I'll Carry On! Chapter One: It's My Fault...
Chapter One: It’s My Fault…
That day…we lost someone we could never replace…my best friend, our leader, and the last and only hope for Ferelden-or that’s what I thought at the time, at least.
******************************
“Hold on, Alistair! You sense that?”
Taiyama Surana, “The Warden” as he was known, held out his hand in front of the rest of the group. His blue-green elven eyes scanned the forest to their right, seeking a target that no one but Alistair or Taiyama could sense. The mage readied his staff while the others took out their various weapons and prepared.
“Yeah, I sense it,” Alistair responded. “It seems…strange, though. Different somehow.”
“Whatever it is, if it is darkspawn we must destroy it,” Sten stated, deadpan as usual.
“It’s moving away from us,” Alistair stated. “Should we go after it?”
Taiyama thought for a moment. “Whatever it is, it must be important if it’s not a type of darkspawn we have sensed before. It could be a potential threat to the people of Ferelden.” He put his staff back on his back, turned to his comrades behind him, and crossed his arms. “All right, listen up! We’re going to pursue whatever that thing is! I want a loose triangular formation with me at the front, Alistair at the right flank, Sten at the left, Shale in the back! Mages and rogues keep to the center. Leliana, you’re with Morrigan. Zevran, you keep with Wynne. I’m trusting in your tracking skills to warn the other mages of an impending attack so they have time to throw up a defensive measure. As I said, I want the formation loose just in case we’re attacked via magic-we can’t have all of us blown away at once by a Fireball or something like that!” His face instantly changed from a serious, commanding look to his usual confident, crooked smile. “Now, come on! We’re gonna kick that darkspawn’s butt and make sure it can never harm anyone of Ferelden!”
It’s funny, really, the effect that smile and his words had on you. When he was at his best, he made you feel like you could do anything if you stuck with him. He was certainly a much better leader than I could ever hope to be…
They all got into their respective places in the formation and followed Taiyama as he led them towards the source of the strange sense. For about half an hour, they pursued the source and Taiyama would occasionally make drastic turns in direction in response to attempts to lose them by the darkspawn.
“It’s stopped,” Alistair stated at the end of the thirty minutes.
“It knows we’ve been chasing it and it probably has given up on eluding us…” Taiyama responded. “Or it could be a trap. Stay on your guard, everyone.”
The Wardens continued on, always on the lookout for any attack from nearby. At the moment they were going down the Imperial Road and there was a disturbing lack of sound nearby. No birds chirped in the nearby trees, no deer fled in fright in the forest at their sight, no fellow traveler or refugee greeted them on their path.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this…” Alistair muttered.
“Don’t worry,” Taiyama responded. “If we work together and keep our wits about us, we’ll be fine, believe me.”
And I did. We all believed him. For once, though, he was wrong.
The first thing they noticed was the smell. A mixture of sulfur, fire, and rotting corpses stung at their noses and made some gag. The mages and Alistair the templar in particular noticed something: the potent…sense-for it was not sensed by taste, smell, or hearing-of mighty amounts of magic being used nearby. A few more yards of travel and they could see the source: men, women, some oxen, and wagons lay strewn and destroyed across the road, many of the travelers burnt or horribly disfigured in some way. In the middle of the road was a single darkspawn with black robes and a twisted, gnarled root that must have passed as a mage’s staff.
The darkspawn turned towards them and bared its teeth at them in what must have passed as a darkspawn version of a smile. “Taiyama Surana…” came a deep, ethereal voice from the darkspawn.
One that Taiyama, whose eyes widened to the size of saucers, realized he knew. But there was no way… How was that possible…?
“…Mouse?!” Taiyama asked incredulously, receiving another darkspawn smile in response.
“Wait, holdonholdonholdon,” Alistair interjected. “This darkspawn has a name? And it knows you?”
“How the hell did you pull this off, Mouse?!” Taiyama shouted, ignoring Alistair. “How can you just take over a darkspawn’s body like that?!”
