A/N: Sorry about last week. Someone may or may not have gotten the ME Legendary Edition **cough cough**.
Hopefully this makes up for it a little bit :)
Limbs heavy with the sort of bliss only a really deep sleep could bring, Nike cracked an eye open to gauge the morning sun. It streamed through her window, bright and warm with the promise of an absolutely brilliant day.
Holly, noticing her mistress had stirred, lifted her head. Her nub wiggled madly, her eyes twinkling. As Nike held out a hand, the mabari happily jumped up and plopped her big, jowly face on the edge of the bed.
"Good morning!" Nike said, giving her a vigorous rub. Two stomachs, one human and one canine, both sounded off at the same time, and she laughed.
"I guess we could do with a good breakfast, can't we girl?" she asked. She hadn't had much at dinner the night before, and-…
…had she?
Wine. There must have been some of the new wine in from the vineyards further south. Fresh strawberry wine at the beginning of summer had always been one of her weaknesses.
Putting it out of her mind, she got bathed and dressed, stepping out of her room. A pair of arms suddenly flung themselves around her waist and nearly toppled her.
"Oren!" she laughed.
"I got you, Aunt Nike," he said with a beaming grin. "You didn't hear me coming at all!"
"You are right, Oren," she said. "You are becoming quite the little hunter, aren't you? Where's your Mum?"
"She's having a lazy morning," he said, rolling his eyes. "Doesn't want breakfast. I do though, I'm starving."
"Well, your Mum is working on a little brother or sister for you. It's hard work," Nike told him. "However, this is very lucky. I am heading to breakfast as well and I need a proper gentleman to escort me."
He straightened up, then sketched a neat little bow, speaking as eloquently as a boy of his years could. "My Lady Aunt, would you accompany me down to break our fast?"
She pressed her hand to her chest in mock flattery, then held out her hand. "My good sir, Lord Oren of Highever, I would be honored."
He took her hand and placed it on his crooked arm with a pat. His determination to be a proper gentleman faded after about six steps and he grinned at her. "I hope they have bacon!"
"Me too!" she said. Holly woofed slightly, her tail nub speeding up so much it was almost invisible, at the word 'bacon'.
"Will your lady be joining us?" he asked. He'd abandoned using his elbow, reaching out and catching hold of her hand so they could swing them together between them.
"I expect she's already…" she said, then paused a little with a confused frown.
"Are you ok, Aunt Nike?"
"I'm…I-I'm fine, Oren. I just…I expect she's already had her breakfast. She's an early riser, not like us two lazy oafs."
"I like her," he said matter-of-factly. "She's funny. She pretended she was going to burn Cook on the bum last night when you weren't looking."
Nike smiled at him. "Is that why you nearly fell out of your chair?"
As he nodded, grinning, she gave his hand a small squeeze. I'll have to speak to her again about using her magic out in the open like that. The family knows and does not care, but if one of the servants decides to send word to the Circle Tower that…
She frowned again. That wasn't right, though, was it? The Tower had granted her special dispensation, that she wouldn't be forced into the Circle or made Tranquil-
When there did not seem to be an exit, I simply returned here. I will remain until we are released, or until we are purged.
-in thanks for her help.
Her help with what?
They arrived in the main hall. The big doors had been propped open and a wonderfully fresh warm breeze filled the air, smelling richly of apricot blossoms. Several of the guards and servants touched their forelocks or gave the pair a quick bow or bob of their heads, before keeping on their way.
Oren swung their arms again and Nike laughed at him as Tahja hurried by with an armful of fresh linens in her arms, giving Nike a quick bob and a smile as she headed toward the stairs.
The side of Tahja's face was covered in blood. It had run in rivulets down from her forehead, and a few spots had dripped onto the sheets.
Nike blinked at her, slowing. Oren gave her arm an impatient little tug.
"Come on, Aunt Nike! I'm starving!"
"She was just…I think she was bleeding," she said, more to herself than to the boy. "Was she bleeding?"
"C'mon!" he tugged again, nearly pulling her off balance as he headed toward the door of the dining hall.
As they stepped inside, the pleasant smells of freshly baked rolls, fry cakes, sausages and bacon, fresh fruit and cream almost overwhelmed them. Nike felt her mouth flood with saliva as Holly bounced forward eagerly, quickly taking a small rasher of bacon from Fergus's hand as he shot Nike a furtive wink.
