Special thanks to the readers and Bioware!

The idea of being a part of a family was strangely hard to get used to. Mother had almost crushed me in a hug after she saw the true reason for my silence and I had felt oddly light as her fingers had run through my hair, assuring me that she would never love me less no matter what. She and my brothers had sworn to be there for me whenever I would need them and I was given the authority to decide when it was time to reconnect. A Saarebas wasn't pitied but mocked and wouldn't be allowed to take the initiative in anything. It was going to take a while for me to understand that being treated as a human was nothing spectacular anymore.

I felt a bit guilty for sleeping so restlessly during the first night at home. Over the years, I had developed a slight fear of having someone watch me all the time. Both of my brothers had read my thoughts and given up the whole room to provide me privacy. All the words I had saved for my family had been silenced forever and I kept rolling on Roghart's bed, trying to figure out a better way to communicate than writing, nodding or shaking my head. With the qunari, it hadn't been an issue because they were known for their reluctance to have long discussions.

I also couldn't stop thinking about all the people I owed an explanation. Jethann had friends in the underground who had kept him informed of my well-being and I could only imagine his reaction when he had likely been told of my disappearance. Leaving without a message had become a bad habit for me.

My eyes refused to stay closed and I was too eager to see my mother again to let my tired body lie in the bed. As the first rays of the morning sun peeked through the gap below the door, I walked into the living room and spotted Roghart who had just woken up as he was still yawning next to the fireplace, sitting in an armchair and covered in a thick blanket. He rubbed his temple, clearly suffering from a headache due to sleeping in such an uncomfortable spot. He had insisted that I should take his bed and as I watched him groaning and cursing his aching back, I felt embarrassed for not sleeping well.

Mother emerged from the other room with a delicious looking wheel of cheese and saw me standing at the doorway. "Good morning, my sweet," she smiled kindly and her eyes moved at Roghart. "She must be cold, so get up already and rekindle the fire before we start breakfast."

"Just a minute, mother," Roghart grunted, stretching his arms. "I think I'll slump on the floor like a wet rag if I force my body too much."

"Nonsense. Wrap the blanket around your sister and help her sit down."

I would have liked to say that it was quite warm actually even without the fire, but when I took a step forward to try and signal my opinion, Roghart scrambled up with great difficulty and approached me, the blanket still on his shoulders before he cloaked me with it.

"Better do as she says, Reneka," my brother chuckled and leaned closer to whisper. "You have no idea how much she has waited for this day."

Nodding with understanding, I went to the armchair and carefully sat down, surprised of how soft the seat was. There was so much energy going on and I found myself staring at all the things happening around me. Mother was finishing setting the table and Roghart threw fresh wood into the fireplace after cleaning most of the old ashes first, putting them in a bucket beside him. I didn't see Carver nor the man who had introduced himself as Gamlen, my mother's brother, and assumed that they had woken up early and gone to the town.

Roghart was reaching for the tools to make fire, but I stopped him with a grin. I hoped that my family still remembered what abilities I possessed and saw no harm in demonstrating them in front of only my mother and Roghart. I glanced at the pile of wood, pointed at it with my finger and created a strong flame that soon touched all the wood logs. As the heat began to spread, I leaned back in the chair and let the blanket drop behind me.

"You still have it," mother gasped. "Your father's talent."

"I saw her using magic when we met," Roghart started, but noticed my leering and quickly halted his tongue. Worrying mother was the least of my wishes and I rather kept a secret from her than hurt her with the truth that I had killed templars with magic.

Mother lifted her eyebrow, eying at both of us quite intently and sighed. "You know I could order you to tell the whole story."

Roghart gave a quirky smirk. "But you won't?" his question was filled with the sound of begging.

"I trust that you will eventually tell me," mother replied. "Magic is not something one can talk about freely in Kirkwall so I'm sure we will find a better timing."

I was about to rise on my feet, but mother raised her hand. "No, my girl," she said. "You stay near the fire. I'll bring you a plate."

There was nothing I could do or gesture to stop her so I turned the chair to face the table and watched as mother gathered all sorts of treats on my plate: bread with cheese and dried ham, raisins, peas and a sliced apple. For the most women my size, the portion would have been way too big, but after eating whatever scraps the qunari had spared for their mages, I wasn't going to refuse any food ever again.

I grabbed the plate with a hungry look and didn't wait for the others. Thoroughly chewing a piece of bread, it took me a while to realize that I had forgotten proper table manners and shamefully put my food down, evading the gazes Roghart and mother gave me.

My brother laughed and patted me on my head. "Go on ahead," he winked. "You're with your family, not with a group of pompous Orlesian nobles."

