…so now I am required to embarrass myself in public.
Specifically, under the terms of our wager, I am now required to write one (1) piece of fanfiction in a universe of my correspondent’s choosing, and then post if here on the blog.
What can I say? I thought I was going to win.
Anyway, a few days ago the email from my correspondent (who wishes to remain anonymous) arrived, and specifically requested the following type of fanfiction:
“Romantic ‘Dragon Age Origins’ fanfiction from the first-person perspective of a female character.”
Oh, dear God. Seriously? I mean, seriously? ”Dragon Age” was a great game and all, but…seriously?
Just…dear God.
But, I am a man of my word. So, after the jump, I present “romantic ‘Dragon Age Origins’ fanfiction from the first-person perspective of a female character”.
Learn from my grim example, people. Gambling is indeed the tool of Satan:
(Needless to say, I disown this piece now and forever.)
Why did I listen to Morrigan?
Wynne told me, more than once, that my great weakness is that I cannot respond rationally when someone I love is threatened. She said that I am the cleverest woman, human or elf, man or woman, that she has ever met, but that when someone I love is in danger, I respond…irrationally.
Violently.
She’s right.
Why did I listen to Morrigan?
Let me tell you of those I have loved and lost.
#
The first I lost was my mother.
I was born in Denerim’s elven Alienage. I was poor, and cold, and often hungry, but I was lucky. My mother was still alive. She worked cleaning houses in the Market District, and when I was old enough to walk I would come with her, and help her as best as I could. It was a hard life, but I remember my mother smiling, remember playing with the other children.
Then the slavers came.
Plagues and starvation are not the only threats in the Alienage. Elven slaves fetch a high price in Tevinter and the slavers came. Three of them tried to take my mother. She fought a little too hard, and they killed her.
I snapped.
I drew on my magic for the first time, and summoned fire, a storm of fire, and killed all three of them.
I was only seven.
Sometimes in my dreams I can still hear them screaming, still smell the greasy smoke filling my nostrils.
#
I never told that story to Wynne.
If I had, she might have seen that while I am irrational when those I love are threatened, at least I come by it honestly.
But Morrigan found out about it. Even then she must have known exactly what to say to me.
#
The slavers fled after that – Tevinter slavers, for obvious reasons, have a healthy fear of mages. No one dared approached me, and I spent two days shivering and weeping over my mother’s body.
The templars arrived after that, took one look at the burned corpses, and declared that henceforth I was a ward of the Circle of Magi, and would be taken to the Circle Tower on Lake Calenhad at once.
No one objected.
#
The second I lost was Jowan.
I fit in well at the Circle of Magi. I was only seven, and half-deranged with grief and terror…but a warm bed and regular meals will go a long way toward winning a child’s trust. And First Enchanter Irving was, and is, a kindly man, and I grew to love him as sort of a revered grandfather. The other mages lived in terror of the templars, but I did not. I had seen what unchecked magic could do, seen men writhe and scream as their skin melted away in the grip of my wrath, and I understood the necessity of the templars.
I had seen my mother die. What could frighten me after that?
And a year or so after I arrived, I met Jowan.
His father had abandoned him at the village Chantry, believing him to be a demon-possessed abomination. We soon became fast friends. Backgrounds of shared pain, I suppose; his mother had died of a plague, and we understood each other. He made me laugh. I don’t laugh very often.
I’ll forgive anyone almost anything if they can make me laugh.
#
After Arl Eamon sentenced Jowan, Leilanna asked me if I had been in love with him.
No. He was my best friend. My brother. He was charming and funny…but he was weak. He cut corners. Cheated. Loafed. More than once I had to save him from the consequences of his own mistakes, and I did it because he was my friend. I cared about him, and I didn’t want to see him come to harm.
Morrigan knew about that, too.
#
So when I heard that Jowan was a blood mage, a maleficar, that he would be made Tranquil, I couldn’t believe it. Surely Irving must have made a mistake. Jowan couldn’t be a blood mage.
He told me so himself.
So I helped him escape. I found his phylactery and watched him smash it. And less than an hour later, I saw him use blood magic on the templars sent to stop us.
He had lied to me. It had been so obvious. All the evidence had been there before my eyes. But I had refused to see it, because Jowan was my friend, and I couldn’t believe he would do something so heinous.
What Duncan saw in me, I’ll never know. Knight-Commander Greagoir probably would have executed me for it. But Duncan, the Warden-Commander of Ferelden, stepped in, invoked the Right of Conscription, and proclaimed me the newest recruit of the Grey Wardens. Not even Greagoir could gainsay him.
And so I became a Grey Warden.
#
And then I met Alistair, at Ostagar, when the Grey Wardens and the army of Ferelden gathered to stop the darkspawn surging up from the south.