“If a demon can take over the body of a dead body, why is it impossible that one could do so for a soulless darkspawn mage?” The ethereal voice responded.
Taiyama took his staff from his back and pointed it at Mouse. “This is a Pride Demon I met in my Harrowing. Be careful. Normally pride demons will use bolts of fire and ice to attack. They’re also good at defending against magic. Don’t all charge in at once in the same direction, his magic attacks WILL freeze you to the spot if he hits.” He turned his attention back to Mouse. “’True tests never end’, huh? Well, I guess the one with you is about to end right now with your destruction!”
Mouse pointed his own twisted staff at Taiyama in response. “So you say…”
For a few agonizing moments, the two didn’t move. The wind howled ominously around them, unfortunately carrying the stench of rotting flesh to their noses. Then, without warning, the two mages shot fireballs at each other at the same time, the two spells colliding in the middle between them and exploding into a massive conflagration that blocked the sight of each from the other.
“Spread out! Don’t give him a bunched up target for his magic! Leliana, switch to Andraste’s arrows! Melee warriors, try to time your advances for when his spells are interrupted!” Taiyama bellowed orders over the howling winds and sounds of spells being exchanged from both sides.
Mouse moved quite more quickly than your average darkspawn, to be sure. Despite having to dodge Leliana’s arrows, spells from three mages, and the occasional attack from Zevran, Alistair, Shale, and/or Sten, he rarely was able to be hit and usually shrugged it off completely-Wynne explained that Pride demons could occasionally block magic.
But eventually Leliana’s arrows struck true, hitting Mouse in the shoulder right as he was about to cast Fireball at Taiyama, and the spell fizzled from his staff. All four melee attackers took this opportunity to advance from all sides. Mouse dodged Sten’s massive sword swing but received a nasty gash on his chest from Zevran and was stabbed by Alistair in the arm-feeling his ability to concentrate on his spells drain away slightly from the hit-before he could cast again. He immediately turned to Shale, who was fixing to crush the demon into a thick paste with both of her fists at once, and fired a single bolt of black magical flame at her.
“WHAT?!” Shale exclaimed as she stumbled back in horror, the magical flames burning through her stone form itself.
Taiyama responded by casting Winter’s Grasp on Shale from a distance, freezing her solid and quenching the flames. “You’ll thank me for that later, Shale!” He called out. “Melee group, fall back and wait for another opening!”
Sten and Zevran managed to fall back in time but when the order came out, Alistair was already in the middle of another swing. Mouse deftly dodged it and countered by slamming a large Stonefist into Alistair at point blank range. Alistair was launched backwards by the force of it, losing grip on his sword in the process.
He couldn’t breathe. Such was the force of the blow-to the point where he now had a rather sizeable dent in his armor-that his breath was completely knocked out of him. Panicking, Alistair searched the ground around him for his sword and didn’t notice that Mouse was charging at him in order to press the attack.
“Alistair!” Taiyama shouted, running to his side.
Just as Alistair was standing up, Mouse was in front of him, electrical magic glowing in his hand. Without time to dodge, Alistair merely shut his eyes and embraced himself for the impact.
A hit didn’t come from the front but from his right, pushing him aside and to the ground.
A concentrated beam of lightning energy pierced the man’s body, far too close to the heart.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
The scream echoed in the ears of all those around and when it died out, silence pervaded the area for some moments-not even the wind howled about them, as if it too was in wonder at what had just transpired.
Mouse stood, his palm pointed forward. In front of him was Taiyama Surana, a charred hole in his chest about the size of a clenched fist. The blood slowly seeped from his wound, staining his red robes an even deeper red than before. His eyes slowly dilated and the only sound he could make was a choked gurgling as he coughed up dark red blood.
Mouse “smiled” again and, cognizant of Wynne’s abilities, cast a curse of mortality on Taiyama before lowering his hand.
“It can’t be…” Leliana muttered, trying to deny what was happening as hot tears flowed down her face. “No, no, no… IT’S NOT POSSIBLE!”
