When I Look at You (a Dragon Age fanfiction)

Loophole

But the evening was not to be quite so simple as Una and Alistair had hoped, as they discovered when they entered their room and saw Morrigan standing there in front of their fire.

"Do not be alarmed," she said, turning toward them as they entered. "It is only I."

"And that's not alarming?" Alistair asked.

"What should alarm you is your own peril, or that of your lover."

"Mine," Alistair said firmly.

"Yours, then. It makes little difference. You see, I have a plan. The loop in your hole."

"You're talking about what Riordan told us," Una said. "How could you know about that?"

"She's a witch." Alistair was glaring at Morrigan.

"Yes, I know what happens when the Archdemon dies. I have always known; Flemeth told me. And I have come to tell you that this does not need to be."

Una felt a leap in her pulse. A way to keep Alistair from dying in the final battle with the Archdemon? But Alistair, next to her, had his hands clenched. He would be suspicious of anything that came from Morrigan, would fight against it no matter how innocuous ... and knowing Morrigan, it would be anything but innocuous. "Tell me," she said, her voice firm enough to keep Alistair from protesting, at least for now.

"It is a ritual, performed in the dark of night."

"Of course it is," Alistair muttered, subsiding only when Una shot him a quelling look.

Morrigan ignored him, her eyes fixed on Una. "It is old magic, from a time before the Circle of Magi was created."

"Blood magic?" Alistair asked sharply.

"Some might call it that, yes, but that is no more than a name. There is far more to fear in this world than names. Surely even you recognize that?" Morrigan's eyes rested coolly on him, and he frowned, crossing the room to sit on the edge of a table, his arms folded over his chest, looking disapproving.

"Is this why you're here?" Una asked.

"In part, yes. It was what Flemeth had in mind when she sent me with you."

"And what does this ritual entail? Do we dance naked in the moonlight?" Alistair asked. His voice was heavy with sarcasm, but the suggestion brought back all of Una's insecurities. The tension had crackled between these two since the beginning, something she didn't understand and had always been vaguely afraid of.

"Very close." A small smile played over Morrigan's mouth as her eyes moved across Alistair's broad shoulders. "You will lay with me, here, tonight. From this ritual, a child shall be conceived."

Una barely heard Alistair's shouts of disgust, barely registered how overdone they sounded, because her stomach was clenching with nausea. Lay with her? Alistair? And create a child? To save his life, she had to give away that which was most precious—their intimacy, the knowledge that she was the only woman he had ever been with, the chance of creating a child together lost to Morrigan ... or at the very least given to Morrigan first. She fought against tears, trying to listen as Morrigan kept speaking.

"The child will bear the taint," Morrigan continued calmly, ignoring Alistair's anger and Una's distress equally. "When the Archdemon is slain, its essence will seek the child like a beacon."

"What type of monster are you intending to create?" Alistair asked in a horrified whisper.

"No monster. At the early stage, the child can absorb the essence of the Old God and not perish; the Archdemon will be destroyed, and no Grey Warden need die in the process. The child will be born with the soul of an Old God." Morrigan's eyes shone at the idea.