#Sola has no clue yet what they will be

[looseleafteeaves]

Peace

This is in a world I am tentatively calling the Sowing Wildflowers AU. All you need to know is that: 1. There was no Order 66. 2. Jedi, hearts hurting from the war, scatter like seeds in the wind. The clones carring them further. 3. The main characters are members of a race of people called Melinomin. Main Characters: Sola Baileya, a senior padawan (Sola is a melinomin) CT-10-3-5420, AKA Captain Snitch (she/her(?) don't know why, Captain Snitch slammed that over my head when I tried to write "he" CT 12-1-9151, AKA Puddle (He/him, a klutz)

Mentioned: Jedi Knight Taplel Vrahe, a mikkian jedi artisan who was unfortunately thrown into the war as a general.

Light gently streaming across closed lids.

Wind rustling leaves, the scents of baked sand and floating flowers surrounding the small figure floating cross legged. The nose twitches, and a quick last breath out, and the figure uncrosses their legs, standing.

"Captain Snitch? What can I do for you?"

"Ah, Commander Sola, we are approaching the MediCorp station, the Sun Touch? I figured you would want to know."

"Thank you Captain Snitch. I will fetch the blankets we are delivering now."

The commander, whose long skirt swishes behind her as she exits, nods, calling over her shoulder "Puddles is joining you, so be prepared."

----

Sola reaches out in the force, brushing against the many bright lights remaining on the Sun Touch in farewell. As the Artisan jumps into hyperspace, Sola turns.

"Puddle, you've been especially quiet today. I know you didn't really get to know me, or Master Taplel, but even if the war was not over, you could ask us anything."

Puddle stays silent, gathering his thoughts. "I just- what is that thing you and General Vrahe are doing in the Growth Room? Why are you just sitting there with your eye closed? Didn't you have many other things you were supposed to be doing?"

Sola smiles and hops onto the nearest table, bringing themself to eye level.

"I know that clones received a limited education on Jedi with the kaminoans... did you learn anything about meditation?"

"That it is the action of meditating, which is focusing one's mind for a period of time, in silence or with the aid of chanting, for religious or spiritual purposes or as a method of relaxation."

"Textbook perfect, Puddle. Meditating is that, however, it is also a process that jedi use to connect and immerse ourselves in the force, releasing emotions that affect us in negative ways, and learning from what we experienced. It is something that is very helpful to build a habit of. but can be difficult to get the hang of. Does that make sense?"

"So, I'm hearing that meditating is something you are doing to understand your experiences, or relaxing and releasing stress. Is that correct?"

"That's exactly correct, Puddle!"

"So what were you meditating about today?"

Sola grabs Puddle's hand and pats it. "Can I invite you to join me to meditate? I would like to meditate some more on peace, and how healing it can be, especially when you were not original built to be in war."

Puddle looks into Sola's face. "I am not the best at staying still, but to concept of peace is something I would love to gain understanding of. Please allow me to partake in your hospitality, and join you in meditating."

Sola almost dances down the hallway. "Then let us go to the Grow Room! The sunlight simulators are the best!"

And Puddle, joining Sola in mediating, experiances his first taste of peace.

[lairofsentinel]

Since this user's posts seem to have been deleted in previous opportunities I copy-paste their words here because they express exactly what I feel about this game. Dragon Age has died, unfortunately.

I'm a big time Dragon Age lover and have enjoyed every game in the series. Personally, I think Inquisition is the best in the series. And I was excited for Veilguard right up until I actually began playing it. Now, I want to clear things up at the start as to what I look for and believe makes a good Dragon Age game. To start, I DON'T CARE ABOUT COMBAT. I. Do. Not. Care.

You can make it Origins tactical. DA2 fast tactical. DAI hybrid. God of War action, I don't care. Dragon Age has always had combat that was...fine. A nice distraction and breakup in between the bits I actually care about: narrative ROLEPLAYING, story, characters, and exploration. I don't give a crap how great the combat is if the narrative roleplaying and writing are poor, I'm not playing BioWare titles for amazing gameplay. I am here for the story, the characters, and the roleplaying. Truth is, for a time I considered DATV's combat to be the best in the series.

And this is why I feel the game is a terrible Dragon Age, because it lacks or fails to respect those elements concerned with narrative roleplaying, story, characters, and exploration. Now, in many reviews and online videos you'll hear some reference often to the drop in writing quality. And a lot of time people will incorrectly say that the writing with the characters is to "modern" or "Marvel quippy" or not "dark" enough. I think these people are wrong, they recognize there is a drop in writing quality from previous games but aren't able to articulate why that is.

Dragon Age has never adopted any sort of faux medieval speech and vocabulary (though we'll get into this more later). This is a series that used "epic fail" as a thing someone uttered in the very first game. It's always had anachronistic dialogue and banter. So why is it such a drop then? Why is it considered poor? Simple. This is a game that does not believe in the world it has setup for over a decade. It does not believe in or engage properly with its own world and lore. I mean, look no further than the title "The Veilguard" a phrase that is never uttered by anyone in our group, and further proof it was a last minute marketing change. Compare to Inquisition where the title is apparent from the start in the game and has actual meaning.

