When I Look at You (a Dragon Age fanfiction)

Hespith

Far into the Dead Trenches, they came to a crumbling bridge. On the near side was a company of black-armored, much-tattooed dwarves who were under attack by a band of darkspawn coming from the far side. Una and her crew rushed into the battle, taking out wave after wave, then crossing the bridge to finish off a band of genlock archers and two ogres. As Una climbed down from the chest of the second ogre after wrenching her hammer out of the remnants of its skull, she saw one of the black-armored dwarves approaching her.

"Never seen a surfacer fight like that," he growled. "Never seen a surfacer down this far at all."

"I'm Una. Grey Warden."

"That explains it, then. Kardol. Legion of the Dead." At her questioning look, he said, "We die to our families so we can fight without fear. We are the reason the surface sees so few Blights."

"I see. So this is like a vacation for you, then?"

"You could say that. They don't all go, though, as you've seen. Makes it easier to clear more space, anyway."

"Kardol, do you know where the Anvil of the Void is? Or the Paragon Branka?"

"Good luck finding either of those down here, salroka," he grunted. "What's a Grey Warden doing down here chasing fantasies when there's a Blight on the surface?"

"Trying to get Orzammar a king so I can get some troops."

Kardol laughed. "You've got to give it to those bastards. They know their stuff, if they can get a Grey Warden to hop to their tune. I tell you what, Grey Warden—you put an ass in the throne, you'll have the Legion at your back when you go up against the Archdemon."

"I'll hold you to that," Una said, bowing before the dwarf.

"Always thought I'd like to see the sky before I eat stone," Kardol muttered, turning away and going back to his men. "Best of luck to you, salroka!" he called over his shoulder.

They moved farther on, finding that as they went the walls and floors began to be covered in stinking lumps of rotting flesh.

"Someone needs to do a better job of housecleaning down here," Alistair muttered, removing his boot from a particularly large excrescence.

A room opened up before them, and inside it they found a blonde dwarf kneeling down. Was she eating that stuff? Una wondered, feeling queasy. The dwarf was muttering something under her breath, like a chant.

"Who are you?" Una asked quietly, walking toward the dwarf, trying not to startle her.

The other woman stood up, turning to look at them. Her body was twisted, the way Ruck's had been, and her eyes were faded almost to white. Oghren gave a sharp hiss as he saw her face, stepping back so the other dwarf wouldn't see him. The blonde dwarf looked up. "No, no," she muttered. "This is not possible. I am cruel to myself—waking brings only clan and feeding. Never strangers."

"We're very real," Una said. "Are you all right? What's your name?"

"Hespith," sighed the woman. "Dream-friend, you must not stay. They will come and they will feed you. As they fed Laryn. As they feed me."

"Feed you? What do you mean? Who is Laryn?"

"They took her first. I let them, wanted it to be her turn. Never mine. They fed her and fed her. First their flesh, then those of our house. She tore her husband's face off and drank his blood." Everyone listening shuddered at that, and Alistair and Zev both took a step back, nearly falling over Oghren. "And then she grew." Hespith looked up into Una's face. "GREW, do you hear me?"

"I hear you. Are you—are you from Branka's house?"

"Branka?! No. Must not think about Branka. Branka, my love," whispered Hespith. "Branka, who allowed. Branka, who encouraged."

Una's eyebrows shot up. This certainly explained any questions she might have had about why Branka left Oghren behind. "Hespith," she said. "Can we help you?"

Hespith shook her head. Her whole body wagged back and forth with the force of the movement. "No, dream-friend. I am dying. Dying of ... betrayal." She looked up at Una again. "If you see her, be merciful." And she was gone.

"Merciful to whom?" Una wondered aloud. "Laryn? Or Branka?"

As they went forward, the lumps of flesh spread over more of the walls and floor and became almost impossible to avoid. They could also hear something ahead, a squelching thick roaring noise that sounded vaguely like words. Oghren looked as though he understood some of them, but he wasn't translating.

Rounding a corner, they saw her. It. A huge grey mass of rotted flesh, with numerous drooping mammaries and flailing red tentacles all over the room. This? This had been a dwarf? Una shuddered in revulsion and would have been sick had there been time. They went forward to the attack, blades slicing into decaying meat. At last, with a thundering quake and a great gaseous emission, the Broodmother collapsed.

Una stood, shaking, looking at it, this thing that had once been a person. Hespith had suggested that this was what women could expect at the hands of the darkspawn. But Branka had not been ... fed. What was the difference?

She felt a soft touch on her shoulders and Alistair drew her back against his chest. "Are you all right?"

"Is that why Grey Wardens don't have children?" she asked quietly. "Because the women turn into ... that?" She turned to look at him.

Alistair shrugged uncomfortably. "I really don't know. It's ... not something that ever came up. I've never even heard of these things."

Her shoulders slumped. "I'll expect you to kill me if it ever looks like I'm going to turn into ... that. Because if you don't, you're the first one I'm eating."

"Right. Got it." He opened his mouth to make a joke, but thought better of it.

"Oghren!" Una barked. "Let's go find this woman-chasing wife of yours. If I have to, I'll beat an endorsement out of her," she said grimly, stalking off down a corridor.

Oghren elbowed Alistair in the ribs. "I'd pay good money to see that fight," he said, chuckling heartily. "Your woman's damn near as crazy as mine."

Alistair raised an eyebrow. It was the first time anyone had referred to Una as 'his woman.' He suspected she wouldn't like it at all, but he found it quite exciting. "Between you and me, Oghren, I might put down a sovereign or two myself."

"That's the spirit, boy!"