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 Seventy: Heartsick

It was cold, and dark, and it smelled of damp stone and moss. She lay in the blackness feeling her body change, bloating, swelling, altering. Soon, she knew, she would birth the first of her monstrosities. Before that could happen, hopefully, the madness that grew in her mind would eclipse all conscious thought, a blissful oblivion of self. She did not want to think any longer, she did not want to exist. If she still had the wherewithal to do so she would end herself before she could unleash her horrors upon the world.

Her chest hurt as two extra rows of mammary glands grew in, the better to suckle her twisted, atrocious spawn. Her belly swelled, grew, rooted to the earth as her legs became the first of grasping tentacles mired in the meat soup of the tainted earth. Her screams echoed as the cries of a monster in the Deep Roads.

Elilia awoke herself by jerking her body so hard she fell out of bed. She scrambled to the wash basin on all fours, splashed her face, and then leaned her forehead against the cool marble rim. Perhaps these dreams would not come so often if she had Loghain's strong arms about her at night. She missed him, but she could not look at him, not now, not with her shame. When she'd conquered this enemy, this irrational fear, then she would beg his forgiveness and ask him to take her back. She hoped he would be able to understand. She hoped someday that she would understand, too.

One hand moved as if on its own to her belly. She was, she fancied, starting to bubble out there a bit. I should have just told him, she thought. I should have told him he was right. He said that this might be too hard on me, and it is. It is.

There were things she could do, potions she could drink, that would sweep this problem out of her life in an instant, but though the idea had some attraction she was honor-bound to have this child. She had to learn to cope, to forget the horrors of the past. Once the child - the perfectly normal, human child - was born, things would be easier. When that day came she would see that her fears were groundless. She was not bearing tainted, twisted spawn. She bore a child with the blood of heroes, and boundless potential. It would be her son, or her daughter, and she would love it with a fierce, prideful love.

By the time Loghain returned she would have the problem under control. That was non-negotiable. He could never know how she struggled with her own mind, how part of her wanted to kill the child they had created, and all because she feared she would become the horror she had witnessed in the Deep Roads. She'd bought herself a little more time, hopefully, by sending him to Honnleath on a wild golem chase. And if he actually returned with a golem? How much fun would that be! Of course she knew, as he did not, the secret of golem construction. That lessened the potential fun more than somewhat.

Just please, Maker, let him forgive me for this. Don't make me lose the one man who could ever truly understand me.

"Is it thinking of jumping in?"

Shale's voice startled him so badly he nearly fell in. Loghain stood up and turned around, putting his back to the broad, swift-moving river. "Of course not."

"Hmm. Well, it certainly looked poised for a swim. I wouldn't recommend it, myself. Why is it not sleeping, like its squishy friends?"

Loghain glanced at the quiet campsite. Champion lay in front of his tent, legs moving restlessly as she chased dream-rabbits. "It doesn't sleep all that often, Shale."

"Well, perhaps it is more golem-like than I had first thought. Perhaps it will indulge me with a conversation, if it does not require sleep?"

He jerked his head in the direction of the road out of camp. "What do you want to talk about, Shale?" he asked, as he and the golem walked out of earshot of the sleepers.

"Purpose. What is its purpose, if I might ask? Where is it going?"

"There's a temple, on a mountain, not too far to the north and west of here," he said. "I took something from that temple that I probably shouldn't have. It's been a great blessing, but I think I need to put it back where I found it and ask the Maker's forgiveness."

"This thing it took has been useful, yes?" Shale asked.

"Infinitely."

"Has anyone accused it of theft? Is someone making it put this thing back where it found it?"

"No."

"Is it mad or merely stupid?" Shale asked. Loghain sighed.

"I didn't expect you'd understand, Shale, but it's something I need to do."

"Squishy creatures do have such unfathomable motivations. It has come far from its home, yes? All just to appease someone who evidently does not require appeasement. This Maker is your god, I take it?"

"Yes, the Maker is my god."

"Squishy creatures and their gods," Shale said, and snorted.

"My wife doesn't much believe in gods, either," Loghain said. "I'm sure she thinks me as mad as you do for making this trip, not that she cares for much of anything except to have me out of the way right now."

"It has a wife? Marvelous. And I suppose it has progeny, as well?" Shale said, in her sarcastic voice.

"I have a daughter. A grown daughter, not of my current wife. We have not had children of our own yet."

"Its current wife? It had a wife previously?"

"Yes, long ago. She passed away."

"Was it the one with the sword? She wasn't particularly squishy."

"No. She married the yellow-haired one."

"Oh? Because I have vague memories of it mooning after her in the way squishy creatures do."

"I loved her, yes. But she married Maric."

"Oo, so resentful it sounded. It then married some other poor, squishy female, and made her life miserable until the end with its swooning over another's wife?"

"No. I put my love for Rowan aside and loved my wife. Can't say I didn't make her miserable, but it would just be by being the miserable bastard that I am. Whether she was happy or not she died, and now I've proceeded to make another woman miserable."

"And now its current wife wishes nothing further to do with it? She does sound a sensible creature. I should very much like to meet her."

"She would like that, too, I should think. She's the one that sent me to find you."

"Oh ho! A woman with a plan! I like her already."

"I hope she allows me to make the introduction, one day."

"It wants back into the bosom of its wife's…er…bosoms?" Shale asked.

"Very much so."

"Then should it not be now at home, making every effort to put itself back in that position?"

"It is giving its wife the space she needs in hopes that absence makes the heart grow fonder."

"Ha! I should think rather more forgetful. But it shall do as it pleases."

"Yes. That is the major benefit of freedom, as you are no doubt discovering."