Yes, I admit it. I didn't like her. I could care less if she wanted to run headlong into a massive group of darkspawn, arms flailing and staff raised about her head, but Maker's blood I had never had any desire to see her die. I hadn't wanted… this.
"Pick your head up, boy," hissed the elder witch. "Your friend lives."
She's not my friend.
The words instantly formed in my head, though dissolved the second "lives" filtered through my mind. I jerked red, bleary eyes out from under my arms and was on my feet in an instant, searching a plane of darkness for the source of living, breathing light that I knew to be hope. To be her, standing in front of me with a wonderful frown deepening on her lips and the look of fury in her eyes.
"Y-You're alive," I felt the words breath out of me in a shudder, the tears pricking my eyes once more. A slightly more-disgusted frown seemed to form on her lips - or perhaps it was a look of unsettled something - as I rushed forward, unthinking, and threw my arms around her. I needed to feel her there, know she was alive. She tensed and shoved me away before I, too, realized what I'd done, and we quickly parted from one another as I met her eyes again. Fire.
"I-I thought, s-surely-" I started in, but couldn't finish the sentence. Everything felt far too heavy to be discussed. I didn't want to think about it. Instead, I shut my eyes and felt a raspy, withering sigh tremble on my lips. I felt a breath of wind as she quickly moved past me towards the swamp.
"W-WAIT!" I felt the words slip again as I wrenched around, disrupted by her sudden movement. I needed for her to be here and close where I could see her and tell myself she was real. That she wasn't…
Wasn't…
"What?" she snarled back. Too fierce, too angered.
I suddenly had the prying theory that her abrupt and unusual anger was.. not really anger at all. It was a justification of her fear. Her hurt. I felt a pang in my chest at the sight of her - she was bandaged and wounded yet still looked as fierce as ever. She jerked around to face the swamp once again and crossed her arms tightly to her chest. I saw her fingers digging into her sides, as if trying to press in on herself to hide away from everyone. She was vulnerable.
"I thought you were dead for sure," I murmured, feeling the weight sinking back down on my chest as the phrase emptied in my mind, echoing the distance of what it truly meant.
Because everyone else is…
"Don't be so quick to assume I am that disposable," she bit back, still refusing to face me. I felt her words slam me in the chest like an iron weight, stung by them.
"I-Is that what you think?" I choked out, my voice wavering on the unsteady terror and pain that I had been trying so hard to push back down. I felt it welling to the surface again, clawing it's way out of my chest in waves. The pain would not lessen.
She turned around, her eyes cold fire as she narrowed her gaze and pulled her mouth into a sneer. I let my mouth hang open, baffled. Shocked by her indifference.
"You aren't just some hunk of meat I intended to throw at a massive horde of darkspawn!" I cried. "You're a living being, and you surviving matters." I shook my head, feeling the tears obscure my vision again as I stared at my boots and sunk into my shoulders. "I didn't want you to die…" I murmured as an afterthought, deciding it was too much to try and continue talking.
She continued to stand there - or so I assume - as rigid as ever with the same empty sneer written across her face. Her arms crossed, briefly, then uncrossed as she stepped across the way and decisively took her place adjacent to the elder witch, who had otherwise remained silent.
"You shouldn't-" she started, but then stopped. I raised my blurry eyes level to her face, and found her expression unfamiliar. I tried to blink the tears away, and managed to make out a confused, slightly retracted expression on her features. I tensed my brow and frowned.
"Shouldn't what?" I said. "Shouldn't cry? Everyone is dead! The King, all of the soldiers… Duncan." My voice cracked into a quiet sob at the end, and I shook my head forcibly to gather myself, fists tightened at my side. "They died and we did nothing to stop it!"
"We could do NOTHING!" she shouted, abruptly changing my direction to stare at her face. I could have sworn I saw tears brimming in her eyes, but my own were too blurred to make it out. I sniffed them back in a sudden necessity to understand her anger, and straightened up in my posture.
"I could have gone back!" I argued, defiance in my grip and fire in my eyes. She stepped forward, hands braced at her side as she glared me down with murderous intent and wavered on my judgment.
"And what? Died valiantly to accomplish more failure?" she snapped in an almost condescending, bemused way. I felt my blood boiling with a sudden, raging desire to hit her. My hands shook at my sides, restrained only by my single shred of tolerance left to my system.
"Duncan DID NOT FAIL!" I shouted back.
"His mistake was letting some stupid, foolhardy BOY play swords and shields when he KNEW the true danger of what could and DID happen!"
"So it's his fault he died, then is it?" I shrieked back, incredulous, with tears in my eyes again. I was enraged by her cold-hearted indifference to his death. Horrified by her, shocked and terrified that a creature could be so merciless about the massacre of their own comrades.
