Doom Upon All The World

Chapter 51: Templar Intervention

The sound of the wind whips in her big, pointed ears. Everything else around her is silent. Everything else is gone. There is only this. Only the wind. Only her heart beating rapidly in her chest with effort. Only the wind lashing her thin body. Only her battle axe gripped firmly in her hands. Only her muscles straining to keep up its weight. Only the dummy in front of her being beaten to a pulp. Only the smell of fire and death and destruction in her nostrils. Only the breath of life in her to sustain her ever crying soul. Maeve can feel the weakness in her bones, the flimsiness of her muscles in her frail form. It is her fault they are like this. It was her choice, her weakness of mind that allowed her body to deteriorate. 

She does not remember how it happened. She does not recall what caused it, why her emotions became so prominent that she could not lift herself from her own bed. Or she wishes that she could not remember. In some part of her, she wishes that Mythalus had succeeded. She sees him now, his little face, his bright eyes, his dark curls. Her heart clenches at the thought. She bites down on her bottom lip and spins with a shout as she brings her axe down on the dummy. It springs back up, only ceding in angering her more. She sweeps the axe from the side and chops the thing right from its stand in the ground. She recalls the lyrium in her little boy's eyes, the tears that stained his cheeks, the cries that poured forth from his lips. She tackles the dummy, letting her anger, her boiling rage take root and run wild. Her fists fly into the wood and cotton padded structure. She remembers Solas calling out to him. Her fists ache and feathers fly from the casing around the dummy. She sees the light seething, flowing from little Mythalus, his entire body becoming filled with the power of lyrium. Blood spills from her knuckles. She remembers the shout of fury that broke the air, the man that tackled her Mythalus to the ground, restraining his arms. The splinters dig into her hands and the pain lances through her arms. She envisions Cullen's face as he clamps the mage restraints around Mythalus' wrists and he sobs, screaming loud and painfully as if the cuffs are agonizing. 

The pain is numb in her body, it is not felt. She recalls the horrified look in Solas' eyes as Mythalus screams for him. Her fists continue their work, punching and hurting uncontrollably. There is no grip. She imagines the way she jumped from her bed, weak and dying, taking her sweet baby from the arms of the interfering templar. Blood is all over the dummy but the dummy does not bleed. She sees his tiny body wrapped in her arms, watches as the light leaves his eyes, the lyrium fading along with the life. The dummy is lifeless, without breath, without heart, without soul or feeling, as Maeve wishes she was. She remembers how swiftly Solas came to her side as she held their child in her arms, weeping, fearing the worst, seeing that it had come. It plays back in her head as the bones in her hand begin to give out. He lifted Mythalus from her arms as she cried into his light brown curls. His eyes did not dry of the tears she saw there but his face did calm in something like relief when he discovered their baby boy, frail and little as he is was still alive. Maeve continued to weep even then. For hours she sat there on the floor, Solas having taken Mythalus elsewhere to tend to him, only Cullen in the room to comfort her. It came as much a surprise to him as it did to her that he was the one to undertake this responsibility but he did it nonetheless. He could not just leave her there to suffer alone. 

"Maeve." She continues her beating on the dummy, even when she feels the bones in her forefinger snap and her entire hand tingle with mild pain, she does not stop. She goes on and the pain comes again, repeating her injury in her other hand. Her hands, her wrists, her fingers and knuckles, they are all a sack of flesh with fragments of what once was inside but still, she goes on. "Maeve." The voice is all but blocked out. She can hardly hear over the wind, over her thudding heart, over her bones crunching in her body. "Maeve!" They are shouting now. She recognizes the voice, low, and deep and angry. Not Solas as she half expected. She did not feel his presence so close behind her. He is near but not so as to touch her. A hand with strong fingers curls over her shoulder and she whirls, grabbing his collar, and pulling her already broken hand back as if to strike him.