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Dagna scarcely heard the sound of water being poured into the large tin washtub that she occupied. She was only aware of the rain.
It had rained, on and off, for nearly three months, as spring shifted into summer. The rain had stilled hours before, but Dagna could hear it along with the pounding in her head and the ache in her limbs and chest.
She was certain that the pain that had settled itself within her breastbone wouldn’t go away.
“King Alistair is speaking to the Archon now.” Sigrun kept her voice soft and respectful as she poured another bucket of warm water into the tub. “There’s going to be a formal treaty between Ferelden and the Imperium. Do you hear that? History in the making, just a few tents away. King Alistair brought troops with him, too.” Sigrun grunted as she bent over, placed the empty bucket next to a full one, and hoisted the next into the air. “Five thousand marched with him, including the Wardens. There are twenty-five thousand on the way. Can you believe it? Val Royaux won’t be a siege. It’ll be over in a day, thanks to your machines and the fresh Ferelden troops.” The water splashed into Dagna’s tub, and Sigrun half-fell onto a chair with a groan. “You get to draw my bath next time.”
Dagna hugged her knees to her chest and closed her eyes. The water didn’t help. The cheerful yet soothing conversation with her beloved, albeit one-sided, didn’t help. The good news about the arrival of King Alistair did nothing the change the reality of what had occurred on the battlefield that morning.
In some ways, Dagna knew that she had left a piece of herself on that very battlefield.
“You’re still a mess,” Sigrun noted, a frustrated sigh escaping her tattooed lips. “I’m going to wash your hair if you won’t do it yourself. Then, I’m going to get you a hot meal, and you’re going to eat all of it.”
“I’m not hungry.” Dagna’s voice broke even as she uttered those words, and there were the tears again, streaming down her cheeks and dropping from her chin into the steaming water.
Sigrun began to unbraid Dagna’s hair, working her strong fingers in the most gentle way possible through the tangles and dried blood. Dagna didn’t mind that Sigrun stopped talking, and found the way that Sigrun cared for her hair to be rather comforting. Sigrun found a cup, and began to pour small amounts of water through Dagna’s long red strands.
She had started letting her hair grow long about a year ago, at the beginning of the war. It was rather nice to simply braid her hair in the morning.
But all of that seemed so trivial now.
“I’m sorry about Lucius,” Sigrun said, at last.
Suddenly, it was as if Sigrun had spoken a magic spell, sweeping Dagna back onto the battlefield and into the rain. Dagna ran - ran through the smoking remains of some of her machines and all of the wooden catapults. It had been a brutal day. The Orlesians had acquired some of the explosive powder manufactured by the Qunari. Both unfortunately and fortunately, prisoners of war reported that they had used absolutely every last barrel of it during the course of that single battle.
By chance, she sloshed through a mud puddle that looked deeper than it first appeared, the slipped as she exited it onto what looked like solid ground. Mud covered her boots and her arms up to her elbows as she slid forward and landed on her stomach, right next to the body of a fallen mage lying across his dead horse.
A grey horse.
Oh, no.
Dagna’s fingers fell over one of the mud-splattered arm plates at first in disbelief. Then, as she sat up on her knees, she found herself choking for air at the sight of the armor she knew so well. She had seen it on the armor stand in Lucius’s mansion, polished and gleaming, awaiting a battle that may or may not ever come again. He had worn it while fighting in Par Vollen as a young man, and certainly, in his older age, he would need to have it expanded in the chest and legs, for hadn’t he put on a bit of weight in his waning years?
He had worn it on his last day on Thedas. And now he lay there, across the corpse of his horse, his blue eyes open as he still stared at the sky, even in death. Most of his chest was missing, leaving a horrible black, gaping, charred hole and twisted silverite where he must have sustained a direct hit from one of the Orlesian projectiles. No magic known to Dagna would have protected him from such a thing.
For reasons that Dagna did not know, she unbuckled his helmet and pulled it free from his lifeless body. She saw that his eyes overflowed with the rain pouring from the great, thick clouds overhead, making it appear as if he was crying. Though, she knew that this was not so. No one could have survived such a wound. No one looked so peaceful and calm in life.
For a moment, her fingers brushed one of his wrinkled cheeks, and then, they closed his eyes for the last time.
“Atrast tunsha,” Dagna whispered, her voice breaking. “Totarnia amgetol tavash aeduc.” She ran a hand over his curled grey hair, now matted with blood and water. “Among the dwarves, you would have been numbered among the Paragons, mentor. May you find your Maker and peace, at last.”
Then, she raised her face to the brooding sky, and let out an anguished wail.