I don’t laugh often, or easily. But the first time I met Alistair, he was arguing with a mage.
“And here I was going to name one of my children after you,” he said. “The grumpy one.”
I stared at him for a minute, and burst out laughing. He flushed with embarrassment for a moment, and then grinned back. The mage stomped off in a huff.
I liked him at once.
#
Ostagar went bad. We would have won. We should have won. But Lord Loghain Mac Tir, the late King Maric’s right-hand, turned tail and fled north to seize his son-in-law’s throne for himself. The darkspawn slaughtered the king, slaughtered the army, and slew Duncan.
Alistair and I were the only Grey Wardens to get out alive.
#
Alistair and me. Even now, after everything, I still smile as I write this and think of him.
Everyone has heard the story by now, I suppose.
That damned song of Leilanna’s. Every bard in Orlais, I am told, now sings “The Song of the Warden” for their noble patrons.
How the Grey Warden, “fire-haired, elven-born, mage-trained” fell in love with Alistair, the bastard son of King Maric and the secret heir to the throne of Ferelden, how after surviving the nightmares of the Fade and the horrors of Uldred’s abominations, we pledged our hearts to one another in the shadow of the Circle Tower, and made love for the first time under the stars.
It didn’t happen that way at all.
It was actually closer to Denerim, not the Circle Tower.
But, otherwise, the song was mostly right.
Still, considering that Alistair married Queen Anora to secure his right to the throne, and we continued our relationship without a break, I can see how these rumors get started.
We were the last of the Grey Wardens, and with Alistair at my side, I set out to unite the land against the Blight, against the darkspawn hordes and the archdemon.
#
Morrigan asked me once what I saw in Alistair. She respected me, but she did not respect Alistair, not in the least, and she simply could not understand what I saw him.
He made me laugh, for one.
But there was steel in him. His heart was like a trumpet that he was too bashful to sound, a torch he was too shy to light. I knew he had it in him to be great. When he gave his speech to the troops outside of Denerim, when they rallied to his cry, I was so proud of him I could burst.
And Morrigan watched us, and filed it all away in that cold heart of hers.
#
A year after Ostagar.
I had crushed and outwitted every enemy I had ever faced. I had saved Redcliffe from the undead, slain the demon that possessed Arl Eamon’s son, saved the Circle from Uldred and his pet abominations. I had found the lost Urn of Sacred Ashes and restored Arl Eamon to health, and they whispered that Andraste herself had guided me. I had saved the Dalish elves, and convinced Zathrien to repent of his hatred, and freed the werewolves from their curse. I had dared the darkness of the Deep Roads, where no dwarf had trod for centuries, and smashed the Anvil of the Void, and brought back a Paragon-forged crown to place upon the brow of Orzammar’s new king. I had convinced the Legion of the Dead to march to the surface, to wage war against the darkspawn under the sun for the first time in their history.
I had defeated Loghain Mac Tir, the Traitor of Ostagar, and slain him before the assembled lords of the Landsmeet. I had set Alistair and Anora upon the throne of Ferelden, and united the nobles of the land behind them. And the Dalish and the dwarves of Orzammar and the magi of the Circle and the templars of the Chantry and lords and knights of Ferelden marched at my call, an army unlike any seen for centuries, and turned to face the Blight.
They claimed I was Garahel come again, a champion risen to defeat the Blight. They already called me the things Leilanna would put in that damn song of hers, the “soul of a warrior, the heart of mercy, the torch in the darkness and the trumpet in the night.”
What nonsense.
I had done what was necessary. Mostly, I wanted to take Alistair, slip away, and find someplace quiet to live out our lives. But we were Grey Wardens, and we could not turn away, not while the Blight raged.
Then Riordan told us what needed to be done to stop the Blight.
The price we would have to pay.
#
Leverage, I told Morrigan once, when she asked me how I managed to defeat so many creatures and people more powerful than myself, her mother among them. It was all a matter of leverage. Anything has a weakness. You just have to find it, and throw all your strength at it.
She listened to me too well.
#
The archdemon was the heart of the Blight, Riordan said. While it lived, the Blight could not be stopped. Yet if a mortal man struck down the archdemon, it would live again, in the body of another darkspawn.
But if a Grey Warden struck down the archdemon, then the dark power would possess the Warden, and both archdemon and Warden would perish. And the Blight would end, and the world would be saved.
Riordan, as the eldest surviving Grey Warden in Ferelden, volunteered to make the killing blow.
But if he was slain, it fell to Alistair and me to take the killing blow.
If Riordan failed, one of us would have to watch the other die.
#
I walked back to my rooms, Sophia Dryden’s ancient armor heavy against my back and shoulders. I barely felt it, through the darkness pooled in my heart.
