Work Text:
M is for Mages
“You call yourself a mage,” said Anders. “But you’re not, are you? You’re a dwarf. You can’t cast any spells.”
“Yeah.” Dagna’s voice had sounded resigned. “No amount of wishing or praying can ever make it so.” She knew better though, after her experiences in Kinloch Hold, to express any sort of emotion that sounded like envy. “Would make my research more rounded if I could.”
“See, that’s my point.” Anders raised a bandaged hand and pointed at her. “You’re calling yourself something that’s not who you are. That’s not really right, is it?”
“Why not?” She had heard such criticism before – many times, in fact, before her feet even landed in the Imperium. She had never before directly confronted anyone about it before, however. “Haven’t I eaten with and slept by mages for years? Haven’t I learned with them? Didn’t I leave my caste behind so I could learn to be a mage? I can’t ever go home.”
“But can’t you choose not to study magic?” Anders had crossed his long, bony arms as he stared down at her. “You don’t have to live in a Circle. You can leave any time you want. You can become a tailor. A pirate. A farmer. You can go anywhere and live anywhere. You can even accept the Qun and go to Par Vollen if you want. My point is that you have a choice. You can reject this life that you chose. I can’t.”
Dagna’s right hand flew into the air – a signal that the Kossith man at the control panel knew well. He pressed two buttons, turned a key that lay in a lock, and, with a grim expression on his face, threw a large switch.
The lyrium-powered catapult’s arm lurched into the air, releasing what, at first glance, might appear to be a very large cannonball. But no. This was a monstrosity covered in spikes and blue stripes, scrawled with painted caricatures of the Tevinter seal and the symbol of the revolution. It took flight, first gracefully as the arm flung it into the air, but then, as magical sensors realized that this craft was carried by the air, it released itself, cracking in half to reveal a dark blue glow of strange light.
The Orlesian officer’s horse reared up, its nostrils flared as it screamed. In a single moment, unbidden by their own commanders, the Orlesian Templars on the front lines chanted all manners of protective spells as they raised their shields, bracing for the Maker Only Knew What.
It would not be enough. The lyrium projectile crushed two Templars as it fell, but no eye could track what happened just before it exploded with brilliant blue flame, smoke, and clouds. It all happened much too fast – and suddenly, the Orlesian army was burning, jerking wildly, charging forward even as their armor burned with magical fire, but falling as their lungs choked with the toxic smoke.
“But I won’t,” Dagna said in a small voice. She had made the Mages’ Liberation Coalition all of the things that they had asked for – every bomb, every small engine, and every grenade. But then again, Lucius’s pockets, and the purses of several other senior Senators, had begun to silently fund the Coalition’s efforts, and her, by default. “I’m not going to leave. This is the life I’ve chosen. This is my side. The mages are my people.”
Anders sighed. “You won’t be saying that when this war starts killing your friends. You wouldn’t say that if I sent in a bomber to destroy a market, and your girlfriend decided to purchase a loaf of bread at that very moment.”
Lucius cried out a command in Arcanum, and these ancient words were met with a spell spoken by the lips of several scores of Magisters. Blue protective shields spread over the Tevinter troops, shimmering into place with a low hum that almost sounded like the buzzing of tens of thousands of bees.
“Charge!” Lucius shouted.
The troops knew what to do; their commanders had versed them well in this strange plan for stranger circumstances. With an unearthly cry, Anders raised his clawed hands, spinning as his blue-glowing eyes narrowed, as he began to cast spell after spell upon the troops before him.
The Tevinter troops divided in half, each flanking the bomb and its massive damage and heading quickly, at full-tilt, to pick off the survivors. Dagna reached out for the catapult, clasped a handhold placed at her height specifically for her use, and hoisted herself up and into the seat next to the Kossith.
“Ram ‘em, Larsad,” she said as she pulled a pin from one of her grenades, tossing it in the direction of a charging group of Templars. “Run them over. Let’s show the Archon that his money was well spent.”
