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: I know people were expecting more fluff and the like but yes, I believe everyone who has hold on this long knows I do not dwell on the same for long. And this made so much sense to me, it had to be written. Added note, I would like if people would please give me a character, no matter how odd, no matter how little time it appears on the story. Ideas would be good, thank you :) Last, I wrote a small one-shot with Amell which ties in with DR, if anyone's curious. So yes, I'm done for the week. Eh eh~
In this chapter: From then on, he tries not to dwell on his mistakes.
049.
The first time he remembers entering a Chantry, he had been around four. Maybe younger. His mother had been a fervent believer of the Maker and Andraste, the prophet especially. It explained exactly why Jowan had been carted off to the Tower as soon as he had showed signs. A mage wasn't something the woman had wished to have in her home, polluting her safe life. But before that day, he remembers, they shared this moment. Quietly, they always sat by a corner, always when no one was around, always alone and speaking in soft tones. She had known stories, his mother, the kind that none would expect of someone whose contact with books had been rare and almost non-existent.
After his mother had sent him along, he had still tried to search for comfort in Chantry. There wasn't anyone to tell him stories anymore but Andraste had existed and she had been real, exactly as his mother had. Her comfort had been real. He had tried to see the Maker as they saw, to see it in every touch of life, to feel it in every action, even when the action was small and lacked an audience. He had tried and had failed.
Jowan was a mage. She fought mages. The math was simple and the Chantry became almost forbidden for him. For a little while and never for prayer.
But the day after the battle, he searches for the Chapel. Most are helping out on the city, some are presiding to the funerals, the many which are taking place. But the hour is still early and the space is empty as the mage crosses the threshold. That's a shock, a little sardonic voice pipes in. His own, sarcastic as only hypocrisy can make it. On the day before the battle, he had seen dozens trying to find their way to the Maker, to beg a protection that wouldn't be given. If the Maker could stop any of this, Blights wouldn't take place. On the day they should thank their divinity, they forget it as if they had never hoped and wished and begged.
But it is empty and no one follows him. Notices the staff on his back.
Jowan crosses the space slowly, taking his time with every step. It is almost as if he is disturbing something with his mere presence, the years of conditioning in the Tower tell him, he should not be here. Not here, not alone, not without Lily who tried so hard to make him believe. He would have liked to believe, he had told her. But one cannot believe when grown up, after asking questions and trying for hard answers. He couldn't believe in those who said he was condemned for existing.
Memories upon memories. This is why he never comes to the Chantry. Lily and his mother, believe because your soul will be saved, believe because it is right and he loves you and yet, He stopped loving him the second the boy had burned that tree. He had loved Lily, not Andraste. He had loved his mother. Looking at the statue, cold and unmoving, he cannot summon any love for it.
It takes a whole minute for the visitor to notice he is not alone inside the Chapel. But then again, he cannot speak to a cold statue, now can he?
The Revered Mother doesn't look at him, not entirely. In fact, all her attention is drawn to his staff, to the cold dripping against his robes. It makes him smile.
"Warden, is it? I did not expect." His kind. "Any of you to find their way to the Chantry. Your leader is injured, is she not?"
She fears, she's disgusted, ready to hide herself behind any Templar nearby, Jowan knows this. Regular Chantry folk, like the ones who littered his hometown. They spat on him too, he cannot forget.
"Do you need anything, child?"
There is always a reason for one to come to a chapel, one should always reach for the Chantry and one will always be a child for these people.
"Revered Mother," he declares simply. "It has been a long time since I have been here. Would you hear me in confession?"
The priest's face contorts into a small frown, confusion not fear. It is an odd question. She thinks that, shows it and seems as if she has someone who is simply too odd to be understood. Chantry doesn't turn anyone away except mages, except apostates and the minorities.
"If you would follow me,"
"No." She cannot understand, she will never understand. He's not here for her though. He's here for himself. Slowly, Jowan walks towards her – she walks back, almost faster – and smiles to the statue in what he believes to be a reassuring movement. "If I may ask, Mother. Do you value your own life above others?" Her fear is touching his skin now. Foolish woman, and she is the one who she called a child?
The answer is yes. This Mother does, the sweat down her brow, the fear in her eyes, her hand raising just barely for a Templar nearby and he continues.
"Is it fair for some to die for a whole nation? Is it fair to sacrifice one for so many? Haven't we sacrificed enough for you all?" Aren't we the monsters, why do we save you again and again? "How can that be fair, to take life from someone who has nothing bar duty and blood."
"Perhaps," she draws herself to all her impressive height, enough to touch his chin, and the remains of her dignity. "Perhaps you should leave now, young man."
See? Fear, they always fear even without a reason to.
"You have nothing to worry about, Mother." And Mother and Lily and Andraste. "I am a mage. I am a mage and you dislike me. Hate me, even. But I save a life today, someone who did something very important. I saved her." Not you. Nor you two or you even. "I saved her. I saved her. I did."
And he smiles and his burden dies, slowly, slowly.
Blood magic damned him, blood magic saved him and the Maker, he knows, that one forgives more than men – or women.
He leaves with a light heart and never returns.