You see, characters in DATV do not feel or react to events the way they should based on the lore. Why is no one constantly asking what the hell the Inquisitor is doing? The Inquisitor is kind of a BIG DEAL when it comes to Solas and Elven Gods, my Inquisitor drank from the WELL OF SORROWS! So why are we sitting around thinking at the start, "hmm lemme think who I can contact who might know more." The Herald of Andraste! They know more Rook, the guy that is technically your boss. The Inquisitor! Who else have you been working for this entire time? Who do you think told Varric to recruit you?!

But even removing the Inquisitor, the Elven Gods being real and also near synonymous with the old Tevinter Gods is kind of a BIG DEAL. It was only a theory fans crafted long ago that slowly revealed itself to be true. And it completely upends known religious dogma on all sides. Yet, why aren't people we meet going through a massive existential crisis? For instance, the Veil Jumpers we initially meet were presumably told off-screen about Fen'Harel, and are seemingly cool with this massive knowledge alone. But then we talk about those two other Gods being released and they're like, "well, shit those two aren't good." As if they have any clue if the fables about those Gods are real when we previously just upended everything they thought about the Dreadwolf! Why are you acting like this is another Tuesday?! Your entire religion is wrong. In that same conversation, Strife notes "Solas might be a bastard, but compared to the Evunaris? Let's just say they weren't know for being kind rulers."

My brother in Anduril, what are you talking about! Elven religion teaches that Elgar'nan was so beloved by the Earth that it "the land brought forth great birds and beasts of sky and forest, and all manner of wonderful green things." And that he fought the jealous Sun that tried to burn the land and all beasts away. Custom says that he and Mythal, "created the world as we know it" after defeating the Sun. He is literally described as one of the "good" Gods. WHY ARE YOU ASSUMING HE IS EVIL! It's like finding out Satan is real, but not as evil as have come to believe and then being told Jesus Christ is back and a devout Christian going, "well shit, that can't be good." WHAT?!

The same goes for Andraste and the Chant of Light, it took me 30 hours of playing before ONE character mentioned Andraste and the implications with the Chant and it was never brought up again. Our entire party is seemingly made up of unphased atheists. Now compare to something like Inquisition which explored this aspect HARD and was amazing for it. You'd get into great debates with religious figures and party members about the implications of Corypheus actually being a Tevinter Magister of old. And you'd talk about what it means towards the religious dogma preached and how much is true. And these intense political and religious discussions are present in every previous game, and not confined to a single conversation with one party member where it is seemingly resolved.

These conversations do not happen in DATV because there is no depth to the writing or engagement with the world. The Elven Gods are evil and need to be stopped. That's it. We don't need to think about the implications this has on Dalish customs and religion. Fuck it, all the Dalish are going to still wear their Vallaslin slave brand tattoos. Let's forget about Trespasser implying Solas was removing them from followers coming to join him. Let's even forget they were likely all told at this point that they are slave brands, nope still going to wear them yet speak blasphemy with every sentence against our Gods. No one cares about Andraste or The Maker or the Chant. Big deal if these Elven Gods contradict the overwhelming majority religion in Thedas. Not a single party member has religious or cultural objections to killing the Elven Gods; not a problem. Not one single elf wants to join Solas in tearing down The Veil and getting immortality again?

Again, let's forget about Trespasser setting up Solas gathering MANY Elven followers from Dalish clans who would be super inclined to join him after experiencing CENTURIES of discrimination and slavery by humans. The better question is what Elves wouldn't join Solas at the start? And what Elves wouldn't look at the other two Gods and go, "meh, maybe we should give them a try. They can't be worse than humans, right?" In DA2 you had elves joining The Qun to escape the discrimination of humans, but not ONE ELF wants to join Solas or Elgar'nan? Those Ancient Elves in the Temple of Mythal? I guess they all died, right?

This extends to EVERY single element of Dragon Age that previously had depth to it, it now has been completely removed. Those murdering Antivan Crows? Oh, they're just good Italian Mob Family that protect their city. Tevinter? Yes, it has poor people, but we're trying to do better. Oh, slavery? No, no we don't show that here. The Qun? The what now? No, they are all Antaam now, and so that means they are all generic evil warlords. No, they don't even attempt to follow their own hardcore view of The Qun like when Templars split from the Chantry, they're just warlords now that like plunder. Dwarves and their rigid Caste society? We don't do that here. Elves and racism across Thedas? Elves used to experience racism? News to me, what's a Shemlen? Never heard of that term, we like all humans. Pirates? That is insensitive, we are Lords of Fortune and we are sure to return any cultural artifacts found to their rightful owners; it belongs in a museum after all. The fucking Fade and spirits? Wait, you mean its different than generic fantasy spirit world? I'm sorry, that's too complicated here.

