Et Deus hom*o Factus Est - Jade_Sabre (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Part One

I know three things:

I am five years old, and we live in our house in the forest, and Mother calls me "boy." Sometimes Mother calls forth animals for our dinner; sometimes we eat plants from the garden. It is often cold, but our house is formed from one tree and has no cracks, and inside it is warm. I wear clothes because Mother dresses me. The sun rises and sets and the wind blows and I remember a snowfall. I know these words, and words such as "water" and "fire" and "magic" and "book," but there are some words I do not know, and today this bothers me.

I follow Mother around the kitchen with a bucket of water that splashes the floor as my knees bump it, and I almost slip many times, but Mother is walking back and forth and muttering at the flame in the fireplace. She is doing a spell, and she may need the water if it doesn't work. I cannot do spells, but I can hold the bucket.

Mother stops mid-mutter and throws up her hands. "'Tis impossible to name a thing before it exists," she says, and I do not understand but I see her face, brow furrowed and eyes narrowed. I hope she is not angry with me. I try to distract her.

"Mother," I say, "what's a name?"

Mother stops and looks at me, her eyes and brow the same and yet different. I cannot describe the difference; I only know she is asking questions, too. "A word," she says. "A word you use to call something. How you call something. What you call something. A name is…a name, child."

"Oh," I say. "Do you have a name, Mother?"

She still frowns at me. "Morrigan," she says at last.

I like the sound of the word, the name, even though she says it slowly, as if it is a word she doesn't know very well. It matches Mother's dark hair and yellow eyes and pale skin and soft-hard voice. "I like it," I tell her.

"Your approval warms my heart," she says in her not-serious voice, but I know she is pleased.

"Is my name Boy?"

She is not pleased. "No," she says, and then she sighs and looks out the window. It is open to the outside, but Mother uses her magic to let the air in and to keep the cold out. "You were once called Urthemiel, if that is of any assistance to you."

Mother is right. She is always right. I am only five years old. "May I be Morrin, then?"

She laughs, a short quick hard sound, and says, "Imagine an Old God naming himself after me. 'Tis an honor, one must agree." She looks down at me and says, "Be Morrin, then, Urthemiel, if it pleases you."

"Yes," I say, Morrin says, and I smile.

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

I am eight years old. I am sitting on the edge of the creek by our house, watching the beautiful ripples of light filtering through the running water, the constantly shifting shadows on the pebbles of the creekbed, the occasional blade of grass drifting downstream.

I do not know how long I have been sitting here. Yesterday I sat in this spot and watched a spider weave a web between two twigs in the mud. The spider itself was small and hard to see, a sort of gray color that avoided light. The web was a circle inside a circle inside a circle, constructed around straight lines. This morning there was dew on each of the tiny threads, and the spider was nowhere to be seen. Tomorrow I think I will part the grass near my hand and look for bugs in the dirt. I have not yet spent time observing the dirt.

I do not know why I spend so much time observing the world around me; I do not know of anything else to do when Mother sends me from the hut so that she may do her magic apart from my questions. Sometimes I wonder why her magic is so secret—I know that I will not be able to copy her, that magic is not one of my gifts, and I do not know why she would still feel a need to send me away. I do not mind being alone. I am always either with Mother or by myself, and even when I am by myself there are still so many things around me that I forget there is no one to talk to. Mother and I do not speak often, either.

The sun filters through the leaves of the trees above me. It is summer, and the air is hot, though closer to the stream there is a cool breeze from the water. There are birds tweeting and whistling, rustling leaves and shaking branches as they hop from perch to perch. Sometimes the bushes rustle with the movement of some animal I cannot see, but I am used to such sounds. No animal has ever approached me. I sometimes wish they would come closer, so that I could see and know each hair poking through the skin, feel the softness of a coat of fur and the warmth of a body below it, understand how bodies suddenly become tails. I try to be still, stiller than the sky, but they never come closer. I know all these things, but I want to know them for myself.

I have long since memorized the placement of every pebble in the small part of the creekbed I have decided to watch today. The largest is a whitish brown, its curve rising above the others, which are small and grey and slowly wearing away under the constant flow of water. Even the smallest pebble was once a rock, and rocks were once bigger rocks. I have never seen a rock bigger than my mother, but I know they exist. I know I ought to see them; I would like to watch them long enough to see soft green moss turn tiny chips into giant cracks, until the big rocks became small rocks. I would take the rocks to the ocean and watch until the waves turned the rocks to pebbles and then sand, gritty beneath my bare feet.

I do not know what an ocean is, but I know this happens. I will have to ask Mother. A pebble splashes in the creek.

I look up amidst the sound of birds suddenly started into flight, the flap of their wings sending wind rushing over and between their feathers. For a moment their mingled joy and panic is my own, and then I see the woman standing on the other side of the creek.

Mother has explained to me the difference between boys and women, but she did not tell me that women could look different. This woman has white hair and yellow eyes (like Mother's—like a hawk, though I have never been close enough to a hawk to look) and her skin is like a fallen leaf, rough and veined, wrinkled like my bedclothes after I shove them away in the morning—folded more than lined. Her clothes are plain, the color of raspberry juice, and her skirt hides her feet, so I cannot see if they are bare as mine are. She is not so close that she stands tall over me, but she stands straight and even from the other side of the creek I know that she is powerful. But not a threat.

"Well, well, well," she says, and her voice is very different from Mother's. Deeper, rougher, like coarse sand (I have never seen sand yet I know there are different kinds, that sometimes it is black and sometimes it is brown and sometimes crystal). "I should have thought you'd have made your way to a city by now."

I try to be as still as a rabbit who has heard the footfall of a fox; my heart hammers just as hard.

"You never were one for the wild, but perhaps that has changed. No matter," she says, with a wave of the hand, much like Mother makes when she has become too involved in explaining a spell. "Well met, grandson. How are you on this fine day?"

I do not know what to say. The only person I ever speak to is Mother, and she has never asked how I am. She does not have to ask; she is Mother, and she knows. More than that, I can only say that the sun is shining and the creek water is casting shadows on the pebbles, and I am. I am.

"Are you always this silent?" she says. "Or did Morrigan forget to teach you how to speak?"

"That's Mother's name," I say, surprised.

"Yes," she says, and she smiles, but not like Mother smiles. Mother rarely smiles, and only when she is truly pleased; this woman smiles with her teeth, a hunter's warning. "I am your mother's mother, child. My name is Flemeth."

"Flemeth," I say, the word flowing off my tongue, strange but soft. It is a mystery.

"And your name?"

Mother has never had to ask; I named myself. "Morrin," I say, though I am uncertain even as I say it. It is not a flowing name, like Flemeth; it rather rumbles, slithering like a snake in the grass. Morrigan rumbles over a cliff and comes to a sudden stop, while Mother is a blanket wrapped around me, safely. I wonder how it is that Mother and Morrigan came to mean the same thing.

"Derivative," she snorts. I do not understand. "Well then, Morrin. Fare-thee-well?"

"The sun is shining," I say, because I have no other answer.

She shakes her head, her long white hair drifting over her shoulders, froth from a waterfall meeting the river below. "To see such refined sensibilities satisfied in such an ordinary fashion...ah, well, I suppose you're still young. We shall have to see how you are when you are older. Perhaps by then your mother will have taught you something useful. Tell me, child," and the full focus of her yellow gaze sharpens on me, the mouse in the grass, "what has she taught you?"

I try to think of an answer. Mother rarely tells me she wants to teach me something; usually she says so only after I have made a mistake, such as trying to grasp the cookpot without a mitt. "Flowers," I say finally, "and their names. How to mend shirts. How to—"

"And magic?" she says, seeming to loom taller without ever taking a step. "Surely you can tell me the names of the demons, or call the wisps—"

"I can't do magic," I say, returning her interruption with a laugh. I have never done magic. The thought feels silly. Magic is smoke and lyrium and Mother sending me from the hut with sharp words and then sulking silent when I return, or else smiling and passing a hand over my hair.

