Disclaimer: I own absolutely and completely nothing. Bioware has that particular pleasure.
Summary: A City-Elf/Bann Teagan collection of drabbles and one-shots based on a prompt table from an LJ-community. These will be more or less in chronological order with the faintest traces of added plot here and there. Will vary from drabble length to one-shot.
Author's note: Confusing, this one. I'd try changing a few things but I'm hardly awake.
In this chapter: You remember what you fear when you fear the most.
007.
Leliana doesn't stop staring at Wynne. Wynne keeps gazing at Jowan. Assan has a ruffle eye fixed on Alistair. Alistair's eyes scarcely stray from Tasha. And Tasha, that one doesn't look away from Morrigan's body, lying ever so still and lifeless as its owner never is. It is like a puppet show where the puppet is broken beyond repair and the puppeteer fails to notice.
The elf stirs barely in her seat, trying to find a more comfortable position. It has been hours since they have started this ritual – minutes after barging through the front gates – and she's not keen on displaying her ignorance by asking how long it will last. But she is still worried. Maker help her, it seems like that is a permanent part of her life nowadays. There is the danger, the rush and adrenaline, the worry and the constant fear. They already have their own place in her bedroll at night and keep her company in the dreams which aren't overcome by the giant dragon.
The conscious part of her, the rational, knows the mage just left for the Fade, listens to the careful mumbling of the blood mage by her side and accepts this is just another way to fight. Her more emotional one – and she can hear Morrigan scoff in disgust when she admits it – is, once again, afraid. She is used to fight her battles and that of others. And in between the Kocari Wilds and Lothering, half way to the Tower of Magi and a little after fighting Zathrian in the lost ruins, Tasha has accepted the mage's odd way to be. It stings and prickles, all covered by a surface frozen to the touch. That is fine. It is constant and she cannot fear it anymore. She can only fear for its change.
Her body shifts again, uncomfortable and weary, annoyingly warm beside the cold floor and the mage's colder skin. Like a little girl waiting for her mother to wake, like the little girl who waited by her mother's side as she didn't wake and the human's leaving, their clothes a very ugly shade of red. Tasha hates this waiting most of all, hates the color, hates the silence, hates the fact that she's not a mage and had to send her companion into a place she cannot follow.
Memories. The woman blinks as if snapped from her daydream. These cannot do. Lately, everything seems to make her remember. Good things, bad things, not so bad, not so good. Even talking to Sten at camp tugged her down memory lane and both ended with this strange homesickness overtaking him. Bonding over bad emotions and plunging into Darkspawn slaying. Her relationship with Sten is jumping leaps and bounds lately.
Talking about that. Another shift and a fleeting wish for a good bed precede her analysis of the room, immediately followed by a small eyebrow rising in reaction. She needs to stop traveling down her memories. Left unattended, her party goes quite mad – or incredibly infatuated with each other, she cannot decide. Her face flushes immediately like a maiden, two bright red spots in between pale flesh. No, no more memories, recent or otherwise. Tasha knows she needs to stop this – all of this – and wondering about herself is just selfish.
Morrigan is more important, for example. The elf grasps a gloved hand in hers and her face immediately hardens. Duties and more duties, she has no right to be selfish. "Warden." But that's not the sole reason which keeps from remembering what took place merely a day before. There is too much open, too much unknown and she doesn't know how to reply. Her wedding was much easier, she thinks wryly. 'Here, this is your fiancée, you are marrying in twenty minutes. Get acquainted.' Simple, easy and no emotions involved. Not that she has emotions involved now.
"Warden."
Maker, her brain just ties her thoughts in knots before jumbling every thought together. Hopefully, Jowan cannot reach into her mind because the migraine she has earned might just attach itself to him and she needs him perfectly well to bring her companion – friend – back.
"Tasha, what is the matter?"
It takes a whole total of ten seconds for Tasha to notice that everyone has stopped staring at both Connor and Morrigan, at each other like they are all housing demons and their gazes have locked onto her form. She can almost feel the disapproval waving through the atmosphere but instead of bothering, it makes her oddly giddy. One would think she's doing something weird or out of the ordinary. Looking after a friend is hardly in that category.
Wynne is by her side in an instant, forgetting she is supposed to be glaring at the former apprentice, forgetting even that there is the closest thing to blood magic being done in the room. Luckily, they saved the Circle before they came here. Sometimes, Tasha doesn't know what she would do without this woman who keeps looking after her, who touches her forehead as she remembers her mother doing, who scolds her about responsibility as the elven woman.
She frowns lightly. That's not right. She was five when Adaia was killed. The only responsibility she held by then was to make sure her dress lasted through the month with more fabric than holes.
"So much for the fabled resistance of the Grey Wardens, hm?" The elder woman's face is in front of hers and she's smiling rather smugly for such an old woman. She expects it from Flemeth who is, basically, an evil abomination bent on taking over the few children she begets but never from a supposedly kind old teacher. "You, my dear friend, are sick. And running a fever, I see."
Ridiculous.
"She shouldn't be here then. I'll take her upstairs." Tasha frowns once more and it seems now like it's a permanent adornment of her expression. While she is touched, in a small way, by their concern she certainly is not sick and not feverish. Even if she was – which she isn't – to think of herself in this moment is ridiculous and selfish. "Come on. Up you go."
No.
The woman shifts yet again, this time to escape Alistair's hands which are trying to take her from the fallen mage. She can speak. She can. She just doesn't want to explain why she doesn't want to leave. Not when there's Isolde standing over Connor and the Bann is staring at her – Maker, too much staring is taking place in this hall.
"Tasha. Do not be foolish. We might have to leave soon." And Maker forbid she forgets her responsibilities over a fever and a friend. Ridiculous. Now she knows she is being. Her face burns and it's not because of embarrassment, memories or shame. Her body is cold inside the armor but sweaty against the leather padding. And she knows she'll be fine tomorrow if she, at least, rose from the cold floor and went somewhere else. But what if? What if Morrigan wakes and needs help? What if she doesn't kill the demon? What if the demon awakes first? What if, what if, what if, they run through her mind and tie the previous knots in their jumbled mess even more tightly until she cannot make head or tails of anything. What if her mother doesn't wake?
There's a leathered hand in hers. That she can see.
"Let her be."
"But…"
"Let her be." It is not a request anymore, the tone is hardly submissive and all complaints are quieted, covered by the strength of someone else.
Tasha is a little girl again and the rain is falling. Stubborn, she should be resting, taking her mother home or warning her father. But this is better, cold against her legs, warmth on her skin and flesh and the hand in hers. Moments pass, minutes, hours, her body hurts and shifts, her throat itches in warning, no one moves.
Except for Morrigan who takes her time to begin stirring, opens her golden eyes as if she has finished a particularly pleasant nap before setting them on her face. Staring.
"You look ridiculous, Tasha."
Mother's eyes are supposed to be blue too. So mother is just as ridiculous.
But she doesn't feel so when she begins laughing, her gratitude slipping through her pained throat, the crying of a boy barely heard above the sound - though she's quite sure it sounds female and hers. She is young, after all, but her mother just woke up so there is no reason to cry. The human man isn't that bad at all. He didn't take her away, didn't take her mother away. He is not dressed in red either.
Teagan will remember that day as the first the Warden has actually smiled at him though she will never mention this day or explain her actions.
Except to say he should never wear red.
Note: Prompt 007 (Fever) from Troyed community table of prompts.