26This time last year I wrote a series of one shots and scenes inspired by Dragon Age: Origins. I'm finally moving them along to ! I hope you enjoy.
It was unclear when the magic first manifested. Maybe it was when he was five and frustrated with the lute his mother had given him, and every candle flame in the room had jumped five feet towards the ceiling. Perhaps it was when his father had ordered him to shake hands with the teryn's jerk son and, despite having no contact with wooly fabrics, a touch of Soul's hand had sent a shock up the older boy's arm. Or maybe, when he was even younger, it began when he had started dreaming of a hazy, alternate world full of desire, adventure, and danger.
Whenever it started, Soul Evans of West Hills knew for certain that he was a mage the day Curtis the groundskeeper tried to drown the kittens.
He was only ten then, a noble's second son that was sheltered from the world, spoiled by status, and passed over by birthright. Looking back, it seemed strange that Soul used to know more about his place in the kingdom's political hierarchy than he did about magic. Ten-year-old Soul couldn't escape the truth that Wes, the elder brother, was to inherit everything, and he, the younger brother, was to be a political pawn for his parents. The best Soul could hope for was to marry a noble daughter wealthy enough to set him up for life or to join the army and become a war hero. Neither were appealing. He was trapped, powerless, desperately unhappy. Little did he know that ten years down the road, Soul would know nothing but unbridled freedom and the heat of magic coursing through his veins.
It was fitting that the turning point in his childhood was triggered by a trio of kittens. He was playing with Wes on the estate's lush, freshly manicured grass when they saw their groundskeeper wrangle three of the castle cat's newest litter into a burlap sack. The kittens mewled softly as they were gruffly picked up and dropped into the sack, no resisting their imminent fate.
"What's Curtis doing with the baby cats?" Soul asked with a tilt of his head.
Wes was four years older, and he understood these things better than his brother. "You don't know? He's going to drown them."
Soul blinked, uncomprehending. "Is that one of the phrases my tutor says aren't 'sposed to be literal? Like 'The cat's out of the bag!" or "Look what the cat dragged in!"'
His brother blanched. "No…"
Soul's red eyes bulged. The boy scrambled to his feet, took a deep breath, and screamed. He ran as quickly after Curtis as his short legs could carry him, yelling so loudly that he couldn't hear Wes calling after him.
He found the groundskeeper opening a barrel of water in the stable. The bag in his hand continued to wiggle as he scooped water into a bucket and set it on the ground. The older man did pause when he heard Soul's shouting, but when the boy finally made it into the stable, Curtis rolled his eyes.
"Not now, Soul," Curtis muttered. He never did bother to refer to the boy as "young master" or any other honorifics, a habit Soul ultimately preferred. "Just taking care of some groundskeeping business. Nothing to see here."
The kittens were still writhing in the bag and mewling sweetly. "Those are my cats," Soul blurted, not taking his eyes off the sack. "I need them right now. I order you to give them to me, and I'll tell my father if you don't."
Curtis hacked a dry laugh. "Your father was the one that asked me to do it." Soul stared defiantly at the stablemaster, who sighed and rubbed his brow. "Look, I know this is nasty business. I don't get any enjoyment from it, but the fact is that we'll get overrun if we let the cats breed as they do. Come on now, let's not cause a fuss."
"No!" Soul said with clenched fists. "I'll stop you--I'll fight you!"
It was mighty optimistic of him to think he could physically overpower the groundskeeper. Soul never really realized before just how huge Curtis was. The man was broad-chested and tall, and he could easily pick Soul up by his shirt with one hand and drown the kittens with the other, and he probably would have done if manhandling his lord's son wouldn't earn him a lashing.
"It won't look good for either of us if you try anything like that," Curtis said. He closed the barrel and hoisted the full bucket onto its lid. He was going to do it, he really was going to drown them right now. Soul's heart leapt into his throat, and he charged. His hands tugged at the older man's shirt and tears budded in Soul's eyes as Curtis lifted the bag of kittens towards the bucket. In a moment of desperation and fear, Soul shut his eyes and reeled back his arm. His fist made contact with Curtis' side, but it was too weak a punch to hurt or knock the man over. There was nothing Soul could do.