This either intentional disregard of the lore or plain ignorance also extends to environmental design. The asset reuse from Inquisition is particularly hilarious and must speak to the developers not having time after the switch from MP. Why are the same statues found in Val Royeaux in DAI also in Tevinter and Antiva? Why are those stupid Fen'Harel Wolf statues EVERYWHERE? Even in the catacombs of other Elven Gods! There are no statues of Elgar'nan or Ghilan'nain. Nothing for June or Anduril. Dirthamen. Falon'Din. Nothing. No, the only Gods that seem to get statues are coincidentally the ones who already had assets created for DAI or past titles that could be reused. Hmmm.

This continues into character designs too, why do the Veiljumpers and Shadow Dragons all dress richly? They are supposed to be poor as fuck. There's a codex entry about Veiljumpers finding a lost cache of old ancient elven armor and weapons and so boom they all get to dress like High Elven Lords and not the dirty, poor, wandering Dalish clans they are supposed to come from. Why do this? There isn't even an attempt to explaining why the Shadow Dragons, an organization supposed to be secretive, has branded clothing in bright rich colors and fabrics for all members. Naturally, it must be incredibly difficult for Tevinter authorities to not identify them.

This lack of depth and verisimilitude, naturally, affects all the characters. Because in this game you cannot roleplay and you cannot ask questions. In Dragon Age Inquisition, once you started the game, you could immediately interrogate Varric about what happened to every DA2 character despite the Inquisitor never meeting them, you know because it respects its players. You could speak to shop keepers, blacksmiths, your horse master. You could interrogate every single person to learn more about them and the world. The same goes for your player character in DA2 and Origins. You show in Denermin and find yourself knee deep in a quest to help Wade the Blacksmith craft the perfect armor. Here you can't actually speak to a single shopkeeper to ask questions and get some lore bits. You can't ask party members questions about their background, religious beliefs, upbringing, their factions, etc. You can't ask any returning characters any questions either about what they've been doing. Enter a brand new area? Great, you're not asking anyone questions about this never before seen place.

How does a lost Dwarven thaig survive every single blight? How are their immortal lichs in Neverra? How long has that been a thing? Why haven't they told anyone about the Elven gods or any other knowledge they've accumulated in an immortal lifespan? If immortality is so "easy" why can't Solas just do that to restore the Elves? Why are the Venatori, Tevinter Supremacists, following Elven Gods? Wouldn't that be a major identity crisis? Why would Antaam, who still preach the Qun, follow an Elven God that speaks blasphemy with ever breadth? Sshhhh, no questions. You get what is directly told to you and that's it, no follow-up questions.

Party members do not conflict with each other or interrogate each other's beliefs which is why their banter feels inconsequential and meaningless. Lucanis is a assassin, he kills people for money. The same organization that marked Zevran for death for failing a contract. The same one that took him as a kid and trained him to murder, often brutally, for coin. And yet no one really seems to care. He's just a nice Italian assassin from a nice assassin organization. Who cares. Let's instead talk about cooking, at length. Harding, a devout follower of Andraste, has no qualms with Elven Gods wreaking havoc on known religion. We get one conversation you can tell her to believe what she wants, and that's the end of that debate. Bellara also gets about two whole conversations about the conflict concerning her Gods wreaking havoc, both easily resolved. We don't need to think about any larger implications or doubt her loyalty when the Elven pantheon are seeking to restore her people that have been discriminated against since forever. Emmerich, a necromancer of Neverra, apparently has no religious belief. A codex entry even states that those of the Mourn Watch don't know where the soul goes after death. They don't like to think about it. Buddy, Mortalitasi belief is literally that our souls return to the Void alongside The Maker, but to keep balance a exchange must be wrought with The Fade to allow a spirit to house the now empty vessel. How do you not know the religion and customs of your own faction and land? This man has a whole quest line about funerary rights, yet not ONCE mentions religion and what he believes happens after death?! Sshhhh, no questions. No thinking.

Hey, remember The Fade? Remember how mages go to dream there every night. Remember how The Black City is always visible there? No? Well, we don't either. You won't see The Black City in The Fade. You might see it in The Crossroads in a closed off section, even though it is NOT The Fade. Oh, we're going to have you physically enter The Fade in multiple quest lines and no one will think it's a big deal. No, you still can't see The Black City. Now, The Fade is reduced to nothing more than your generic fantasy spirit world. It has none of the previous rules and lore that bound it before. Demons can bind to non-mages and we won't attempt to explain it. Solas fucks with The Veil and not a single mage notices a change in their dreams when they sleep at night. No biggie.

Lastly, let's return at last to the actual minutiae of writing. I stated at the start the writing isn't bad because of Marvel quippiness, which the series has always had. I was partly lying. Yes, the series has always had anachronistic dialogue. It has had meme language in its own previous titles. But, it was just that, a small joke here and there. For the most part the series actually tried to use it's own sort of "older" speech patterns. I think a perfect example has to do with Taash, she eventually finds her own identity and declares she is proudly "non-binary." Literally stating, "so, I'm non-binary." I have no issue with this sort of inclusivity in Dragon Age, it's what the series is known for. Yet, why does that sound wrong? Simple, it's far too anachronistic. It doesn't belong in Dragon Age. In Inquisition, Dorian let's us know he's gay. But he doesn't say, "I'm gay!" or "I'm a homosexual" those terms would not exist in his world. Instead he says, "I prefer the company of men."

