"It's All Implied" [Dragon Age: Origins, Morrigan, PG-13]
Title: It's All Implied
Author: cherith
Fandom: Dragon Age: Origins
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Story spoilers for the endgame of DA:O (not Awakenings) - with some liberties taken, a small amount of fighting/violence and blood.
Word Count: 2,362
Prompt: #28 "The difference between weakness and wickedness is much less than people suppose; and the consequences are nearly always the same." -- Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington (1789-1849), Irish novelist, writer of magazine articles, and editor.
Summary: A take on Morrigan's role when she leaves the party. She heads home to see and deal with what's left of her mother's place in the Wilds and then contemplates her role in the group.
Author's Notes: This story wanted to go all over the place, and was determined to be several things at once, for which I apologize. But I wanted to do something that gave Morrigan a little more than the one side we see so consistently, because it's obvious she's got some issues to work through. Hopefully, my idea also worked. (Title from Straylight Run's "Mistakes We Know We Were Making" a sort of theme for this story in general.)
It's All Implied
She shouldn't have cared. She knew it really wouldn't have mattered either. She could've easily have asked Riordan, he was attractive enough certainly. For a long while she argued with herself, rationalizing the choice to ask Alistair instead as one of practicality. They had shared experiences, and Alistair was newer, younger and perhaps not yet completely tainted by the Darkspawn blood that reproduction would be difficult. After all, it was for just that reason she needed a Warden at all.
Her mother, she knew would have approved of Riordan's experience, his age. Perhaps that reason more than any of the others, was the one that had kept her from walking the few steps to his room to ask him instead. She had heard the Warden and Alistair finally leave Riordan's room, so she had ample opportunity to knock on his door and solicit his help. She did not know that he would give it, and he most certainly would try to turn her down; but that would have been the least of her issues with him.
So, instead, she choose to address the Warden, to ask for Alistair - if only for a night. The Warden said no. Later, when she found a moment, she asked Alistair himself. He said no as well -- that he mumbled it with flushed cheeks and awkward glances was more accurate, but he refused all the same.
Torn between leaving her -- she hesitated to call them friends, so -- traveling companions to fend for themselves against the Archdemon, and following the directions her mother had laid out on bringing one of the Old Gods back into the world, she had made the hasty decision to leave. She had set out that night, a bad decision in retrospect, and had to fend for herself as she made her way back through the roads and forests to the little house not that far from Lothering.
The house was the same as it always had been. Small, uninviting and hidden in a valley where most smart travelers thought to pass well by.
"I am home mother," she whispered to the nearby hill.
She spent the morning after she arrived cleaning the hut, scrubbing out the remnents of her mother -- if that was even possible. In the afternoon she put the grimoire where her mother would have never thought to keep it: in the open, on a large table where she could read a line or two whenever she passed by. She emptied the rest of her bag, throwing away scraps of items from her recent adventures she knew were no longer necessary. The mirror the Warden had so kindly found for her, she put on a shelf, propped up so she could look at it often.
By evening, after a quick meal of the remaining food supplies she had from her pack, she wandered outside and stared at the bones.
"I thought there would be more of you left." It wasn't that she expected a response, but after everything she had learned about Flemeth in the past months since leaving home, she wouldn't have been surprised to get one anyway.
"I did as you asked, I traveled Ferelden. I traveled with the Warden and that Chantry lad, and every stray person and animal that crossed their path." She shook her head. "There were many."
"In your grimoire I saw what you had planned for the both of us, which is how you came to be how you are, and I..." She looked North, over the large dragon bone pile and to the field and forest beyond. "Well, how I came to be here, I suppose. I thought I might try to do what you had planned, to find a way to complete the spell, to capture the soul of an Old one."
Again she shook her head. "I could not do it. Oh I tried, but I suppose...not hard enough. I thought to force the issue, but I couldn't. I left them there, where even now, they march to meet that Archdemon. And one of them will surely perish. They are too foolish to do anything else."
Her face flushed with frustration and she kicked like a child at one of the large bony claws of the dragon before her. "You knew too, you must have. That when it would end, it would end like this."
"I could go to them, join them for the end of it, help slay the Archdemon." She pondered it a moment. She would have to move fast; she would have to fly if she were to catch up with them.
"Plans within plans, eh mother? You'll see it work out...perhaps we will even talk about it all someday. For now, however, I need to make sure that you don't interfere, not for a long while." She took one last look over the bones and then went inside to prepare her supplies. It was hours later when she finished all her preparations, and near the middle of the night when she walked back out to the small hill near the bones of Flemeth, the dragon.