Two hands were between us before I could register my newfound anger against her. They pushed us apart, chiding but firm, and allowed a space large enough to let the air rush back into my lungs and let the world around me clear. I blinked through my haze, staring at the forest floor, then slowly turned my gaze to the elder witch standing between us.
"Continue talking as if I am not here," she spoke to herself, irritated. I felt the anger leave me in a second's breath, too weary to feel it and too wounded to want it. I worried my brow and turned to her, feeling misguided guilt creep into my subconscious.
"I am sorry," I murmured, bowing my head. "We owe you… everything for saving our lives. For saving…" I glanced at her, trying to remember a name and a bit upset that I couldn't, "her as well.."
"I have a name," she muttered. Anger colored her voice again; a same anger I wasn't sure ever left her features at any time. I screwed up my face in confusion and recognition, and turned back to the elder woman with newfound respect.
"I-I didn't mean…" I searched for words, wanting to apologize for ignoring her, for not thanking her the moment I awoke, but I could find none. I shook my head instead, needing to have at least one name on my memory for recollection. "..What do we call you? You never told us your name." My eyes flicked to the slightly more familiar face of the dark-haired witch from the Wilds, who stood idly by with a concerning smirk on her lips. I grimaced.
"Though fancying names are not my trade - I am decorated, on occasion, by the title of Flemeth," she worded in a cantering tune that sounded a bit too amused. Fear suddenly struck my bones in deep, petrifying recognition of the name as I recoiled into my arms and swallowed.
"The Flemeth? From the legends?" I spoke the words, though they felt untrue even on my lips. I shook my head, turning my gaze to the ground instead as I recalled the stories told by the campfire on the previous night. "Daveth was right," I said incredulously, "you're the Witch of the Wilds, aren't you?" She scoffed at my remark.
"And what does that mean?" she said while crossing her arms. "I know a bit of magic, and it has served you both well, has it not?"
It came to my attention that she hadn't said a word since my inability to recall her name. My gaze flicked to the spot where she had been, and was both surprised and slightly unsurprised to find it empty. I jumped to attention.
"It seems your friend is not so keen to offer her thanks," Flemeth laughed. I didn't find it funny; rather, I felt the sudden, creeping sensation of terror and worry take hold of me. The wilds were dangerous, full of darkspawn. What was she thinking?
I was off in an instant, bolting in the direction that the dark-haired witch lazily gestured towards, hearing the same melodic laughter from Flemeth behind me.
"Better hurry and catch her before the darkspawn eat her bones for dinner!" she cackled after me. I felt a chill run up my spine.
I fell to a slow jog as the woods thickened around me, head jerking this way and that for any signs of her. Damn it of all the times I had to forget a name…
"Mage!" I called, hoping by some forsaken hope it would rile her out of the bushes… or something to that effect. I knew, at least, it was a less-than-endearing term on her ears. I cupped my hands around my mouth.
"MAGE!" I called again, my voice becoming desperate and worried. A sob interrupted my third shout as I fell completely still and slowly connected my eyes to the sound, disbelieving.
She was curled up on her knees in the crook of a giant tree, head in her hands, and the sound of sobs coming from between them. My eyes widened, unsure what I was seeing, before I jumped back to life and fell to my knees at her side.
"Isthalla," I croaked (and then, suddenly, I remembered it), and reached out an unsure, hesitant hand for her shoulder. She was slapping it away and on her feet in an instant, both hands lit up with an enraged and literal fire I was suddenly very interested in getting away from as she jumped back and snarled.
"GET AWAY!" but her voice had still not found its legs again, and I heard the crack in her otherwise fierce tone. The tears still stained her eyes, fresh and marked by the grimace overtaking her anger. She was hurt, and I couldn't help but feel confused by her violent display of hostility.
"Please, Isthalla!" I begged, holding up my hands in surrender. Maker's breath she looked terrifying. Her eyes were white and glowing with a spell I had not witnessed beforehand, just barely on the edge of release, before she abruptly relaxed and the light left her completely. I let out a sudden, whooshing breath I had been holding and put a cold, damp forehead to my palm, shaking slightly.
"Maker's blood.." I shuddered, "I almost thought you were going to smite me for a moment, there." I let the feelings return to my fingers - still not accustomed to the sensation akin to my soul being sucked out from the Fade tearing - and stood back to my feet with a nervous laugh. She was not laughing. Not even smiling.
She glared at me with the intensity of molten lava, then slowly raised her chin higher in the air.
"One more 'mage', and I would have," she said very seriously, "-human."