And it's these little subtle changes in writing that makes it feel all the more different. We went from "I once ventured in to The Fade to serve the Old Gods of Tevinter in person. I found there only chaos and corruption. Dead whispers. Now I shall return under no name but my own, to champion withered Tevinter and correct this blighted world gone wrong. Pray that I succeed, for I have seen the throne of the Gods. And it was empty."

To: "Well, shit. That can't be good."

So, what do we have when all is said and done? Well, we have a decent generic fantasy action game. An intentional attempt by the developers to remove every edge from the world of Dragon Age in place of a very simple, easy to understand world with not much depth beyond what you see. You don't need to think, just play and have fun. This is beyond turning a MP game into a SP game, which so blatantly obvious in this game. DA2 was developed in 16 months, but is carried strong by its writing. You see, nothing prevented them from just acknowledging their own world they created. It costs very little to write around what already exists. Even if you can't make no assets or redesign the world. Writing is cheap and having characters voice these elements is not as costly as a redesign. No, they chose to remove the edge in every element because this was design intentionally for the masses with easy to understand world and zero depth.

But I wanted to play Dragon Age. I wanted to get into intense religious debates with party members as known lore is completely upended. I wanted to debate Elvish clans deciding to join Solas or the other Gods due to their treatment by human society. I wanted to debate the ethics of necromancy with the Mortalitasi of Neverra's Crypts. I wanted to engage in intense debating with Solas on the ethics of his goal. I wanted to see Tevinter react to a real push for anti-slavery and actually see the slavery in the slave capital of the world. I wanted to butt heads with the Antivan Crows and call them out for the murderers they are. I wanted to see the Black Divine and debate the Chant of Light with them. I wanted to speak to the Archon of Tevinter and see how he felt about the Venatori's past efforts in Inquisition. Hey, what happened to Meredith Reborn in Kirkwall and her idol and Red Templar worshipers? Forget about it.

We got none of this. I got a game that is pretty much disrespectful of its own world. I waited 10 years for this? Why even bother if this is the result? They may as well have just killed every previous character we ever knew, including Solas, offscreen and started anew with this game. Because as a Dragon Age game and sequel, it's terrible and no returning character is how they should be.

And when we get to the ending, that's pretty much what they did. Everything you did in all the past games? Well, that was pointless. Everyone is probably dead. King Alistair. Gaspard. Celene. King Bhelen. The Arl of Redcliffe. The Divine. The Circle of Magi. The Templars. The Seekers. Everything, everyone, and every organization that existed in the South is likely dead and destroyed. And now Dragon Age can become what they wanted, a generic fantasy IP.

But I just wanted to play Dragon Age.

[ghostwise]

oooh 51 for the touch prompts :)c

51. caressing the other’s cheek, 1k tags: rook x harding, male laidir, act 2 spoilers

Acute lyrium toxicity, reads the header across Emmrich’s handwritten notes. It is not something he is often called upon to treat, so he’s spent the past couple of evenings brushing up on the subject.

He’s read about lyrium’s use in dwarven runecraft, its application in the Circle of Magi as well as the Templar order, and, most intriguing to him, its susceptibility to Blight. He has even reviewed first-hand reports of red lyrium from the Inquisition, courtesy of their very own Inquisition scout, whose interest in the subject has become an all-consuming drive as of late. And for good reason, following her encounter with the Titan’s shadow.

Emmrich has read enough to feel reassured. By all accounts, Rook received a lyrium dosage several times greater than that given to a mage during their Harrowing, and yet, he is still breathing. Whatever Harding did to him down there worked. Usually non-lethal, once the substance is cleared from the blood, so say the texts.

But for Lace Harding, such words hold little weight. She won’t rest until she sees Rook open his eyes.

So Emmrich waits with her. He brings her another cup of tea and Manfred hovers close by, sugar tongs in hand.

“Thank you,” Harding whispers. She smiles weakly as Manfred sweetens her tea. One cube, two cubes, three. Four.

“That’s quite enough, Manfred,” Emmrich murmurs.

“It’s alright. I need all the sweetness I can get,” Harding says, and, for Manfred’s sake, sips at the sugary tea.

The skeleton utters a pleased, gurgling hiss before returning to Laidir’s side, sitting opposite Harding.

“You know, Harding,” Emmrich says carefully, “You should rest. His condition is stable. And I dare say, Manfred has been as constant a caregiver as you and I have.”

“Thank you for your concern,” Harding says evenly. “I’m fine.”

“Lace-” Emmrich sighs.

“Really, Emmrich.” She looks up at him, a puffy and dark quality to the skin under her eyes. “I’m fine. You forget, I’ve spent the last decade… dealing with crisis. Finding solutions.” She shifts and sets her teacup upon the bedside table. “With the Inquisition, I set up new outposts and explored places I’d never dreamed of seeing. Since then, I’ve traveled everywhere—tracking Solas, fighting Venatori, slavers, mercenaries—so, sitting here beside him? It’s easy, Emmrich. Too easy, maybe. This isn’t a problem I can aim an arrow at. It’s…”

Emmrich watches her lapse into silence. She’d done a good job putting things into words, up until she hit a feeling she couldn’t name. He’s a romantic himself; he’s well aware of the tangled paths hearts can take.