Opening her mouth, Dagna hesitated, then closed it again. She hadn’t allowed herself to think of Sigrun’s eventual death, mostly because she refused to think of their relationship other than on a day-to-day basis. Take things as they come. Deal with the eventual when it arrives. She knew that it was the price to pay when falling in love with a Grey Warden.
Still, the thought of Sigrun being stolen from her before Sigrun could hear the horrible calling of the Darkspawn, the very idea – it struck Dagna in the chest, and ached as if Anders had physically attacked her.
“See?” Anders shook his head. “You can’t and won’t say that if the time comes.” His lips set into a thin line. “I have already mourned Hawke’s death. I have prepared myself for it. When he dies, I’ll have already shed tears for him.” His long, twisted fingers curled over his sharp chin. “This is instinct, Dagna. When you love as a mage, you prepare to lose your beloved, and that’s one of the reasons we’re fighting. Do you even know what that means?”
“Obeying your command, Lieutenant.” A smirk crossed Larsad’s face as he pulled two more levers.
The roar already emitting from the engine rose to a fevered, angry pitch that shook the ground around the catapult as it surged forward. The Tevinter army scattered, giving the catapult a wide path toward the fleeing Orlesian armies.
They fled, but the Archon had instructed the officers to not allow any persons committing such cowardly actions to live. Prisoners of war would be taken among the injured that lay on the battlefield, not from those that ran from their duty. The Archon did not wish to extend the lives of hypocrites that would so easily proclaim to be part of a cause one day, and then turn tail and run when things became difficult.
Dagna winced as the machine’s great wheels crushed its first victim, but occupied herself quickly with the task of emptying the contents of her belt systematically onto the battlefield. One by one, her grenades, and those of the soldiers that she commanded, exploded, injured, confounded, and choked the fleeing troops.
The bearer of a large, ornate horn raised it to his lips even as his feet carried him away from the battle, and he sounded several quick, clear notes before himself and horn became crushed and irreversibly broken underneath the great wheels. No doubt, he had been ordered to sound a formal retreat. This was no longer flight out of panic, but an order from officers.
Now, the horn-bearer’s crushed bones and blood mixed with the mud and dirt. By the time that he perished, Dagna had begun to grow used to the horrible sound of metal and bones crunching together like some horrible candy constructed by the most sadistic demons, ones that sought to grind mortal men and women between their teeth.
“Maybe you’re right, Anders.” Dagna had learned, long ago, that some debates required concession. This was one that she could never win. “I couldn’t be dragged off by a Templar for being what I was born to be. I don’t really understand what you’ve been through because I have no real frame of reference.”
Anders looked entirely too satisfied by this response. With a quiet grunt, he rose from his chair and crossed the room almost noiselessly. He made his way to the open window, staring out of it and falling silent again. Then, only then, Dagna spoke again:
“You know what, Anders? In the end, I guess that it’s just a matter of faith. You have to have faith in me. You came to the Imperium for help in this rebellion when you didn’t really trust the Magisters. You’d heard and seen everything bad in this world that the Magisters are capable of doing. But you still came, didn’t you? Now look at it.” Dagna gestured toward the window. “You have the Archon backing you. I’m a lot smaller than the Archon, and not just in height, either. I’m not as important as him. It’ll take you less faith to believe in me. It’ll be easy.”
Cheers rose up from the Tevinter solders. The battle had been fought and won not in days, but in mere minutes. Now it was time to take count of the wounded and injured, a task that the soldiers set to without being told to do so. Dagna couldn’t help but allow herself to grin in satisfaction at the sight of the engineers working on this very thing.
“We need to do something else with the wheels.” Larsad pulled the great catapult to a loud, grinding halt. “They move too slow in the soft ground. With your permission, I’d like to experiment with them.”
Still grinning, Dagna extended a small hand toward Larsad, waiting to exchange a congratulatory shake. “Go for it. Well done, engineer. Let me know what you come up with.”
Looking away from him and toward the battlefield, she saw the impossibly slim, dark form of Anders gliding across the battlefield, past the broken and bloodstained corpses, wagons, and dead beasts of burden. As if he could sense that Dagna looked at him, he paused, turning his skull-like face in her direction.
The smile remained on her lips. She was going nowhere.