The pressure of her gaze softens; she is thinking, and watching me while she thinks. I still sit on the ground with my hands in my lap. "No," she says at last; "no, I don't believe you can. And...of your own volition, it seems." She tilts her head, the avian co*ckeye look of contemplation. "An interesting choice, and one I think you will yet regret."

"I've never done magic," I say, feeling a need to tell her she is confused, or wrong. "I don't need to do magic. Mother does magic."

"You don't need—?" She laughs, then, a sound that comes from deep in her throat, her head tilted back to let the sound bubble into the air, her shoulders shaking. When Mother laughs I want to smile, but this laughter turns my innards cold, and I shiver. "Oh, but don't you? Tell me, boy," and now she is leaning, almost as if she is leaning across the creek and peering into my face, "do you fear death?"

"Death?" I have not thought about it. Animals die. Mother calls them and they come to her, and with a word or two they stop moving and she skins them and puts them in the cookpot. I clean the furs. I know animals eat each other, but it has not occurred to me that the same fate could await me.

"Oh, nothing so gruesome as that," she says, as if she knows my thoughts. "I'm not talking of death in battle or any such glorious nonsense. Decay, child. Slowly wasting away as time and age rob your mind of clarity and your body of strength. Closing your eyes for sleep, and simply never waking. The end of all things, as all things must end."

"All things?" I ask. My heart still beats at a rabbit's pace in my chest, a-live, a-live, a-live, but a rabbit's heart speeds up before it dies (it is the rhythm of death as its breath is the music; a symphony ending in abrupt silence) and Flemeth is watching my face and I wonder in a panic if she means to eat me, or kill me, if she can make me decay with the strength of her gaze.

"Oh, yes," she says. "Surely you've seen trees rotting away from the inside, or what becomes of the squirrel after it makes its final leap?" As she speaks, I see her words, as if she has cast a spell and suddenly I am the squirrel hurtling headlong into the ground; I am tree and I am consumed, an agony that grows slower than my roots, and I want to scream but the tree has no tongue and I stay silent. "The same will happen to your mother," she speaks of her child as though she does not care about her death, her voice close, "but not I, and not, perhaps, to you."

I blink and the vision clears; I am standing, and Flemeth stands behind me, her hands on my shoulders. Her hair tickles my neck as she speaks into my ear. "You have power, Morrin, power within you, power to reject this fate. It is your birthright to claim when you see fit."

I breathe quickly, small gasps, my limbs shaking, full of jumbled images that I have never seen and feelings I have never felt (sand and symphonies, oceans and sky)—I have never been frightened, but the word comes to me unbidden and I take it, naming my fear—though if it is more of Flemeth or death, I cannot say. But the fear is mine, and no one else's, and that helps, a little.

"Power?" I say, the word puffed through my lips.

"Yes," she says, her voice a hiss that stirs the same unbidden place within me—a place without explanation, a trickle from a river long run dry. It is the home of all the things that I know and yet have never known; but knowledge is not understanding, and that I cannot find. "I could teach you, child, to embrace your potential, if you'd like."

Flemeth's voice and hands are warm and prying, gripping my shoulders as if to tear me apart. She does not wish to teach me; she wants to reach her claws into the strange silent place inside me and take my knowledge at the source; she cares not for understanding. She merely wants to possess. The words are still not my own, but they fall into place, locking in with my frightened instincts as if to warn me that my instincts are true.

"And Mother?" I say, because I know this is not what she wants me to ask.

"What about her?" she asks, her voice amused.

I take a deep breath. "I can save her, too?"

"Morrigan has served her purpose," Flemeth says, squeezing my shoulders. "She is a mortal girl, meant for mortal chores. Let her live her life to its end. It is you who concerns me."

I don't dare pull away. My eyes fix themselves on a seed, floating through the air on a ray of sunlight, heedless of its fate; I wish that I were so careless, but I do not know what this means. All I know is that Flemeth has me, and I wish to be free.

"I won't let her die," I say, the strength of my voice surprising even me. "If you want to teach me, you have to save Mother, too."

I can feel her nails pressing through the thin linen of my shirt, as if she would like nothing more than to rip me to shreds; but that would kill me, and apparently she wants me alive. So instead she releases me and in a swirl of fabric she stands before me, her skirt wrapping around her legs. Her expression is carefully unhappy, as Mother's is when she does not want me to know the fullness of her anger. She is Mother's mother, after all.

"Very well," she says, "persist in your loyalty to the girl, if you must. She has her work cut out for her, if she thinks to harness you herself." Her smile is thin and tight-lipped. "Should you change your mind, you will know how to find me. I wouldn't take to the skies." I still do not understand, and my reservoir is silent.

She looks at me a moment longer, but I do not meet her gaze; the seed drifts between us, unknowingly seeking the haven the ground will provide. At last she says, in the same light tone she greeted me, "I suppose I must be off, then."

She is changing, somehow, smoke and lyrium and power I cannot see. "Do not tell your mother we met, grandson. Or perhaps rather..." a sudden gust of wind blows the seed off course, beyond my sight, and a voice deeper than sound and harsher than Mother's worst scolding echoes around me, driving me to my knees with my hands pressed over my ears, "...brother."

Dirt swirls around me and I squeeze my eyes shut, curled in a ball on the ground until the horrible roaring sound ceases. There are no living sounds to replace it, only the quiet gurgle of the creek. I do not move and this is where Mother finds me; I open my eyes as she shakes me and see the red light of sunset filling the forest.

"Morrin," she says, without a trace of relief, "would you like your supper?"

I shake my head and start to cry. Mother does not know what to do; when I was small she told me that if I ever felt the need to cry I ought to do it somewhere she could not see, for she could not abide the sight of tears. I know now it is not disgust but confusion that fueled this order, but I do not know why I know, and I cry all the harder. Mother does not scold me, or tell me to stop; instead she puts her arms around me and picks me up and carries me home and holds me until my tears run dry and I can only shudder myself to sleep.

I do not tell her I have seen Flemeth. She does not ask, but I think she must know, even if she does not understand. The next morning I leave the house without her asking and make my way into the darkest part of the forest, following my nose, deliberating seeking scents that repulse me. I do not mark how much time passes before I complete my quest; the morning air is still cool beneath the denser trees above me when I find the body of a songbird, wings folded, eyes closed, half-hidden among the bent blades of grass around its final resting place. I sit upon a fallen log and watch as the body lies still, as ants and flies begin to crawl over it, as the grass slowly straightens, recovering from the sudden violent interruption of death.

And the living songbirds yet tweet among the rustling tree branches, and the flies buzz, and a beetle makes quiet ticking sounds as it walks. The air is still hot; the world still hums; sunlight still reaches for the ground, and the ground sends plants reaching back. The bird rots as the days pass, each morning revealing a new fascinating part of its construction: the skin beneath the feathers, the muscles below the skin, the bones below that—and I learn that death, too, is beautiful.

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

I am ten years old, sitting on a short stool watching my dinner cook in the pot over the fire while Mother reads from her old book with the tree on the cover. It is near midsummer, and the swell of crickets outside fills the room. There are thousands of them humming perfectly in tune together. I have tried and failed to count them all. Someone knocks on the door.

Mother and I both look up; I look to her, and she looks to the door. The knock comes again, a loud percussive interlude. There is no mistaking the sound; the confusion lies with its origin. Mother sets down her book and comes to look into the pot, reaching above her head to the little pot of lyrium on the mantle. She nicks her finger with a small knife and drops of blood fall into my dinner, followed by a pinch of dust. I lean forward, curious, and in the ripples on the surface of what used to be my stew I make out the darkness of the small clearing in front of our house, and the small gathering of figures before our door. There is another knock.

"Not a word," Mother whispers to me, but she does not tell me to hide. I turn on the stool and watch her stand before the closed door and call, "Who goes there?"

"We seek words with the daughter of Asha'bellanar," says the voice, the wood of the door making it hard to hear. I recognize all the words, but the sounds are strange, as if the speaker does not know how to speak properly.

Mother says, "How many are you?"

"Four." I glance at the pot, but without Mother's concentration the pictures has disappeared. "We seek shelter for the night. We've meat to cover the debt."

