Title: Nightmare Come To Life
Fandom: Dragon Age
Character: child!Vivienne
Rating: Teen and up
Length: 1302 words
Content Notes: Warning for (mild) body horror (a thing I never thought I'd say and yet here it is)
Author's Notes: This was originally intended to be the prologue of a story I'm working on for a Big Bang, but turned too dark for the tone of the actual story quite fast. So, while I'm trying to plan out a new prologue, this will be a stand-alone (until I figure out how to loosely tie it into the story).
Summary: She had lost track of how long she had been hiding in here. It certainly felt like an eternity to her.


She hid in a cabinet, her body just barely fitting inside, and she feared her loud breaths would betray her to the monster that was outside. Her fingers were clutching the small metal plate that kept the doorknob attached to the wood, pulling it towards her to keep it shut tightly; and painfully so. Vivienne could feel her nails crack and break, but she would not let go.

How could she? Otherwise the monster would get her.

So she clenched her teeth together, trying to ignore the tingling sensation that slowly crept up her legs, until her toes and feet and legs went numb. She had lost track of how long she had been hiding in here. It certainly felt like an eternity to her.

And yet, it also felt like an eternity that she had spent here, in the Circle, even though the ice had come out of her palms a mere week ago, and her parents had given her up to the mercy of the templars quickly afterwards.

With her fingers still firmly lodged around the edges of the doors, she craned her neck to press her ears against the cold wood; she had long since frozen the handles from inside in her desperate attempt to hide. Her breath was still loud, and the only thing she heard.

Vivienne tried to remember that nursery rhymes her mother used to sing to her, but her panic only rose when she could not find the lines in her mind; and more memories were already fading away. She did not remember all the nuances of her mother's voice when she did.

Nor her mother's face.

Tears stung in her eyes, before they rolled down her cheeks; tears from fear and frustration and anger. She let them, not daring to wipe them away, and leaving her only safeguard from the outside uncontested.

Why did her parents not protect her?

She hiccuped, as her crying became more frantic and unstoppable with every moment that passed. And again, and again, before she bit the back of her hand to muffle it. Her eyes closed shut, and her small and scrawny frame shaking from the force of it, she wept and hoped and prayed to the Maker that He might save her.

Whispers seemed to answer her plea, faintly echoing through her mind. They promised help, and power, and a way out if only she answered them; they made it sound so simple.

But they weren't the voices of the Maker, for He would not sound like that. He would not sound this off and twisted and wrong, He could not sound like this.

She shook her head, trying to make the voices disappear. They persisted, however, tirelessly luring her with the gifts they would grant her.

The longer she resisted, the less she wanted to. And she had listened to the whispers for a long time. The voices seemed to know; each one offered more and more ludicrous things, as if they were trying to surpass each other.

Her lids grew heavy, and her fingers grew tired. What harm could it be? They were just here to help her out, were they not?

Her idle musings were interrupted by steps. Drowning out the whispers, that briefly swell to an irritated, protesting groan before they were gone for good, and cutting through the otherwise silence of the hallway outside her little hideout.

Vivienne did not hear the heavy stomps the templars made, nor the small, fast steps the mages took in their soft, leather shoes.

Though she recognised the sound. And the sinking feeling in her guts made her sick.

Outside, feet were dragged across the floor, by a body that was suddenly heavier than it used to be. Her heart skipped a beat, as she tried to supress the memories that welled up. The sound of an abomination making its way towards her.

It had found her.

Her head snapped back from the door, that had become even colder without her noticing; she must have covered it in ice. If she did not learn to control herself, she would end up just as that monster outside.

The steps came closer, and, forgoing what she had done before, she released the door and tried to make herself even smaller, pressing herself against the back of the cabinet. She would give much to just slip through the small cracks in the wood, and disappear...

Her heart fluttered, so violently as if it tried to escape from her chest. It took her a few moments to realise, though, that her heartbeat was everything she heard.

Before she could really contemplate what it meant, the door was unhinged with such an amount of force she heard it splinter. Then, a clawed hand hauled her out of her hiding place.

The distorted, greyish flesh, the torn robes... This thing had been a mage, mere minutes ago. And she had watched it turn. She had seen the mage's skin ripple and bulge, and how their spine deformed under the different load. A mage that had been supposed to guide her in her first days in the Circle. Now it was a being worse than any villain from a tale, or her worst nightmare come to life. And it was staring at her.

Pain surged through her arm into her shoulder, as it yanked her from the ground, making her cry out in a pitch so high it might have shattered glass, if there had been any windows around. So, it only echoed from the stone walls, until it faded away; the only response was the unearthly gargling sound the abomination before her made.

What might have invoked pity in others, did not help her here; the creature left her dangling one feet above the ground. It might have even pulled her up slightly higher.

The abomination was playing with her, she came to realise. It was more difficult to read from a face that had nothing remotely human to it anymore, but cruelty she would recognise anywhere.

She squeezed her eyes shut, so she would not see it anymore, but it pierced her arm with one of its claws, until she would open her eyes again.

The voices had returned, too, ensnaring her with promises of relief, of an end to all of this. And she grew tired.

When the creature reached for her again, she threw out her free hand to avert more pain; she knew she could not handle much more.

And instead of another claw digging into her flesh, she dropped to the ground. Vivienne stumbled backwards into the hallway, farther away from this monster, until she looked up again.

Its whole body was encased in a thick layer of ice; only the arm that had restrained her was free, and it was now clawing at the rugged surface to break it. To no avail, though. Eventually, it went limp.

Vivienne had watched. Other kids her age would have gotten sick, or might have yelled for help, but she had only watched with a cold and morbid curiosity. She had watched ice flowers blossom on its skin; she had watched it turn red, and then blue; she had watched the life leave its eyes.

And then she knew. She knew that she was the only one she could truly rely on. More steps echoed through the hallway, this time they were heavier; a templar patrol. With a last glance towards the frozen corpse, she hurried away from it to the other side, and into the apprentices' quarter. The few mages that were in there furrowed their brows, but did not ask questions. Nobody ever did.

She needed to learn so much more, so she could fully protect herself. Then she would never have to fear to be abandoned again.