“When you first became aware of this… complication, between your emotions and your new-found abilities,” he says slowly, “You mentioned feeling somewhat responsible. And I told you-”

“To be patient,” Harding completes.

On the bed, Lirio lets out a raspy breath. She looks at him for a moment, waiting for his breathing to relax again, before continuing.

“I appreciated that, you know. It was good advice. Everyone else kept saying, don’t worry. But why wouldn’t I worry? I had no clue what was happening to me, and I worse, I was hurting someone I cared about. Or they’d say, it’s not your fault. But it wasn’t about it being my fault, it was about…”

Another pause. Emmrich let his mind wander for a moment, down a hypothetical path: if he had changed, unexpectedly, completely, in such a way that he inadvertently hurt those dearest to him, what would he think?

“It was about understanding yourself,” he guesses. “Making peace with the power.”

“Yeah,” Lace nods. “Yeah, I never felt it was my fault. But I knew it was my responsibility to figure it out. Maybe I never would. And would he be okay with that? Would I?” She glances away, recalling the conversation. “He said he would. I’m inclined to believe him.”

“And now?” Emmrich prompts.

“Now…” Lace shakes her head at the wonder that is her life. “I didn’t ask for this gift, but I have it anyway. The pain the Titans experienced eons upon eons ago… to me, it feels like it happened just yesterday. That’s not my fault. That’s not anyone’s fault. I don’t think it’s something the Titan did to me purposefully, anyway.”

She hesitates, gathering her next words. She still finds it challenging to explain some pieces of what she experienced, but she tries anyway, knowing Emmrich will try to understand.

“Their sense of time is different… a continent could take a lifetime to form, mountains and forests blinking in and out of view. They don’t exist, quick and isolated from others, like we do. And I’m not sure if Titans feel love like we feel love. But they feel connection, through the lyrium. And without connection, there’s just… nothing. The most horrible nothing. A complete inversion of the connection they need to survive.”

“Isatunoll,” Emmrich says with a smile.

“Isatunoll,” Harding echoes softly. “I’m not a Titan. I have to feel like a person feels. Lirio helped me see that.”

“Ah, yes. By exposing himself to the Titan’s lyrium fully!”

Harding glances up at him. Suddenly, she laughs; the clearest sound of laughter he’s heard from her in days.

“You are looking at me with the biggest, cheesiest smile, Emmrich,” she says. “You’re all… mushy and sappy…”

“It’s terribly romantic, Harding,” Emmrich sighs. “I’m happy for you. That’s all.”

“Um. Thank you.” She giggles. “Really, thank you. For all your help. I’m happy too. Or, I will be. Just as soon as I can speak to him. As soon as I know I can…”

Across the bed, Manfred clatters his ribs. A shiver of bones lends way to a happy hiss. Emmrich and Lace look up, conversation forgotten, as Lirio stirs; all stiff muscles and post-lyrium aches.

Lirio cracks open his eyes and blinks as the world around him comes into focus, slowly. All he can see is a bloom of red, the exact shade of which immediately thrills him. “Lace,” he murmurs, though he can’t quite see her yet.

“Lirio,” she breathes. “I’m here.”

She reaches a trembling hand to cup his cheek. She watches for that characteristic blue glow, but it doesn’t come. Then Rook reaches up to cover her hand with his own, leaning into the touch as naturally as rain falls on the windward side of a mountain.

“I’ll fetch more tea,” Emmrich says hurriedly. He pulls Manfred along, away from the two.

As he goes, he thinks to himself again, isatunoll. And wonders whether mountains and people have more in common than Harding had guessed.

[vir-tanadahl]

The Wolf's Atonement

Summary: What happens after the events of Veilguard! Occurs after The Burden of the Dread Wolf

Find on Ao3!

If Solas were honest with himself, he would admit he still doesn’t fully understand why Lavellan chose to walk this path of atonement beside him. He hadn’t dared to ask it of her, nor even suggest it; the place he’s heading is dark and terrible, a burden he never wished to share. Yet, voluntarily, she offered to walk it with him, and he found himself unable—perhaps unwilling—to deny her.

And if he allowed himself a deeper honesty, he would acknowledge a quiet, profound gratitude. Her presence steadies him, a warmth against the chill of what lies ahead. He is grateful, more than he ever thought he would be, that she is here.

It’s as if Lavellan can sense the turmoil in his thoughts. “We’ve been on this journey together since the day we met in Haven,” she says softly as they step forward into the Fade, leaving behind the chaos he caused.

Her voice is gentle, yet resolute. “You forbade me to join you at the Exalted Council…” She pauses, her gaze steady and unwavering, before continuing, “…did you truly believe I wouldn’t follow you even now? That I wouldn’t try to show you another path?”

Her words settle around him like a balm, a reminder that, despite everything, she still believes there’s something worth saving—both in him and the world he had sought to mend.

