Chapter 24
The final piece to the puzzle.
Well, this is my last Hawke dream and then I will be concluding act one!
The lullaby belongs to Billy Joel, and even though it's depressing I think it's rather sweet. It's called Goodnight my angel, also the fairy song is from Shakespeare a midsummer's night dream, Jabbawocky of course belongs to Lewis Carrol, from his book through the looking glass and Emily Dickinson's poem, he fumbles at your spirit. The last poem is of course an old favourite of mine, it's orange and lemons. I do not own any of these! This chapter is a bit mad... but you do not have to read these chapters, Hawke gives a brief explanation later on!
I want to thank you guys for your reviews/follows/favourites, please if you have anything you would like to see or any suggestions feel free to message me! I will reply as soon as I can.
I'm currently playing through Inquisition, but I have been giving up what little free time I have to write this and will continue to write it until it's complete!
Thank you guys so much, and of course a huge thank you for my beta enchantm3nt! You're so ace!
X
Goodnight, my angel
Now it's time to sleep
And still so many things I want to say
Remember all the songs you sang for me
When we went sailing on an emerald bay
And like a boat out on the ocean
I'm rocking you to sleep
The water's dark
And deep inside this ancient heart
You'll always be a part of me
Goodnight, my angel
Now it's time to dream
And dream how wonderful your life will be
Someday your child may cry
And if you sing this lullaby
Then in your heart
There will always be a part of me
My mother's voice hums in the darkest corners of my mind, and even though I know what dreadful things will occur, I feel somehow at peace. The lullaby makes my entire body numb and I try to fight back the sad tears that roll off my face like droplets of morning dew. The smallest mercy of my mother's voice lulling me to my final sleep restores some faith I had.
I am tied, my arms and legs stretched into a ready spider's web, I am merely waiting for the flies to come. The madmen are shuffling, whispering and clanking glass together I can feel their stares like pricks of a needle on my naked flesh.
I had not heard of such magic, not even in theory until he told me. I doubt even father knew, or maybe he did but knew how revolting the irony was. Would their pilgrimage be a success? Would I hunt down my own sister? My own little sister, bursting with pride as she made fire dance around her fingertips, would I kill her with my own magic, so much more aged then her own?
"Eric, I would exercise caution here, hold the magic within the borders discussed, Alix you will manage your mages and make sure that the processes are acute; this moment has taken thirteen years of my valued time and effort and I cannot afford another failure, our cause is clearer than it has ever been," a voice drones from the room, and I can hear more shuffling but I relinquish all ties and holds I have of this world; Thedas is gone.
You spotted snakes with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong,
Come not near our fairy Queen.
Father's voice booms, reciting the old poems we translated from the Dalish; it drowns out the whirring of mechanisms and the clanks of potions meeting mouths. The words reverberate into my skull and I keep my eyes tight and closed.
I'm sorry, mother, for the time I set fire to Bethany's new dress that took you weeks to make. I'm sorry for the cruel things I said when Tamlen offered to take me away. I'm sorry I set fire to our neighbours shed when his son teased Carver. I'm sorry for not saving Father in time. I'm sorry for everything.
Weaving spiders, come not here;
Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence.
Beetles black, approach not near;
Worm nor snail do no offence.
The poetry falters, the lullabies ebb away. And the silence is deafening, my breath the only thing I can hear. They are poised, quiet and ready like predators watching their prey with a ready mind.
"Then let us begin," a conclusion I had already come to terms with long ago.
A tsunami of magic whirrs around the room, it hits with no warning, crashing in violent waves, with small pricks on my hands and the noise is deafening. Incantations are muttered, bottles are clanking and I hear the bubble of something molten from a far distance. Small pricks turn into stabs and stabs turn into bludgeoning, hammering, forcing it's will into my bones, shattering each joint in its wake.
Images, flashes, knowledge billowing into my head repeating one after the other again and again, my head's too full, it's getting crammed, stuffed and pushed until I scream because there surely can't be any space left.
A woman with a staff, throwing it out right and then onto the ground, a small incantation summoning a wave of flames, burning those who stand in her way, a man raising his staff to the sky, flipping it to the ground as he mutters his words, and the rain falls to his power.
It's itchy, it's all so itchy. I want to scratch through my flesh and rip out my muscle and cave my own skull in with my bare hands. It is too hot, my mind is far too hot, I let out a scream of my frustration, my skull feels like each incantation is being scribed onto it, they keep flashing in me, a hundred times they've flashed and I know each one off by heart as if I've burned it to my very soul.
