Hey, lovely people. I promise I'm not dead or done with this story. I've just been extremely depressed among other things. Hope you guys are safe out there.
The memories were getting more and more out of focus, like a deep dream. A real sound, a real sight, but somewhere far away at the back of your head. Like a translucent veil to keep the emotional burden dead and vague, but not completely forgotten.
He could feel the weight, the fever, the ache, pounding... bouncing off the walls of his head to his chest and back to his head. Neither one wanted to hold it. The veil helped. Like if you tried really hard, you could just pretend it never happened; that it happened to someone else, maybe.
Was this what repressed memories felt like? Perhaps his forgotten moments had a... similar ambiance. What if forgetting was a blessing?
His hand trembled before he placed the forget-me-knot into the next tombstone.
But why?
His eyes rolled in response. Evidently something BAD was inside it. Something bad and scary and probably disheartening. Something that explained her abuse of alcohol, her daftness, her... her ill-conceived globetrotting.
Why the fear when he was prepared for the worst? That easily made 90% of his essence as a person. Or at least the person that he could remember.
Curiosity and fear... Those usually don't go together, Fenris thought.
He looked at the tombstone again and let out a big sigh, which said: I know you're desperate for answers, but please leave the questions for later.
His hand continued to disagree.
The "Holly" Memory
They were in the tree bunker, all in a circle around a pregnant Hawke lying down on a makeshift bed with hundreds of towels. She looked scared and small, like a child shaking. She was drenched in sweat and aching out loud.
Aldrich was reciting a chant for the sick and dying. Esme was using magic to boil a few tools. Malcolm was concentrating on a spell.
Leandra was playing with the hair on her daughter's forehead, which helped. It looked like a very old comfort.
A green glyph formed around Hawke, and with that, the shaking stopped.
"Now make her drink," Esme told Leandra, handing her a potion. Leandra poured the potion in Hawke's motionless mouth, and wiped it carefully.
This made him very uncomfortable. Surprisingly not the birthing experience, but the motionless body. It wasn't right. Where did she go?
"Don't forget to blink your eyes, dear," said Esme authoritatively. "Blink your right eye if you feel numb."
Her right eye was about to blink, but kind of just stuck there halfway, shaking.
"No, it's not enough," Leandra translated worryingly. "Give her more."
"Any more and we might put her to sleep. She needs to stay awake."
"At least stop paralysing her, Malcolm. She has the anesthetic now. Surely there's no more need," said Leandra curtly.
"And have her flinch and get a knife in her liver?" Malcolm retorted. "Absolutely not."
"Or attack us because of the pain. We can't risk that," Esme added.
"Can you both stop talking as if she's not here?" said Leandra with quite a tone.
A little moan at the back of Hawke's throat agreed.
"Sorry, dear. It's all Esme's fault, you know. She makes everything so damn clinical."
Esme's eyes came up from over her notes and peered through Malcolm with a tired gaze. "Would you be more comfortable if I broke into song?"
"That's an excellent idea!" said Malcolm with an enthusiastic smile.
"I can't believe this is happening."
"Hey, hey, the glyph's done, lady, I can do what I want. And frankly, Aldrich's been depressing the shit out of everyone with that prayer for the dead."
"Agreed," said Leandra grumpily.
"Mmmmmphhmgggph," Hawke seconded.
"It is not intended for enjoyment, it is intended for protection," Aldrich said.
"I'm gonna tell you a secret, Aldrich, a secret so great the Chantry invests 90% of its resources to preserve it. Not even the Seekers get clearance for this. You ready? What the Chantry doesn't want to you to know is— you can do both. In fact, it is a travesty that we don't do both. Now—" he said and turned around to be at her bedside. "Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool?"
Leandra looked at him with equal parts awkwardness and amusement. "Yes, sir, Yes, sir, three bags full," she sang and shrugged.
"One for my master and one for my dame, and one for the little girl who lives down the laaaane," they both sang and stroke her hair.
"Cluck, cluck, red hen, have you any eggs?" sang Leandra.
"Yes, m'am, yes, m'am, as many as your legs," sang Malcolm.
And then together, "One for your breakfast and one for your lunch. Come back tomorrow and I'll have another buuunch."
"Maker, they're singing the whole fucking thing," cried Esme. Her husband pressed his lips and gave her a comforting pat.
At some point the mage started to accept that the Hawkes' live concert was never going to end as long as the girl was awake and decided to start the operation. She conjured a force that kept the small knife in the air closed to her hand. A shaky hand, but a still blade. Useful trick. She started drawing it across the bottom of her belly.
Malcolm was doing something... weird. With visible effort, he was sustaining a spell that kept the blood from pouring down. It looked very challenging. Was this... water magic, or...? Fenris shrugged mentally. Not the time.
"You're with us, dear. You're doing very well," said Leandra to Hawke, holding her hand in a strong grip. "We're right on track. Esme's in. We're all okay."
Malcolm let out a scoff. "Maker's balls! They made it look so easy in the Circle."
Esme laughed a small sarcastic laugh.
If not for her eyes moving, pressing into themselves, if not for the tears sliding down her temples, you wouldn't have known where Hawke was. She was so still and so quiet, she could have been dead.