It took her weeks to break the ground and make a hole big enough for the bones of the dragon. But she managed and then there were the days spent to cover them again. When it was completed, she referenced one of Flemeth's spells on consecrating the burial, in the hope the bones would be safe and more importantly, stationery for a long while.
The spell was simple enough and when it was done, she took a day to rest and pack for the next part of her journey. That evening, she strolled once more to her mother's burial mound, sat on a nearby patch of undisturbed ground and put her hands against the dirt.
"You always said I was a serious girl, mother; that I needed to learn, and you sent me out into the world so I might do so. You sent me out under the wing of those fresh from battle, scarred from it, but new to the darkness of it. It changed them. I see now the differences in their words, their mannerisms, they have learned and seen the hearts of evil men, greedy dwarves, bitter elves. They have slain dragons and demons and go now to stop the blight. And though I cannot nearly believe it myself: I think I want to join them."
"I dreamt of you before you died. You were here, mixing potions, planting and sowing herbs, reading and humming, like you always were. Waiting I think for some traveler, someone that did not know the stories, some poor man you could ravage. I think very much that you meant to replace me. Even now, I am uncertain if it was dream or vision. But 'tis no matter now, dead as you are."
"I know your secrets now."
The following morning she checked the hillside, just to allay any doubts that her mother's bones continued to rest where she had placed them. When she was satisfied that they had indeed, not been disturbed, she was finally ready to go.
She shifted into a form she had never shared with the group: that of a raven, flew up over the hill, and then the forest and continued north. By her quick calculations, she gathered that she would arrive near the same time as the army. She was not however, prepared for the devastation she saw as she closed in upon the city. Smoke billowed from building fires visible for miles away and it took her a few circuits over the city before she could find the group.
She heard Oghren before she saw him and if it hadn't been for the smoke and the darkspawn, she guessed she would have smelled him far before that. He and the Warden's faithful canine companion were working with the city guard to rout the darkspawn entering through the gates. It seemed, though their numbers were low, they were making decent headway. She stopped mid-circle to see the decrease in the darkspawn's numbers from the other side of the gate for herself. She wouldn't admit to it, but there was almost a sense of pride in knowing that despite their numbers, they had been able to defeat the onslaught from beyond the gates. But with that feeling, came guilt fast on its heels, and the knowledge that she could have been there already.
She returned to her course over the city, and started towards the Alienage where she thought the soft-hearted Warden might have gone, when a gust of wind hit her wings from behind. She rocketed forward, and twisted in the wind before she thought to tuck her wings and drop below the movement. When she was the right way up once more, she caught the glimpse of a falling shadow and swooped too late to help, but at the right moment to see Riordan thrust off the dragon's back. For a moment she swirled downward with him, hoping she might think of something. She could not. She slowed her decent, but soon found herself landing a safe distance from Riordan's broken frame.
Riordan's body was destroyed and what little remained was pooled in blood by the time she made it to him. She hesitated to shift, and had to approach slowly on short raven legs. She jumped as rivulets of blood trickled towards her claws. She knew he was too far gone to be within any healing ability she had. She had seen death so many times, but this seemed...too much, too unnecessary. She thought perhaps the time she had spent away from the Warden and companions had changed her. She had after all spent weeks talking to the bones of a dragon long-expired. But, the sight of Riordan's remains and the trails of blood leading away from his body in several directions was enough to make her feel knocked off balance.
Even Wynne, she doubted, would ever be able to save a man in such a state. She turned her attention back to the sky. While she had contemplated the fallen Warden, the Archdemon had circled the city and then turned in towards the tower. As Morrigan was looking for a sign of the dragon on one of the city's roofs, there was a roar of - was that triumph or despair? - from the dragon.
One down, two Grey Wardens remain. It was morbid, but true and she was nothing if not realistic. She took to the sky again and flew straight for the tower where the roar had originated, her mind turned over and discarded several ideas before she found a place on the ledge she could land. The fight was already underway when she arrived. The Warden, along with Alistair, Wynne and Leliana had found a battleplan that worked for them, including the use of balista staged around the tower. The Warden, during times when the dragon seemed most distracted, called for more troops to help the fight. One by one, Morrigan watched as Men, Dwarves and Elves came to fight, bleed and die.