I…I couldn’t believe it. He had pushed me out of the way. He had saved me. But I couldn’t believe it. I stared up at the scene, trying to will it to not have happened that way though I could feel some splatters of Taiyama’s blood on my face. It couldn’t be… Taiyama couldn’t die. HE JUST COULDN’T!
“TAIYAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
Taiyama fell to the ground, his vision swimming and his ears ringing. Pain wracked his entire body, both from the curse and his wound. The last thing he heard before blacking out was Sten bellowing an order for the others to gain control of themselves before they suffered the same fate, though it sounded like his voice was cracking slightly.
*******************************
“Wynne! Get over to Taiyama, hurry!”
“He’s got me pinned down here! Besides, I can’t do anything if Alistair can’t break that curse!”
“I can’t do any more templar abilities, I’m spent!”
“Then damn it, find some way to do more! We don’t have much time!”
“FOCUS, LELIANA! We need you to win this! Don’t let what happened distract you! Take your rage and sadness out on him if you must in order to concentrate!”
“Nnngh…” Taiyama muttered softly, opening his eyes slowly. “Always with the fighting and the shouting and the noise…” Though the curse was still active and he felt like doing nothing more than lying down and taking a nice long nap, he slowly began to force himself to stand up. “Can’t they let a guy get a little sleep every now and then…?”
He stood up on wobbly legs and took a moment to let his blurry vision focus. Any movement of his muscles was a leviathan effort. He was just so sleepy; it would be so nice if there were a nice feather down bed he could just lay down on and…
“TAIYAMA! YOU’RE ALL RIGHT!” The delighted cry cut through his nausea and sharpened his focus.
Leliana.
Leliana was here. Leliana was counting on him. His life, his love… He couldn’t sleep just yet.
“Come on, you should all know that it’d take more than that to keep me down!” Taiyama gently chided, though the weakness of his voice betrayed him.
He stooped and picked up his mage’s staff then looked around at all his comrades-all of them appeared to be overjoyed; even Morrigan was smiling widely and Sten didn’t seem half so morose as usual. He then pointed his staff at Mouse.
“All right… Let’s finish this bastard,” he said, sounding like he was giving a final task to do before stopping for the day.
Mouse glanced back at Taiyama. “That’s…impossible! How do you still stand?!”
Taiyama scoffed and began firing spells at him while closing the distance with him. “If you don’t understand it now, you’d NEVER understand it even if I told you!”
Mouse was just about to fire a lightning spell at Taiyama when a single arrow-the last of Leliana’s Andrastian arrows-pierced his hand, interrupting the spellcasting. Taiyama hit Mouse with a fireball before he could react, flinging him backwards, while Taiyama ran to close range and shot a large bolt of electrical energy out of his left hand at Mouse…doing nothing, not even fazing him.
Taiyama smiled his crooked, confident smile.
“AS IF I DIDN’T EXPECT YOU TO DO THAAAAAAT!” he yelled as he pointed his staff in his right hand at Mouse and unleashed his true attack, hitting Mouse with a fire spell using all the power he had left in him to overcome the Pride Demon’s magical defenses.
*****************
Jade Carpenter, a mild-mannered new recruit of the Redcliffe Guard, was bored to tears. Maker’s Breath, but he hated wall duty. Ever since the Warden Taiyama had led the cleansing of the undead from the castle, the village had been peaceful. All Jade had done all day was to just pace around the perimeter of the castle walls, occasionally watching the local populace as they rebuilt their homes.
“Well, at least I’m not gonna be sent out to fight those nasty darkspa- MAKER’S BREATH, WHAT IS THAT?!”
Jade did a triple-take as he saw plainly in the distance-miles and miles down the road-a huge spout of fire that, judging from the distance, was probably far larger than any man or woman down there. Yet seconds after it had been formed, it disappeared. Jade quickly turned around and sprinted for the castle-Maker knows if that was a threat to the city, but whatever it was it couldn’t be good.
***************************
Taiyama breathed raggedly yet smiled widely. In front of him not a single trace or piece of evidence of the possessed darkspawn remained. He had incinerated him into naught but dust.
