Prompt: Puppy Love, this time for dao_challenge
Originally Written: 10/9/10
Notes: When I first saw this prompt, what popped into my head was the fic that later became "Domestication" (Morrigan/Loghain, it's on my author page). This fic is a bit of a prelude to that one-same universe, similar themes-but that's not important for the reading of it.
eta: spent more like 30 minutes on this, oops. It began as two separate drabbles, then changed its mind. :-)
Morrigan has spent hours as a wolf, stalking the Wilds in the powerful form, learning to discern scents on the breeze and to watch for the slightest signs of movement, to rely on brute strength and speed rather than intellect and agility. She values the wolf form, so much so that she refuses to share it with the Warden. She knows the Warden thinks she is being bull-headed in this, when in fact she is merely falling back to wolfish pride; the Warden, though a strong, independent woman, is too domesticated. She wastes her assistance on the weak, better left for dead, and meekly submits to both the fools of her Circle and the idiot in charge of an arbitrary tract of land who demands that she lose the man she loves for the sake of a dying country.
It is this love that bothers Morrigan the most. The Arl does at least have an army at his command, and in her weaker moments she glimpses similarity between the Circle's control of its mages and a mother's control of a daughter. But this love -- if it truly qualifies - is inexcusable, and the way it turns the Warden into a dribbling stumbling fool boils Morrigan's blood. The bastard's behavior is, if anything, worse; at least the Warden has some sense of self-control, has learned obedience from her trials. Her lover is a man who must be broken in order to learn restraint, and yet she continues to coddle him, and Morrigan would happily consign them both to a happy destruction if it were not for the thin rope leashing her fate to the Warden's.
And so she pointedly sits outside their tent at night, and glares at them when they emerge, sleepy and love-tousled and grinning like the idiots they are. She takes charge of reminding the Warden of their current obligations - not in the least because it is the only way to ensure the Warden hears her opinion of their side quests - and shouts when she's ferreted out the emissaries in whatever group of darkspawn happens to be attacking. She asks the Warden to spar, both to take her away from the bastard and also to practice her own skills; privately, she enjoys the exhilaration that comes from facing a truly talented foe, each armed with nothing more than raw power honed by skill.
One day she is halfway through a rant about the uselessness of chasing nugs through the streets of the Orzammar Commons when the Warden turns to her and says, "Morrigan, I have something for you."
She stops, surprised. The others are scattered throughout the shops - Leliana is attempting to adopt her own nug, while the idiot is currently drooling over dwarven figurines - and the Warden clearly means for this to be a private conversation, despite the sea of dwarves swarming around their elbows. Caring little for their size, and ignoring her own discomfort with crowds, she crosses her arms and says, "Yes?"
The Warden wordlessly hands her a necklace, strands upon strands of pure gold pouring through her fingers. Morrigan watches the shifting glints of light as she studies the intricate links now separate, now twisting into a rope, treasuring more the sensation of metal in her hands as its cool temperature warms to her fingertips, forgotten yet familiar. When she looks up the Warden is watching her closely, and she does not know what to say. No one, save her mother, has ever noticed her love of finery, and her mother never bothered to -
'Tis foolishness to dwell on such things. "'Tis lovely," she says, a far too obvious fact to be worth voicing.
"Put it on," the Warden says, her voice encouraging, and so Morrigan does, slipping it over the wooden necklace she wears at all times, toying with it as it falls against her skin. The Warden puts her hands together, her eyes delighted, and says, "You look lovely."
She cannot open her mouth without something to say, but the words that escape from her lips are new: "Thank you," she says, "so much."
The Warden smiles, and for a moment the sun shines underground. She says, "I wanted to thank you, for being my friend," and Morrigan feels the tug of a gold thread between them and follows, silent yet pleased, in her footsteps.