Title: Powerless
Disclaimer: BioWare owns all; I just play in their pond.
Related Twice Bitten Chapter: Seven – Magic and Mystery, with a loose reference or two later on.
POV: Wynne
Characters: Wynne, Aedan, and the ghosts of others.
Author's Notes: Aedan and Wynne had something of an understanding of each other from the start. Warning: gets a bit dark. Other characters are not named, though I believe they'll be recognizable enough from memory.
Reviews are always welcome!
She thinks she is being followed through this twisted maze of illusions, but she cannot see past them to evaluate her pursuer. She knows she has been caught in the demon's spell. She knows her surroundings are false, for all they ring true. She is perfectly aware of the temptation that will come, and she is determined to give these creatures no indication as to which form it should take.
But it is difficult, withholding her reaction to the images passing before her eyes. Such a trial she has never known.
True, when she arrived at the Circle a lifetime ago, she thought she had come home. Here she was allowed to practice her magic. Here she never had to hide what she was. There were no angry villagers, no scorn, no threats.
At first.
Oh, the peace lasted well past her apprenticeship and into her adult years. She'd seen any number of changes to the guard, as it were, new regimes with varying undertones, but in the two decades since she had taken her post as a Senior Enchanter those whispers had grown dark. It had taken almost half that time for her to realize that the security and the sense of home that had greeted her was no longer there to welcome the new mages to come to the Circle.
She had wept, during that night and many more after, for the home she'd lost and for the home she could no longer offer to others. And she had worried, for she hadn't known how else to teach her charges to find their own peace ,their own safety. The Circle was the only home mages could know in this world, and if acceptance had become submission, she still could think of no other way to protect the apprentices in her care than trying to convince them they belonged and praying for the return of a gentler hand to hold them.
She no longer believes it, but still she must accept. Still she must submit. The proof of her shattered illusion surrounds her with every step, but it is proof also of the fate of those who do not accept, who cannot submit. And in the face of two decades of her own failure, she is powerless to stop it, the brutal realities she has never witnessed nonetheless true in her mind.
She steps forward, the Fade around her shaping itself into the image of a classroom, and she hears her exasperation echoing in her ears as she addresses the stumbling boy with the dark hair and the crooked nose. This is not difficult. Concentrate, and you will find it to be quite easy. As she moves toward the door on the other side, desperate to escape the ill effect of her teaching, the echoes change and she hears the other apprentices laughing, mocking the young man for his lack of mastery of even the most basic elements of his magic.
There is a moment of merciful shapelessness to the Fade as she passes beyond the room, but it is brief. She is walking through the library now, and she sees herself berating a young Dalish elf for his refusal to answer a question. A much older failure, this, but no less bitter for the time that has passed. In the darkest hours of her sleepless nights, she likes to think she knew even then that a kind word was what the lad had needed and that she had chosen instead to attempt forcing her way through his walls. As she reaches the stairs, she hears his emotional outburst, his accusations that she will never tolerate anything less than utter perfection.
Of course she won't. Not least within herself.
The Fade releases her again at the stairs. Still she perceives a follower, closer now than before though she is unable to see who – or what – is at her heels. And the images will not relent.
Darker, now, the cells beneath the Tower that betray every notion of home she has ever had. She was years beyond her Harrowing before she'd realized these were more than a tale of horror spread to new apprentices, and every time these visions are called before her she thinks first of the lies she told to comfort the children who heard the reality. She will not look away from the image of the man chained nude, ankles bound – boy, Maker, he's only a boy – so fair of features and so very young, though he does not utter a sound as the whip bites into his back. She has never before seen the wounds as they were inflicted. She has merely treated them, with poultices and bandages only lest the Templar at her side strike out at the least hint of her healing magics.
Still she knows each mark upon the boy's skin. She has treated every one, and for every swab and every treatment she has cursed her inability to prevent his pain. So it is only fitting that she bears it with him, as much as she is able.
And the Fade releases her again at the end of the hall she has walked, only to place her in the garden beyond the walls of the Tower, surrounded by the ghosts of those she lost. To a Sword of Mercy, to suicide under the weight of the Circle's confines, to her failure to convey the dangers of the creatures of the Fade. She recognizes and meets every face standing in accusation, the offer of the Fade made plain: the retreat of all her past missteps.
She recognizes the one face that shows no blame.
Her follower is here, that young man from the tower, still silent, his eyes spilling over as he steps out of the darkness and into the garden. In the strange intimacy of a dream, however, she can see at least that the regret he feels is not her own, certain though she is that he has seen her every nightmare come to life.
He bares his blades before her and turns to the shades of her past.
This one, she thinks, is not yet powerless. As he strikes for her at her memories, she prays for him that he never will be.