It took several minutes for the coughing to stop. Flora had inhaled an inadvertent lungful of dust. Her throat, still sensitive from mending the Lothering refugees, had not responded well to the sudden influx. Even after the coughing abated, her eyes and nostrils continued to stream in angry protest. Mutinous thoughts ran through Flora's mind as she wiped her nose unceremoniously on her sleeve.
This is what happens when I try to educate myself. It's a sign! A sign that I shouldn't even bother.
Nonsense. You chose a book seldom moved.
At last, some semblance of sight was restored: a few hard blinks, and the shelves emerged from a watery miasma. To Flora's relief, her coughing fit had not summoned unwanted visitors; the noise muffled by the thick vault walls. After all, she had secreted herself within the castle library to avoid attracting the likes of Wynne and First Enchanter Irving.
Interest waning with each passing moment, Flora rubbed her sleeve across her nose one final time. She then opened the cover of the book, expecting to see nothing but gibberish.
The majority of the title page was indeed unintelligible, but to her surprise, her eye was drawn immediately to one character in particular.
That's the letter 'A'. That's an A.
She remembered the same shape emerging from the end of Alistair's ink-pen; clear and slanting. The strong, solid shape of A had reminded her of Alistair himself: a tall, sturdy figure with feet planted slightly apart. Flora felt absurdly pleased with herself for identifying the letter correctly - or at least, she was reasonably sure that she had done so.
A is for Alistair. It fits him well.
The corners of her eyes itched: there was still some dust trapped near her nose. Flora let her eyelids close, hoping that the unwanted particles might work their way out unaided.
The sudden darkness and the muffled silence made her feel as though she had plunged beneath the surface of Lake Calanhad. Each soggy inhalation clung to her throat; external movements were muted by thick walls and stacks of leatherbound insulation.
She felt the fine hairs on the back of her forearms lift as a memory surged into her like an unexpected wave.
Autumn was hardening into winter within the lofty fortress of Ostagar, and Ferelden's Warden-Commander had only days to live. Every Grey Warden knew that they lived on borrowed time from the moment the poisoned chalice touched their lips: the taint claimed them all in the end, whether it took seconds or decades. Duncan had been aware of his own impending death for some years now. It began with a whisper that curled in the ear like a worm, and a cough that would not go away with the advent of spring. Tbe memories of his youth in Highever, in Dairsmuid and Val Royeaux grew dim as though veiled, then emerged as something twisted and horrifying. The cough began to produce a dark and bloody mucus. His vision during daylight began to falter; his desire for food and flesh shrivelled like a plant in darkness.
By the time they had set up camp in Ostagar, Duncan had been reliant on six different tonics from the alchemists to keep his mind relatively intact and sword-hand steady. He was not a man of any particular faith, but he had prayed each night to any deity listening that he be loaned just enough life to see the Archdemon dead.
Then he had met Flora, and tasted the ether raw from the miraculous portal of her throat. During their first mending, the image of his mother's face surfaced: brilliant, pure and uncorrupted. For the past twenty years, she had existed in his memory only as a worm-infested skull. With each subsequent mending, Duncan's deprived senses were restored: his sight, his strength, his clarity of thought. With the renewal of his vigour came the return of desire; although he had managed to restrain himself (with the occasional lapse, but in his defence, he was only a mortal man).
Naturally the taint within him had rebelled against her magic: it sensed danger, and the losing of hard-won territory. Sometimes it had made him resist her mending: horrified and helpless as a child, he used his newfound strength against her. Flora, who took her duties as a mender seriously and was used to belligerent Herring patients, had little time for opposition. Any struggle inadvertently resulted in him pressed to his bunk by a giant's meaty palm masquerading as a gossamer-thin curve of light.
I am mending you, she had said, mildly disapproving. Like you asked. Don't fight me.
On one particular occasion - perhaps a week before his death - Duncan neglected to send Flora away after the mending was complete. She had waited for the usual dismissal - go and find Alistair - and it had not come. She had looked at Duncan from the tail of her eye, and he was gazing at something she could not see: utterly fascinated by some fresh-uncovered memory.
The sounds of the camp beyond the canvas were muffled by the thick material. Flora heard a group of armoured men move past as a dull shuffling of metal. She wondered if Alistair was waiting outside to escort her back to their quarters. If so, she was in no rush to see him: it was clear that he viewed her as a freak of nature.
Instead of dismissing herself, Flora looked down at the book that Duncan had been reading before her arrival. The narrow, cloth-bound tome lay within easy reach of where she sat on the bunk. She glanced sideways at the Warden-Commander - he was still motionless, caught in anaesthetic stupor - and then reached out to move the book from the blanket onto her lap.
There were no letters inked on the cover; not that she would have been capable of reading them.
Flora pressed her thumb into the book, opening it at random. It parted to reveal a quartet of sketches inked in pigmented ochre and umbre. They appeared to depict irregularly shaped stones; each one with a neatly scribed description below.