“You left clues for us on purpose…” She laughs softly, the sound warm with fondness laced with sadness. “You wanted us to find you.” Her fingers intertwine with his, grounding him in a moment that still feels dreamlike, as if she is a memory from a life, he thought he would never have because he did not deserve her.

He struggles to absorb everything that has happened: Mythal’s release, her willingness to share in the burden of their ancient mistakes, and the moment he bound his very life force to the Veil. And here—his Vhenan, by his side. She, of all people, had the freedom to stay in her world, to no longer be burden by him.

And yet, she chose to join him. She chose this path of atonement, stepping willingly into the Fade at his side. With her hand entwined in his, for the first time in ages, he feels almost… whole. Her presence easing the weight of solitude he’s carried so long.

But the guilt and shame still cling to him, a heaviness pressing against this fleeting sense of peace. Her touch offers comfort, yet he wonders if he deserves it, if he can ever be redeemed in the face of everything he’s done.

He bows his head, shame settling over him like a heavy shroud. “I didn’t…” he falters, the words catching in his throat, “I didn’t want you to see what I would become…” His voice is low, laced with a deep, aching regret.

Lavellan chuckles softly, though a sadness colors her gaze. “That’s not entirely the truth, is it, vhenan?” She searches his face, but he only shakes his head, unable to meet her eyes.

“I—” His voice breaks, and he swallows hard, unable to find the words.

She sighs, studying him, her expression gentle but knowing. “You didn’t want me to change your mind…” Her voice softens, her words a quiet revelation. “You thought you couldn’t change it yourself, but you still hoped—maybe even needed—someone else to help you.”

His head remains lowered, his eyes fixed on the ground, shadows of pride and regret crossing his face. She watches him, a gentle pause settling between them before she tilts her head, a faint, bittersweet smile touching her lips. “Perhaps you took your name too literally, Solas,” she murmurs.

Solas lets out a quiet, almost self-deprecating chuckle. “Perhaps,” he murmurs. Slowly, he lifts his eyes to meet hers, searching for understanding in her gaze.

Lavellan holds his gaze, her expression softening as a flicker of contemplation crosses her face. After a moment, she looks away, lost in thought. “Or maybe I’m the prideful one,” she says, her voice laced with quiet sorrow. A sad, half-smile curves her lips as she meets his gaze once more, and he catches a glint of something he doesn’t quite understand—uncertainty mingled with affection.

He frowns slightly, confusion flashing in his eyes.

“That I love someone who has made such grave mistakes…” she trails off, the words hanging between them, fragile yet unyielding, her own vulnerability laid bare.

Solas shakes his head, a pained look in his eyes. “Vhenan—” he begins, voice low and unsteady. He wants to reach out, to hold her hand again, to find solace in her touch. But he hesitates, raw and vulnerable, fear threading through him after everything that has happened.

But she doesn’t wait. Gently, she reaches forward, her fingers wrapping around his hands, warm and steady, grounding him as he struggles with the weight of his shame.

“What happened, Solas?” she asks, her voice soft yet firm. “With Varric?”

His gaze drops, shoulders curling inward as he withdraws into himself, searching for words he knows will never fully explain. Silence hangs between them for a moment before he speaks, voice laced with regret. “He… he tried to stop the ritual,” he finally says, a faint defensive edge in his tone that sounds almost pitiful in the stillness. “There’s no excuse,” he finishes quietly, the truth of it settling heavily on his shoulders.

“No, there isn’t,” she replies, her voice neither harsh nor forgiving, rather was in search of understanding. She squeezes his hands gently, pulling him closer, her eyes searching his face. “But tell me… what happened?”

She waits, patient and steady, giving him space to confront the memories and the weight of what he’s done.

Solas sighs, his eyes slipping shut as he gathers the words, bracing himself against the memory. “He attempted to reason with me in the midst of the ritual,” he begins, voice barely above a whisper. “When I didn’t respond, he raised his crossbow…” He hesitates, pain flickering across his face. But he forces himself to go on. “I disabled it, and then Rook and her companions toppled one of the ritual statues.”

He pauses, the weight of what comes next settling heavily over him.

“I…I sought to see the ritual through to completion,” he continues, his voice thick with sorrow. “But Varric… he intervened again.” The image of Varric rushing forward flashes in his mind—the desperate determination, the betrayal etched on his friend’s face. “He attempted to hold me back.”

Solas falls silent, his shoulders slumping further as he remembers the struggle.

Lavellan’s voice is soft, pulling him gently back to the present. “And then?”

A tremor runs through him. “A struggle ensued, but I broke free from his grasp,” he says, his voice barely audible. He doesn’t say more, the words too heavy, the finality of that encounter too painful. He feels her hand squeeze his, steady and waiting, giving him a moment to bear the weight of what he has confessed.

He sighs once more, unable to meet her gaze as he confesses, “I stabbed him with the ritual dagger,” he confesses, the words sharp and bitter on his tongue.

A flicker of defensiveness rises instinctively within him, his mind grasping for reasons, for any justification. But he pushes it away, determined to face the truth without excuse. He knows that this path—this journey of atonement—demands he confront the full weight of his actions and the pain he has caused, unshielded by pride or denial.