Or so he thought. Sniffing, Soul looked up at the groundskeeper. Curtis stood still, an immobile stone statue. He wasn't even blinking or breathing. The bag was still clutched in his fist. Soul took this opportunity to tear it away from Curtis' corpse-like hand and sprint pell-mell towards the forest just beyond the stable. Maybe if he gave the kittens a head start, they had a fighting chance of survival.
After running just behind the treeline, Soul untied the sack to set the kittens loose.
"Go!" Soul urged, nudging the kittens forward. They tumbled onto their backs and mewled. "Escape while you still can! You can do it!" The tabby sniffed the ground for a moment, only to prance towards him and bop his hand playfully with its paw. "Damn it, you're supposed to run. Be free!"
He didn't know how long Curtis would be paralyzed, and he was sure that when the older man regained feeling in his muscles, he would come after Soul. Whatever Soul did to stop Curtis from shoving the kittens into a bucket of water, he didn't think he could repeat it a second time. It was so unfair that they had to die, and for what? Because they were extra, and there was apparently no room for them. Was that such a horrible crime, to be extra? There was a place for him here, after all.
Soul considered taking the kittens home to raise them in his bedroom (they didn't poop a lot right?). Before he arrived at a decision, a large, dark cat emerged from the shadows. It was a plump creature with a purple sheen and golden eyes so bright, they almost glowed. It released a deep meow, and the kittens immediately got to their feet and clustered around the large cat. To Soul, it seemed to be adopting the poor things.
"Thank you!" Soul said, though it made him feel silly. This was, after all, a cat.
"No problem!" the cat replied with a wink. The boy stared open-mouthed as the cat picked up one kitten by the scruff and carried it away. They other two followed obediently, as if in a trance.
Wes was never gonna believe this.
After he rushed home with an amazing story on the tip of his tongue, Soul learned that Curtis had collapsed and was recovering in his quarters. He suffered a "mild fainting spell," his mother said with a nervous laugh. Soul nodded like a good son and mentioned that he hoped Curtis made a quick recovery, but his heart pounded as that information sank in. Soul had completely immobilized Curtis with a single touch, and now the man was comatose. He also had a real conversation with an animal. While his mother did not mean it literally, one mention of the word "spell" caused everything to fall into place.
There was a more than slight possibility that Soul was a mage.
Mages weren't discussed often in polite circles and it was thus impossible for Soul to practice any magic or ask anyone about becoming a mage. Why hadn't he met any mages before? Where were they? Soul quickly learned that these weren't questions he could ask and receive a simple answer.
"Almost all mages in the realm live in Circle Tower," Wes told him later in the family library with acute disinterest. Wes flipped a page of his book, bored, while his younger brother stared wordlessly at his own blank parchment. "Father told me it's the only place those heathens can study their abominable craft without being tarred, feathered, or worse."
The implications of 'or worse' made Soul shiver. "Where do the rest of them live?" Soul whispered.
His brother shrugged. "Wherever they are told to, I suppose."
Soul frowned as he tried to fathom what it was like to be trapped in a tower until someone he didn't know said it was okay for him to leave. It rubbed him wrong. He didn't like being contained in his family estate, but at least there he was allowed to go outside.
"I know that magic seems interesting, but you shouldn't get too into that stuff," Wes warned. "There's a reason they live in a tower. Any mage, even the young ones, can boil your blood if they look at you funny. It's just better to forget about them. I know Father doesn't like talking about them."
The younger brother said nothing and fiddled with his parchment. There was a lot their father didn't like talking about, especially with Soul. Wes, thinking that his brother was disappointed his curiosity was so swiftly shut down, tried to cheer Soul up. "I mean, I guess there's no harm in reading about magic. I read that when the Qunari find a mage, they cut out its tongue so it can't recite spells anymore!'"
