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.
A/N: I notice I'm not getting email notifications again. Another FF bug?
Chapter Seventy-One: Abducted
Three days, and still silence.
The party camped by a stream not too many miles distant from the clear road that would take them back to Denerim and all the worries that awaited certain among them there. Perhaps that was the main reason why Loghain was so quiet, or perhaps it was his experience at the temple of Andraste. The others had no idea what he'd said, or what had been said to him, inside. They'd waited on the mountaintop, warily eying the sun-bleached skeletal remains of the long-dead high dragon, and Loghain had gone to make his confession alone. Even Shale had not ventured to ask many questions after receiving no answer to the first few.
Shale stood silent sentinel on the edge of camp while the others ate an unhurried breakfast. If all went well, they'd be back in Denerim in not more than four days' time, riding leisurely. What he'd do there, Loghain had no clue. If Elilia still would not see him, there was no particular point in being there at all.
"More porridge, Elder?" Merrill asked him, and he shook his head. He kept thinking he heard people moving in the woods, but the horses weren't reacting, and neither were the dogs. Champion would let him know if someone was approaching the camp long before he could ever pick up a sound. He was just nervous. Jumpy.
Champion picked her head up and started barking about five seconds before a flask shattered on the ground not far from her nose. Billowing clouds of smoke rose from the substance inside. Loghain shot to his feet.
"Get clear," he tried to say, but the choking gas robbed him of speech. Coughing and gasping, he fell to his knees in the dirt. Champion lay as if dead. He saw Ser Fenris gagging and struggling to rise, and Varric and Laz were already down. He did not know if the others were clear or if they were being strangled by this fog as well. The lights went out.
A trio of templars emerged from the woods and surveyed their handiwork. "Got 'em all," the first said. "Nice toss, Smithers."
"Get the horses," the second templar said. "They'll fetch a pretty price, and we won't have to carry this baggage all the way home."
The third templar - Smithers - approached the tethered horses cautiously. Bloody Big Horse stamped his huge front hooves and reared.
"Easy. Easy now. Nice horsie," Smithers said. "Carruthers, I don't think I can handle this beast."
"Maker's breath, Smithers. It's a horse. Show it a firm hand and it falls in line," Carruthers, the first templar, said. He walked over and made a grab for Bloody Big Horse's bridle. Bloody Big Horse reared again, and pulled the templar off his feet. Carruthers let go his grip and sprawled in the dirt, and just managed to roll out of the way as the hooves came thundering down. The second templar laughed at him.
"It's a horse, Carruthers," he mocked. "Show it a firm hand and it'll fall in line."
Carruthers rolled to his feet and brushed himself off. "Leave it," he said. "Take the others. Put the dwarves together on one pony so there's a horse to carry the big one."
"What do we do with the dogs?" the second templar asked.
"Leave them."
"Really? Mabari are awfully valuable, and the good Mother might have a use for them."
"They're bonded to these maleficarum. They'd be more trouble than they're worth. Leave them."
Smithers walked cautiously up to Shale and peered into her impassive face. "What do we do with this thing?" he asked.
"See if you can't find its control rod. A golem is always valuable to the Order."
Smithers and the second templar rummaged through the party's belongings. "Found it!" the second templar said, and pulled the control rod out of Loghain's pack.
"Give it here," Carruthers said, and snatched the device out of his hand. He held it up. "Follow," he commanded Shale. Shale did not move.
"Maybe it's been deactivated?" Smithers said.
"Maybe so. Dulen harn," Carruthers attempted. Shale did not move. Carruthers threw down the control rod. "Blast and damnation."
"Must be broken," the second templar said, "or corrupted by blood magic."
"Must be. Leave it, then," Carruthers said, with a sigh. "Bringing back a golem would've meant a promotion, sure as day."
Shale watched, motionless and silent, as the templars tied up their prisoners and loaded them onto the horses and ponies. They led them away, and still she did not move. Bloody Big Horse jerked and strained at his tether. Paragon stirred, and Champion awoke. She gave a startled yelp when she realized her master was gone.
"I expect you are better than I at following trails," Shale said to the dogs. "Lead, beasts. I am most curious to see what lies at the end of this path."
Seanna finished her examination. "You're not eating enough," she said, as severely as she was capable of.
"I'm eating," Elilia said, sheepishly.
"Not enough. You need to eat a lot more, of the right things, to keep yourself and this baby healthy. So far, everything looks just fine. But you need to eat. How's your appetite? What sort of cravings have you had?"
"Not…any, really," Elilia said. "I guess…I guess my appetite isn't very good."
"That's because you're upset and depressed, not because you're not hungry," Seanna said. "Talk to me, please. What is the matter, and why are you so unhappy? You want this child, don't you?"
"I did. I wasn't too sure about my suitability as a mother, but I wanted it."
"Past-tense. You don't want it now? What happened?"
Elilia shook her head. "I want this child. I want a child. A healthy, human child."
Seanna's eyebrows shot into her hairline. "You have some reason to suspect that this child won't be human?"
She shook her head again. "No sane reason."
"Oh? So what about the insane reasons?"
Elilia let out a shuddering breath. "Do you know how the darkspawn are made?" she asked.
"Black City, bad mages, the curse of the Maker, blah-de-blah?" Seanna said. Elilia shook her head.
"No. The real way. The way the blighted bastards are born."
She told, then, the truth that she'd discussed with no one else in her life, not even with those who knew it. Seanna sat in stark horror as she listened to the gruesome details of the process by which broodmothers were created.
"The darkspawn…rape women?" she asked.
"I don't know for certain if it's sexual violation or not," Elilia said. "Seems possible, probable even. Even if it isn't, it's bad enough, is it not? To be taken away from your home and family, dragged into the dark, beaten, fed abominable flesh and bile, and to spend the rest of your days popping out twisted creatures by the hundreds. You know, I read the account of a Legion of the Dead dwarf once, about something they called a Rock Wraith, which is apparently a demon bound to stone and the corpse of a dead dwarf. He said it was a worse horror even than the broodmothers. Ha. Only a man could know how the broodmothers come to be and still write something as abominably stupid as that. Broodmothers are horror's ultimate quantity."
Seanna sat in shocked silence for a few moments, and then shook herself free of the horror and outrage the story awoke in her. "But…Elilia, you're not even Tainted any longer. There's no reason to believe you're turning into one of these monsters. The baby is human. I can vouch for that, my examination shows a perfectly healthy human fetus. I can even tell you the gender, if you want to know. You're…you're just a pregnant woman. The most natural thing in this world. There's no abomination here."
"I know. I know. But part of me…part of me doesn't know. Part of me feels like I'm changing."
"Of course you're changing, Elilia. You're pregnant. The body goes through many changes during this time. Listen, you're one of the strongest-willed people I've ever met. You're the only person on this earth who has the strength to convince yourself of the truth of this. The child is human. It's your perfect, beautiful baby - "
"Don't tell me!" Elilia said, and stuck her fingers in her ears.
" - child," Seanna finished, with a smile. "So you want to be surprised, eh? That seems like a good sign to me. Maybe you're starting to believe."
A slow, reluctant smile split Elilia's lips and one hand stole to her belly. "Yes…yes, maybe I am. I feel as if…I feel as if telling someone, talking about it…as if it took some of the load off of me. Made it more bearable. I'm sorry for dropping it on you, though. At least you've never had to see one."
"Hey, I'm a healer. Part of healing is listening to people's fears. That's also part of friendship. You can tell me anything you need to talk to someone about, Elilia. We're friends."
Elilia reached out and pulled Seanna into a hug. "Thank you, dear. I'm glad I've got friends like you."