Morrigan sat on the ledge, and waited for an opportune time to burst from her concealment, to throw in with the group, to stand with them and fight. No moments made themselves available. Each group called to their aid: came, fought and died. Still, the four fought on. They had the dragon on the run, it had retreated to the far end of the tower, and both the Warden and Alistair harried it: swords burying into it's flesh between it's own bursts of destruction.
The moment came -- it stumbled, and fell. The Warden and Alistair fought, their voices raised above the clash of battle from below and the grunts of pain from the dragon. The Warden pushed him and Alistair pushed back, then were both swept up in each other's arms. They kissed and both readied their swords where the other could not see. Before the Warden could react, Alistair broke free and rushed the fallen Archdemon and the entire tower exploded with light.
Morrigan shifted when she had the chance, she wasn't sure what she expected to do, but she wanted to be there. When the flares lifted from her sight, she saw the Warden kneeling next to Alistair's body, with Wynne and Leliana moving to comfort her. The Warden shrugged them both off, and looked up in time to see Morrigan striding towards them. She tried to keep a neutral expression, she hated to admit she had developed a weakness for these people, but she knew it was the truth. Something in her was pained to see Alistair lying lifeless in the Warden's arms. The three of them watched her approach with sadness and distrust in their eyes, and that too pained her.
"Can you still help us?" The Warden's voice cracked when she spoke.
"I could want nothing more at the moment than to tell you that I could."
The Warden's tears cascaded from her face to Alistair's body as the realization dawned on her that he was well and truly lost. She was silent for several long moments before she looked to Morrigan again and asked, "Can you tell me that this won't happen again? That it's over?"
Leliana and Wynne smoothed her hair and ran soothing hands over her shoulders and back as they knelt down around the Warden. They looked to Morrigan helplessly pleading there be some good in this. That she might be able to deliver some comfort. She could not.
"I cannot."
The Warden slowly nodded and looked down at Alistair. She whispered something to him that was too low to be heard by Morrigan. She knelt down and reached for the Warden, but caught her hand up short and pulled it back. She thought better of adding her touch to those of the other women's and her hand landed and stayed in her own lap.
Wynne caught her eye, "Morrigan, it might be for the best..."
"I'll leave. I am sorry Warden."
The Warden nods again, "I understand. I'm sorry too."
***
Link to the story at AO3
Author: cherith
Fandom: Dragon Age: Origins
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Story spoilers for the endgame of DA:O (not Awakenings) - with some liberties taken, a small amount of fighting/violence and blood.
Word Count: 2,362
Prompt: #28 "The difference between weakness and wickedness is much less than people suppose; and the consequences are nearly always the same." -- Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington (1789-1849), Irish novelist, writer of magazine articles, and editor.
Summary: A take on Morrigan's role when she leaves the party. She heads home to see and deal with what's left of her mother's place in the Wilds and then contemplates her role in the group.
Author's Notes: This story wanted to go all over the place, and was determined to be several things at once, for which I apologize. But I wanted to do something that gave Morrigan a little more than the one side we see so consistently, because it's obvious she's got some issues to work through. Hopefully, my idea also worked. (Title from Straylight Run's "Mistakes We Know We Were Making" a sort of theme for this story in general.)
It's All Implied
She shouldn't have cared. She knew it really wouldn't have mattered either. She could've easily have asked Riordan, he was attractive enough certainly. For a long while she argued with herself, rationalizing the choice to ask Alistair instead as one of practicality. They had shared experiences, and Alistair was newer, younger and perhaps not yet completely tainted by the Darkspawn blood that reproduction would be difficult. After all, it was for just that reason she needed a Warden at all.
Her mother, she knew would have approved of Riordan's experience, his age. Perhaps that reason more than any of the others, was the one that had kept her from walking the few steps to his room to ask him instead. She had heard the Warden and Alistair finally leave Riordan's room, so she had ample opportunity to knock on his door and solicit his help. She did not know that he would give it, and he most certainly would try to turn her down; but that would have been the least of her issues with him.
So, instead, she choose to address the Warden, to ask for Alistair - if only for a night. The Warden said no. Later, when she found a moment, she asked Alistair himself. He said no as well -- that he mumbled it with flushed cheeks and awkward glances was more accurate, but he refused all the same.
Torn between leaving her -- she hesitated to call them friends, so -- traveling companions to fend for themselves against the Archdemon, and following the directions her mother had laid out on bringing one of the Old Gods back into the world, she had made the hasty decision to leave. She had set out that night, a bad decision in retrospect, and had to fend for herself as she made her way back through the roads and forests to the little house not that far from Lothering.