Feeling rather proud of himself, Taiyama let his strength give way and fell backwards.
Leliana sprinted forward and slid to the ground on her knees, catching Taiyama in her lap. “Taiyama! Hold on, my love. Please, hold on… ALISTAIR, GET OVER HERE! BREAK THE CURSE, HURRY!”
All of Taiyama’s companions rushed to his side and Alistair placed his hands on Taiyama, closing his eyes and summoning all his willpower to try and break the curse that sapped the small remnants of Taiyama’s life force away.
Only a small blue poof emanated from his body, hardly enough to break the curse.
“What’s wrong?!” Leliana asked, tears streaming from her eyes. “Break the curse! NOW!”
“I can’t!” Alistair exclaimed, his voice choking on a sob. “I can’t focus! I used too many abilities in the fight!”
Wynne ran a maternal hand through Taiyama’s blood-soaked, thick brown hair. “Stay with us, Child. Stay with us. You can outlast the curse, I know it.”
Taiyama chuckled weakly. “Wish I could…”
“Don’t say that!” Leliana cried, almost to the point of sheer hysteria. “You can’t leave us! You can’t leave me! I love you, please hold on!”
Hunter, Taiyama’s Mabari, lay down beside Taiyama. He whined pitifully and began licking Taiyama’s hand.
“Love you too…” Taiyama choked out then looked at Alistair. “Alistair… You’re gonna be…the last Warden in Ferelden. It’s up to you…” They all had to strain to hear him, his voice was so weak.
Alistair shook his head. “D-don’t say that! Don’t you dare say that!” He sobbed. “You and me… We’ll defeat the Blight together, Blood Brother! For the love of the Maker, you can’t leave us now! I can’t do this without you!”
Taiyama shook his head slightly then raised his hand slowly. Alistair held it with both his hands and Taiyama gave it a weak squeeze.
“Don’t say that, Alistair… You…you can do it. Believe…in yourself. I know you can do it.” Though his voice was hardly a whisper now, he still sounded so confident when he said it-like he was stating an immutable law in the universe. “Ferelden needs you. You cannot…give up…no matter what happens…” He looked up at Leliana’s, whose lap he was currently resting his head. “Watch over him, Love…”
Leliana shook her head. “No…. No, you’ll watch over him yourself. Please, Taiyama, just hold on a little while longer! We can save you!”
“Watch…over him…and never…let him think…he can’t do it…” Taiyama coughed up some blood weakly. “He’ll need…your strength…and your optimism... Teach him…as I was taught…”
Taiyama closed his eyes and smiled that same crooked smile of his one last time.
“Later, Buddy…”
He was gone…
*********************************
Leliana had collapsed into Wynne’s arms, crying and sobbing and shouting.
Alistair pounded the ground with his fist over and over again, his body wracked with sobs. He alternated between shouting that it was his fault and refusing to believe what just happened.
Morrigan bit her lip to the point of drawing blood, tears streaming down her eyes. She repeated the word “Weakness” in her mind over and over again.
Hunter howled sadly, refusing to leave Taiyama’s body.
Zevran was on his knees, staring despondently at the ground with a lost look in his eyes.
Sten and Shale simply looked down at Taiyama’s body. Sten shed no tears, but his frown was deeper than any had ever seen before.
That day…we lost the greatest leader I had ever known…my Blood Brother. Our light in the darkness faded away forever.
The wind around them howled and moaned, and it began to rain.
Author's Note: As is my newly formed custom, here's the music I listened to as I wrote this: Emptiness from the Fullmetal Alchemist Soundtrack. I think it particularly fits when Taiyama is hit.
Also, some of you might be confused by the term "Blood Brother" and think I'm implying they're related to each other. I'm actually using the term in this sense though not literally--they haven't really done any ritual or anything unless you count the Joining. Just in the sense of two men who fight alongside each other loyally.
And if anyone can catch the reference I made with one of Taiyama's lines, they win the internets.
As always, let me know what you think. Criticisms, no matter how small, are requested.