She had done it. She was Qunari now.
Joanna took a deep breath, calming her nerves as she waited to be called. There was a small ceremony for joining the Qunari when one was not born into it-there's a special earring that indicates your status of "viddathari." Of...of converts.
She was warned. She was warned by both the healer and by Camlen. Now that she was Qunari, she would have to throw away everything that she knew, especially... she had to throw away the Maker. No more praying to him and hoping one day he would return. No more festivals and thanking him for the good things in her life. She touched her broken eye slightly, gritting her teeth.
It wouldn't be so hard to let go.
It was the healer who fetched her, a big smile on his face. It was nice to get him away from having to constantly watch over Hawke as she recovered from the purge. He barely slept now. He was adorned with different jewelry-long golden earrings and paint under his eyes. He reached out his hand to her. "Come, viddathari. It is time."
When they arrived, all of the viddathari were there to watch. They were wearing different earrings too-but they were shorter than the healer's. Camlen grinned ear to ear as she passed him. The Mashaar was present as well, with the exact jewelry and face paint as the healer. And then it hit her. They were older viddathari-or, at least that was what they once were. Before they got their role.
A lit brazier stood up on the dais of the Arishok, who sat on his throne. It was strange, she didn't feel that fear, that nervousness she once did around him. Maybe it was because now, she could feel that sense of protection, of belonging that wasn't there before. She was lead up the stairs, and she stood before the flaming brazier. The healer took her chin in his hand and observed her ear-checking to see if there was already a hole. It was been a long time since she had worn any earrings, so she needed to have it done again.
He took out a long needle, and a flash of fear went through her- brief and the same fear she felt the first time she got her ears pierced- but soon it was over with not as much pain as she remembered. Then, the healer put the earring she recognized as the viddathari's in her left ear, and said a few words in Qunlat she did not yet understand. The words echoed throughout the ones witnessing, including the Arishok.
It was a short ceremony, but Joanna bubbled with joy.
She noticed an immediate change within the Compound after. Qunari would seek her out, ask her to do things, and help her out with language and procedures without being told to. She felt alive again, helping out all day in a place where she belonged. Only the nagging fear of losing her eye kept her down some days.
She fought hard not to think of mother.
Happily, she mostly stuck to the healer's side, learning about medicine and poultice-making. She wasn't allowed to learn swords since the combat was Antaam specific, so there was no point in her learning something she could not join later. It didn't matter to her, medicine was absolutely fascinating-especially making poultices and managing ingredients. They all did something so specific and it never struck Joanna before just how amazing it is to have something like a medicine, which would have taken such ingenuity to discover in the first place, that in the end would save so many lives.
Oddly enough, she kept comparing her progress not with other viddathari, but with Hawke. The language was quite difficult to grasp, and she kept secretly chiding herself that she didn't pick it quite as fast as Hawke seemed to; and she wasn't even Qunari.
The healer noticed her anxieties after Hawke woke up. After...that visit from mother. When she came to the Compound, Joanna couldn't hide those nerves as well as she did before. He pulled her aside one morning, after a long lesson that wasn't going well enough for her.
And he said something she would never forget.
"Go at your own pace. You have your life to learn this. We will not abandon you for being slow."
We will not abandon you.
She thought of her mother's angry face as she refused to return with her, and silent tears ran down her face.
Her eye was never going to recover.
She continued her work, but her mind was frozen. Limits had always been a terrifying concept, but now that she had finally, finally found a new place, having more limits shook her to her core. If she could not be fully useful, then she was of no use at all. Joanna's mind didn't let her have a middle ground. It spun many tales of being left behind, not shaping up...and crawling back to the hell that she came from.
"Viddathari," the healer called, "I require a new batch of ha'a nevek. Enough for a flask."
Joanna blinked out of her increasingly dark thoughts. "R-right away, healer."
Okay, he requested more numbing potion. She grabbed all the ingredients-several types of plants along with purified water and honey. She mashed up the plants together carefully until they no longer looked like plants at all. She mixed it together with a bit of honey, then boiled the water. It all melted into a somewhat sticky liquid when it was finished, that one could drink or apply onto the skin. The plant's combined numbing affects were strong, but she would have to take this new batch to the Saarebas, for a bit of magical enchanting to complete the potion. Otherwise, you could only use the potion for minor pain.
She rushed over to deliver the potion, leaving it up to the handlers to assign. It would take a while for the enchantment to be completed, so she returned to the healer's tent. The healer had moved on to a new patient. It was the one who collected the lost weapons on the battlefield-she couldn't remember the title exactly- and it looked like he was having trouble with his hands and arms. Every time he relaxed his arms on his leg, he flinched and raised them again. The same when he closed his fists. But nothing looked wrong...no rash, no physical injury. The healer pondered what could be the cause.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"I am unsure what caused this...it sounds as if there are needles in his skin, small ones from a plant. But those usually cannot penetrate our skin, as it is thicker and we use a hardening substance in our...eh, 'warpaints.'"
"Water and soap didn't help?"
The healer shook his head. "Usually, one can see the needles as well, small as they are."
That honestly sounded like... "That's probably the barbed Kirkwall."
Both qunari blinked at her.
"There's a rare plant in Kirkwall-looks like a normal bush-but has these...small needles that have little black burs on the tips, so small you can't see them at all. They sit almost inside the skin if you touch them. And they hurt. A lot."
She knew this very well, as she fell into one as a child.