The house was the same as it always had been. Small, uninviting and hidden in a valley where most smart travelers thought to pass well by.
"I am home mother," she whispered to the nearby hill.
She spent the morning after she arrived cleaning the hut, scrubbing out the remnents of her mother -- if that was even possible. In the afternoon she put the grimoire where her mother would have never thought to keep it: in the open, on a large table where she could read a line or two whenever she passed by. She emptied the rest of her bag, throwing away scraps of items from her recent adventures she knew were no longer necessary. The mirror the Warden had so kindly found for her, she put on a shelf, propped up so she could look at it often.
By evening, after a quick meal of the remaining food supplies she had from her pack, she wandered outside and stared at the bones.
"I thought there would be more of you left." It wasn't that she expected a response, but after everything she had learned about Flemeth in the past months since leaving home, she wouldn't have been surprised to get one anyway.
"I did as you asked, I traveled Ferelden. I traveled with the Warden and that Chantry lad, and every stray person and animal that crossed their path." She shook her head. "There were many."
"In your grimoire I saw what you had planned for the both of us, which is how you came to be how you are, and I..." She looked North, over the large dragon bone pile and to the field and forest beyond. "Well, how I came to be here, I suppose. I thought I might try to do what you had planned, to find a way to complete the spell, to capture the soul of an Old one."
Again she shook her head. "I could not do it. Oh I tried, but I suppose...not hard enough. I thought to force the issue, but I couldn't. I left them there, where even now, they march to meet that Archdemon. And one of them will surely perish. They are too foolish to do anything else."
Her face flushed with frustration and she kicked like a child at one of the large bony claws of the dragon before her. "You knew too, you must have. That when it would end, it would end like this."
"I could go to them, join them for the end of it, help slay the Archdemon." She pondered it a moment. She would have to move fast; she would have to fly if she were to catch up with them.
"Plans within plans, eh mother? You'll see it work out...perhaps we will even talk about it all someday. For now, however, I need to make sure that you don't interfere, not for a long while." She took one last look over the bones and then went inside to prepare her supplies. It was hours later when she finished all her preparations, and near the middle of the night when she walked back out to the small hill near the bones of Flemeth, the dragon.
It took her weeks to break the ground and make a hole big enough for the bones of the dragon. But she managed and then there were the days spent to cover them again. When it was completed, she referenced one of Flemeth's spells on consecrating the burial, in the hope the bones would be safe and more importantly, stationery for a long while.
The spell was simple enough and when it was done, she took a day to rest and pack for the next part of her journey. That evening, she strolled once more to her mother's burial mound, sat on a nearby patch of undisturbed ground and put her hands against the dirt.
"You always said I was a serious girl, mother; that I needed to learn, and you sent me out into the world so I might do so. You sent me out under the wing of those fresh from battle, scarred from it, but new to the darkness of it. It changed them. I see now the differences in their words, their mannerisms, they have learned and seen the hearts of evil men, greedy dwarves, bitter elves. They have slain dragons and demons and go now to stop the blight. And though I cannot nearly believe it myself: I think I want to join them."
"I dreamt of you before you died. You were here, mixing potions, planting and sowing herbs, reading and humming, like you always were. Waiting I think for some traveler, someone that did not know the stories, some poor man you could ravage. I think very much that you meant to replace me. Even now, I am uncertain if it was dream or vision. But 'tis no matter now, dead as you are."
"I know your secrets now."
The following morning she checked the hillside, just to allay any doubts that her mother's bones continued to rest where she had placed them. When she was satisfied that they had indeed, not been disturbed, she was finally ready to go.
She shifted into a form she had never shared with the group: that of a raven, flew up over the hill, and then the forest and continued north. By her quick calculations, she gathered that she would arrive near the same time as the army. She was not however, prepared for the devastation she saw as she closed in upon the city. Smoke billowed from building fires visible for miles away and it took her a few circuits over the city before she could find the group.
She heard Oghren before she saw him and if it hadn't been for the smoke and the darkspawn, she guessed she would have smelled him far before that. He and the Warden's faithful canine companion were working with the city guard to rout the darkspawn entering through the gates. It seemed, though their numbers were low, they were making decent headway. She stopped mid-circle to see the decrease in the darkspawn's numbers from the other side of the gate for herself. She wouldn't admit to it, but there was almost a sense of pride in knowing that despite their numbers, they had been able to defeat the onslaught from beyond the gates. But with that feeling, came guilt fast on its heels, and the knowledge that she could have been there already.
