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.
She had never seen Dagna’s workshop. Her first thought was that it was blue, impossibly blue––the floor was painted, no, as her feet crossed it she realized it was embossed and raised, in patterns she did not recognize, leading towards a space in the center of the room. And that much of the blueness came from candles, burning bright and unnatural flames, and the bowls of lyrium sitting near the center of the room.
They were glowing, and singing, faintly, and when Signy realized what that meant, she actually gasped, audibly, in horror. Dagna had to turn around to look at her before Signy could even find her words.
“Is that--that lyrium, it’s not raw, you’re, but, it’s raw,” she stumbled over her words; she was no miner, but a smith (well, an ex-smith) and not a stupid one. Anyone in Orzammar learned basic safety around lyrium, and smiths learned the second-most. She’d worked with it before, but processed, at least initially, so that it no longer made that unique, keening, beautiful ringing sound. Because any little mistake could set off the raw lyrium, and then if you were incredibly lucky you became like Old Garin in the Commons, who forgot his children’s names and misplaced everything. At absolute best. And mages couldn’t come within twenty feet of the stuff, without obliterating themselves and everyone nearby, and…
“It’s not. It’s processed--but just a tiny, tiny little bit,” and horrifyingly, Dagna seemed almost amused. “Everyone says that. It’s okay. I designed this refinement process myself. Without it, well,” she spread her hands and grinned and Signy would have sworn she laughed. “I’d still be transcribing ancient Tevinter texts in the Circle. And sweeping the floor.”
While Signy was busy being incapable of imagining a Paragon sweeping floors, Dagna was doing something in the center of the room, where stood a long, low basin; there were, Signy realized, other dwarves here. Two of Dagna’s apprentices, all of whom Signy knew on sight; one was famous even beyond the merits of the rest, Jerrick of Saelac, the first mage made in Orzammar, exceptionally tall for a dwarf and with the weathered, old-before-his-time look of a man who lived in the Deep Roads as much as he lived in the city.
“Signy,” Dagna’s voice broke her reverie, “Come here. We’re going to start, okay?” Signy shuffled over, obediently, because she could not think of anything else to do, particularly, and because the Paragon had asked it of her.
Dagna gave her directions, alternating between lightheartedness and seriousness, trying to laugh with a strained tone to her voice, moving bottles and candles and all manner of things aside to make space. Most of the directions flew past Signy; she felt as though she were far away, watching everything from a great distance . She obeyed, slowly, until she found herself stepping into the basin, which was full of water slightly chilly, and very dark colored, so that she could not actually see the floor of the tub. But it didn’t smell like anything… it must just have been water, right? The bottom of her dress was soaked; it was an undershift, almost, really, because Dagna had specified her arms would need to be bare. Dagna leaned over the basin, gathering items onto a table nearby, items that Signy could not quite see over the rim of the tub.
“You’ve got everything? Is the solution mixing?”
“Solution?” Signy mumbled, faintly, trying to raise her head; it felt heavy. “I…” She dropped back down and rested her head against the back of the basin.
“It should be… about time,” Dagna agreed; Signy saw she was looking at a pocketwatch, and then saw something large and purplish, before a bottle was pressed into her hands. “Drink this. It’ll… well, I’m going to be honest, it’s going to knock you farther on your ass than you already are, but at least it doesn’t taste all that bad.”
Head still spinning, Signy accepted the bottle, which was warm in her hands, and as she was taking a sip, heard Jerric addressing the Paragon (and how familiarlyl!) “You’ve changed something, then, because I remember that stuff and it tasted like nug piss.”
“You’d be surprised what a little cinnamon can do.”
The potion hit her tongue--it did taste of cinnamon, hot enough that it almost burned, but there was an undercurrent within it, bitter and … as she swallowed, Signy wanted to retch immediately, her eyes watering, her head pitching forward. A small hand clamped down over her mouth; stayed there until she swallowed, and gasped for air, and then sagged back.
“Apparently, we need more cinnamon,” Dagna laughed apologetically, and that was when Signy took leave of her senses.
Whether or not she lost consciousness, she wasn’t sure; when she next knew what was happening, the water in the tub around her had become warm; the blue lights were brighter, dancing on the ceiling, swimming beautifully, and the song from the lyrium was so pretty, it…
The music, it was lovely, and it felt like she was almost sleeping, but not quite, as Dagna or someone else pushed the hair back out of her face, and felt her forehead. “Here, drink this,” another minty concoction, and Signy had to almost be propped up to drink it. She heard words around her, coming from… she wasn’t sure where.
“Are you sure this is a good idea? She’s young,” was stopped, and the lyrium music took over, or something in her own head rattling about. “No, you don’t need a warrior’s body or discipline to get through this, because I wouldn’t be here if you did, Jerrick. I’m a scholar. I can’t lift heavy books on my own. That’s not what’s required. You just think...”
How long this lasted, Signy did not know, but at the end of the long drift between sense and sleep, she was aware of someone touching her arm. A feeling of cold, and then Signy looked down and thought that she must be mad. She was bleeding. There was a line of blood trickling down her arm, and a knife, and something glowing and liquid and singing, poured down towards her open wound, and she could feel none of it.
The shock--and the feeling and the shooting pain, all of it--came when the lyrium actually hit her blood.
That was when Signy screamed. That was when hands shot out and pressed her shoulders down, and the lyrium kept on flowing and she almost bit through her tongue in sudden, pained and choking screams.