A Dalish Pariah, standing in the clearing, her attackers come closer and she stamps her staff onto the ground, muttering as she does so. Eight stamps later and the rock jumps out of the ground as if she was a beacon, shielding her from harm. The arrows bounce off her with ease. A witch of the wilds, fleeing her pursuers, she flips her staff and whispers, a bright light and the woman is no more, a bear where she had stood.
I struggle, writhing and itching and it burns. I cry out for mother and for father, the need to scratch and rip and tear at my own skin erupting in my mind like a volcano.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
Father's voice booms, but it does not belong to father. I can feel its need, its desire. Tis beckoning me forward like a beacon the demon with his voice. It lures and hopes that I will give in to its lullabies, caressing and me speaking to me as if were my own father.
The Dalish, the Templars, the silence, the smite the never ending divide. The Fade and the spirits and the demons and the darkspawn and the taint, a young woman with wicked yellow eyes flashing sharp fangs as she hits her staff, a dragon rising in the sky as it is lit with fire. Pride, desire, envy, despair, fear and hunger ravaging the mortal plains, living in husks and burning down the towns as abominations. The Chantry and the Tranquil, the glowing lights of the Circles, the Harrowing and the demons and the slaughter and the just and the needed and the ice, the ice that freezes and stops everything in its wake. She looks upon her captors with a knowing glare and her staff strokes the floor and summons so much ice. A woman stabbed by a sword, a man in robes with a blue light emitting from his hands moving them up and down the wound and knitting the flesh together, the warrior will live another day.
It hurts so much, I cannot take it anymore.
He fumbles at your spirit
As players at the keys
Before they drop full music on;
He stuns you by degrees,
Prepares your brittle substance
For the ethereal blow,
By fainter hammers, further heard,
Then nearer, then so slow.
My breathing hitches and I ache for it to stop, for an end. My mind burns and blazes the knowledge they force upon me is too much for anyone to know. I can feel it burning in my veins and my bones; I can feel the fire twitch in my fingers as they struggle to scratch the itching in my brain. There isn't enough room, my mind is far too small and so old memories die out like an ending candle, long gone are days of summer.
I try to remember, I hold on to them. Mother and father and the lullabies, my brother and my sister, yet I can't remember their names, their faces are ebbing away until there is nothing left but four grins, I hold onto the grins, I try to hold them tight. My skull cracks, it is too much.
I cannot bring myself to open my eyes anymore, Aria Hawke is dying and I have failed her. I feel heat, molten and the harsh breath of whoever is coming close to me. Heat sieges and burns as the hot metal makes contact with my skin. I scream out, and the torture goes on once more.
Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!
The dominoes fall one by one, crashing inside my mind. It hurts to think, to breathe or to move. The restraints tighten at my struggles until I become rigid. My heart is pounding loudly, a dramatic percussion to build up to the ending note that is death.
"Healing! She requires healing!" someone shouts.
Time has no footing here, its usual linear lines become obtuse and upside down. I can feel their advances, the cleansing aura and the flickers of blue invading my closed eyelids.
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire!
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere.
The itching and the burning saturates into every follicle of my hair and I want to rag it out as the magic does its work to save me so their ill intentions can be completed.
A cymbal crashes, a dramatic finish and my heart finishes its melody and the darkness drags me down, my body going limp in applause.
Chip chop Chip chop the last man is dead.
Light pours through my eyelids and into my very soul, and the pain subsides for a moment. I do not open my eyes; they are too hard to open. A familiar voice speaks, and I feel as if it is déjà vu, this voice speaks with no ill intentions of that of a demon.
"And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back."
I open my eyes and I see the familiar splay of stubble and eyes of bright green, before I can say anything my eyes bolt shut and something drags me back, drags me back to where I came.
The room is dingy and the voices erupting are loud and full of panic, the healing magic is bubbling, coursing onto my skin, tickling at the itches. A realisation hits me quite suddenly, an epiphany whilst the mad men panic; I open my eyes.
There are scores of them, jumping around each other like skittish animals. An old voice barks orders in the shadows and dwarves stir a molten pot, the mages pour their depleting mana into my body, healing it to the best of their skills. The itching stops in their panic, they think I am dead and gone, the restraints looser than they have been since it started. I know this could be my chance.
This shall end, be in it blood or fire.
She holds the fire in her hands and it entwines in her fingers, she giggles feverish and looks up at me with a smile full of pride.