A giggle escaped my lips and I continued to eat. I attempted to make a gesture that would have told mother how good the food was even with my impaired sense of taste and she was doing her best at guessing the correct meaning of the act. Even without speech, I was having an amusing banter and I slowly began to discover how to repeat certain hand signs that my family always comprehended.

The brightness on mother's face faded away for a moment and she put down the mug in her hands. "Reneka," she looked at me and then at my brother, "you must have faced horrible things in order to come back to us and deserve to know."

"Mother, you don't have to, not now," Roghart intervened.

"I must. She was so brave to reveal what her captors did to her. I can't lie to her about Malcolm. I can't."

Her voice was at the verge of breaking. Roghart gazed at me but I showed him that there was no need to be concerned. I had known in my heart what mother wished to say. The fact that only she had embraced me last night confirmed the feeling in my gut that had warned me for years. It had prepared me to be ready for losing something in order to gain everything.

There was paper and an ink pen on the table behind mother. Mother saw me eying at them and the way my eyes moved told her what I wanted. She blinked with confusion and gave me a sheet and the pen after dipping it in the ink bottle. I wrote a single word on the paper and gave it back, keeping a calm but serious face.

"'When'," mother read aloud, staring at me with an expression that described her shock of me foreseeing her words. "Oh, my dear girl, you-"

I stood up and walked to her. The plate clattered when I put it down on the table before taking mother's hand. I squeezed it gently and gave her a fragile smile.

Mother wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and cupped my cheek. "I'm so sorry," she breathed and moved a bit to create space for me to sit next to her on the bench. "I know how hard this must be, even for someone as strong as Malcolm's child."

My grip softened as a sign that I still wanted to hear about father. I kept looking into mother's beautiful blue irises and stayed relaxed, not displaying too much of the emotions that churned inside me. Of course I couldn't show her the grief I felt for having sensed my father's fate. I had been spooked of how I had flown into a rage with Anders and would not dare to picture myself crying hysterically in front of my family.

There was lots for me to learn as a free woman and understanding that I wasn't going to be kicked in the stomach for shedding tears for another person definitely belonged to the list.

I took the paper and pen and wrote: 'Please, tell me everything'.

#

I ended up spending the whole day with mother and Gamlen because Roghart asked me to take care of them while he and Carver were gone. During our breakfast, Carver had stormed in just when we were having an honoring moment of silence after mother had told me about father's death. Roghart had given quite a displeased glare at his brother who had brought news of the reward for a missing templar. I was aware that he didn't allow me to accompany him because of the mission involving templars and I respected his wishes.

The house had fallen quiet early in the evening. Gamlen hadn't said a word before taking his leave and I assumed his late activities involved something very personal and secretive which was all the information I needed. After much persuasion, mother had agreed not to stay awake till my brothers returned. I could see her sleeping peacefully when I went to the kitchen to get a drink at night, waiting for the darkness that would conceal me on the streets to Darktown.

Twiddling a tiny shard of red lyrium had a certain calming effect on me every time. It was the source of my extraordinary power but also the factor that had prevented the qunari from killing me. No other Saarebas had been able to handle the substance without going mad. Most were corrupted by even touching it, yet there I was, sitting on Roghart's bed and playing with the poisonous drug. Just by having it between my thumb and index fed me with warm energy that could have been used to enlarge a fireball spell and the devastation resulting from eating it was like wielding the powers of a god.

Several times my Arvaarad had forced me to unleash all the enhanced magic at once. Only when he had witnessed the ripped corpses of both the enemies and comrades had he abandoned such a strategy, labeling it as 'uncontrolled and inefficient'. As much as I hated him, my Arvaarad's order to use only portions of the red lyrium's magic helped me to control the power better.

It also meant that I would be able to slay him without having to grab him and blow myself up.

I wondered how Anders had become possessed by the spirit inside him. It couldn't have been a demon because his mind hadn't been conquered. My plan was to go to his clinic in order to apologize, but I would have been lying if I said that he didn't interest me. The mages I had seen in the underground had mostly discovered their talents only recently and hadn't trained. Anders was the first I would call a Saarebas if I used the qunari dialect. His healing abilities also had stunned me and I wanted to know if it was possible for me to cast such spells.

A knock on the door made me wince and I quickly stuffed the shard back into my pocket. Then my name was whispered and I was shocked of the fact that I hadn't detected the footsteps of my brothers coming home. Blaming Anders and the lyrium shard for distracting me, I turned around and after knocking the wall three times, Roghart stepped inside the room with a satisfied grin.

"See? The code works well," he laughed. "Just remember to knock twice if you don't want to be bothered, because I'm going to enter if I don't hear anything at all."

My lips curved and I lifted my legs on the bed, shifting back a little when my brother seated himself next to me. When I had inspected Carver and mother, I had found many traits that we didn't share. Roghart however was always like a male mirror image of myself, no matter how closely I looked for differences. If I had a beard and more muscle, I could disguise myself as him and no-one would know.

