Title: Silver Spoon
Fandom: Dragon Age
Rating: G
Length: 2,069 words
Content notes: No content warnings apply.
Author notes: This prompt drew out a vignette that is likely to serve as a first draft for a scene/chapter that I might include in the bigger story universe.
Summary: Sara is late for a dinner party. It gives Leandra a glimpse into her life beyond the Estate.

She was just laying out the last spoon when the front door banged open.

“Bodahn?” she called out.

“It’s Serah Hawke, my Lady,” he called out. Leandra smoothed down the napkin by her hand, then left the dining room and moved into the hall. Finally, she was home. She’d left precious little time to get dressed and ready to greet the guests. They would be arriving within the hour.

Sara was indeed there – but not alone. Covered in blood and limping, she was supported through the doorway by that tattooed elf, who had her arm across his shoulders and his arm around her waist.

“Has anyone seen you like this?” she gasped. She looked to Bodahn, “Quickly, Bodahn, water and a cloth!”
Sara just gave a guttural groan, her eyes rolling back in her head, and collapsed, only half-sitting, onto a nearby bench.

“I’ll get Anders,” said the female, dark haired elf that Leandra hadn’t seen trailing along behind. With that cryptic remark, and without so much as a glance in Leandra’s direction, the elf walked through the door into the cellars. Leandra stood there looking after her. Wasn’t this her house?

“Stay with me, Hawke,” the white-haired elf said, squatting down on the ground in front of where her daughter sat. He was trying to catch Sara’s eye, but when his gaze flicked to her daughter’s leg, that’s when Leandra noticed the chunk of wood embedded in her thigh. It looked like it had once been part of a longer piece but had been hacked shorter. Blood was trickling down Sara’s calf and into her leather boot.

“What happened?” she demanded. Bodahn appeared beside her with the cloth and a basin of warm water. Leandra grabbed the cloth, and moved closer, kneeling down beside her daughter to wipe the blood from her leg.

The elf glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, not bothering to turn away from Sara. “Tal-Vashoth,” he said.

“Excuse me?” It sounded like a foreign curse.

“You might know them as rebel Qunari,” the elf said. Then he reached forward and took one of Sara’s hands. “Hawke, stay awake,” he said, lightly shaking it.

“We need to get a doctor,” Leandra said. “Bodahn, see if Messere Comte is still practicing.”

“Yes, my Lady,” Bodahn said, and left through the front door.

“We have better,” the elf said with a slight grunt. “Merrill has gone to get him.”

“Better?” Leandra said. “I doubt it. And what were you doing while my daughter was getting injured? Aren’t you meant to be protecting her?”

Now the elf did turn to her. Letting go of Sara’s hand, he swivelled on his bare feet to face her.

“I-” he started, but broke off as the door to the cellar opened behind them, and turned.

Leandra also turned to look, and saw a man wearing a scraggly feather coat, with long hair tied back and a five o’clock shadow walk through the door. He also held a staff, and Leandra knew what he was the instant she saw him.

“We can’t have a mage in the house,” she hissed at the elf, for lack of a better target. “I have guests coming!”

The elf turned his eyes back to her. “Sara needs him,” he said, and Leandra reluctantly nodded.

The mage stopped and surveyed the situation. “We need to get her upstairs,” he said, and the elf leaned down to scoop his arm beneath Sara’s shoulders. She was barely conscious, her eyes white beneath fluttering lashes.

“Hang on a few minutes more,” he said underneath his breath, and hauled Sara into a standing position. He was stronger than he looked. The mage came over and pulled Sara’s other arm across his shoulders, and the mage and the elf slowly helped her daughter up the stairs, her wounded leg trailing blood behind her.
Leandra followed.

They manoeuvred her onto the bed, and then the mage was pouring water into the basin on her toilet stand and washing his hands. Leandra wanted to get a towel to put under her – all that blood would be so difficult to get out – but didn’t want to leave her in a room alone with two strange men.

“Wash your hands,” the mage said to the elf, who instantly turned to obey.

“What are you going to do to her?” Leandra asked.

The mage knelt down to inspect her daughter’s leg, but looked up at Leandra. “They did well to leave the javelin in,” he said. “The pressure helps to reduce the blood flow. We don’t know yet if it has hit an artery or not. With Fenris’s help, I will remove the javelin, staunch the bleeding, and put her leg on the path to healing.”

He sounded so assured, so confident, that it reminded her, for a moment, of Malcolm. She nodded, almost despite herself.

Taking that as permission, it seemed, the mage put his hands on either side of the wood – the javelin – sticking out of her daughter’s leg, and a glow emanated from his hands. Then he beckoned the elf over.
“I’ve reduced the swelling and numbed the area,” he said. “Can you hold her leg down?” He looked up at Leandra. “Messere Amell, you may not want to be here for this.”

“I’m not going to leave two men alone in a room with my unconscious daughter,” she said indignantly.

The mage nodded, and turned to his task. He looked up at the elf, and some silent communication seemed to pass between them. The elf put his hands on her daughter’s knee and thigh, above and below the protruding javelin, and pressed down. The mage cast some kind of spell on his hands, reached down and took hold of the rough and broken end of the javelin. Grasping it with two hands, he began to pull it. Leandra watched, transfixed. Her daughter’s flesh seemed reluctant to give up its intruder; it almost seemed stuck to the shaft, rising with it and pulling it back down whenever the mage let up a moment’s pressure. But slowly, slowly, the javelin was pulled from her leg. When it came free, a gush of blood followed. The mage held his hand over the gaping wound and closed his eyes, and the flow of blood slowed, then stopped. He opened his eyes and looked at Leandra.