"Fergus! Do not feed the mabari at the table!" Bryce said with a laugh, then looked at Nike with twinkling eyes. "Good morning, Pup. Good morning, Oren!"
"Good morning Grandpa," Oren said, heading over to take the chair near his father.
"You are getting so big," Eleanor said to the boy as he climbed into the seat. "I was wondering if you hadn't grown so big overnight you couldn't fit through your door anymore."
Bryce laughed, and Fergus shook his head as he filled his son's cup from a pitcher. "Nike, good morning."
"Good morning," she said with a smile, pausing by her mother's seat to bend and kiss her cheek.
"Good morning, love," Eleanor smiled. "I trust your head is all right?"
"Of course," Nike said, sitting down and pouring herself some juice as well. "Why wouldn't it be?"
"The summer wine?" Fergus said, with a grin that was almost rapscallion. "I don't think there's a drop left in all of Highever, the way you were tying it on."
"Fergus, honestly," Eleanor laughed. "That's a bit of an exaggeration. Though you did have a glass or two more than I would have liked, Nike."
"I don't-"
"Course she did, she's celebrating," Bryce said. "Don't you pay your brother any heed, Pup. He had more than a couple of glasses himself."
Nike's eyes moved between the various members of her family, a roll and a breadknife in her hand as confusion knit her brows again.
"What is it, sweetheart?" Eleanor asked.
"What…what was I celebrating?" Nike asked. Fergus roared with laughter and Bryce's eyebrows went up.
"Well, I take it back," the elder Cousland said with a smirk at his wife. "She obviously had more than I thought she did, if she can't even remember why she was celebrating."
"Are you feeling all right?" Eleanor's hand was cool on Nike's cheek as she tested her daughter's temperature.
"I-I'm fine, just…I feel a little off rhythm. I'm not sure-" she looked at the roll and knife in her hand, and realized she really wasn't very hungry at all.
"I-I think I'll take breakfast out in the yard," she said, setting aside the butter knife and gathering up a napkin. "Get some fresh air, I think."
"Are you certain? The boys are just being-"
"It's all right, Mama," Nike said, and kissed the top of Eleanor's head again as she rose. Her hair smelled of lavender and honeysuckle. "I just need to clear the cobwebs out a bit."
She headed for the door, and as she reached it Fergus and Bryce roared with laughter again. Looking back at the table a moment, she felt a strong surge of love for her family. Beneath it, however, there was some kind of anxious pit growing in her stomach. A pit that shouldn't be there.
A pit she couldn't explain.
The day was absolutely dazzling, and as she walked through the courtyards and gardens, picking idly at her roll, she felt almost drunk in it.
Seating herself at last in her mother's rose garden she unfolded the napkin from around the rest of the roll and regarded the rich yellow butter, and the dark red of strawberry jam.
Was her face bleeding?
Nike scratched idly at her temple. No, it was the elf. That's right. Tahja. She's the one who had been bleeding. She remembered the blood on the linens. Had Tahja taken some kind of spill? Why would she be carrying around the clean linens with such an untended wound?
She scratched her temple again, eyes fixed on the strawberry jam.
I don't remember putting jam on my-
"Well, so kind of you to rouse yourself," a happy, pleasant voice drew her out of her reverie and she looked up to see bright gold eyes, a winsome smile. The roll tumbled out of her lap as Morrigan reached her hands down, and Nike took them, allowing herself to be drawn to her feet. The roll landed, jam side down, in the dirt at her feet. "Oops! Was that all of your breakfast?"
Was that-?
"It-…I needed air," Nike said. Her head felt like it was swimming. Was that? Is that what Morrigan had said? Was that?
"Are you unwell?" Morrigan asked with gentle concern, one arm moving around Nike's waist with an almost lazy familiarity. "You did imbibe quite a bit of the wine last night…"
"So I've been told," Nike said slowly. "Morrigan, did you say…was?"
"Sorry?" Morrigan asked, brows knitting. "Did I say what?"
"You said 'was that'? Didn't you? Was that…but that isn't what you said, not really. Before-"
"Are you quite all right?" Morrigan's gentle concern was visibly increasing. "Are you ill?"
"I don't…no, I don't think so," Nike told her, then seeing the worry on her face tried to ease it. "Don't mind me, I don't know what I mean. I was just wool-gathering I suppose. Still waking up."
She became extremely aware of the arm around her waist and like so much had this morning, that paused her as well. Had Morrigan ever put her arm around Nike like that before? Had they ever stood so damned close?