She had no such delay of sensation when Dagna made the second incision, deep and precise, along her other arm; blood was still flowing down her wrist and pooling in the water. She felt everything; skin splitting and the knife, sharp and awful, and then the lyrium, which put stars behind her eyes so bright she could not see, until she realized that Dagna’s hand was over her arm... closing the cuts? With... how could she be...
With magic, Dagna was sealing up the slim cuts on Signy’s arms, leaving raw red lines and––oh sweet stone––all that lyrium inside her skin. And the pain did not go away; the lyrium felt like it was burning, burning but inside her, boiling, and she realized that her breath was hitching, her heart must have been racing, and everything was hot, the pain concentrated in her arms, she could not even lift them from the water. When the hands that had been holding her shoulders let her go, she slumped down into the pinkish, bloody water.
She gasped for breath.
“Good girl,” she heard Dagna say, from what seemed like a great distance. “Take a rest. We’ll start again when you’ve had time to catch your breath.”
And though Signy felt as though she had never actually caught her breath, not really, start again they did. Dagna made more incisions--along her arms, her shoulders, above her collar bone, more blood trickling into the water, more lyrium, more pain and heat and cold until she lost herself, or all but did, in the thick horror of it all. She clenched something––a hand? She could not tell. It went on, and on; hours might have passed, and Signy might have lost consciousness time and time again. She could not be sure; she would not, later, be able to say.
When it was over, she could still hear and feel the vague singing, chiming, lyrium song, and though it hurt, everywhere, it was a dull, constant pain and Signy found herself at home in it.
It was hard to think, at least, it was hard to make her mind focus on anything for more than a few moments––which, blessedly, prevented Signy from being terrified out of her mind that she was going insane, for if she could not think, what else could it mean but that the lyrium had traveled from blood to brain and infected her mind? That she would be trapped in a world of nothing but shifting thoughts and uncertainty, mildly confused and mildly worried for the rest of her dull, short life, lyrium-addled like the dwarves who had not come out of Dagna’s process as mages.
But because her mind could not focus, she could not be terrified for herself.
At one point, while Dagna was monitoring something––or mixing something, or… Signy was not sure, could not quite tell, Jerric tried to talk to her, tried to ask her a series of questions. Mostly, she mumbled; once she responded with a string of syllables that were not even really words, and then sagged back, exhausted by the effort.
Everything was exhausting. “You’re losing her, Paragon.” Dagna was quiet; Signy was not sure of the meaning of this, and the voice went on, “To placate your ungrateful family, no less; how will this satisfy them any more?”
“No, I’m not.”
“You’re not what, placating--”
“No. I’m not losing her.”
What does she mean by losing, Signy found herself wondering, and wondering then whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, but the decisiveness in Dagna’s voice made her attention fragment and scatter again, bursting like bubbles, I’m a bubble and soon I’ll burst and be no more, she thought, and then it won’t hurt.
Dagna leaned over her, blood smudged on her face; she put her hands on either of Signy’s shoulders and Signy had time for a brief gasp before Dagna’s hands lit up a brilliant purple like a forge or a lava flow or what the sun must have looked like. The energy––the mana, the final catalyst needed in the chemical process Dagna had been carefully crafting inside dwarven bodies since she first performed the process on herself––rocked against Signy’s shoulders, against her whole body, against all the lyrium-processed-just-so flowing through her veins. Her legs stiffened; involuntarily, her back arched and her throat clenched and after that brief second of silence when all the air in her lungs seemed inaccessible, no longer to be there never to be there though her mouth was open as wide as her jaws would allow, after that brief second, she screamed.
Piercing, high, not the keening and constant wail of the lyrium, but a jagged crescendo and decrescendo of a scream, screams, broken by her need to breathe. Broken by sharp arcing pain everywhere, broken by moments of respite and moments of agony so intense it felt like her heart was no longer beating. And then it was rushing, unevenly, and then it was shuddering again and her screams were without end. Varied in pitch--high, low, breathy, sobbing, all of it.
It went on. On, and on. Signy lost consciousness--she could not, later, remember an end to the pain as the lyrium burned out of her body, or burned into her body––as it carved inside her a pathway into the Fade where none had been before.
When she awoke, she was in her room; nobody was there, although Signy had the strangest sensation of not being alone, as though someone had just been speaking with her or watching her.
Everything ached; for a moment she noticed the things around her, how her hair was tied back and damp, and a bit bloody, and how she was wearing a different nightgown than the one she had been wearing before. She looked down at her bare arms; there were still faint lines, and perhaps they would scar... of the lyrium, which had glowed inside her ever so briefly, there was no longer any sign.
That was when her stomach seized for the first time; Signy would have run for the privy or at least the chamber pot, but her knees were weak. She barely made it out of the bed, and, kneeling on the floor, emptied the contents of her stomach in several short, choking heaves.
For the next three days, she remained in bed, weak and unable to do much more than cross the room, alternately vomiting and sleeping, waking to tell her concerned mother that she was talking to people in her sleep––before she vomited again, usually.
On the fourth day, Dagna came to test her; the test was cut short when Signy mentioned a conversation she’d had in her sleep (in a dream, Dagna would later call it), and Dagna barely needed to see a glow around Signy’s clenched fist before she declared the process a success.
Signy of Dagna was a mage, albeit one who would not leave her bed for another three days.