Title: Concoction
Fandom: Dragon Age
Rating: T
Length: 445 words
Content notes: Concerns herbal contraception (as abortifacient) and forced contraception (past).
Author notes: Written for the ‘Preparation’ challenge in fan_flashworks.
Summary: Anders uses his herbal knowledge to help Hawke but cannot help a pang of regret.

Sara had wrinkled her nose the first time he had prepared it for her.

“I’m meant to drink that every day?” she asked, grimacing.

“I understand that you get used to it.” Anders said, not without sympathy. He proffered the steaming cup to her, and Sara took it, looking despondently into its golden depths.

“I hope it doesn’t taste as bad as it smells,” she said. She blew on the surface of the tea to cool it, and then took a tentative sip. Her face suggested her hopes had not been realised. “This will make it so that I can’t get pregnant?” she asked, clearly needing some encouragement to continue.

Anders hesitated. “Sort of,” he said. Her eyebrows rose, and he quickly continued. “It will make it very unlikely that you can have a baby,” he said. “But it actually works by ending a pregnancy very early – before you even know that you’re pregnant.”

“Oh,” Sara said. Her voice was flat and she stared past the cup, towards the floor. Anders wished he had just agreed with her slightly inaccurate assessment. “And this is what they used in the Circle?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, and could not quite keep the bitterness from his voice. Anders had grown up knowing that children were not in his future. Mages were not allowed to reproduce. Not only did it risk continuing their supposedly sinful legacy of magic, but it was inconvenient for the Chantry to raise them.

It was somewhat ironic that Anders was now the one doling out the witherstalk. In the Circle, it had been a tool of control. Beyond, it was one of freedom. He had provided it discreetly to mothers and prostitutes, teenagers and middle-aged women alike. And now, Hawke.

It would meet Hawke’s needs, like it had met those of others. But there was a small place inside him that wished that it would not. He had grown up knowing that children were not in his future, but the Joining had made that all but certain. Another future that had been taken away without his knowledge or consent. Perhaps that is why he had described exactly what witherstalk would do. Perhaps he had wanted her to hesitate.

It was an ugly impulse, as Justice’s flash of anger attested.

“There are other methods,” he offered, to make up for his weakness. “Orlesian letters, sponges, certain ointments inserted into-” he broke off at her expression. “This is one of the better ones, despite the taste.”

Sara nodded. “Okay,” she said, and lifted the cup to her lips again. But as Anders watched her drain its contents, he couldn’t suppress a slight pang of regret.