Buzz, buzz busy bee, is your honey sweet?
Yes sir, yes sir, sweet enough to eat.
Honey on your muffin, honey on your cake,
Honey by the spoonful, as much as I can make.
Buzz, buzz busy bee, is your honey sweet?
Yes sir, yes sir, sweet enough to eat.
He was so incredibly uncomfortable. Being locked in like that; silenced, helpless, but in agony... trapped in the worst sensations a mortal could feel... That he knew to be hell.
His heart couldn't seem take it. Even knowing it was just a dream, a lonesome forgotten memory, Fenris drew a chair at her bedside and tried to comfort her, hand on her shoulder.
Surgeries weren't a safe and common thing. Especially not for pregnant women. Only in very wealthy families did a lady at risk have the option to employ a team of mages and surgeons who would work together to ensure a safe delivery, and even then it was a significant hazard. Women would either be incredibly lucky to give birth with no complications or they would meet the most common fate: death. And death was the only time an average woman would meet something like a surgeon—to attempt to remove the child from her corpse.
And if a surgeon in Tevinter was a rare luxury, it would be safe to assume Ferelden was worse. Commoners would probably consider them as occult as witches. And the latter were all confined to one tower somewhere in the west.
Even if Esme, and less likely, Malcolm, had had any relevant experience in the Circle, they were still taking a huge risk.
The weight of despair in this room was palpable to a fault.
He could feel her pain in his hand, shooting up his arm. It was helpless and nihilistic, and it clawed and clawed its way into his chest. He couldn't stop it, even when he took his hand away. Please, stop. Please have mercy. I am small and terrified and am clinging to life. STOP. PLEASE. HELP ME! PLEASE!
And then it was dark. All senses gone.
Thank you.
He awoke in a bed. At its end sat Hawke in a forward position. Her hand covered her mouth as if she were in concentration and her leg was trapped into a fast, anxious bounce.
In front of her sat Esme, who was leaning forward with a pleading, lowly gesture. She looked up at Hawke and said, "Please, please reconsider. I know how strongly you feel, but with that very feeling please reconsider her quality of life, for her own wellbeing."
Hawke looked down, and said nothing.
"The world is not built for these children. They're an ill omen. They won't accept her. She will be hated and hunted and made a scapegoat for all the world's ills. You know this."
Hawke put her hand over her face, wild hairs caught between her tight fingers.
"And Maker forbid if she has magic, too—"
"— magic could help her," Hawke cut Esme.
"If that were true, dear, Chantry law and feudal law would be very, very different towards these groups. But it isn't. Magic can't fix everything, and some people cannot be fixed by anything."
"Who said anything about fixing?!" Hawke screamed at her.
Esme shook, silently, then looked up at her again with pity.
"She is blind, dear," she said softly. "Her legs... are wrong."
Hawke looked at her with murder in her eyes.
"Even if we manage to correct that, she will be severely impaired. She will have to learn to walk with crutches while not being able to see a thing. One of those things is challenging. Both those things is torture."
"It's torture for you!" Hawke screamed again. "For your fucking family and your fucked up beliefs! It's not for me. It's not for her."
"Dear, you already have Devon to struggle raising, and Maker knows if she catches up. She doeesn't make eye contact, she still hasn't talked, she barely responds to anyone's interaction—"
"She responds to ME," said Hawke curtly.
"Be that as it may, Hildegaard, you can't be the only one she ever interacts with—"
"— then tell your fucking son to come visit! T-to-to hold her, talk to her! Do any fucking thing really apart from looking fucking disgusted and calling our kid a useless mouth to feed. She doesn't have to have just her mother. He's made his choice!"
Esme sighed and stayed silent for a time. "I tried," she said.
"Not even when his mommy asks him," Hawke said mockingly. "Tsk, tsk tsk. Mr. Facts and Logic stands proud atop his hill. No lowly woman on this earth could sway him with her judgement-clouding hysterical emotions." It felt like she was quoting him.
"Be that as it may," said Esme again, uncomfortably, "I feel it's in your and everyone's best interest that the stronger one gets all your focus so she could thrive, and that's Devon. There's still a strong possibility she's feeble-minded, but we could work with that. Holly is doubly physically impaired and possibly feeble-minded. She will require your full care and attention and Devon, who only responds to you, as you said earlier, will not get the care she needs. And that's unfair and wrong."
"Really? You think that's wrong, but not this. I wonder why. I wonder why you think it's unfair when it's Devon suffering, but not when Holly is. A thought experiment, shall we? This is right here is a perfect premise for a philosophical dilemma: A pair of twins. Same gender, same race, same family, same wealth, same country, and so on. But they are unequal. But why? Because, to sum up all you've said to me thusfar, one is "broken" and one is "less" broken. Or one is broken, and the other one is more broken. Either way you look at it, one of them is a life more worthy of life, and one of them is a life less worthy of life. That's what it boils down to. And you'd like me to dispose of the less worthy life, because it is for the good of the rest of us, who are more worthy of life."