She returned to her course over the city, and started towards the Alienage where she thought the soft-hearted Warden might have gone, when a gust of wind hit her wings from behind. She rocketed forward, and twisted in the wind before she thought to tuck her wings and drop below the movement. When she was the right way up once more, she caught the glimpse of a falling shadow and swooped too late to help, but at the right moment to see Riordan thrust off the dragon's back. For a moment she swirled downward with him, hoping she might think of something. She could not. She slowed her decent, but soon found herself landing a safe distance from Riordan's broken frame.
Riordan's body was destroyed and what little remained was pooled in blood by the time she made it to him. She hesitated to shift, and had to approach slowly on short raven legs. She jumped as rivulets of blood trickled towards her claws. She knew he was too far gone to be within any healing ability she had. She had seen death so many times, but this seemed...too much, too unnecessary. She thought perhaps the time she had spent away from the Warden and companions had changed her. She had after all spent weeks talking to the bones of a dragon long-expired. But, the sight of Riordan's remains and the trails of blood leading away from his body in several directions was enough to make her feel knocked off balance.
Even Wynne, she doubted, would ever be able to save a man in such a state. She turned her attention back to the sky. While she had contemplated the fallen Warden, the Archdemon had circled the city and then turned in towards the tower. As Morrigan was looking for a sign of the dragon on one of the city's roofs, there was a roar of - was that triumph or despair? - from the dragon.
One down, two Grey Wardens remain. It was morbid, but true and she was nothing if not realistic. She took to the sky again and flew straight for the tower where the roar had originated, her mind turned over and discarded several ideas before she found a place on the ledge she could land. The fight was already underway when she arrived. The Warden, along with Alistair, Wynne and Leliana had found a battleplan that worked for them, including the use of balista staged around the tower. The Warden, during times when the dragon seemed most distracted, called for more troops to help the fight. One by one, Morrigan watched as Men, Dwarves and Elves came to fight, bleed and die.
Morrigan sat on the ledge, and waited for an opportune time to burst from her concealment, to throw in with the group, to stand with them and fight. No moments made themselves available. Each group called to their aid: came, fought and died. Still, the four fought on. They had the dragon on the run, it had retreated to the far end of the tower, and both the Warden and Alistair harried it: swords burying into it's flesh between it's own bursts of destruction.
The moment came -- it stumbled, and fell. The Warden and Alistair fought, their voices raised above the clash of battle from below and the grunts of pain from the dragon. The Warden pushed him and Alistair pushed back, then were both swept up in each other's arms. They kissed and both readied their swords where the other could not see. Before the Warden could react, Alistair broke free and rushed the fallen Archdemon and the entire tower exploded with light.
Morrigan shifted when she had the chance, she wasn't sure what she expected to do, but she wanted to be there. When the flares lifted from her sight, she saw the Warden kneeling next to Alistair's body, with Wynne and Leliana moving to comfort her. The Warden shrugged them both off, and looked up in time to see Morrigan striding towards them. She tried to keep a neutral expression, she hated to admit she had developed a weakness for these people, but she knew it was the truth. Something in her was pained to see Alistair lying lifeless in the Warden's arms. The three of them watched her approach with sadness and distrust in their eyes, and that too pained her.
"Can you still help us?" The Warden's voice cracked when she spoke.
"I could want nothing more at the moment than to tell you that I could."
The Warden's tears cascaded from her face to Alistair's body as the realization dawned on her that he was well and truly lost. She was silent for several long moments before she looked to Morrigan again and asked, "Can you tell me that this won't happen again? That it's over?"
Leliana and Wynne smoothed her hair and ran soothing hands over her shoulders and back as they knelt down around the Warden. They looked to Morrigan helplessly pleading there be some good in this. That she might be able to deliver some comfort. She could not.
"I cannot."
The Warden slowly nodded and looked down at Alistair. She whispered something to him that was too low to be heard by Morrigan. She knelt down and reached for the Warden, but caught her hand up short and pulled it back. She thought better of adding her touch to those of the other women's and her hand landed and stayed in her own lap.
Wynne caught her eye, "Morrigan, it might be for the best..."
"I'll leave. I am sorry Warden."
The Warden nods again, "I understand. I'm sorry too."
***
Link to the story at AO3