Welcome to DADWC!! How about “matrisate,” familial, from the unusual word prompts?
thank you! this was an interesting one :')
[matrisate - to imitate one's mother]
She smiled at Kieran as he rushed past her, shaking her head fondly. He was quite the energetic lad. Even now. But as he left the room her expression fell.
She had been beyond sense, utterly terrified for her child. To find him with her mother of all people... had the Inquisitor not been there, she was uncertain what she would have done, what cruel things she might have said. Flemeth deserved no less, but she would not have her son see her that way, would not have him see her as a monster.
She looked down at her hands, her nails painted in the manner that had been popular within Orlais. Underneath such pretty decor lay her skin, her blood, her bone - her mother’s. She was part of Morrigan, true, just as Kieran held part of her, but it was more than that. This skin might have belonged to her mother. This body that she inhabited might have been host to her mother - and to the Elvhen goddess she apparently carried, to some aspect of Mythal.
Flemeth - or was it Mythal? - had proved that Morrigan was now bound to her: she had been unable to attack. It was no kindness given, certainly, but she was grateful in a way that her son had not seen her resort to violence.
And yet... was she truly so different? She had bred Kieran for a purpose, as if combining ingredients for some great spell. She had imbued him with the soul of the Archdemon, power and history alike preserved in his small form. What kind of monster would do that to a child, unborn and unknowing?
He was not harmed by it, not physically, but there had been dreams. Perhaps even a presence, she had never been certain. She was wary of questioning him too deeply on such matters, knowing the undue influence a mother could exert upon her child and fearful of the answers both.
Perhaps Flemeth had done them both some strange kindness, in her acquisition of the soul. Morrigan’s goals were satisfied - the soul was preserved, history and magic with it, even that it was outside her grasp. But as Kieran had grown, as she had nursed her child, as she had sheltered him, her desire for power had shifted.
It was no less, but the reason for it had changed. She must be strong enough to protect him. And if she could not stand against her mother and win, then she would sacrifice herself to save him. She had offered as much already, and would again, if need be.
She did not believe her mother had done anything out of the kindness of her heart. But perhaps there was a hidden value in this, or a value which could be nurtured. That Kieran might grow up to be an ordinary child soothed something in her.
If she was like her mother, if she was made in her image, then so be it: but she need not make the same choices as her mother.