To Wes' chagrin, that fun fact caused Soul to sink deep into his chair and retreat even further into himself.
It was common knowledge that Soul should put more effort into his schooling, but history and languages and writing seemed a little mundane now that he had forbidden magic to learn-or rather, to hide. When Curtis woke up, he'd probably tell everyone how he fell asleep. Then everyone would know. Soul didn't fancy being tarred, feathered, or cooped up in a tower. He also didn't want to have his tongue cut out...or worse.
About a week after the incident with Curtis and the kittens, Soul's mother noticed her son's quieter demeanor and elected to sing him to sleep like she used to do. Her song was a bittersweet ballad about a bird struggling to escape its tether. What it was tethered to the song did not specify, and Soul felt it was imperative to find out.
"What's the bird trying to be free from?" Soul asked after she was finished.
His mother sighed. After a long day running the estate, her reserves of maternal energy were already depleted by a single song. "I don't know. Anything. Everything. Be quiet."
"But you can't be free from everything."
This got a chuckle out of her. "You're absolutely right," she said, pulling her son's covers up to his chest.
"You can never be all the way free." His mother's smile vanished. She gave him a peculiar look, but Soul did not notice. He stared distantly at the ceiling with furrowed eyebrows, almost as if he was seeing something far beyond human vision. "He's been trying his whole life to be free from something he'll never be free from."
The realization that he would someday live in a cold tower away from his family weighed heavily on him, but it was the clawing, terrifying sensation of being already trapped that made Soul despair. He was a mage now. It was sealed, decided, irreversible. There were a lot of things he didn't understand about mages and where they fit in the kingdom's political tapestry, and at his young age, Soul didn't quite get who exactly it was that ordained where mages can live and work.
What he did know all too clearly was that the magic wasn't going away. But maybe, he could.
He didn't seriously entertain the idea of running away until Curtis woke up raving. Soul and Wes were forbidden to go near Curtis's room for fear of catching whatever curse the groundskeeper was suffering from. Templars were summoned. A healer was also on the way. Whispers of 'maleficarum' and 'blood mage' spread through the castle halls, and Soul could not help but imagine that they were all talking about him. How much longer until they found him out?
Exactly three weeks after the initial confrontation with Curtis, Soul was solemnly playing outside with Wes once again on the estate green. Wes ran inside to find an imitation sword for their next game, and when no one was looking, Soul darted back into the woods. He leapt over tree roots and batted away branches as he sped further into the forest. His chest ached and his mouth tasted of copper, but at least-
"You're going to get caught."
Soul stopped in his tracks at the sound of that familiar voice. Perched upon a rock was the black cat that had spoken to him. He had first laid eyes upon that cat only three weeks ago, but it felt like a century. A century of worry and fear.
"I'm just saying," the cat continued in its perky, feminine voice, "That if you really want to run away, dashing into the forest with no supplies, no map, and no plan is going to get you killed or caught. Probably the latter, since your daddy would send all of his men out looking for you the moment you are found missing in, oh, twenty minutes."
Now that he thought about it, it was probably true. Soul walked over to the cat's rock and slid down onto his knees. He fiddled with leaves on the ground with slumped shoulders, unwilling to show just how exhausted and frantic he felt.
"Why are you running away, kitten?" the cat asked. It jumped off the rock and approached the boy. "Tell Blair what's bothering you," it-she-said.
There was no one else Soul could talk to about this, so he might as well say it to a talking cat. It came out in a single breath. "I'm a mage, and when I'm found out, everyone is going to hate me."
Blair purred knowingly. She sat down and pawed at the ground. "I see. A lot of baby mages like you try the same thing. That's the only problem about being a mage," she continued. "Everyone is jealous of us."
