Work Text:
My body was on fire. My veins ran silver with white hot ice that seared me from head to foot until all I knew was agony, the harsh torment becoming the only thing that was able to exist in my world. Every breath in my lungs ate away at me, burning, dissolving the pulpy flesh that had once been my healthy body while my bones splintered, sending sharp shards into the sinew and muscle that clung desperately to their anchors, desperate to keep my form together.
I heard nothing but the roar of the inferno so I couldn't decide if I was screaming or not. My vision was white so I couldn't tell where I was. Black spots tormented me, reminding me of my consciousness as I writhed, but remained still.
I prayed for a release, for death to take me, but I knew, in my heart of hearts, that this agony would never end, that I was cursed to endure this agony for the rest of my life. Forever...
The air that I sucked in between my lips was blessedly cool and I sat bolt upright, gasping in the night and dragging my clawed fingertips over my chest as if I could dig out my scorching heart with my nails alone. The pain stilled my desperate mutilation of myself and I lowered my head into shaking, bloodied hands, dry sobs wracking my shaking body.
I still wasn't used to the dreams I had been having ever since I could remember.
With an almost minute shake of my head, I swung myself out of bed and padded over to the large window and into the moonlight that was allowed to flood in freely thanks to a cloudless sky. There, the lyrium in my skin practically glittered, sending refractions of light through the air and intensifying the glow of the moon around my body and I found my eyes no longer able to view the brilliance, so I, instead, turned my eyes to the nighttime view of the city of Denerim, bustling capital of Ferelden. I could see the lights of the Pearl, constantly alight even at such an hour as this, the torches flickering and bobbing down the narrow paths and alleys, held by patrolling guards while the rest of the city slept. The palace lurked in the corner of what I could see like a structure of black stone, set with glittering diamond lights of the cheerfully beckoning windows and the famous Fort Drakon stretched up to capture the sky, always just out of reach.
I wondered, blandly, how many souls were standing as I was at that moment, surveying the world to chase away lingering fragments of horrific nightmares. Leading from that, I wondered what I must look like to those inquisitive spirits staring into the night like I... Maybe I appeared as a ghost, a demon or even an angel in the distance, glowing and indistinct...
Perhaps they didn't care. I wouldn't.
I'd stopped shaking by this point and I ran a hand through my sweat-drenched hair as I began, not for the first time, to ponder on my life and what had happened to lead me, a newly unbound slave, here... I was a free man in this city of possibilities.
"Fenris..." Her voice was a sigh and I slowly turned to face her. She was still sleeping on her side of our large double bed, her pale face cushioned by her dainty but surprisingly dexterous hand as her golden hair framed her and pooled around the pillow like a curtain of silk. She was a notoriously heavy sleeper, I remembered fondly, as I finally left my post by the window and approached the bed.
No. I was not a free man, even after finally defeating the man who held my chains. I was enslaved in a different way, in an infinitely more delicious way, by those eyes, that voice, that woman that slept before me. My gaze flicked to the shape of her body hidden beneath the sheets and, with a slightly guilty smile, I reached forward and pulled down the sheet, inch by inch to reveal her shoulder, her arm, chest and I don't stop there. Not until I had uncovered her whole torso and was rewarded with the sight of her lying there with her abdomen swollen by pregnancy.
She was getting larger than I thought was possible. I reached forward and touched my two forefingers to her stretched skin, stroking gently forward until my palm was flush against her, a smile quirking up the corners of my lips in a smile of wonder I was barely used to as I felt gentle movement under her skin.
This beautiful woman, this Champion of men, was going to give birth to my child. Soon, by the size of her.
"Fenris... I don't mind you doing that but do you have to pull the sheets completely off me?" I jerked my hand away and looked up to Tamlyn's face. Her emerald eyes were open and she was pouting. "I'm cold."
I laughed and pulled the blanket back up to cover her, following the movement with sliding in next to her and pressing both hands against her bump. She shivered a little and burrowed deeper into her blankets but kept her eyes on me. "You had another nightmare, didn't you?"
Busted.
"I didn't want to wake you."
"So you decided to freeze me instead? Charmer."
I chortled. She was so funny when she was tired. "Get some more rest, sleepyhead, there's still a while til morning."
She smiled. "Baby's awake so I'm awake. Typical of your child really, keeping me awake before she's even here."
"He," I corrected.
"We'll see." I pulled her closer and breathed in the scent of her hair as her arms encircled my waist. I heard her breathing relax after a while and knew that she had dropped off to sleep again and, as I lay there in the middle of the night, I realised that I was kind of thankful for the nightmares.
It reminded me of what it felt like to have nothing but pain... And taught me that this, this life I had in front of me, the future that beckoned, was worth any amount of it. I'd go through worse pain to keep this light in my life.
I knew what was important, really important.