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He was standing on a cliff. The sea was beneath him. Waves were crushing against the rocks below. Huge waves. Even from up here they appeared hugs. And yet, the sun in the sky was reflecting of them. The crowns of the waves were sparkling.
He could not help but wonder what it would feel like to fall and be swallowed by the sea.
Where was he even? And how had he ended up here?
He was not sure. But as he turned around there was nothing behind him. Nothing. Just an empty nothingness.
There was no other person either.
This realization brought a bout of a relief to wash over him.
There was nobody to watch him. Nobody to try and force him into the role that he never would be able to fill.
He looked around once more, before sitting down. He let his feet dangle over the edge of the cliff.
Beneath there were still the waves. Waves crashing into the rocks. Waves that would swallow him.
He pulled his knees up to his body, trying to breathe. Trying to just feel it. The wind and the ocean and the ground. He could just stay here, until the cliff crumbled and the water swallowed him. He wanted to be swallowed. He wanted to and yet…
When the rock underneath him gave way, he gasped. He was indeed falling, before the water closed in over him, like the lid of a coffin. Invisible hands were grabbing for him and were pulling him under. Invisible hands that were grasping and tearing and pulling at him.
This was not the freedom he had imagine. This was…
“Thelma. Where have you been again?” The stern voice of his mother was echoing throughout the cave surrounding him. “We have spoken about this. You are not supposed to leave the home on your own.”
He could not even say where she was. His mother. But her voice was close. It felt close.
He turned around, running away from it. Away from the direction the voice seemed to come from.
Water was dripping off the walls, each droplet making a sound that would echo a thousandfold, while his steps were silent, being absorbed by the walls and the ground it seemed.
“What are you wearing again? I told you before.” Another sentence he had heard so often. “If someone sees you like this…”
It was never about him. It was always about the people who saw him.
His feet met with water once more, as it covered the ground. It was black, and cold, and each of his steps made it splatter – while he still did not make a sound.
“Come now. Your aunts are going to be over for the afternoon. We have talked about it, right? What is it that we tell the?”
Lies.
They would always tell them lies. Because a child without magic was useless to the family. He was not a viable heir, and it would have been better if he had died at birth. He knew it. He knew the shame that had to be hidden away.
Appearances. That was all his mother cared about. Keeping up the appearance that the family was whatever people wanted it to be. Whatever a Tevinter family was supposed to be.
“Come now. Don’t look like that!”
The inky water seemed to rise once more. And yet, it did not seem to want to swallow him and take him away. There was weightless floating, no freedom in the water either. Just a deadly cold and hands that would pull him down again.
Down into the darkness.
It would all have been easier if he had not been born this way. Not in Tevinter. Or at least not to one of the old families. It would have been easier, if he had just been poor, with no family name to uphold.
It would have been easier if he had been…
Red.
Blood was mixed into the ink. Swirling around him. Glowing faintly in the darkness, as if it was shining with an unspoken power. There were faint whispers in the distance. Whispers that made the water vibrate, as he was sinking deeper and deeper.
He could feel it. The blood being soaked out of his body, slowly becoming one with the water. It was cold as well.
The whispers were not of a voice, nor where they of any language. But he knew what they were promising. And what they were reminding him off.
His body. His wrong body. The curse of all curses.
It had not been fair. It never had been fair. Because none of the things he had been born with had ever been wanted. His mother had not wanted him. A non-magic child, who could not be an heir. And he had not wanted himself. He had not wanted this body. It had been wrong from the start. It had always been wrong.
The whispers were echoing. They seemed distant. And yet, it seemed that the echo alone as loud enough to rip him apart.
His blood was still seeping out of him, still being taken. Like it should be. He should be taken. He should be…
There was something else shimmering in the distance. It was the thing that was pulling on him. That wanted his blood and his self, that wanted his essence. Eyes. Purple eyes shining in the darkness. And they were all looking at him.
The whispers were inside of his head, while the hands were pulling him deeper and deeper. Down there was only darkness.
A demon, maybe. Though he knew that even a demon would not want him. After all, he had no magic. So what worth did he have? In the end, nobody would ever want him. Nobody had ever. And in the end, maybe the darkness was the only place for him to be.
He could feel another hand gripping at him. It pulled him. Down, down, down. Into the cold.
As Thel awoke, he found his room once again filled with the uncomfortable heat that would fall over Minrathous in summer. An uncomfortable heat, that would make breathing hard, and sleep almost impossible.
His heart was racing. It was beating so hard, that it felt like he would die.
A nightmare.
He was almost certain of it.
Another nightmare. Those were haunting him for years now. Nightmares in which he would drown. Nightmares in which a demon came to eat him.
He did not remember this specific one. But he assumed it would have been the same again. Drowning. Being consumed. Being taken.
He shifted in his bed, rolling over to the side.
Sweat had collected underneath his breasts. How much he hated them. Every day. And every night.
If only he had been given magic. Because if he had, he could summon a demon, and offer himself up to it. Blood magic. It was the one thing that could shift a body. That could change him into the man he knew he should be.
But whatever the Maker or the Old Gods or whoever had created this pitiful place, they sure must have hated his soul. His being. It was why he had ended up like this. Why he was unwanted. By everyone in this entire world. By his family. Even by himself.
He did not remember the nightmare. But at times he thought about it. Going to the cliffs and being taken. Falling into the waves. Be taken.