My dinner is lost to magic, and when Mother looks back to me I give her a hopeful look. She sighs, and I know she is trying to decide what to do with me. In the end she chooses nothing, and instead says, "Enter, then."

She opens the door and the four come into our house. They are not like Mother and I. They are all shorter than she is, though still taller than me, and their faces are thin, their noses oddly rounded, their eyes enormous. Their ears are their most startling feature, as though someone has pinched them and pulled them back and then flattened them, as Mother does when she makes cookies. One of them is a woman, or at least her shape matches Mother's; she carries a staff on her back, as Mother sometimes does, while the other three have curved staffs secured with string. They wear long cloaks, and their clothes have far more fur and decoration than mine do, though I cannot guess why. I can do little more than stare, and hope they will speak again.

The woman does. "Thank you for your courtesy," she says, her words still strange, almost whistling, looking around our house. It is rounded, the fireplace on one side and a few chairs and a table in the middle and Mother's shelf and the door on the other side, the wall curving into the ceiling low above our heads. There is a wall in the middle that stops halfway, blocking the beds from view while still letting in the heat from the fireplace. Everything is made of wood and various shades of brown, aside from the black cookpot.

"There's little space, but 'tis enough," Mother says, her words short. "If you have sought me for a purpose, name it."

The woman nods to one of the men, who pushes aside his cloak to reveal several small pouches. He opens one and withdraws something—I catch a glimpse of something fist-sized, firelight glinting gold off it—and shows it to Mother. "Do you know this?" the woman asks.

Mother's face does not change, but she does not answer. She does not look at me, either, but she says, "Morrin, fetch the blankets from the chest at the foot of my bed, and bring them to our guests."

At once all eight enormous eyes are looking at me, and I am glad to hop off my stool and have work. The peaceful hum of the crickets has turned shrill in the presence of the new people, and part of me is afraid that Mother will work some sort of magic to do...something. I am not sure what I fear. I do not know what Mother's magic can do, aside from call animals and make the air sleepy and still and thick. I do not think it can stop death, but part of me knows that it can cause it.

I go to the chest and pull out the blankets—and these at least have colors other than brown, like green and blue and yellow—and although I know they are speaking with Mother I do not listen. When I come back, my arms full of rough, warm cloth, the woman is sitting on the table, the men on the floor, and Mother in her chair. She is holding something in her two hands, but I cannot see what it is, and her face is frowning. I give the men their blankets, staring at their faces and their ears; the woman takes the blue one, and says, "A boy?"

"My son," Mother says. This is what I am; it explains the entirety of me. I am Mother's son and she is my mother and together we are happy. I smile at her.

"Where is his father?" asks one of the men. His words are wrong, too, and one of them is a word I do not know.

"Ferelden," Mother answers, another word I do not know, "if he still lives."

"We're a far cry from Denerim," the woman says.

"As the crow flies," Mother says, her voice...flat. She answers them as if she does not wish to but feels she must, and must do so honestly. "It is safer here."

"Farther from the Chantry," one of the men says. My caution fights with my curiosity as I return to my stool, looking to Mother for instructions she is not giving. "It has been an odd time for mages."

"Indeed," Mother says.

"What's his name?" the woman asks, and I answer without waiting for Mother's permission.

"Morrin," I say, and as if the word were the final strike, questions fall out of my mouth. "What are you? Why are you here? Can you do magic?"

Mother says my name in a warning tone, but the woman laughs and says, "I was wondering if you could talk! We are Dalish, traveling on a mission from our clan. I am our Keeper's first, so yes, I can look through the Veil." She smiles at me and says, "With such a powerful mother, your own abilities must be strong."

"Morrin is no mage," Mother says, still warning.

"Still, no doubt his dreams are interesting." The Dalish woman still regards me. She is poking me with her questions and her eyes—large and oval and blue—and her smile—it is a pretty smile. But I have watched a worm tunnel through dirt and seen snakes sunning themselves on rocks and created rainbows from puddles and I do not know why her smile should be so pleasant to view. It is a small thing, compared to the vastness of the world around my house.

"Too much lyrium in the air," one of the men says. I am still looking at the woman's smile.

"As I said, Morrin is no mage," Mother says. "He is, however, a boy who needs his sleep."

She stands and looks at me and I am off the stool and behind the wall in three steps. I am not scared of Mother, but I respect her silent commands. I pull off my shirt and lay atop my blanket; it is too warm to sleep under it. Mother comes and bends over me, as she has not done in quite a while, and deep in her yellow eyes I think I see...worry. I do not know what worry is, exactly, but the word marks her expression and the fact that I can see her worry bothers me.

Mother would not like it if she knew I knew she worried. It is not something I am meant to know.

She merely says, "Sleep well, boy," and places a hand on my forehead; before I can protest, I am asleep.

o.O.o

I do not know how long I sleep. My sleep is deep and restful, as always, and when I wake I open my eyes and see Mother placing the folded blankets back in the chest. "They're gone?" I ask, sitting up and rubbing my eyes.

"Yes," she says, not looking at me. "They still have many miles to cover before they return to their clan."

"Did you recognize what they showed you?"

She smooths down the blanket in the chest, running her hands over it, and closes the trunk with a thud. "Yes," she says, clicking the lock over her answer as if to hide it.

"What was it?"

Mother looks at me. She is worried, even if she will not voice it aloud. "It belonged to my mother," she says, and it is my turn to hide my feelings. Flemeth's name fills the space of the silence between us. I realize that there is a space between my mother and I, that Mother is also Morrigan and that Morrigan has her own Mother, and therefore her own childhood, and perhaps a life apart from me, a life with Dalish and fathers and Ferelden. I do not know why she has not told me this before, and I do not know if she will answer me truthfully, should I ask.

Either way, I have to try. "Mother," I say, "what's a father?"

She stands a moment longer, looking at me with her arms crossed. I think she is trying to decide whether or not she should answer my questions—whether or not she can. I look at her and try to tell her without speaking that I am her son. There is no one else to ask; there is no one else I want to ask.

She sits on her bed, across from me, and says, "Children do not simply appear from nothing, boy. They require a mother and a father to come together and make them. A father is a man who causes a woman to have a child and become a mother." She pauses, her eyes searching the ceiling. I wait for her to decide if this definition suits her. "One might argue that a father is a man who also helps raise the child, but that was never an option."

I long to ask why, but Mother only offers explanations when she thinks they are needed. "What's Ferelden?" I ask instead.

"A country," she says, "far away from here."

"What's a country?"

She raises her eyes to the ceiling again, this time in exasperation. "We shall be at this all morning, Morrin."

"I want to know," I say, putting up another hopeful expression, "please."

She sighs and says, "At least put yourself to some use, and help me tend the garden."

I exchange my usual morning ritual of inspecting all the trees around our house for stooping on my hands and knees and removing the unhelpful flowers from the bed of dirt where Mother has planted the flowers she uses in her magic. I keep asking questions, about countries (pieces of land full of people who are the same) and Denerim (a city) and cities (overcrowded, cramped stone prisons into which people voluntarily group themselves to encourage mutual insanity); Mother's voice grows hoarse with answering, and she tells me which books on her shelf will give better explanations. My mind cannot be still. It races from idea to idea (there are other people in the world, and many of them) (people use stone for building?), creating pictures of the world I have never thought about. Occasionally my mind adds words Mother has not used, unfamiliar labels for my imaginings which yet ring true. I do not pause to consider this; it is part of me, and there are too many other wonders to think about.

The day passes as a blur of knowledge and digging; Mother scrubs me in the washtub before allowing me to bed. I lay on my back, tired but still thinking, though my thoughts are unfocused and blurry. "Mother," I say, my voice sleepy, and I hear her sigh as she lies on her bed, "what're dreams?"

"Dreams," she says, her voice equally tired, "are memories of visiting the Fade while you slept."

"Oh," I say. I now know what the Fade is (a confusing realm where mages get their magic, and people go when they sleep), but I have no memories of visiting such a strange place. "Do I have dreams?"

"Everyone has dreams, Morrin." She has turned her face into her pillow. "If you sleep now, you will have one."