"Don't tell mother, but Carver has rented a room at the Hanged Man," Roghart said in a low voice and sneered. "He's staying there until we can move out of our uncle's house, so you don't have to worry about having to stand his snoring."

My laugh came out high-pitched which caused Roghart to cover my mouth and shush me. He paused and took a glimpse of the door, like he was ensuring we were alone. "I know it's late, but there's something I have to give to you right now. I would have given it sooner if the job hadn't been so time-consuming and tedious."

I was smart enough not to inquire about the mission with the templars and gestured him to continue.

Roghart removed the piece of armor guarding his upper body and set it on the floor slowly. I spotted stains of blood on it, figuring the reason why he didn't put it on the bedsheets on which I was going to sleep. Around his neck hung a necklace that swung when he straightened his back again and to my surprise, he took it off and placed it on my palm.

With one glance, I could tell that the stone on the necklace was lyrium. It was small and surrounded with thin black decorations like vines or roots. Only dwarves could normally handle raw lyrium, but as I brushed the surface of the smooth orb, I sensed no strong magic or heat.

"It's lyrium, though I'm sure you already guessed," Roghart smirked, looking at my curious face. "The jewel was crafted to be harmless so that anyone could wear it."

My eyes were fixed at my brother, suggesting him to go on.

"It belonged to father," Roghart said.

The lump in my throat couldn't decide whether to ease from joy or to tighten from hesitation. My fingers curled around the necklace and I tried not to stare at it. Having a part of my father in my hands shook my resolution of letting him go, even though I had been stoic through the whole time my mother had talked about him.

Roghart sat down. "Mother wouldn't want you to hear this, but she was right about saying that you deserve nothing less than the truth. Father died before you came back, which is why I think you should know." He laced his fingers and leaned forward. "The day you disappeared, father couldn't stop blaming himself. He thought that you had run away because of him being harder on you than on us boys. At one point, he believed that you had become an abomination because he hadn't taught you to control your powers well enough."

I had no idea where I had lost my tough and robust self. Roghart's words had banished it and all that remained was a small weak girl who cried after her parents while the horned men were carrying her away. My composure was slipping and I felt uncomfortably hot.

Hearing more was going to be like asking someone to keep stabbing me with a dagger, but Roghart was right. I had missed my chance to meet father again and needed to learn everything I could about him, no matter how agonizing.

Roghart waited for me to give a signal to proceed and he inhaled. "Finding you became his most important mission. He was away from home a lot, even for months sometimes. It took him years to discover that the qunari had been responsible for your capture and he spent most of his time trying to negotiate with nobles, other qunari and even the king in order to get you back home. Everywhere he went, he encountered a dead end but still he didn't give up."

My brother pointed at the necklace. "Then father got the feeling that he was falling seriously ill and realized that his time was nearing. As his final act, he commissioned that necklace from a dwarven merchant he knew and gave it to me at his deathbed." Roghart put his hand on mine that was holding the gift. "Father told me to pass this to you once we found you. Or once you found us. It's not magical, but he still said that he could sense when the necklace would reach its true owner, which it now has."

The thought of father watching me holding his last present for me caused the tears I had held back to show. I rubbed my cheeks while clenching the necklace, touching them with the cool lyrium stone. If there was magic stored inside, it was so mild that no mage could sense it. Maybe with the red lyrium, but I told myself that if father had believed in the power of the jewel, so should I.

I was thankful for Roghart not hiding the truth. When it was going to be my turn, I would tell my family about everything that had troubled me as a Saarebas. Father had taken all the blame because of our shared talent of magic and from his actions Roghart had described, I learned that I had to be cautious of not painting all the qunari as monsters just because of my experiences. I was never going to forgive my tribe but they didn't represent the whole race.

"You alright, Reneka?" Roghart asked when I had been crying silently for couple of minutes.

My reddened eyes met his and I snatched him into a close embrace, clutching his shirt and listening to his heartbeat. With the necklace, I felt like my whole family was together again, even if I couldn't see father. When I gazed at the lyrium stone, I could picture a face similar to Roghart's and Carver's. It was all I required to believe that father was with me. I could convey my thoughts to him through the stone and tell him what a great teacher and parent he had been.

My duty was to show father that he had raised a strong woman whose magic wasn't a danger to others.

I released my brother and grinned while putting the necklace on. The string was a bit too long and Roghart gestured me to turn so that he could made a knot on it behind my neck. I shivered when the cold leather of his gloves touched my skin and snickered as he quickly offered an apology.

While he worked on the knot, I remembered the sewer entrance in Lowtown not far from Gamlen's house which I could use to access Darktown without guards noticing me. The safest form of magic had to be healing and for father, I was going to make Anders teach me how to cast it.