore in the training grounds before long!" That wasn't… "So, just focus on getting better, my dear little boy." I…
What was going on? Was everything a nightmare? Was this the nightmare? I didn't know. I didn't know!
…Did I want to know…?
Author's note: Yay! Nuada finally cracked! And admits that despite his thoughts, he's short-sighted in ways himself. Figured the Tower was a good place for that. The note from the templar is based off a codex entry from Inquisition.
Next Chapter – Brecilian Ruins with Cleon