I have learned so much today, it seems impossible that the night should pass without at least one incident; but sleep is, as always, a dark, empty, restful place, and by morning I have forgotten that I have nothing to remember.

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

I am thirteen years old, and I wake to the sound of someone beating on glass.

I do not open my eyes, but I know that I am not sleeping anymore. It is dark—my eyes are closed—but I have no sense of standing or lying down. I am, apart from anything else, and it is dark, and I want to go back to sleep. The sound comes again, ringing and echoing around me, and though I try to look I cannot see anything. The sound shakes me, vibrating the very air, filling the space like thunder after a lightning strike. But I do not know where it is coming from.

I try to say something, but my voice has no power here—wherever I am. I try to walk, to wave my arms, but they do not respond. Somehow I am awake and yet asleep. I am not in my house, but neither am I unconscious. I do not know where I am.

Again the world rings, a pure pitch with bass rumblings as the shakings catch up. The fourth time I hear it, I see a glint of light. I strain to see the light, willing myself to find its source—and suddenly I am before a wall. I struggle to focus on the dull brownish light coming through the wall—it is a clear wall, ridged and uneven, and on the other side there are shapes, brown and unfocused. I will myself to touch it, but there is no sense of feeling here. Sight and sound disobey the normal rules. I can see that the wall is endless, a boundless boundary, stretching on forever to either side of me, trapping me in the nowhere I am. It is straight and flat, so nowhere must go on forever, too. This does not make sense to me. I probably should stop trying to make it make sense.

There is someone on the other side of the wall.

I watch as the person moves—there is movement, somewhere, just not nowhere—and then the wall rings again, no louder or softer than before. Are they trying to knock it down? I do not know how one person could hope to succeed against the endless wall. I would like to help, but I am helpless.

I see funny shapes as the person moves again, and I start to pick out colors—black, white, deep red—and then they shift and through the ridges I see Mother, her face stretched and her body squat, like looking at her reflection in ripples. She looks silly. I wish I could see her expression, but then she moves again and now her face is squashed like a wrinkled tomato and her arms are twice as long as they should be. I laugh.

She goes still, and I can tell she is trying to look through the wall, trying to see me laughing. I cannot wave or do anything to let her know that I am here. She is trying to reach me, but she cannot. I hope this does not worry her.

I can laugh! I have no words, but I can laugh. Mother knocks on the wall again, but this only makes me laugh harder. My laugh is like the ringing of the wall itself. It mocks her. It warns her away. I do not do these things myself, but I do. The wall is my doing. The wall is my prison. The wall keeps me safe. I want to tell Mother these things. I want to tell her to leave the wall alone. I laugh instead. It is my laugh (I am thirteen, and my voice is the same as it has always been) and it is Flemeth's laugh (I do not want to be cruel) and it is a laugh that crawls out of the ground and hangs low like fog, like slowly sinking into a bog.

Mother stares through the wall. One of her eyes is huge and unblinking and the rest of her face is cut into the tiny faces of crystal. From the part of her face that I can understand, she looks scared. She is slow to back away, but once she does she runs, until I can no longer see her. But the wall still rings and the laughter continues and light floods the nowhere land. I open my eyes to dawn.

Mother is gone.

I do not leave the house all morning. I stoke the fire and wait. I eat bread when I am hungry. I sit on my stool. I am taller than I used to be, and the stool is too short for my legs. I sit on the table. The sunlight grows brighter and whiter as the day passes. I am not afraid.

It is past midday when a crow flies through our window. Before I can chase it off there is a change in the air, and Mother is standing where the bird once stood. The crow was Mother, and I cannot decide if I am confused or surprised and she says, "Morrin, don't sit on the table."

I am standing on the ground and staring at her, twisting as she walks past me and starts searching her shelf. Her hair is loose and tangled. This is unusual, but I do not know what to say.

"Morrin," Mother says, her back to me, her voice annoyed, "do you have nothing better to do then stand in the middle of the room?"

"I saw you," I say, because nothing else matters. "While I was sleeping. I saw you."

Her back is still to me, but I can tell that she has stopped moving. A bird tweets outside. A wind rustles a few loose papers by the window. "Aye," she says. "No doubt dreaming is new to you."

"Was it a dream?" I have never had a dream.

She turns and looks at me, not as if I am Morrin, but as if I am a spell that does not do what she intends. "No," she says, "but yes. 'Twas a test that failed. We shall have to try different methods."

"What are you trying to do?" I ask, as she paces to the mantle and peers into the pot of lyrium. "Can I help?"

"Doubtful," she says, sounding distracted, "as you are the problem, and therefore 'tis unlikely you are the solution. No," she says, with a sigh, turning back to me with her arms crossed, "you may continue as you are. I am sorry to have disturbed your rest."

She sounds strange when she says this, but I am tired of wondering. I want things to be as they have always been. "It won't happen again," I say.

"No." She shakes her head. "No, I think not. I will try something else. And you..."

We stare at each other, and under her gaze I feel like a puzzle, a problem. I stand perfectly still. I know she can see—for she is Mother and Mother always sees—that I do not want to be a problem. Now I am afraid. I am afraid of myself, because I do not know why I am a problem.

"Don't fret," Mother says. Finally I move. I run to Mother and throw my arms around her, and she hugs me, her hands holding me close without digging in her fingers. "All will be well, boy. All will be well."

I forget my dream and my fears. I cling to Mother and to her promise. The sun is warm and Mother is soft and the world is waiting for me, and I am late.

I squeeze Mother and she releases me. "Be home in time for supper," she says, and I smile at her and run towards the door and remember something.

"Mother," I say, turning back, "can you teach me to be a bird, too?"

"You're no mage, Morrin," she says, but she sounds amused and not angry. "Best to stay on the ground."

I nod and run outside, but the thought comes to me, unbidden: I would dream of flying.

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

I am sixteen years old, and Mother wants me to leave.

I do not understand. I watch as she opens her chests and folds blankets and clothing, speaking aloud as she tries to decide what will fit in the bag she has found for me. All of our dried and preserved food is on the table, sorted by type, and most of that too will go in the bag. She has found boots—apparently they are meant to go on my feet, though I find the idea of putting leather over my toes strange. It is better to be confused by that than it is to be confused about why Mother wants me to leave, but that is the question weighing on my mind, and it is one she refuses to answer.

Mother wants me to leave. Leave where? I know there are other places in the world, cities and countries and Ferelden and Orlais, but these have no more meaning than their description. The only places I know are our house and our forest; that is world enough for me. I have spent my life trying to understand everything that happens in our forest, trying to observe every possible event. It is my life's work, and I have barely begun to know all the possible events, let alone see all of them. I have a—a need to be here. I want to be here. I do not want to leave.

"Morrin," Mother says, "you leave in the morning, and unless you want to starve before you're halfway to Val Foret, I suggest you look at the food and decide what you want."

"I don't want to leave," I say. "Why do I have to leave?"

"Does it matter?" she asks. We have had a lot of these fights lately. I know that Mother is right—she has always been right, and she has not changed. I am the one who is taller and whose voice is deeper and whose feelings seem to change without warning. Her question makes me angry. I would be glad to leave, if only to leave her questions—but I do not want to leave. I am angry that she makes me want to leave when I do not want to leave.

My own thoughts tire me. "I don't want to leave," I say again, and I move as slowly as possible towards the table. I pick up a few strips of dried meet and set them down. Vegetables, too, I take and replace, never actually holding onto anything long enough to make a decision. I think I could eat everything on the table at once, if I tried. I am always hungry.

"I am sorry you feel that way," Mother says, but I do not think she is sorry at all.

"Do you want me to leave?" I ask, shoving aside the vegetables and sitting on the table. My toes nearly brush the floor, and the table creaks under my weight.

Mother turns from the chest and sees me sitting on the table, but she does not choose to comment on it. Instead she opens her mouth to speak—and then closes it, and looks at me. I frown and cross my arms, drawing in on myself, avoiding her gaze. She does not have to speak—I know she does not want me to leave. But if that is the case, then why is she insisting on it? I do not appreciate being looked at as if I am her precious child. If I were only her son, she would not send me away.

