Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Age or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other fans like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

Rating: T+

Spoilers: May contain spoilers for Origins, Awakening, Origins DL content, and Dragon Age II as well as the novels The Stolen Throne and The Calling.

Chapter Sixty-Six: And Then Everything Went Pear-Shaped

Eighth day: she grew as in her mouth they spew.

Even as she retched and vomited, Elilia heard Hespith's wretched rhyme again. She curled up in a ball on the snowy ground and trembled with reaction, both to the hot blood-bile she'd swallowed and the dread of memory. There was but one fate Elilia Cousland feared, and that was the fate of the Broodmother.

"Elilia, darling, I'm sorry, I couldn't help it," Loghain groaned out through his own discomfort. The blood was fire in his veins and though he'd vomited twice more he could not rid himself of it entirely. Worse, in his head rang the sound of derisive laughter. The dragon wasn't finished with him yet.

You think you have won, Little Hero? I shall teach you differently.

The dragon's great jaws opened wide and everyone who was able scrambled away. But it was only a reflex action: the dragon's final breath came out in a guttural death rattle and the massive body relinquished its tenacious grip on life. But that final breath was powerful, and tore the Veil asunder. Demons poured through the rip and set upon the soldiers, who rallied to this new threat with well-trained ease.

Inside Loghain, however, another battle was raging. He felt the dragon's presence, powerful, overwhelming, trying to take over his body and mind. He fought back, but what chance did he truly stand against something so immense and incorporeal?

Great wing beats heralded the arrival of another dragon. Even before its rear legs touched the ground it was changing, and in a moment it was gone, replaced by a tall, stately, warrior woman of elder years. She ignored the demons and dropped to one knee beside Loghain. With her hands on his shoulders, she spoke low in his ear.

"Fight. It's not as big as it seems. All that is attacking you now is that small piece of the dragon you ingested when you swallowed its blood, not the whole. If it succeeds it will rise again in you, just as the Archdemon would rise if it found a darkspawn host, just as it would have done had it found a proper dragon host. A draw would result in your death and the destruction of that last living piece of the dragon, but you can do better than that, I think. Fight, Warrior, and master the dragon."

She stood. "Now, I must see to the Veil before the tear becomes more than even my magic can handle."

She raised her hands, and a purple glow suffused them, which spread to her entire body. Loghain fought the creature battling for dominance of his soul, the army fought the demons, Flemeth fought the rip in the Veil, and Elilia battled her own personal demons. Some victories were less certain than others.

When Flemeth had repaired the Veil no more demons could cross over, and Maric's Shield finally took down the last flaming Rage demon. Loghain still lay prostrate upon the ground, hands covering his head, while an epic battle for control raged within him.

"Leave him be," Flemeth commanded when Cauthrien would have gone to him. "This is a war he must win on his own."

You cannot defeat me, Little Hero. I am greater than you can imagine.

Then we both die here today. You'll not get your way today, Beast.

It was a test of will against will, and if there was one thing Loghain had in spades it was will - a will so great that demons could not overpower him and mages accused him of being apostate because of it. The witch said he could win this fight? He believed her.

The witch is a fool, and you as well for listening to her. She only wishes to use you to amuse herself in her perpetual boredom. She does not care whether you live or die, only that your struggles are enjoyable to watch. She will watch you writhe like a beetle on a pin and she will cackle.

Don't give a damn what amuses her. If she finds it funny, more power to her: you end today, regardless.

The pain was excruciating, but what was pain to a man who'd built his very life upon it? Fire and claws tore at his heart, his body, his mind. He would gain some ground - he could feel the beast retreat inside of him - and just as suddenly he would be pushed back again himself. He began to fear that he would lose, not just his life but his soul. He understood now the purpose of the Grey Warden in a way he never had previously, better perhaps than they understood themselves. Grey Wardens had fighting spirits and strong souls, else they would have perished in the Joining. They had the will to resist not only the killing power of the Taint but the immense power of whatever small piece of the Archdemon they took into themselves when they drank the blood of its felled sibling in that first ritual That blood called to the fallen Archdemon to rejoin and be whole again within it. Because they could resist that joining in a way the darkspawn could not they stopped the rebirth, but died in the process, too weak to master it completely. Loghain was suffering the same fate now.