Her choice to say "us" was chilling, but Soul focused more on what she said about jealousy. Oh, Soul was familiar with jealousy. What he wasn't so familiar with was the idea that people could be jealous of him. "But why?" Soul asked. "Why do they even care? Why don't they just leave us alone?"
"It's very simple," the cat said, slowly advancing toward him with her head cocked to one side. "They're weak, we're strong. We're special, and they're not. They're blind, Soul, blind since the days they were born." Soul became fixated on Blair's bright, unblinking eyes. "But you and me, our eyes have always been open. We see how the world really works. We are capable of anything, and that makes us powerful."
"Maybe you are," Soul muttered. He was just the second Evans son. Using any positive adjective to describe his talents was a tough sell. "I've never done magic on purpose."
"That's because no one has taught you, silly," Blair said helpfully. "When you go to the Circle, you'll meet all kinds of teachers that will help you learn. You will finally be surrounded by people just like you."
Soul had been so worried about being stuck in a tower, he hadn't considered the fact that he would be trapped in there with people. "No! I don't want to go there! Anything but that!"
Blair's ears perked up. "Well," the cat said, contemplating. "If you're going to run away, you have to do it so you don't leave any trace. I bet if you turned into a swarm of beetles, you would be nearly impossible to track. Or you could summon a blizzard over the castle. Your family will freeze to death while you sneak away, and after it's over everyone will be too sad to realize you're long gone. No, set the castle on fire! That way, no one will be able to tell your body is missing from the charred remains. It's the perrrrfect escape."
He wordlessly pet Blair's dark fur with a horrified expression. The guilt of sending Curtis into a coma for threatening a couple kittens was heavy enough, but slaughtering his whole family for no reason… "I don't, I mean, I don't think-"
"Oh right, you're a baby," she said, disappointed. "You can't do any fun magic yet." Blair settled into his lap and purred. "You sure you want to run away? The Circle is a prison, but it's a nice prison. At least you won't be lonely. Choosing love and family can make you even happier than power and survival."
Without a word, Soul gingerly lifted the cat in his lap so he could stare into her eyes. "You don't believe that stuff at all."
Blair blinked at him. "No, but I wanted to make you feel better. I don't like seeing baby mages like you with nowhere else to go. No one else to rely on."
Soul placed her back in his lap and began to absently stroke her head. In the distance, he heard Wes calling his name, telling Soul to come back to the castle. The younger Evans did not move, preferring to linger in the secrecy of the woods a little longer.
"You know," Blair purred. "If you found someone who would whisk you away before they sent you to the tower, someone who would teach you, nurture you, then you might still be free." It was in this moment that Soul remembered with a jolt that the cat in his lap called herself a mage, which meant that not only was she a person, but she also didn't live in the tower. His heart began to beat faster when he realized that this might be able to work out so, so perfectly… "You have so much potential, Soul, and I'm not just saying that." Blair looked up at him with burning yellow eyes. "If you become my apprentice, I can make you the stuff of legends. If that is what you want."
Years later, Soul would realize that this was what Blair had been leading up to all along.
Unfortunately, at age ten he was not yet cognizant of his soon-to-be-mentor's brand of manipulation. Light mist swirled from the ground as Soul, full to the brim with eagerness and fear, said, "Yes, take me with you!"
Wes' calling was getting closer, but his voice was joined with several others. Soul's brother must have told someone that he was was missing and started a search. It was now or never, tower or freedom. "They're coming!" Soul said, his eyes searching through the increasingly dark forest. "What should I do?"
The cat leapt off his lap. Dark tendrils of smoke began to circle around her body, and the static in her soft fur sparked and sizzled. "Just close your eyes," Blair whispered. She glowed. "I'll take care of the rest." Her face elongated and her limbs began to stretch and shift from fur to skin. Though he was deeply intrigued by the transformation in front of him, and the sound of Wes' voice growing closer filled him with last minute doubt, Soul did as he was told and shut his eyes tight.
The last memories Soul had of that day was the chirping of cicadas and the whipping of the wind.