I am her son. It has always been enough.

"Morrin," Mother says, "sometimes we are asked to do things we do not understand, but which are for the best." I glance at her and she looks as though she cannot believe the words coming out of her mouth.

"Mother," I say, "we always have a choice."

"Not always," she says, and for a moment is as if a cloud has passed before the sun and dimmed the strength of her determination. "You are young to be robbed of choice, and for that I am sorry. 'Tis entirely my fault. Blame me, if you wish, but know that that does not change the reality. You must leave."

"I don't want to leave!" I shout, banging my fist on the table. The vegetables jump. My fist hurts.

"Neither did I," Mother says, so quietly I can almost pretend I did not hear her. But she knows I did, and she knows that now I am curious, and I know that I will have to do as she says before she answers my questions. I look at the vegetables scattered around me and grab two handfuls.

"Put these in the bag," I say, holding them out. As she comes to take them from me, I ask, "When?"

She raises her eyebrow and places a rough sackcloth next to me. "Wrap them in this first," she says, and so I begin loading food onto the square. "When I left home."

"When?" I ask again.

"Many years ago," she says. Her voice is teasing me. "Before you were born."

"Where did you go?" I ask, watching as she returns to the clothes.

She snorts. "Everywhere, it seemed. My mother sent me to accompany a pair of Grey Wardens as they sought to end the Fifth Blight. Their journey was..." She pauses, and I can tell her eyes no longer see what is before them. "Arduous."

"Did they succeed?"

"Oh yes." She resumes her activity. "Yes, they did, and with relatively little cost, it seemed. Certainly most Blights are not turned before the year is out."

"What's a Blight?"

"Do you care for this shirt?" she asks, shaking a black garment out in front of her. It is large in front of her, but I am growing wide and tall. "I think 'twill fit, if I tuck it—"

"Where did it come from?" I ask, hopping off the table and taking it from her, holding it in front of me.

She frowns, stretching the shirt across me. It will not need to be tucked. "Denerim, I think," she says. "Or perhaps one of the soldiers at Redcliffe. 'Tis unimportant. It will serve its purpose."

"What purpose is that?" I ask as she takes it from my grasp and folds it and puts it in the bag.

"To make you presentable for human company," she says. "I never bothered with such niceties, but for you 'twill be better if you blend in. I am sending you to town, Morrin," she says, looking straight in my eyes, "and you must be prepared."

"And what am I to do?" I ask. I realize that I do not know what I ought to do, let alone what I must do. I know nothing about towns. My ignorance revives my panic. My pride masks it as anger. "Why must I do anything? Why must I leave?"

"Morrin—"

I pick up the bag and throw it into the empty fireplace. Immediately I know I will be punished. I cross my arms and draw into myself, this time masking fear. "I don't want to leave," I say, although that much is obvious. I do not know the hidden things I want to say—I cannot make sense of my feelings. I look at the floor.

The silence after my words lasts a long time. It is a warm day and my cheeks are warm with anger and the room is hot, and Mother lets me stand and bake in the fire of my making. When I cannot stand still any longer, I go to the fireplace and retrieve the bag. Some of the clothes have fallen out of it and are sooty. I do not bother to be neat about replacing them.

"A Blight," Mother says behind, her voice soft like the footfall of a fox before it strikes, "is a surge of darkspawn brought about by the awakening of an Old God and its subsequent transformation into an archdemon."

I drop the bag and turn to look at her. "You said I was an Old God."

"Aye," she says, and her lips turn in a smile but her eyes are serious, studying my reaction. "Did you never wonder what that meant?"

I have not. Mother has not called me an Old God since I was young. It has always been understood in our house—Mother is a witch and I am an Old God—but it has never had meaning. I do not know what a god is, let alone an old one. I am Morrin. I am Mother's son.

It is not enough.

"The Old Gods," she says, still watching me, "were imprisoned long ago, deep underground, and the darkspawn they created constantly search for them. When they are found, the darkspawn taint corrupts them, and they embark on a path of destruction and—"

"What's a darkspawn?"

Mother shrugs. "Ask any member of the Chantry, and they will tell you they are the offspring of fallen Tevinter mages. I know only that they are bred deep below the surface, and that they aim for nothing more than utter destruction." My face must reflect my panic, for her voice becomes gentler. "You need not fear them, Morrin. They have already come for you once. They will not come again."

"How can you be sure?" I ask, stepping away from her, stumbling on the hearth and sitting down, hard, on the stone. "Are they coming here? Is that why you are sending me away?"

"No," she says, and again her face is cloudy. "I am sending you away because where I must go you may not follow. Not immediately. You will make for Val Foret, and when I am ready I will send for you."

"But where are you going?" I ask. And then, though it hurts to say, I look at the floor and say, "Can't I come with you?"

"Morrin," Mother says, but when I look up her face is clear of the emotions that filled her voice. She comes and sits next to me, and I lean against her shoulder as I have not done in seasons. She strokes my hair and says, "You were born for a purpose, and I have been...unsuccessful in realizing your potential. There is knowledge in the world which I lack." She is quiet, but I am content, and I refuse to let any of my other wants or questions disturb my rest. "And so you must go away until I send for you."

"I don't want to go," I say, but my protest is weak.

"Perhaps it will not be for long," she says, her voice lighter. "Perhaps you will find the answers on your own. You may have no need of me after all."

"Mother," I say, and she shushes me. I do not have to say that I need her. She knows.

"'Tis a grand adventure," she says, and kisses my head. She has not done this in years. "Now come, let us finish packing."

"But where is Val Foret? How will I get there?" Suddenly I am full of questions. "What did your mother give you, when you left? Who will I meet? What should I say?"

"Gracious, aren't you practical," she says, her voice still light. She releases me and stands, reaching out a hand to help me as well. "Finish packing, and I will answer your questions as best as I am able. I am not," she smiles, "an expert in these matters."

She has told me there are things she does not know, but I am not sure I believe her. We spend our last day together packing, and when that is finished, we eat. When that too is done, Mother walks me through the forest, and I tell her about the trees, and she tells me about cities and buildings and clothing, and manners, and weapons. Sometimes she tells me about people, humans and elves and dwarves; once she mentions my father, but only to say that battles are won through intelligence, not brute strength. I show her my life's work. She tells me of hers, not with so many details, and the tale is unfinished.

It continues with me, as I take my first steps outside the house, heading towards the rising sun with a bag over my shoulder and the memory of Mother's smile in my mind.

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

Part Two

I am standing on the edge of one field looking into another. The grass grows uninterrupted, but my way is blocked by a low wall made of stone. The forest behind me is sparse; the trees have not grown tall and thick for days. It continues in patches around the field, but elsewhere the grass continues until a hill rises to the horizon. The sun is not high in the sky; it is mid-morning, and I have only been walking since dawn. But the stone wall stands before me, a level, even seat beckoning to my tired legs.

My feet are walking me towards the wall. I am tired. Exhausted. I have not bothered to keep count of the days; there seems to be little point. Mother is gone and home is gone and I am wandering until I find people, and so each day I walk until I can walk no further. I have slept in trees and on the ground, uneven, hard surfaces. In my childhood I thought nothing of doing this, but now my body aches and begs for somewhere soft to lay my head. I had not known that such pain was possible.

The stone wall is no softer than the ground, but at least I no longer stand. I take my bag off my back and open it. Soon Mother's jerky will be mere crumbs, and since the forest changed I have lost my sense of which plants are edible and which are not. Even the dirt below my feet has changed from deep, dark, rich soil to a softer, greyish almost-powder. I have never encountered unfamiliarity on such a large scale, and I cannot decide if I am frightened or endlessly interested in my new surroundings. Surely this place has cycles like my home. I would like to know. I would like to be watching tadpoles wriggle in the shallows of the creek near my house. They had not yet hatched before I left, but now—

"Allons, allons, allons-y," sings a voice, far away, and a moment later I hear the sound of feet, many feet, countless feet. I cannot tell if they are coming towards me, but I slip off the wall and hide behind the stones. The sound of feet grows louder, bringing with it an unfamiliar smell—animals, yes, but I do not know what kind. If the sound is any indication, there are many animals, and I have never heard so many together in one place before. There are other noises, too, snorting and a sort of ah-ah-ah I do not know.