Rocks, she thought to herself, bemused. Why would someone write about rocks?
It's a book on mineralogy.
Duncan had roused himself from his restored memories, and was now gazing down at the pages pinned by her finger. The light from the lantern carved his profile in gold: the hawkish nose and the ascetic jaw, the careworn furrow of the brow
Crystals, he elaborated, seeing her confusion. With certain properties. This one - his finger brushed her knuckle as it moved to the page - is dawnstone. It can augment the body's natural healing. Help to mend wounds more quickly.
He saw her involuntary grimace, and responded with a wry smile.
Well, not as effectively as you. But not everyone is fortunate enough to know a Flora.
The way he spoke her name was intriguing: the shapes of the vowels were Fereldan, but their kernels were something foreign.
I don't see how a rock can mend someone, Flora replied with furrowed brow: so used to her own unconventional healing that she could envision no other.
The dark tail of his eye slid to her and he suppressed a smile. If a crowd of ten onlookers watched Flora mend, nine of them would find her method of mending disconcertingly primal: there was an odd savagery about it: the bloody mouth on the wound.
Well, there are many strange things in this world, Duncan replied quietly, wishing that he had more time, or fewer years.
"My lady?"
Flora startled: the memory had been a rich and absorbing one. The fatty, smutty scent of tallow still clung to the inside of her nostrils. Duncan had not afforded himself the luxury of beeswax candles; he squinted through the same cheap light as his lessers. It was almost a shock to find herself sitting on a wooden chair instead of the yielding lumpenness of a mattress.
A dishevelled man stood before her, framed on both sides by bookshelves. He had been loaned a clean tunic; the creased linen below still stained from recent travel. A crown of balding hair clung wetly to his skull, though the wash basin could not remove the purple crescents beneath his eyes. The posture was that of the recently hunted. He was vaguely familiar, but it took Flora several moments to label him.
The mayor of Lothering, she realised as he opened his mouth to speak. Can you still be a mayor if your town is gone?
"My lady, I- "
"Call me by my name," she said, not unkindly. "Flora."
The mayor gaped for a moment and then nodded, hunching his shoulders. The shadowed eyes and pinched mouth gave his face a cadaverous appearance.
"F-Flora." He hesitated, eyes dropping from the pale intensity of her stare. "I- I neglected to pass on my gratitude for your assistance earlier.. Many more of us would have died if not for your… timely intervention."
Even after magic had saved him, he was unwilling to name it. Flora, who had the northerner's habit of not wasting air unnecessarily, made no response.
The mayor swallowed, sweat pricking his brow. The meagre tallow-light deepened the shadows on his face: adding two more decades to the five he had lived. Then, without warning, the question tumbled out in a raw and unrehearsed tangle.
"Did you mean it?"
The words rang out harshly between the pillars of collective knowledge. Before Flora could clarify what he meant, the mayor continued: quiet and urgent.
"What you said earlier - about killing the Archdemon. Did you mean it?"
A chance to clarify!
Say that you're going to gather armies from across Ferelden.
Explain that you're really a healer, and that - if absolutely necessary - you'll be shielding those involved in the fight against the Archdemon.
From somewhere in the rear. Preferably from behind several walls.
"Yes," she replied instead, even and utterly dispassionate. "I meant it."
No! Why did I say that?
Stupid, stupid, stupid… I always knew I had no cleverness in my head, and THIS PROVES IT.
Her general smirked. She felt his smile like a curve traced against the inside of her skull. Aware that the cool ambiguity of her face would not betray the turbulence within, Flora let herself brood furiously for several moments: how could she commit herself so readily to violence? She was a mender, not a fighter.
You were not loaned our shield to sit on the sidelines.
I never wanted the shield. I was content with the mending. Take it back, take the shield back - I don't want it -
Ha! It is too late for that mow.
The mayor was gazing hard at her, his eyes searching her face as though seeking an answer. Whatever the question, he must have found something to satisfy him. His clamped jaw slackened and he mouthed something under his breath: a sigh of relief, or perhaps a fragment of prayer.
"You have the loyalty of Lothering, or what's left of it," he said at last, so quiet that the words were nearly absorbed by the surrounding books. "Against the Darkspawn and - and the teyrn of Gwaren too, if it comes to that."
"It will come to that," she replied bluntly, having heard Leliana discuss the matter often enough that some part of it had lodged in her brain. The fate of the nation was entangled with its political climate: impossible to separate as twisted, salt-encrusted twine.
He nodded again, more fervently this time.
"Then you have it, my lady - Flora. My lady Flora."
Flora was so preoccupied with the sinister realisation that she had inadvertently involved herself in politics, that she was barely paying attention. Fortunately, the mayor was voicing his thoughts more for his own benefit than for any contribution from her.
"I'll write to Leonas Bryland today. I'll tell all that happened in Lothering and how the teyrn of Gwaren abandoned us to the enemy. The arl has recently returned from Denerim, if my sources are correct."