"Then I shall help you to focus," Morrigan said with a sly little smile, and the next thing Nike knew, she was being kissed.
A tornado of heat and emotion seemed to spiral up through her. Her heart suddenly leapt- and then pounded in a rush of bitter anxiety that was so forceful it made her knees weak. Almost the moment their lips had touched, Nike had her hands bound in the cloth at Morrigan's shoulders, gripping it as if to loosen her fingers would cast her flying right out of the world and into oblivion. She kept the grip even as she recoiled backward, gasping for air. Vaguely, she felt the roll underneath the heel of her boot. Though she was not looking at it, she could see the strawberry jam squirt into the dirt as vividly as if it were right in front of her.
"Nike? What's wrong?"
"Stop, stop, no…stop it!" Nike heard herself moan. Her knuckles were white and aching.
"Stop? Nike, I-"
"This isn't you," she said, and her eyes lifted with an effort toward Morrigan's face. The blazing summer morning seemed to be going cold and gray, clouds starting to gather in the distance.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Am…a-am I bleeding?" Nike's left hand finally loosened from her grip, and went up to her head. She felt a hot, aching burn under her fingers, and when she drew them away, there was blood on their tips. "It wasn't Tahja…I was bleeding. I am bleeding-"
"Nike? You're not making any sense!"
But she was. More and more clearly, things were falling into her head, each thought echoing with a pounding throb through her skull.
The Tranquil. They'd met that Tranquil man- where? She'd seen her own face in a…a mirror, or reflection. She'd been bleeding, was bleeding, and Morrigan had said-
-T'was that one of the good ones?
Not was. T'was.
"This isn't real." Nike felt as pale and tenuous as a ghost, staring at the hollow of Morrigan's throat as if it were the most fascinating thing she'd ever seen. The soft dip of alabaster skin, the shifting of a tendon, the gentle shift of the pulse beneath it.
"I am getting your mother, something isn't right-"
"She's dead," Nike said, her knees like water. Her hand, gripping with almost manic strength to Morrigan's tunic, felt like the only anchor she had. "She's dead. My father, and Oren…they're all dead."
"They're just inside, Nike," Morrigan cooed gently. "They're having breakfast. They're just fine. Come, I'll show you."
"No, they're not," Nike said, and felt like she wanted to vomit. The sky had grown a deeper steely gray, and thunder was starting to rumble. "Rendon Howe murdered them. He murdered them, and I left-…with Duncan. We went to Ostagar, and Fergus-…this isn't real. You…"
She forced herself to look up at Morrigan's face, to meet those eyes. The yellow had turned a deep and bruised purple-black. "You're not real either."
Brows, arching far more than should be humanly possible, drew down and stitched themselves together over a Morrigan's nose. The corners of her mouth drew down like putty, threatening to drip off the sides of her chin.
"You stupid mortal creature," she said, in a voice that wasn't hers. "I've given you everything you wanted. Your family, alive and together. Your home. No Wardens, no Blight. I've even given you the one you-"
"No," Nike said. Her other hand had risen again, and had joined its mate gripping the cloth of Morrigan's tunic- cloth that was turning into some harsh and scratchy material. Her lip trembled, and pain winced through her head. She could feel the blood now, tacked and starting to dry on her face. She could feel the sharp throb behind it. "No. My parents are dead. My nephew is dead. She-"
"She is yours," the thing that Morrigan was turning into, cooed again. Its voice shifted momentarily back into the apostate's, and Nike's brows trembled. "Here, she is yours forever, just as you want her."
"No," Nike said again, and weakly licked her lips. The lower one felt bruised, tasted faintly of copper. "You can't do that. This is a farce, an insult to my family-…to her. T-the one thing I really want…it's not here. The one thing I really want, you can't give me, not this way. Not in this-"
Dream. This dream. That was it. That's where she was. She was in a dream, in the…
In the Fade.
Her knees no longer felt weak, her stomach no longer anxious. The heat of grief in her chest was sharpening, honing its edge.
"I can give you anything," the Morrigan-thing said. "Name it, and it's yours. I can give you anything-"
"You can't," she said, clear and firm. Her hands were clenched so tightly in that rough cloth now she could hear it starting to tear, feel her nails starting to tear as well.
"I can," the thing scoffed. "Name it, and I'll give it to you! Name it!"
Nike's voice had become a quiet blade. An assassin's blade.
"Vengeance," she said, and cast the thing away from her as the sky above snarled and cracked with lightning.