"Écoutez-moi, écoutez-moi, arretez maintenant!" The voice is louder, still singing tunelessly. It is higher than Mother's, so I think it must be a girl. My heart beats as hard as the pounding of the feet on the ground, my mind as confused as the ah-ah-ahs. I do not understand the sounds coming from her mouth.

The pounding grows quieter. I am afraid to look over the wall, and I do not know why. I have only ever spoken to Mother and to the elves. Mother taught me a greeting, but I do not know if the girl—if it is a girl—will understand me. And she is only one person, and Mother told me to find a town. I think that if I wait, she and the animals will go away. I am good at sitting still for hours, at hiding from the sight of those around me. I will wait.

The grass itches at my hands, but I do not move. The smell of the animals is strong and unpleasant, but I do not cough. The sun becomes brighter and brighter in the sky, and sweat drips into my eyes, and I barely blink. I am not here, I think. I think of nothing else.

The sound of bare feet slapping on stone interrupts my not-thinking. It comes closer, and with it comes the sound of a song, half-sung with little breath, with sounds I do not even hear as words. The muscles in my arm twitch without warning as I tense. I am shaking like a dead leaf yet clinging to the bare winter branch. I do not understand why I am scared.

A breeze of movement cools the sweat on my face, and a shadow darkens the sky. I look up, my head scraping against the stone. Her skirt billows around her as she walks carefully with one foot in front of the other, her arms waving out for balance. Her legs are brownish and bare, her hair sunshine tangling around her face. I cannot move, or she will see me. I cannot close my eyes, or I will not see her. She looks down.

Our eyes meet. Hers are blue-green and wide and she has jumped off the wall and I stand—I am standing, because I have followed her with my eyes. I cannot stop looking. She stands across from me, and her face becomes wrinkles and anger as she starts yelling, too quickly for my mind to try to make words from her sounds. She points at me and then her skirt and yells more. I blink.

"Hello," I say, because that is what Mother taught me to say.

She stops mid-yell, stares at me. She brushes hair out of her face, still angry, studying me, and then her hand snaps out and slaps me.

My skin is raw from so many days in the sun, and the jolt of her hand travels into my bones, setting fire everywhere. I yell in pain, covering my cheek with my own hand, not knowing what else to say. My knees are weak. She has touched me.

She is speaking again, her words still short and angry. The fire leaves me, though the pain remains, and I think she is trying to tell me that I deserve to be slapped. "Hello," I say again. The pain is in my voice, but I try to sound calm, as well. "My name is Morrin."

She stops speaking again, her eyes squinting at me. She looks less angry and more confused. "Quoi?"

I hear the question in her voice. I could choose not to answer. It is not a choice. "My name," I say, slowly, "is Morrin."

Her face smoothes itself. "Morrin," she says, understanding, though she adds a roughness to my name that Mother never did. "Fereldan?"

"It's a country," I say, not knowing why she asks. This seems to be an answer, for she shakes her head.

"Tu es loin de Ferelden," she says. "Et pourquoi?" Although her words come slow and measured, I do not know what she is saying. I shrug in confusion. She brushes her hair out of her face again. "Es-tu perdu?"

"I don't understand," I say. She sighs and speaks too quickly again. I follow the ups and downs in her voice—higher than Mother's, strangely rough and soft at once. I do not know how old she is. Younger than Mother, probably, but I have no way of knowing. I am standing before her realizing that there are many things I do not know. Every sound she makes is a fresh reminder of something new to be discovered. I long to know.

She says something else, and waves a hand out behind her, and suddenly I realize I have forgotten the sounds and the smells and the animals behind her. I am surprised that she could so completely distract me, and then there are animals, wandering around the field inside the stone wall. They all have four legs and grey fur, thick and curly. Their faces are black, and occasionally one opens its mouth and makes the ah-ah-ah sound. The girl waves at the animals, and then points to herself, and says slowly, "Je dois garder les moutons. Est-ce que tu veux rester aussi ici?"

I shake my head. The more she speaks, the more I hear sounds that are...familiar, in the way oceans are familiar, but they have been distorted, no doubt by time and distance. She bites her lip, studying me, and I do not know what to do or say or how to present myself. I know that my face is confused, and that my eyes are watching her bite her lip (and I do not know why). I know that I have dark hair and red-raw skin, that my clothes shroud me in black, that my eyes are yellow. I do not know if she is scared of me. I do not know if she should be scared of me. I think I am scared of her—my heart beats quickly and I am still tense—and yet I do not feel scared. I am confused. I am alive.

She sighs finally and pats the stone where I was sitting. I do not move. She pats the stone again, raising her eyebrows—she is telling me to do something, and so I sit. She holds up her hand—stay. I stay. She turns away and walks back to the animals, glancing back at me. I stay.

The day passes and I barely move. The girl wanders among the animals, singing her tuneless song to them, stroking their heads. I have never seen animals listen to a human before, but these animals clearly watch her. They hear her voice, and they understand. Sometimes I wish I was one of them.

She walks the wall too, though she does not come near me. The sun rises higher over our heads, reaches its peak, and starts descending towards the other horizon. Her hair is the same color of the sun as its light weakens, softens, turns less yellow and more gold. I have nothing better to do than make these comparisons. She is colors I have never seen before. I wish I could speak their names in her words. Occasionally one of the creatures comes closer to me, plants itself, and makes its strange noise at me. I have watched enough animals mark their territory to recognize the action. I do not move.

Finally the sun begins to set, and a breeze blows, soothing my sun-baked skin. The girl sings again to the animals, and they begin moving towards the far end of the field. She stands behind them, watching their progress, and then she turns to me. "Tu viens?"

I am surprised by the question—I do not understand, but she looks at me as though she wants an answer. I shrug again, because I do not know what else to do. She frowns, and then repeats, "Tu viens?" while she waves her hand, waving me closer.

My feet slowly touch the ground on her side of the wall. She keeps beckoning me, and so I stand, putting my bag on my shoulder. She nods, and I take a step towards her, and then my feet are stepping towards her without real direction. As I come closer I can see that she does not smile, but she looks...satisfied.

"Suive-moi," she says, and turns to follow the animals. I follow her. I do not know where else to go.

o.O.o

I stand inside a house, on an unfamiliar wooden floor, a low fire banked in a stone fireplace. Four people are looking at me. I have never seen this many humans gathered in one place before. They are all different. One is the girl from the field, standing by the fireplace with her arms crossed. One is a boy, younger than I am, his hair the same color as hers, sitting on the stones. He looks angry. There are two men, one older than I, his face frowning as he asks questions of the girl. The second has white hair and a wrinkled face. He sits in a chair with blankets over his legs and his lap. His eyes are blue, and he ignores the others, and watches me.

The man snaps something at the girl, who answers with a look on her fact that reminds me of trying to tell Mother why I have done something that I knew would displease her. I hear the word "Ferelden" more than once, and I do not know if I should nod in understanding or pretend I do not know what they are saying. I am warm and I am becoming aware that I smell. I am unwelcome.

"Boy," the man in the chair says, and the man and the girl stop talking and look at him. He leans forward, his bony hands gripping the arms of his chair, and says, "Do you understand me?"

"Yes," I say, my mind overwhelmed by the familiar sounds. I am joyful to hear words I understand, even if he pronounces them strangely. It is not the strangeness of the elves. His words are closed, almost mumbled, but I understand.

"Are you from Ferelden?" he asks. He says the word as though he does not like it.

"No," I say, shaking my head. He looks surprised amidst the wrinkles, and so I say, "I have never been there."

"Then where are you from?" he asks. "You speak like a native."

I do not have a reply. "Mother's house in the forest" is the answer, but I do not know if he knows my mother. He may know the forest, but he certainly does not know the house. Finally I look at the windows, and point to the one where I can see the setting sun. "That way."

