Chapter Text
She’s back in the alley again. Shivering, starving, unable to keep herself dry from the slow rain that nearly froze in the cold night air. She waits for an adult she knows to find her, and bring her home.
She waits for what feels like hours. Then days. Then months. She had likely been in the street for a full day or two, at most, but time felt infinite when living like this.
It isn’t long before she thinks this is how she’s going to go. Cold, wet, and alone. The thought terrifies her, and makes her feel like she’s falling, until she’s startled awake by the sensation of meeting her end.
Diara’s panting in her bed, terrified of whatever it was her mind tried forcing her through. Again.
It had been nearly ten years since her fathers found her in such a state. She remembers being swaddled up in her dad’s coat, and carried to what would end up being her new home. She didn’t realize it yet, but they were her new family.
Now she was fourteen years old, on recess from her studies at the Circle of Minrathous, laying in her bed in her fathers’ villa on the Tevinter-Nevarra border. She was far from the setting depicted in her dream, both geographically and time-wise, but it still took a moment for her to catch her breath and remind herself that she was safe. She would never again be sitting in an alley, recently abandoned, wondering if anyone would hear her weeps as she nearly froze to death.
She pulls the thick covers over herself, accepting the weight of the blanket on top of her as she settles back into bed with a sigh of gratitude. Her fathers noticed her and took her in, assuring her that she could have them as her family very soon after, should she want it. Diara was afraid of that prospect at four years old, but her fourteen year old self was thankful that her younger self’s ironic mix of bravery and fear brought her to be Ira and Dorian’s first and only child. She made them fathers. They made sure she was not only alive, but also loved and cared for. They made sure she never missed a meal, and always had a warm and safe bed to meet at the end of each day. They did more than provide for her, and for that she was thankful, even if her fathers would insist she never had to be.
As she allows herself to drift back to sleep, hoping she wouldn’t fall into the same cycle of nightmares again, she felt relieved to be alive. Thankfully, nightmares didn’t haunt her again that night.