He takes a deep, unsteady breath, wrestling with the storm of conflicting emotions that churn within him. Summoning his resolve, he lifts his gaze to meet Lavellan’s. The pain etched into her features is like a blow to his chest, stealing the breath from his lungs. Her eyes, darkened by grief and sadness, mirror his own anguish, and her frown holds the weight of all the words left unspoken.

Every instinct urges him to look away, to turn from the hurt he’s inflicted. But he forces himself to stay, anchored in her gaze, refusing the temptation to escape from the pain he has caused. This is part of his penance, he reminds himself—the need to truly witness the consequences of his actions, reflected back in the eyes of the one who still chooses to stand beside him.

“Oh, Solas…” Lavellan sighs, her voice filled with sorrow as she shakes her head, a mix of disappointment and understanding in her eyes.

“I can no longer offer any justification for what I did.” Solas says quickly, his voice raw, as if the words themselves are tearing free from him. “All I can offer now is that I… am sorry.” His gaze doesn’t waver, holding hers, though the weight of his regret presses heavily on him.

“And I know,” he continues softly, his voice barely above a whisper, “that an apology cannot undo the pain or correct the mistakes I have made.” He remains silent then, allowing the inadequacy of his words to settle between them, acknowledging, for the first time, the depth of his own failings in the light of her unwavering gaze.

Lavellan nods slowly, her gaze steady. “You’re right,” she says softly. “An apology isn’t enough.” Yet her hands remain wrapped around his, warm and unwavering.

He tilts his head, a subtle slump in his shoulders, and though his gaze doesn’t waver, a feeling of quiet defeat spreads through him, settling heavily in his chest.

“But,” she continues, a glimmer of hope in her voice, “you’re on a path toward atonement. And that… may, in time…” She pauses, choosing her words carefully, her eyes searching his face. “Be enough.”

Her words linger in the air, offering him a fragile thread to hold onto, a possibility that perhaps, one day, he might begin to mend the damage he’s caused.

A faint, almost fragile glimmer of hope stirs within him, like a lone sailor glimpsing the faint glow of a lighthouse, its beam filtering softly through the heavy mist of a darkened night. “Perhaps…” he whispers, the word filled with tentative wonder, as though he’s still grappling with the possibility of a future he does not know if he deserves. “You may be right.”

Lavellan smiles softly, finally taking in their surroundings with a touch of curiosity. “So, this is the prison you created for Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain?” she asks, her gaze drifting over the gray, fractured landscape of the Fade around them.

Solas releases a hollow, self-deprecating chuckle. “It is,” he admits, glancing around at the desolate expanse. “A prison of regrets…” His voice trails off as he takes in the bleak creation he crafted—strong enough, he thought, to hold the very Gods themselves. “Strong enough to keep the Gods locked away,” he mutters, then looks down at her with a weary sigh. “I did warn you… this place would be terrible.” Guilt floods his expression, his voice catching as he tries to suppress the tears welling in his eyes.

Lavellan hums thoughtfully, her eyes lingering on him before breaking into a wry smile. “Well, it’s clearly not that strong,” she replies with a playful glint. “Rook managed to escape, and last I checked…” She pauses, her smile growing as she meets his gaze. “She wasn’t a god.”

She steps closer, wrapping her hand around his arm, grounding him with her presence. “And you, Solas—you’re not a god either. Which means this prison cannot hold you,” she says, her voice warm and unwavering, a quiet confidence in her words as though she believes in his strength more than he does himself.

Solas gasps softly, as if the very breath has been stolen from him. The fragile glimmer of hope from before brightens, growing steadier as he gazes down into her eyes, almost losing himself in their depth. In her gaze, he sees love and compassion, unwavering and profound. It’s as if, without him even noticing, she’s been quietly chipping away at the walls of his own inner prison, easing the weight he has carried alone for so long.

With her presence, he feels something shift—a slow, dawning realization that perhaps, just perhaps, he might begin to unburden himself, to find a path not only to atonement but to acceptance. While still small, there is a newfound hope within him—a quiet, steady belief that perhaps he can truly achieve his goal of atonement.

A flood of emotions surges through Solas, emotions he has tried so desperately to bury over the last ten years since he last saw her. The dam he’d so carefully constructed—a trickle when he first glimpsed her at the Archon’s Palace—finally shatters, releasing a torrent of feeling that crashes over him. Each emotion is as intense, as overwhelming, as it was the day he left her at the Exalted Council, undiminished by time.

At last, Solas reaches for her, pulling her close, his touch both tender and urgent. He cups her face, bringing her gently toward him, and presses his lips to hers. The kiss begins slowly, a tentative connection, but it deepens quickly, becoming something raw and desperate, as though he’s been drowning for years and has only now come up for air. Each moment feels like a gasp of life, a long-awaited release, as he finally allows himself to feel what he’s kept locked away.

His hands find their way to her waist, drawing her closer, and their tongues meet in a sweet, tender dance. Isera's fingers find their way to the leather of his armor, holding on tight, as if she's holding on to his heart, only drawing him closer.