The standing man says something, and the girl says something, and the man in the chair snaps at them. He looks back to me and says, "But your parents are Fereldan?"

"I...don't know," I say. I know Mother traveled through Ferelden, and that she met my father there, but I only know..."My mother is from the Korcari Wilds."

"Au sud," the man in the chair says, and the girl shifts uneasily. I realize that the other three in the room are straining to understand our conversation, much as I have struggled to understand theirs. I feel less helpless. "And where is your mother now, boy?"

I shrug. She is on her journey; I know little more. The man's eyebrows raise, causing the wrinkles on his forehead to collide. He must be older than Flemeth. "You are alone?"

"Yes," I say.

"No family?"

Mother is not here. "No."

He says something to the others in their language. They stare at me. I think that it is probably unusual for young men to appear out of the setting sun by themselves speaking the wrong language. I wish I had more information to give them.

The standing man says something to the man in the chair, who in turn asks me, "Are you going somewhere?"

"Val Foret?" It is not a question, yet I ask it as one. If this is how I am met in one house by four people, how will I be met in a city?

"C'est loin," the standing man says.

"Have you any money?" the man in the chair says.

Money. Mother had apologized for only having a few silvers to give me. I find them in my bag and hold them in my hand, showing them to the others. They shake their heads, and the boy finally speaks. The girl says something in protest. The standing man snaps at them. They stop talking, but they shake their heads again.

"That is Fereldan money," the man in the chair says. "Do you have any Orlesian coins?"

I shake my head. There is a difference? I did not know.

The man sighs. "Do you have a trade?"

I am afraid to ask what a trade is, but my confusion is on my face again. The men speak for a while, occasionally asking the girl questions. I do not look at her, though I would like to. I do not mind studying the man in the chair; he is old, and I have never seen an old man. He speaks my language. It is a small hope in the darkness of my confusion.

The man in the chair leans back, though his eyes still study me closely. "My granddaughter," he says, nodding to the girl, "says she found you behind the wall. Were you watching her?"

I frown, but my earlier fright returns to me. "I was hiding," I say. "She found me." His expression does not change. "She slapped me," I say. "It hurt."

He apparently repeats this to her, for she starts to laugh. I cannot look at her, but my face heats beneath the burning from the sun. The standing man speaks to the old man, and finally he says, "What's your name?"

"Morrin!" the girl says before I can answer. The others look at her, startled; I smile, though it hurts my face.

"Morrin," I say.

"And your surname?"

I shrug.

The standing man snorts and says something to the man in the chair, who nods. "My son," he says, "says you may stay the night, and that in the morning we shall see about finding you a way to Val Foret. If you cause trouble, you will find the punishment far worse than Gwendolen's slaps."

Gwendolen? "Quoi?" the girl demands, and the old man repeats the same tone in different words, and she laughs again. Gwendolen.

The boy says something to me, his expression concerned. "Henri says, he cannot think of anything worse," the man in the chair explains. "But I am sure my son can." His voice and gaze are serious.

"Yes," I say. "I will not cause trouble."

"Then you may stay," he says. The son jerks his head towards a different part of the house, and Gwendolen (Gwendolen) uncrosses her arms and disappears. Henri—if that is the boy—stands and goes to the old man, leaning down so that the old man may grasp his shoulder and stand. His back bends as though it will never straighten, and together they slowly move through the other door. The light from the sun has grown dim. I am alone in the growing darkness with the standing man, who crosses his arms and stares at me. He does not glare, but he is serious. I do not know what to say. There is nothing to say, for he would not understand me anyway.

Gwendolen returns with blankets in her arms. She drops them at my feet and points to the ground before the fireplace. I nod. Part of me hopes she will look at me, but she does not. She kisses the standing man on the cheek and goes out the same door Henri and the old man went. He watches her go, and I do not fully understand his expression; but it reminds me of the way Mother looked at me.

Then he looks at me, and I do not have to understand his words to know the threat. I nod, and he leaves me too, so I spread out the blankets and lie atop them. I pillow my head on my hands and look up at the ceiling, watching the shapes the fire's shadows create. It reminds me of home, and for a moment, I feel safe.

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

Gwendolen has always lived in the town of Bilois on the outskirts of the Nahashin Marshes at the western edge of the Orelsian Empire. Her name is not Orlesian. She is named for her father's mother, who came back to Orlais with her father's father when he returned from the war with Ferelden. Her mother died a few years ago from the pox (an illness, I think), because no one could bring a mage in time to save her. Her father Bernard is a smith. Her brother Henri helps their father in the smithy. She usually stays home and tends to the chores and to Grandpère (he does not have any other name, at least not that they will tell me), but recently her friend Marie had a baby and needed someone to watch her sheep. She likes tending sheep. She is not pleased that Bernard has decided to give the job to me, instead.

It takes days for me to learn this information. I did not expect to have days, but once they decide I am not going to rob them in their sleep (I do not know what this means, but I smile when Grandpère says it, and this seems to satisfy them) the Fabre family is open to keeping me in their house. I think I ought to be going to Val Foret, but I have found a town, which is at least part of what Mother wanted. And Grandpère is teaching me how to speak Orleisan, and they say that if I work for them they will pay me in Orlesian coin, so that I might survive when I reach Val Foret.

And I enjoy being a shepherd. For the first few days Gwendolen comes with me, a reluctant storm cloud in the sunny field that belongs to Marie's husband's family, sullenly acting out my duties so that I may watch her and copy her motions. I am afraid that it is me she does not like, but at dinner she always speaks nicely to me, if too fast for me to understand. My confusion makes her smile. I do not mind. I do not mind sitting in a field, watching for wolves or foxes who may try to take one of my bleating sheep. They are noisy animals, unlike any I have ever observed, but they too have their patterns. There are chickens, too, and a mule near the smithy. I feel more comfortable in their presence than I do in the village square on market day, surrounded by people considering their neighbors' wares with murmurs of approval or disapproval. Their voices make my head hurt.

There are other people our age, boys and girls, and Henri encourages me to play with them. I do not know what it means to play, but they explain to me the names and rules and then stand back and laugh as I break the rules and consequently lose. Losing seems to mean that they have a right to laugh at me more. Henri tells me they are not serious, but I do not mind. Their rules have some sense to them, but they lack a foundation. The change of the seasons, the underlying hum of the earth—these are the rules by which I live my life. But if others find the games fun, then perhaps I will as well.

Gwendolen plays with us sometimes. She laughs especially hard at me, and her laughter is the only kind that makes my cheeks heat with the feeling that perhaps I have done wrong. The other boys and girls—especially the girls—seem to think she is very interesting. They talk to her and point at me. They treat her as though she knows things they do not, but I am not sure what those things might be. They have all lived together in the village for their entire lives; they all know its rhythms and rules without speaking. I am the ignorant one.

It rains, sometimes, and today it is raining so hard that Bernard tells me to leave the sheep in their shelter. No one plays games when the rain muddies the dirt in the village square. Gwendolen refuses to allow me to mend shirts or cook, and so I sit by the window and watch her bend her head over the cloth in her hand. She hums tunelessly, but I am listening to the sound of the raindrops on the window glass. It is unlike the wet thwips of rain on a broad, glossy leaf, or the plunk of a large drip on a still pond; there is a hint of a twinkle in the sound, ringing where rain on the ground merely plops. Gwendolen raises her head and says, "Morrin, you're staring."

Her voice is a different sort of twinkle, light with teasing, hard with annoyance. It is rain on steel. "I'm sorry," I say. "I was listening to the rain."

She closes her eyes and sighs. She sets the cloth aside and crosses her arms and says, "I simply can't work with you watching me all the time. Go bother Henri."

Her eyes are closed and her face has no expression. Her cheeks are pink, but the firelight flickers on her face. I have no way of understanding how she thinks. "Where is Henri?" I ask.

"In the smithy, with Father. Now go," she says, and she opens her eyes and picks up her cloth and bends her head again. I walk by her towards the door, and she giggles. I keep walking. My cheeks heat.