"Start at Ostagar," she said, closing the book. "That's where it began."
Or perhaps it began even earlier than that. I wish I'd paid more attention when Duncan spoke to the other senior Wardens. I know he talked about Mac Tir, and Orlais, and the woman who rules there. Perhaps he only spoke so freely because he knew I wasn't listening.
Flora realised that the man was gazing at her, momentarily distracted from thoughts of his letter.
"I wouldn't have taken you for a junior Grey Warden," he said, slowly.
She wondered if he would continue in the usual vein: too few years, too female , too weak to wield a weapon. Too… ornamental.
Decorative. For a mantlepiece, not the field.
"Maker, I can't put my finger on it," he continued, the words weighed down with incredulity. "But I can't imagine you taking orders from anyone."
Behind the implacable neutrality of her features, Flora was equally bewildered. The mayor seemed visibly confused: unable to order his thoughts into coherency. Through no flaw of his own, it was beyond his capacity to explain. Flora did not appreciate the obscurity. She suddenly wished that the mayor would go away and leave her alone. The castle had a surplus of unnecessary rooms: surely he could find some dingy chamber to lurk in?
"You should begin your letter," she said, shortly. "Don't forget to include how Loghain mac Tir - a son of Skingle - left the Warden-Commander of Ferelden to die in the field."
It was a dismissal, and the man interpreted it correctly. He made a strange contortion that was nearly a bow - Flora was certain that he was mocking her - then made an equally peculiar exit in reverse, his stare clinging to her like a leech. There was a strange, sharp kernel within his gaze that had not been there when he entered his room. It was not hope, but a cousin of it; - guarded, cautious anticipation.
Flora was more unsettled than she ought to have been by the brief encounter. She was unsure what had been so disturbing: the mayor's use of my lady, the embryonic faith in his eye as he looked at her, the almost-bow. She wanted to follow the man down the corridor and remind him that - despite her appearance and her loaned gift - she was inherently no one: a girl of coarse, coastal stock.
Compassion exhaled a long and weary sigh. Flora felt the hairs lift on the back of her neck.
It's all this book's fault, she thought, darkly and totally irrationally. Education causes more problems than it solves.
Her fingers had left their imprints on the dusty cover. Holding her breath to avoid another fit of sneezing, Flora leaned back to slide the book back onto a shelf. She had no idea if she had returned it to its former home, but reasoned that nobody had time to check the placement of books. As she returned upright, a drip landed in the centre of her parting and made her jump. Looking up, the culprit was obvious: the roof was leaking. The plaster was so mottled with damp that it resembled a map more than a ceiling.
A castle isn't much different from a cave, Flora thought to herself, recalling the crevasses hollowed into the savage bluffs flanking Herring. Both consisted of a sequence of gloomy stone chambers, filled to their mildewed eaves with echoes and stagnant air.
There was little to do in a library if one could not read or write. Fortunately, Flora had spent four years of her life in a sanctuary of inaccessible academia. She was well practised at the art of daydreaming - mostly about bleak northern beaches, sometimes about what it would be like to have gills - or simply staring into space. She had few accomplishments; but she was adept at waiting without complaint or fidgeting.
Flora had guessed correctly: in the wake of such recent crisis, nobody in Redcliffe Castle had any desire to visit the arl's library. She was left undisturbed for several hours, listening to movement around her and above her; stiffening at every footstep in the passage.
Will you give me some warning if Instructor Wynne comes in?
No.
You want me to be ambushed by a teacher? That's so cruel.
You make it sound worse than ambush by assassin.
It IS worse. My shield blocks weapons, not words.
Her general rolled its eye: it sounded like a marble rattling around a vase.
Finally, Flora's stomach drove her from her hiding place. She rose from the bench and almost lost her balance: her limbs, kept motionless for hours, had seized. Shaking blood back into her feet, she inched around the table and made her way between the shelves towards the doorway.
A steward with an armful of linens promptly sent them skyward as Flora emerged into the passage. Swathes of white cloth covered the grubby stone: Flora squatted to help gather them.
"Forgive me - my lady- "
The steward was flustered, cheeks flaring as though lit from within.
"Is there anywhere I can get food?"
Flora folded a shirt over her elbow, distracted enough by her stomach that she forgot to correct the inappropriate title.
"The kitchens, my lady- they aren't fully stocked at the moment, due to recent… recent events, but they will strive to- to provide you with whatever.. whatever provisions you may require."
His words collided with each other like loose beads on a necklace.
"I was chased away from the kitchen earlier," she said, brow furrowed. "By an old man who went Yarrrrrrr!"
The steward flinched.
"Ach, don't mind Bartholomew - he's not been in generous spirits since the world darkened for him. Without sight he's a burden; but the arl keeps him on for Maker's charity. If Barty could've seen you, he would've let you in."
"Eh," said Flora, listening with one ear. "Thank you. I'll try the kitchen again."
AN: Back in work this week! So I've got my commute (aka writing time) back.
Hope everyone is doing well! :D