"The needles are so small and powerful that it can get through pretty much any kind of skin-even the wild boar have problems with them."
The healer smiled at her. "And how do we get rid of them?"
"Animals have to wait until the burs dissolve naturally, which can take weeks. But when I-uh. When I fell into a bush once, we took them out by mixing water and flour together. It makes a sort of glue, right? Then you spread it all over the area, let it dry, and peel it off. The burs should come with it."
The healer nodded. "A sound solution, viddathari. Ask the Maashar for some flour at once."
Joanna beamed. "Right away, healer!"
With obtained water and flour, along with a paintbrush, Joanna spread the glue substance down the qunari's arms- who looked a little bashful, Joanna noted with a small smile- and they waited until a nice crust formed from the dried flour. As soon as she began the process of peeling back all the glue, the afflicted qunari sighed a breath of relief as the irritants were pulled out of his skin.
The qunari thanked her when she finished, to which she waved away cheerfully. She noticed the healer scribbling away in his notebook, and she peered over his arm to see. She wasn't tall enough to peer over his shoulder. From what little Qunlat she knew, she could only read a few words, but it was enough. He was writing down the glue trick.
"That book is so full, I didn't think there was anything new to put in it!"
"The only day I stop learning, viddathari," the healer chuckled, "is the day I die."
Joanna stared at the tiny mirror. More accurately, she stared at the long scar across her left eye, how it ran up through her eyebrow and ended just past her cheek. It was long and noticeable, puffy scar tissue becoming a road on her face, as it were. A road leading up to a blank eye.
The fabric she held in her hand was so beautiful-so intricate. Red fabric weaved with gold that shone in the sunlight. But the fabric itself was smooth and silky. Strong and soft.
She nodded to herself. What she wanted to be. What she would become.
Ringlets of gold decorated the rim of the scarf, and she wrapped it around her head, covering the eye and the scar. She clipped the end together, and it stayed, covering only the left side of her face. Like an eyepatch but more...more her. She could not deny or run from her past. She used to be a noble. No longer, no, but it was there. She would use that experience to move forward, instead of catching her and tripping her up.
She took out the earring, the one that marked her as viddathari. Then, she hooked the wire through one of the ringlets, and let the earring hang down the front of the scarf. It dangled right where her eye was.
She had limits. There were things she could no longer do. But her people would not reject her for it, and thus, she should not reject herself anymore. She was Qunari. And her life had begun anew.
But her old life refused to let her go.
She recognized those drunken words too clearly. Instead of fear or anger...she felt nothing but pity for the woman who could not let go, who could not move forward. That was why she walked forward, out into the open, to see her one last time, leaving Hawke behind. And pity. Pity her anger, pity her vulnerability, pity her vindictive nature. Pity her inability to adapt and move on. It was not the Qunari way to handle it...but this time there were allowances. And the viddathari wanted one last bit of closure.
She placed a calming hand one on of the guards, who, as they all knew her history with this screeching creature, nodded and stepped back.
She faced Lacrissa with a steady eye. Suddenly, memories of the days when Papa was still alive began to play behind her, the images transparent. Dress shopping, family dinners, gift giving-mostly fruit, she loved giving fruit to her children, oranges and pears and-
Lacrissa was speaking, but she couldn't make out the words. The memories kept playing out, until the good ones ran out. Dried up, like an old river in the sun. Now all she could see was the drunken, terrified and murderous woman in front of her. She realized this was the first time she'd seen Lacrissa without makeup on, without her hair done up well, without any of the noble practices expected of women. That was odd, was it not? Was it normal to never see your own mother without those things? They lived together for years and years, and not once did Lacrissa ever show her her true face. She never trusted her. She never felt comfortable with her.
These were not revelations, but to see it so clearly now...
"What do you want, mother?" the viddathari asked, sighing. She used that title only as a familiarity. It was not actually true. That was when Hawke caught up to them, and placed a barrier between them.
And then she said it. Finally admitted it. And for some reason it made the viddathari feel lighter somehow, like she'd finally been freed from a tether she forgot was there. But her pity ran out too. "I was trying to leave," she heard herself saying, "why couldn't you just let me leave?"
A question she knew the answer to. Of course a woman like that wouldn't let her go. How could being freed feel so terrible?
But it was over. It was done. She had said it out loud, so there was no more of this...this thing between them, it was over. She was no longer her "daughter" no matter how much they pretended. She could go back to her sons and forget about her. She'd allow it. For her father, who at one point cared for this woman, at least a little.
If it was over why was the Arishok there.
Why did he have one of his axes in his hand.
Why was she running.
Why was Hawke pulling an arrow back.
When Lacrissa fell, she could not help but cover her mouth in horror, keeping back the scream in her throat. The Arishok turned to Hawke, who looked shaken at what she had done, but regardless lowered her bow and whispered something to him.
Anger began to build in the viddathari's stomach. There was nothing peaceful about the puddle of blood pooling around Lacrissa, nothing at all. She ran, she ran, she gave up, it was over-
"Viddathari," the Arishok called after some time had passed. "Return to your post."
She backed away slowly, tearing her eyes away from the body. She couldn't look at Hawke. She moved quickly throughout the compound, avoiding everyone, fighting back the tears that wanted to fall. She ran past Camlen who reached for her. When she reached the healer's tent, she rushed past all the patients and the healer, hiding away behind the large curtain where all the potions were kept.
Her body shook from the sobs that broke through.
