SIGNY [ the dwarf mage ] (signyature) wrote in thebattleage, @ 2011-03-23 15:43:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! complete, (narrative), signy of dagna |
Who: Signy of Dagna
Featuring: Paragon Dagna, Signovar and Orsin of Dagna, Jerric of Saelac.
When: 15 Umbralis, 9:43 Dragon
Where: The Dagna Estate, Orzammar.
Rating: T (maybe a high T? Not sure.)
Warnings: Blood, some violence/medical procedure.
Summary: Signy becomes a mage.
On a dark, cloudy day, in Umbralis of the forty third year of the Dragon age, a girl named Signy became a mage.
Not that she knew it was either dark or cloudy, as it didn’t matter in the heart of the mountain, far below the surface where the sun’s shining or not shining mattered at all. In Orzammar, cloudy and sunny and rainy all had precisely the same effect--and that was none. None at all. In the small chamber in the Dagna Estate, Signy sat on a stone bench and looked at her hands. The room was isolated, so far from the streets of Orzammar that she knew. Streets where everyone was loud, where they laughed and nugs squealed, these streets were levels below her now. She clenched her hands, and then fell to examining her nails, while her stomach growled.
On the advice of the Paragon, she hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday evening; allowing, Dagna had said, her body time to cleanse itself. To prevent reactions. Signy had imagined chemical reactions--like the oxidization of metal, her insides turning green, or bubbling faintly, with whatever--
“Signy, are you alright?”
It was her father’s voice that broke the silence in the small antechamber; she opened her eyes, only then realizing that she’d been squeezing them closed. From where he sat, across the room, he was watching her with concern, the wrinkles around his eyes more pronounced; Signy shook her head and made herself smile. “No, I’m just a little hungry.” She tried to laugh; to laugh off her fear, because she had always heard that warriors found confidence in laughing in the face of death and blood. And this was…
Oh, Ancestors help her, she wasn’t a warrior, why was she doing this?
She laced her fingers again, and looked down, because she didn’t want her father to see her face, suddenly cold-feeling, blanched, the look of sickness and horror that must have come over her, if the wave of nausea that swept her was any indicator. How could she feel so sick, for having eaten nothing?
Perhaps, it had been the phials and potions that Dagna had administered that morning––one when she first awoke, which had left Signy woozy, a second instead of lunch, a third two hours ago. There was one more, of what Dagna called her “primers”, before the treatment proper could begin. Signy did not know what was in them––one had smelled of mint. Aside from that ingredient, the Paragon guarded her secrets closely.
With her eyes on her fingers, she missed the look that passed between her parents; how soft her mother’s eyes were, for a moment, and how her mouth opened to say something, her hand stretched out, and then how her mouth closed again. Her hand dropped. Her father shook his head, and cupped his chin with one hand, so that his fingers vanished beneath his beard. That was how Signy saw them, when she raised her eyes again.
Then the door swung open, from further in the workroom––Dagna’s workroom, which she had ordered so many strange things for, and brought in so many artisans to construct it just to specifications. And out stepped the Paragon, brushing her hands on her dress. Her bright red hair was pulled back, but strands were falling out, frizzing around her face. Her face, which was so often so jolly and welcoming, was drawn and serious.
All three dwarves in the room, though sitting, inclined their heads; a moment of silence passed, before the young woman, barely into her thirties and the closest thing that Orzammar had to a god, spoke.
“All of our preparations are done, and we’d better get started––time’s a wasting if we don’t, and time is important right now. But…” she paused; Dagna who always talked so fast, whose clever mind outpaced anyone Signy had ever met. “Uncle Orsin, you all know the risks, I want you to be sure. Very, very, extremely incredibly sure, okay?”
When Signy’s father nodded, that was when the Paragon turned and looked at Signy; the young dwarf blinked, and felt something clench in her throat. “Are you extremely sure? As sure as you’ve ever been about something?”
If she had let the question hang, Signy knew suddenly, without a shadow of a doubt, that she would have turned it down; would have quailed in terror and cried and refused, because it was not too late and she could change her mind and someone else would receive this incredible opportunity and go into that room instead of her. And the looks on her parents’ faces, the looks she imagined would be there…
“I’m very sure, Paragon.”
“Then let’s get started. Orsin, Signovar,” the Paragon made a face, Signy was not sure whether it was more an apologetic smile or a wince, “You can wait out here. You’ll be able to come in after the process starts, but for now, it’s better for everyone if you don’t.”
If Signy had been still in the anteroom when the door to the workshop closed, she might have seen the looks on her parents faces––which looked very much like what she had imagined their abject disappointment and loss of a potential mage daughter would have been.