The fire burns and hurts my already sore skin, but it cuts the bindings of my hands with ease, the small flames race down and make quick work of my feet and I fall to the floor, silencing the shouting with a large thud.
I force myself to stand up, to look at the mad men who stare at me with shocked eyes and I can see it in their faces that they mean to restrain me and begin their wicked games again.
No more.
The woman grips her staff, throwing it out right and then onto the ground, a small incantation summoning a wave of flames, burning those who stand in her way.
I do not have a staff though I know it is possible without one, I copy the movements plastered in my mind and the fire rages into a tall tower that I command forward. It flashes forward and takes the mages with one hiss, they scream and panic and run around like chickens who have been beheaded, but the fire does not relent, it does not stop and I do not want it to. It follows and seeks, it finds those who try to run and it condemns them to its flame.
The itching starts to burn, but I push past it. The voice, the voice that woke me up with its poetry I know that voice and it wants me to get out of here, I just know that it does.
Templars, shields ready and the lyrium that dances in their muscle tissue excitedly, they are ready to silence and smite.
I stamp my foot, repeating the movements that have been replayed in mind and the ground quakes, throwing them off balance and onto the floor, their shields cannot protect them from the anger of the ground, they try to get up but each quake knocks them back.
Pride, desire, envy, despair, fear and hunger, they ravage the mortal plains.
I can taste blood magic as it oozes across the quakes but it cannot touch me, the call of a demon will never aid me. I spit the magic out, I repel it with my own burning aura.
He steps out of the shadows, his eyes of molten steel; warm and cold.
These are not just men; these are mad men who do not deserve the pity of me, or the Maker or the Chantry or whatever creature lives or breathes. The falling Templars become ice, and I shatter them with a flick of a hand, it is nothing to me now. How ironic that their own cause will be their own undoing, their own creation rebelling against them in such a way to murder them.
Carver, Bethany, Mother, Father… Spike the mabari, panting in the summer's breeze as we take a picnic on one of the fields.
It creeps back on me, but I push it away, fighting it so I may end this once and for all.
The dwarves who stirred their molten brew so eagerly become its first victims, the quake sends the stirring cauldron flying and the dwarves burn at its touch, skin melting into muscle and muscle burning into burns until they become nothing more than a melting pile of screams. Redemption is a lost cause, for they did not seek redemption upon the crimes they have committed to me.
The three remaining Templars try to drain my power, but they are weak and tired whereas I am healed and strong. Two of them seem to realise that is nought but a lost cause, and flee the scene, a sickly face looking at me for a moment before exiting the room quickly, crying for reinforcements.
The older man with the steel eyes looks at me in terror and disappointment, a tear streaming down his eye. I know him now, I remember him.
Derek.
I run towards him with vicious intent; he was the creator of this pilgrimage. So many have died tonight for his cause and his belief and his need. He will be trialled by my hand; I will be the judge and the jury.
I am met with a force of collision, the other Templar defending his master to the end, a shield bashes me and knocks me back; I fall to the floor and I feel my ribs crack in protest. He stands, towering over me, the younger Templar with his sword drawn and a look of pure pleasure scribed on his face.
I remember him; he defiled my body with the others. He threw me to the floor once he was spent. The sword looms over my face and before it can meet its target, I roll onto my left, the clang of metal meeting what was once quaking stone a relief that I am not dead yet.
I grab one of the fallen Templars swords, and without a moment of hesitation I thrust it into the gap of his codpiece, stabbing him in the groin. He keels over and whines like a wounded dog, but I do not pity him for a second, in fact I pull the sword out and stab it into his face with a force I had not thought possible.
I turn to my creator, the man who so much wanted a better way, a curable option for the plague that are apostates. He looks at the world and those who were born of magic as a sin, a parasite yet he welcomes it with open arms for his cause. Magic made me. I walk towards him and his eyes are worried, scared and panicked yet he does not run. He stands amongst the burning room, his eyes glowing in the fire and drinks in the sight of me. I have forgotten I was naked, long past the dignity that is the norm.
I see my reflection in his eyes, my face thin and drawn and my hair blood stains in its glittering ivory, burnt around the edges and knotted all over, naked and stood looking at him like a predator. Much like they had looked at me one time.
"You would have been so beautiful, Aria," he whimpers like a forlorn artist, who mixed the wrong paint on his canvas.