And then another thought struck him. A very simple thought, one single name, actually. Elilia. One name that summed up everything he had to live for. The upwelling of heart that occurred when he thought of her was not in the least voluntary and not in the least something the dragon's blood could defend itself against. Like a sandcastle beneath a tsunami, its last defenses were washed away. It was not gone, but it was changed. Mastered.

Loghain was whole, but wholly what? He certainly didn't feel as he had.

"You are more than you have been," Flemeth said, as if in answer to his unspoken question, "and less than you may become. It will be interesting to watch as you learn what lies in store for you."

He had no time for the witch's riddles or amusement. With what strength remained to him, he stripped off his greaves and crawled to the river's edge. When he plunged into the icy water, steam rose off of it. The cool was refreshing compared to the burn of his blood. When, after a very long interval, he finally pulled himself back out of the water, he found Seanna at Elilia's side and his wife still curled up on the ground, moaning.

"Is she going to be all right?" he said, in a voice hoarse and strange to his own ears.

"She's not badly hurt," Seanna said. "I can't seem to reach her, though. It's like she's trapped in a nightmare."

"She might be." The Veil was sundered, after all: it was possible his wife's mind was trapped in the Fade, locked in a spirit's torture chamber. He reached for her and touched her shoulders. No more than that, and she jerked away from him like there was a shock of lightning between them.

"Get away from me!" she screamed, and his heart sank into the pit of his gut. Obediently he withdrew himself to a safe distance and watched as Seanna carefully worked her magical healing on Elilia. He did not - quite - understand what was happening, but he knew the source. He had vomited directly into her mouth, and she had swallowed some of it. Quite apart from the fact that she was probably feeling at least slightly the way he felt right now, there was something sinister connected with vomit and the darkspawn and the monstrosities known as Broodmothers, something he wasn't fully apprized of. Elilia knew but would not speak of it much. He had gathered from what little she did say that it was traumatic, to say the least.

He wasn't a darkspawn. Wasn't even Tainted any longer. Hopefully she would calm down once she remembered that. Once the taste in her mouth faded and the burn in her blood became a bad memory.

Another mage came up to him and began to work spells upon him. Until the moment they suddenly cleared, he had not even noticed the dull pain in his ears. "Burst your ear drums," the mage said, more to himself than his patient. "I bet that feels better, doesn't it?" Sounded better, too. The dragon's voice and the witch's, too, were all or mostly inside his head and were as clear as ever, but once the sounds of soldiers and the world came back to clarity he recognized how muffled they'd been. He'd probably come within a hair's breadth of losing his hearing altogether.

Cauthrien gave him back his sword. "Well done, Ser," she said, with a grin. "Another one for the history books."

"And have it recorded for all time that I was a dragon's lunch? I'd sooner the fewer who knew of this the better."

Cauthrien merely smiled and did not state the obvious fact that there was no stopping such a story from spreading. By the time they made it back to Denerim it would probably already have made it there ahead of them, such was the speed of a good yarn. Varric would be sorry he missed out.

It was a long, cold march back to Denerim. The victory had cost less than he'd feared - only half a dozen soldiers perished, and all of them in the dragon's initial assault - but Elilia still would not speak to nor look at him. Loghain marched at the head of the column, she straggled along in the rear, attended to by Seanna. Perhaps she was still feeling the effects of the blood she'd swallowed. Loghain certainly was. His eyes, particularly, burned white-hot behind his often-closed lids, and even the habitually overcast early spring days were too bright. Finally, in camp for the night, he could stand it no longer and sent for a mage.

"Your pupils are badly dilated," she said, "which explains why its been too bright for you. Let me see what I can do about that." Blue magic glowed from her fingers, bright but almost instantly soothing.

"That should be better…oh my."

"What?" It was not pleasant when a healer mage made that "whoops" face.

"Your pupils, they…they…"

"Spit it out, Woman."

"Were they always like that?"

"Always like what?"

"Do you have a shaving mirror, Ser? I think you should see this for yourself."

No, he did not own a shaving mirror. He sighed and irritably shouted for Cauthrien. The Bann ducked into the tent, looked up, and stopped short. "Dear Maker, Ser, your eyes!"

"Do you have a mirror I could have the loan of?" Loghain asked, through gritted teeth. She reached into the map pocket of her belt with trembling hands and withdrew the small shaving mirror she used to ensure the tail of her hair was always neat and tidy. She passed it over without another word.

The color of the eyes that stared back at him from his reflection was the same pale grayish blue as always. His pupils, however, were now slit up and down like a cat's…

…or a dragon's.