The smithy is several lengths away from the house. Whenever Bernard is at work there is a huge cloud of smoke coming from the chimney, and today is no different. The raindrops fall through the smoke and turn thick and black, and I watch them slide down the roof and down to the ground. The puddles are black. I have never seen this before. I stop and crouch and watch as the thick black drops splash into the puddles, testing the water with my finger. The water slides off my skin, leaving black speckles like soot. I look for patterns in the speckles, following the song of the rain in my mind.

"Morrin?"

Henri stands over me. I do not know how long he has been there. He is staring at me. I realize my hair is clinging to my forehead and my clothes are wrinkling as they hang heavy from my limbs. I have not paid attention, and I am soaked through.

"Gwendolen sent me to look for you," I tell him, standing stiffly, the rain creaking my joints. "Are you still working in the smithy?"

"Father's just working on one last thing," he says, still staring at me, though now he must look up, as I am taller. He blinks and opens his mouth, then closes it. This is usually a sign that people do not know what to say in response to me, as though I have somehow failed to behave according to their rules. I sigh. "Come," he says, "you might as well dry yourself off."

I have looked into the smithy before—the large doors are open whenever Bernard is working, and I have seen the chimney and the strange metal shapes hanging from the ceiling—but this is the first time I have walked into it. The floor under my bare feet is hardpacked dirt and the roof over my head is wood and everywhere there is metal. In Mother's house we had the cookpot and its handle and a cauldron, and a few other things Mother had acquired in her travels for which I did not know the name. Here there are U-shaped twists and S-shaped hooks holding more hooks and long bars for which I do not know the purpose. There is a large, heavy thing—

"You've never been in here, have you?" Henri says. "That's the anvil—step back—"

Bernard—I had not seen him—turns quickly, holding metal tongs which hold a yellow-orange-white glowing thing, and in a moment he sets it on the anvil and brings down a hammer in his other hand. The clang rings through the room and sparks fly and I turn my face away to avoid a burn, the heat rippling through my wet clothes and warming my skin. There are more clangs as Bernard continues to hammer, ringing and ringing until the sounds become one long note filling my ears, and below it I hear the crackle of a fire burning. It is a quiet comforting murmur beneath the cacophony, and without thinking I look for its source. There is Bernard and his hammer and his muted red thing—that must be the metal—and behind him I see the light of the fire.

The hammering stops and the roar of the fire takes it place—Bernard yells at Henri, le soufflet, a word I do not understand—and Henri leaves my side to pull one of the many pieces of metal hanging from the ceiling. This one—I watch the pure machinery of pulleys and levers from his hand to the large triangular thing on the floor. It opens and closes as he pulls the handle, and the fire roars in response. Bernard takes his now-dark, curled metal and thrusts it into the fire. Henri keeps pumping the fire. I look and see a place against the wall that is not covered with a half-made plow or fire poker, and I move there, pressing my back against the comforting wood and watching the fascinating battle before me. Bernard beats his metal and Henri desperately tries to keep the fire hot enough, but I can see on Bernard's face a building frustration.

"Arrête," he says finally, and Henri releases the handle, wincing and rubbing his arm. I realize their arms are thick and muscular from this work; my arms are skinny shepherd's arms, formed from playing in puddles. "I have no plan," he says to the unfinished steel on the anvil.

"What are you making?" I ask, and the two Orlesians turn with surprise on their faces. My voice is small in the warmth of the room.

"Morrin," Bernard says. He always says my name as though he cannot decide if he wants to talk to me or not. "Why are you wet?"

"I was outside," I say. I have learned not to elaborate. "What are you making?"

I do not have to understand all the words Henri says in order to know that he is telling his father he found me in a puddle. Bernard's expression does not change, but I feel the confused judgment in the room. My cheeks heat again. I miss Mother.

"A gate," Bernard says finally, "for Madame Marchande, the widow. Her old wooden gate has broken and she has asked for a new one of iron, but I have no design."

"Oh," I say. The word "design" echoes in my head—not my head, in the deep emptiness I have learned to ignore. It echoes off the crystal wall and rings into the endlessness and my hands twitch against my sides. I am still I am thinking I am ringing I—

"I have an idea," my mouth moves, words coming eagerly, pictures rising unbidden in my mind with nowhere to go. I have knelt to the ground and started drawing in the dirt with my finger, and I am babbling about lattices and crossing and the best sort of iron to use (and there are oceans and symphonies and paintings, Morrin, the paintings, and the tapestries, and the wall is ringing and ringing and it is worse than any blacksmith's hammer for it strikes against my soul).

"Calm down," Bernard says. He has crouched down across from me, and Henri hovers over his shoulder. "Morrin, what are you—"

"Lattice," I say, finishing the drawing. "A lattice design, for her gate."

I lift my finger from the dirt and rock back on my heels, and suddenly I am stillness, empty once again. I am Morrin, nothing more.

"You're shaking," Henri points out. I do not tell him I am frightened. I wait for it to pass.

Bernard hums like his daughter, his finger hovering over my design (not my design; I catalogue patterns, I do not create) as he traces an outline in the air. "This will work," he says. "I have seen this before, in the larger cities."

He looks up at me and all I can do is shiver, sick with silence. I realize he thinks I have lied about visiting cities, but I do not care. "'Tis an idea," I say, "nothing more."

They stare at me and I realize I have spoken in Fereldan and I do not care. I hear Mother's voice in my mind, pragmatic and soothing (I see her mouth form the words "Old God" and I refuse to listen). "It's nothing," I say in Orlesian, and I stand up, stiff again. "Thank you for letting me watch you work. I'm going to..."

"Change clothes," Bernard suggests, still crouching, watching me. I nod and try not to sway with the motion. Neither follows me as I leave out the open doors and make my way back to the house. The rain has lessened, but the path is wet, and I barely have the strength to lift my feet from the mud as it squishes between my toes (familiar), each raindrop burning my skin (an imposter's skin). I enter the house.

"Morrin, you are tracking mud—Morrin?"

I stop at the unfamiliar sound. It is Gwendolen's voice, speaking Orelsian words. That is the same. It is Gwendolen's voice, saying my name. I do not know why it is different.

"Morrin?" she says again, and her hand is on my shoulder.

I feel as though my head whips to look at her, and yet it is slowly, so slowly, that she comes into my sight, standing behind me with the cloth she embroiders on her other arm. It is meant for some market festival. Her hand is on my shoulder, my wet, dripping shoulder, her hand her hair is golden with sunshine, her eyes—I cannot look. I focus on the embroidery.

"Your pattern is wrong," I say, and the faintest chime of rain on crystal sounds within me.

"What?" she asks, and I point with a wet hand, careful not to drip on her work.

"The leaves," I say. "You haven't spaced them evenly. And the flowers should be yellow, not white, and their petals should be pointed, not round, and I don't know why you're doing flowers, you should be embroidering sheep, or birds—I think you'd make lovely birds, flying against blue, you need blue cloth to bring out your eyes, I think the blue would make the green lovely, I think—" I am speaking Fereldan and I look into her blue-green eyes which are wide with confusion and worry and the words slip, unbidden, not from emptiness but warmth—"you're lovely."

She stares at me, and then says, very slowly, "Je ne te comprends pas."

"Blue," I say in Orlesian, pointing at the cloth. "Birds," I say, pointing at the embroidery. "Flying," I add, because of the picture in my mind (and it is my picture, from my childhood). I shake my head. "Not flowers."

"I didn't ask you," she says, drawing her hand away, but I am tired and wet and cold and it only makes me colder.

"No," I say, "but I'll draw you a pattern. After I sleep." As the word passes between my lips I feel my eyes droop. "Sleep."

Gwendolen looks confused. I am also confused, most of all by how lovely she looks even in confusion. "Put on dry clothes," she says at last. "I'll wake you for dinner."

"Thank you," I say, and I go to Henri's room and let my wet clothes fall to the floor and put on dry ones and lay my wet head on his pillow, for which he will yell at me later, but it is a small thing compared to the muffled sounds coming through the door, the sounds of Gwendolen demanding to know what exactly her brother and father have done to me. The rain patters a rhythmic accompaniment. I sleep.