When I Look at You (a Dragon Age fanfiction)

Goldanna

"What are we going to be doing?" Alistair asked.

"You're going to go meet your sister," she said. When he blanched, looking terrified and excited at the same time, she added, "I don't have to come with you, if it will make you uncomfortable."

"No no no," he said in his fast nervous voice, clutching at her hand. "I ... really don't know what to expect or how this will go. I'd like to have you there, if you don't mind."

"Of course," she said. But she was anxious for him, knowing from his Fade dream how high his hopes were. They were almost certain to be dashed, she thought, at least a little. "Off we go then. You know where she lives?"

He nodded, leading the way through the market district to a small tumble-down house. Outside they paused, and Una could see his hands shaking. "Are we sure we have time for this?" he asked. "We could go, come back ... later, maybe. When there's time." Una looked sternly at him, motioning to the door. They went in, Alistair's hands nervously fidgeting with his hair. He called out nervously, "Err ... Hello?"

A small red-headed woman came forward, naming her price on linens for washing. Una thought longingly about the bundle of laundry waiting for her in camp, but decided this was hardly the time.

"I'm not here to have any wash done. My name's Alistair," he began. Una felt for him—she had never seen him quite this young and vulnerable and ill at ease. "I'm ... well, this may sound sort of strange, but— Are you Goldanna? If so, I suppose, I'm your brother."

"My what?" The woman looked at him in surprise, as if wondering what the joke was. "I am Goldanna, yes. How do you know my name? What kind of tomfoolery are you folk up to?"

"Are you sure your information is correct?" Una murmured to Alistair.

"Yes, I— I think so. Definitely," he said. Turning back to Goldanna, he went on, "Look, our mother, she worked as a servant in Redcliffe Castle a long time ago before she died." Then, as if it just struck him that she might not, he asked, "Do you know about that? She-"

For a moment, Goldanna looked stricken. Una thought she could see old wounds, barely healed, being reopened. Then anger took the place of the pain. "You!" exclaimed Goldanna. "I knew it! They told me you was dead. They told me the babe was dead along with Mother, but I knew they was lying."

"They told you I was dead?" Alistair asked. "Who? Who told you that?"

"Thems at the castle. I told them the babe was the King's, and they said he was dead. Gave me a coin to shut my mouth, and sent me on my way," she added, her eyes glinting. Una, watching closely, thought to herself that this might well go worse than they had expected. If Goldanna had taken a bribe to keep quiet once, she might expect that to be the purpose of this visit, also. "I knew it!" Goldanna finished, the bitterness fairly radiating off of her.

"I'm sorry," Alistair said. In the kindness of his heart, Una could tell he had missed the implications in his sister's speech. "I didn't know that. The babe didn't die. I'm him. I'm ... your brother," he finished, his voice softening. Knowing what this meant to him, it hurt Una's heart to see that what he valued as more than gold was meaningless to the woman standing across from him.

Goldanna snorted. "For all the good it does me. You killed Mother, you did," she hissed, and Una could see the pain again under the anger. "And I've had to scrape by all this time. That coin didn't last long, and when I went back, they ran me off!"

Making an effort to try and put them on the same page—for she could see the legitimacy of Goldanna's loss and the hardship of her life since—Una spoke up. "That's hardly Alistair's fault, though, is it?"