Prompt: Atelophobia - fear of imperfection Cailan/Anora
Originally Written: today!
Notes: from a tumblr phobia prompt meme
She could remember a time when she never needed a mirror.
Her father didn't care how she looked; he cared that she grew up strong, and smart, and with a healthy hatred for Orlais. As Cailan grew and proved himself a reckless fool in her father's eyes, he also cared that she grew cautious, and wise, and subtle, for it wouldn't do for a peasant queen to run her royal husband's court in public. We're blessed, her father would say, to live in a country where a peasant may think to be queen, let alone become one. She tried to live up to that blessing. Her father cared for Ferelden; she only cared to see pride reflected in his eyes.
Maric had laughed—and all her memories of the old king were of his laughter, and she heard its echoes in his son—Maric had told her she was a pretty thing, teased her father about his ugly mug with such a golden girl following his footsteps, though the teasing had lessened after her mother's death. Her father had loved her mother, perhaps more than could be said for Maric and his wife; her father had loved the queen enough for them both, Maric said, in a moment of drunken regret she witnessed from the shadows, watching from the wrong side of the threshold as her father said nothing. I hope my child does better by yours, the king said, and her father said, you're drunk, and the king said, she's a beautiful girl.
Cailan hadn't cared when they'd been young and he'd pulled on her braids; he cared for the sting of her slap and the imperious anger in her voice when she told him off. He'd tried to boss his future bride, but she hadn't listened and he held her in awe for it. When he'd finally noticed, somewhere between childhood and what came after, he'd been tongue-tied for weeks, following her but staying just beyond her reach, as if he didn't dare—Cailan, she said impatiently, it's me, and tumbling from his lips came such wordy protestations as formal lovers find between the pages of a book, and she stopped them with a kiss. It's me, she said, and for a time his endless chatter was silent on the subject, until a whirlwind of shock and grief and ceremony and responsibility brought them to their marriage and she found herself curiously alive beneath his touch, and Anora, he said, laying her in their royal bed, resting his head beside hers, pressing his lips to her ear, you're perfect.
She never needed a mirror. Her servants knew how her appearance ought to look; she saw all she needed in her husband's eyes.
And then years went by and a country needed ruling and there was work to be done, the old king's spirit haunting the shadow of his son's steps as she tried to help him navigate the peaks and valleys of the crown, as he tried to make her smile in the doing of it. And they would laugh together, but years went by and the work was hard and no child joined their mirth, and one morning the queen caught herself looking in a glass on the wall, for she could not remember the last time she'd seen her king's approval. He still laughed as he drank deeply from his cups, but with a bitterness his father never had; she sipped at her wine and stubbornly avoided her father's sad eyes. Her king loved her—and that she never doubted—and yet his eye wandered and his restless hands roamed, seeking glory or—something, but though she tried she could not discover what it might be.
On the eve of the battle of Ostagar she sat before the rarely-used mirror in her bedchamber and wondered; her features were the same, flawless, though she'd never needed them before; the deft touch of her intelligence, the weight of her judgment were routinely praised or hated, but always respected. She'd grown up as her father had hoped; she'd married as the king had desired; she'd ruled as herself, and yet her husband was gone beyond her reach.
The queen of Ferelden studied herself in a mirror and wondered, for the first time, if perhaps she simply wasn't enough.