“Could you please ask your servant to bring some clean towels?” the mage said.

“Bodahn is… on an errand,” Leandra said weakly. She could try to ask Sandal, but there’s no guarantee he would understand or comply.

The elf removed his hands from her daughter’s leg. Sara’s blood had spilt across the white tattoos that extended across the backs of his hands and down his fingers, making their whiteness even more vivid against the ruby red.

“I will get them,” he said. “Tell me where they are.”

Leandra felt something like shame. “No, no… I will get them,” she said. She turned and left the room, moving to the linen closet and rummaging through it blindly, grabbing whatever towels she could.
When she returned to the room, she paused in the doorway. The elf was kneeling by the bed, holding Sara’s hand. The mage was standing next to him, working over Sara. His eyes were closed, blue light was emanating from his hands and, as Leandra watched, the skin was rebuilding inside the deep hole in her leg. She clutched the towels, feeling like she was invading some kind of private moment.

Sara moaned and thrashed on the bed. The elf took her hand and squeezed it. Perspiration appeared on the mage’s forehead. Blood and pale yellow fluid ran out of the wound as the flesh reknit itself inside of it. Leandra had never seen anything like it. Although Malcolm had not been a specialist healer, she had seen him take care of a few wounds, and although mages were generally good at rejoining skin that had been cut, or healing skin that had been burned, it was something else to regrow the skin on this kind of scale.
When he was done, the blue light subsided and the mage seemed to sag. He wiped his brow and sat, somewhat unsteadily, at the end of the bed, next to Sara’s legs. Sara lay limp and pale against the cushions, but her leg was whole. The new skin was a very soft pink, in a circle on her thigh. Blood and fluid coated her leg.

“Towels,” Leandra said weakly. The mage lifted his head to look at her, and for a moment they looked almost blue, but it passed. It was the elf who got up from his knees to come over and take the towels off her.

“Thank you,” he said, and walked back to the bed. He gently began to use one of the towels to wipe the mess from her leg then, when that was clean, to dab at the coverlet.

As the elf attempted to clean the blood, the mage spoke. It was clear that healing Sara had cost him. He seemed to still be catching his breath.

“The javelin missed the femoral artery but chipped the bone. I have repaired it and regrown the damaged tissue. She should be gentle with it for a few days, but after that she will be completely fine.”

“That was.. astounding,” Leandra said. “What you did, I've never seen anything like it. And I've lived with two mages.”

The mage rubbed the back of his head. “I had good teachers,” he said. “Healing was always my speciality.”
The door opened downstairs, and two pairs of feet walked in.

“Lady Amell, I have brought the doctor.”

Leandra looked up at the mage then stood and smoothed her skirts, checking to make sure that no stray drops of blood had landed there. Then she walked out onto the landing above the hall.

A man was standing in the hall next to Bodahn. He was holding a bag, and bowed deeply when she entered.

“Lady Amell,” he said. “I believe you knew my father.”

“Messere Comte?”

In answer, he bowed again. “Jules Comte,” he said. “My father was Baudet Comte.”

“I apologise, Messere Comte. It was a… false alarm. I will of course compensate you for the time and trouble.”

“No need, my lady. It was no trouble, and my father remembered you fondly.”

Leandra inclined her head in acknowledgement of his graciousness.

“Good evening, Lady Amell.” The doctor gave another bow, turned on his heel, and left.

Leandra headed back into her daughter's room. Sara was sitting up in bed now, propped up on some pillows. She smiled wanly at Leandra as she entered.

“Sorry I was late, mother,” she said.

“She needs to stay off that leg,” the mage said. He looked a bit better now too. There was more colour in his cheeks.

“I will tell the guests that you are… indisposed,” Leandra said.

Sara grimaced. “That will set tongues wagging,” she said. “I think I can manage-” She went to swing her leg off the bed, but the mage pressed her back onto the pillows.

“You need to stay off that leg,” the mage repeated, with an exasperated fondness that set alarm bells ringing in Leandra’s mind. “At least until tomorrow. Don’t undo my hard work.”

“I… Yes, okay, Anders,” Sara said.

The elf stood off to one side, arms crossed. “I should go,” he said.

“You'll need to leave by the servants’ entrance,” Leandra said. “I’m expecting guests to arrive at any moment, and it wouldn't do to have a strange, blood stained elf greet them.”

Sara grimaced, but the elf just nodded.

“Fenris,” Sara said. “You could stay.”

The elf – Fenris – raised an eyebrow. At least he had some sense of the impropriety of her daughter's request.

“Out of the question,” Leandra said. “If Sara is out of danger-” here she paused, until she received an affirming nod from the mage - Anders, “then she should get her rest. Alone.”

Sara looked imploringly, first at Anders and then at Fenris, but they both looked away.

“I will check on you in the morning,” said Anders. He looked as though he wanted to say, or do, something more, but contented himself with nodding. He took up his staff from where he had left it against the wall, and Leandra shepherded the two of them out.