"I thought I was a subject designed from your warped ideas?" I ask, my voice is broken and thick, yet I know it's mine.
"I am sorry," he says and for a moment I wonder if his apologies are genuine, or merely the act of a cornered animal.
My doubt causes my failure, and his dagger flies quickly, hitting my upper thigh with ease. I howl in pain and look at him with feral determination. He will not have the final laugh, this will not be my ending tune, I will have my encore before this day is through. I grab the dagger, pulling it out quickly and it burns, hot blood leaks down my leg and dances down to my toes.
I run towards him, the pain pushed in the back of my mind as the adrenaline rush takes hold; I knock him backwards with what little strength I have and he staggers, not able to stop the dagger from reaching him.
"Fuck you," I hiss blasphemous words at him, knowing they will be the last that he hears. How will his Maker judge him, when he has been tainted by my words?
The fire crackles on, the corpses are piled and dotted around the room, scores of the dead and yet the fire is still famished, it creeps up the walls and burns the beams, I stand in the middle of the burning building as it falls, stone crashing to the floor as the fire ravages its supporting beams.
I am thankful for the end, and I pray that it comes quick, I was the noose for mad men, but I face my own tribunal in the afterlife, for I am tainted by the desires of wicked men.
The walls shatter and my eyes close.
…
Beams of light shine bright into the wreckage where I have been laid for what seems like ages, and I open my eyes to see the light of the morning peering through the trees. I am outside now; it seems that the prison in which I was held in has been torn down overnight, my lack of control burning the place down brick by tainted brick. Everything that was in there perished, apart from me it seems. Sunlight is one of the greatest things to ever grace this world to me right now, and I move the bricks and debris that cover me, thankfully I am not impaled or damaged to the point of no repair. It is difficult to stand as my leg is incredibly sore, the debris of the wreckage has broken my ankle, I've been hit in the head with something also; I can feel the dampness of fresh blood.
Shouts emit from the woods, and I hear the clink of familiar armour approaching the burned down house, my stomach dropping in panic. I limp as fast as my naked body is able to move and hide behind the nearest trees, praying the foliage will protect me from whoever comes. The land smells familiar, of woodland flowers and moss, elfroot and embrium.
I hide behind the tree and watch for the ones who approach, already knowing who the shouts belong to before they even come close.
The two Templars that fled appear, Eric and Alrik; the ones who raped me and passed me around like I was a bottle of wine amongst friends. My breathing hitches with anticipation as the two heavily armoured men inspect the scene, looking for survivors or maybe even tomes on the experiment they had attempted. A small voice concludes that they are probably looking for me but I quell it as I attempt to steady my breathing.
It gives me some relief to see the two men are in no fit state to fight, they are covered in bruises and burns, Eric not even able to hold his shield properly.
"They're all fucking dead, all of them!" Alrik cries into the wilderness, tossing his shield and sword to the ground in his despair.
"What of her?" Eric asks, scanning the trees close by, our eyes meet and my body freezes in shock. He stares at me for a moment, considering his options it seems.
Feral growls erupt from behind me and I swivel my head round to be greeted by a pack of wolves, yet their animosity is not for me, it is for the Templars that threaten me. I feel their souls, they echo in the woods like a breeze. They are here to protect me, as if I am one of their own.
He looks at the wolves and then back at me, the first Templar I met, the first one to defile me. The memories are coming back; everything is coming back. Instead of alerting his comrade and engaging me and the wolves in battle, he smiles.
He smiles just like he did that day we met.
"We will meet again." He mouths the words slowly, savouring every syllable.
The wolves snap their jaws and growl as if they too understand his words, and I watch the two Templars leave as the wolves surround me, licking my wounds and picking debris from my hair. I do not question them, for I am too thankful for their existence.
A small part of my being wants to pursue the men, to conclude the episode that happened here; I fear that I will regret letting them depart later on.
I look at the wolves and stroke the soft grass with my bruised and damaged toes, freedom feels good it is strange that before I took it as a novelty. And yet I feel tainted, cursed and broken. What do I do now? The magic that swells in my body and my mind is too difficult to control, they knew that and I do not have the strength to be a mage any longer.
Magic has cursed me to this predicament.
My soul is long gone, dragged down by the mad men as they burnt and fell into the pits of hell. I fear I cannot rebuild what they have destroyed.
I sigh as the wolves lay around me to keep my freezing body warm, the breeze caresses my face and I realise that today is a good day to at least be alive.
Chip chop Chip chop the last madman is out for your head.