"Dear, I'm not saying that—"
"I know what you're saying," Hawke said curtly, and stood up. "I'm not giving my child to a fucking orphanage. I know this country is crawling with idiots drowning their babies and dumping other ones at Chantry doorsteps. I don't care what the custom is. I don't care what your belief is. This is my choice, and my child. And in my family, no one gets left behind."
Esme sighed like she'd had this argument before, but Hawke wasn't budging.
"Not get the hell out of my house."
"The fuck is under my arse?" said Hawke on a snowy winter's day, out on the porch with Bethany and her girls. Each woman was holding a toddler, all wrapped in colourful patterns and layers of wool.
"I think that's Betsy," said Bethany in amusement. The child in her arms was sound asleep.
Hawke pulled out a wooden dragon figurine. "Nope, it's Miss Sniff'n'Squash." She laughed and snorted and then immediately turned solemn. "I dominate you," she said.
"Mm...kay?" said Bethany, a little worried.
"Is my asserting dominance over a toy worrying?" She made a mocking pouty face and shook the dragon and its beads rattled. The child in her arms was too busy with her parrot toy to notice.
Her sister looked to her right, to her left, and said: "Yes."
"Yeah, I thought so... last Monday I had an argument with a tree."
"What did the tree do?"
"It made an annoying noise."
"You mean, like, in the wind?"
"Yes in the wind," said Hawke aggressively, then realised it and softened her tone. "The point is, it angered me that it was so fine and fantastic at what it was doing, you know, making air and-and... being still. I can't even put on my pants right in the morning. Fucking prick looking at me all hollier-than-thou."
"Okay," said Bethany nicely. "Are you sure it's about the tree, though?"
"Yes, it about the— wait..." she said, staring at something in the distance. "Okay, don't be obvious, but look at your four'o'clock."
Between Elder Miriam, Old Barlin and the chanter, Bethany resolved she was referring to the elf in the background helping the innkeeper.
"Oh, he's cute," said Bethany.
"I know. Woof."
"You know Esme's within earshot, right?"
Hawke rolled her eyes. "I don't give a shit."
"While I support your vibe, I don't think it's a good idea to swear with the kids around."
"Thank you, and I disagree. Between their failure of a mother, trash of a father and the soul-sucking hellscape that is Thedas, they better learn all the cusses they can come by as early as possible. For their own mental health."
"Okay, not entirely unfair—"
"—unlike the world—"
"— yes, yes, unlike the world..." she said in a tired tone. "But a failure?" She shook her head. "You're not a failure, Hildegaard."
Hawke looked at her grumpily. "I'm far from winning a medal for it."
"The medal is stupid," Bethany insisted. "And since when do you care about fitting into normative criteria for societal praise?"
Hawke looked sad. She sighed. "I don't know... I feel like I'm doing everything wrong."
"No one wrote a manual on this shyte, sister," said Bethany in exasperation.
"I thought you said cursing was bad for the kids."
"Fuck that. You're the mother. I'm respecting your view, and low-key worrying about it, but that's on my own time!"
"Aww, how sweet."
"The point is you're doing just fine. I have seen you be a mum since day one. You've been doing everything you can to help their disabilities. You've been kind and patient and caring and your goofiness has paid off heaps with these two. You've been up all day mothering and up all night studying. You need sleep, by the way."
Hawke laughed sarcastically.
"And honestly, I wish I had half the balls you had standing up to our families when they were being arseholes. I think I might have caved..."
"But am I?" Hawke insisted. "Doing the right thing?"
Bethany put her hand on her shoulder. "Fuck yeah."
"Thanks, Beth," she said with a half-smile. "You wanna adopt one?"
"Totally. Can I take Holly?"
"And I'm stuck with the quiet birdwatcher? Come on!"
Bethany shrugged. "Opposites attract. She gets me."
"Speaking of opposites, I found an account of one Lady Cleo in Denerim—"
"May the Maker forgive your sins that cursed you with a wicked deformed child," a voice came from the end of the yard. It was the formerly very bangable elf walking by.
Hawke came out of her chair with redhot speed and shouted, "Take your fucking prayers and shove'em up your bumhole, you pathetic boy-shaped afterbirth!"
She threw the dragon toy at him with a fury. He ran.
"I guess I'll pick that up later," Bethany said grouchily.
"It's ok, I'll do it," Hawke said tiredly.
"You won't remember."
"No, I won't. Fuck that toy! And fuck that guy!"
She was filled with a lot of hate. Anger and hate, and then a feeling of failure as the toddler in her sling wrap woke up crying.
"Ah, fuck, SHIT. Sorry, baby. Mama shouted at a bad, bad man," she said, rocking her back to sleep.
"He works for Barlin. He probably won't be after that."
"Nah, even Old Barlin can't afford to fire another one over this. It's too hard now after the drought we had, and those darkspawn creeping out of that cave earlier. I get it. Man's gotta eat."
Bethany looked sad. It became silent for a while.
"I can't believe so many people react this way..."
"Is it that surprising when your own family reacts this way?"
"You can't compare—"
"Nicer words, same fucking idea."
Bethany sighed and checked on her toddler. Still sound asleep. "I don't believe that. And even if you're right... they'll come around, eventually. I know they will."