Morrigan was waiting for me.
We always understood each other, Morrigan and I. She was dark…but so was I. Had I been raised by someone like Flemeth, I would have been just like her. Perhaps even worse. We told each other secrets. I told her about my mother, how she died, how I burned the men who slew her. She told me about the horrors Flemeth had conjured up, how the ancient witch had danced with the abominations in the shadows of the night. We had become something like sisters. Two sides of the same dark coin.
And now Morrigan had come to whisper one last secret in my ear.
There was a way, she said. A spell. A ritual. No Grey Warden need die. I could save Alistair.
Let her lie with Alistair, this one night. A child would be conceived of their coupling. And when I struck down the archdemon (for she had no doubts that I would be the one to do so), the dark power would not consume me…but pass into the child. At such a young age, the unborn child would not perish from the taint. Morrigan would vanish, and I would never see her or the child again.
What would she do with the child?
Morrigan would not tell me.
No, I told her. No. This was madness. I was a Grey Warden. It was my duty to stop the Blight. Whatever the cost to myself…or to Alistair…
Morrigan did not believe me. She understood me too well.
“You are as a sister to me,” said Morrigan. “I knew nothing of friendship, before I met you. I joined you for this child, aye, but our friendship makes me all the more determined to see it done. You told me how your mother perished. Surely you do not want to see Alistair die in the same way? Or for him to see you die? Because you will sacrifice yourself for him, tis certain, and he will suffer as you have suffered. It is in my power to save you both. Let me use it.”
She was utterly sincere, I think. And she was manipulating me. She knew exactly what to say to get what she wanted. She always did.
I closed my eyes, nodded, and went to find Alistair.
#
He listened to me, of course. He always listens to me.
Even when he should not.
#
And we came at last to the Battle of Denerim, and the archdemon itself.
I led my army into the city, outnumbered three to one, and we stormed through the market district and saved the Alienage. And we battled our way to the pinnacle of Fort Drakon, where Riordan’s last gallant, doomed stand had trapped the archdemon. And Dalish elves stood shoulder to shoulder with the dwarves of Orzammar and the Knights of Redcliffe. But in the end, as Morrigan predicted, I stood alone against the archdemon as my companions and my army struggled against the darkspawn horde, my power and my spells contesting against the ancient might of the terrible thing.
And the archdemon fell before me, beaten.
I seized a fallen blade and raced at the nightmarish form. I would take the final blow. Morrigan might have lied. Morrigan might have been wrong about her spell. If necessary, I would sacrifice myself, not Alistair.
Alistair tried to stop me, but I was too quick for him. I raised the blade, all my terror and rage and pain behind it, and buried it to the hilt in the archdemon’s misshapen skull.
And then…
I only remember snatches of the next few moments. The power, the terrible power, exploding out of the archdemon’s bleeding hulk like a fountain, like a tower of fire. It poured into me, filling me, choking me. An ocean of flame and darkness, and I drank it all in, felt it started to devour me…and then it drained away.
Morrigan’s laugh. I distinctly remember hearing her laugh.
An explosion. They say that when the archdemon died, they saw the burst of light and heard the explosion as far away as Amaranthine.
And then, darkness.
For a long time I floated in nothingness.
The sound of the bells brought me back to consciousness. Hundreds of bells, every Chantry bell in Denerim, ringing in celebration. The roaring cheer of a hundred thousand throats, men shouting and laughing and weeping and falling to their knees in prayer. The archdemon was dead. The darkspawn were broken. The Blight was over.
I woke up with Alistair kneeling over me.
I was alive.
Morrigan had told the truth.
#
The celebration was tremendous. The Grand Cleric herself crowned Alistair king, and he proclaimed me the Chancellor of the Court, Arlessa of Amaranthine, and the Hero of Ferelden. I felt like a sham.
But Alistair was still alive. That was the only honor I wanted.
Morrigan vanished.
#
Months later, I heard a report that she had been spotted heading west into Orlais, visibly pregnant.
Pregnant with a child bearing the soul of an archdemon, the soul of an old god.
#
I think I made a mistake.
Morrigan is going to do something horrible with the power I have given her, I am sure of it. She was my friend, my sister. But she is still cold and cruel at heart…and I handed her a child with the powers of a god. A child she can raise in her own dark image. A child she can mold and twist into whatever she wishes, as Flemeth molded her.
I made a mistake.
But would I do it again?
I look at Alistair as he sleeps, and I know that I saved his life. Tens of thousands of people might die because of my decision, and hundreds of thousands more might suffer.
But I saved his life.
Yes. I would do it again. Wynne was right about me. May the Maker forgive me, but I would do it again.
Posted by JM 