Solas pulls back for a brief moment, his gaze fixed on her. Lavellan smiles up at him, warmth and understanding in her eyes, as she watches the hardened mask of the Dread Wolf begin to dissolve. In its place, the Solas she once knew—the one from their days in the Inquisition—begins to emerge, free, if only for a moment, from the weight of his burdens.

She can see traces of the gentle spirit he once was breaking through, no longer hidden beneath layers of regret and duty. Before she can fully take in the moment, Solas’s lips find hers again, with a hunger born of years of longing, as though he’s a man starved, and she is the sustenance he’s been denied.

[nadas-dirthalen]

she, the mender; he, the break (1)

solas/lavellan, rated T.

synopsis: The one unfortunate enough to take in the Mark has, astoundingly, survived it. Whether that is a miracle or a terrible omen remains to be seen.

content warnings: canon-typical violence, depiction of a canonical seizure, canon-typical profanity, canon-typical religious references, canon-typical depictions of depression.

read on ao3!

One Solas

Four hours after a Dalish mage stumbles from a tear in the Veil, a thumb runs across her limp palm. Its wielder furrows his brow.

A pair of eyes seeks to burn a hole between his shoulder blades, judging by the force of the glare behind him.

“I have no answers,” he tells the human without looking over a shoulder, though it’s not what she—or anyone who knows what befell the Conclave—wants to hear. It’s true enough, at least.

He has no answers as to how this Dalish mage survived what he knows, with grim certainty, should have killed her. Would have killed her lessers. He had counted on it: that his focus, pent up with millennia’s worth of neglected, unspent energy, would eliminate the one unfortunate enough to open it.

The first survivor is enough of a loose end. A walking, talking threat of peril upon all Thedas.

The second is a miracle, for she, at least, is mortal.

Probably.

Under his touch, the mark of his magic thrums, rattling up her nerve. Mercifully unconscious, she does not stir—but even through the thick robe covering most of her form, the summer-grass glow brightens her arm enough for the Seeker behind him to audibly wince.

The magic, from what he can tell, forges deeper into her tissue. Whether to twine with the fabric of her being or rip it apart at the seams, he cannot rightly say.

In these early hours, the only clue she gives is the quick rise and fall of her chest, her breaths shallow. Kept on the floor of a cell, robbed of dignity that she cannot fight to keep, much of her pale blonde hair has fallen free of its high braid. Sweat beads on her forehead one minute, only to cool before the hour’s up.

“You have no answers?” the Seeker behind him prods.

He forces his shoulders not to tighten, knelt by the Dalish’s side as he is. Smiles falsely, even where the Seeker cannot see, so his tone stays congenial. “Not yet.”

Would that he were alone, that he could knock on the bounds of this survivor’s dreams and ask.

What would she offer him, if he did? Would she confess to what ails her, or turn her nose up at his unmarked face, as so many of her kin? Or, so far from home, would she turn a kinder eye to the human behind him, paying an elven apostate no heed?

In the Fade, none might delay him much: none left alive can rightly keep the skies of their dreams from darkening with their unspoken fear. And when the realm folds around them, confounding mortal senses, none can truly flee far.

Whatever the truth of her prognosis, one thing is certain. Even under the press of his thumb, summoned by his silent call, the magic of his focus will not uncoil from her bones.

Whatever the Dread Wolf of her people’s legend has unwillingly given her, she is doomed to the consequence.

He could almost call it irony.

~

As day lapses into night, the Dalish survivor is unaware that every witness within a mile bickers over her fate.

They are calling her a miracle. They are calling her a monster.

It has not dawned on any of them that she could ever be a victim.

He has, in spite of the Seeker’s objections to flame and ammunition, been generously afforded a candle. Its light throws long shadows over the survivor’s drawn expression. Like this, he must lower himself from resting on his heels to squint, inches from her face, in order to track the movement of her eyes behind their lids.

She is dreaming. At least there is that.

His mark has buried itself into her left hand, the green of rifts lighting a slice in her palm despite her skin remaining unbroken. Thus he sits on her left, now, furthest from the cell door. A better vantage for the Seeker, who has left to argue, to scowl at him from all evening.

A poorer vantage to scowl back unseen, but one must accept their occasional losses.

At least like this, his back can rest against the cell’s rear wall, and he can watch the door when he is not watching over the survivor. He keeps it in his periphery while his gaze lowers, half-lidded, as he once again puts two fingers to her wrist to measure her pulse.

Two hours ago, he insisted to the human healer that he could count it perfectly well. The healer looked down at the survivor’s valasslin while he passed over a clipboard, mumbling a request that her pulse be measured and recorded every hour through the night.

That human healer neglected to leave any thanks.

The Dalish’s heartbeat is almost furious against his touch, pounding as though her limp body is sprinting: a pulse that would roar in her ears, if she could hear it. He counts sixty beats in thirty seconds, ignoring the twist of his insides when he releases her to record the finding.

Ten higher than last count. A battle her body has begun to lose.

The healer should be measuring more than her pulse, but his efforts are farcical at best: make a play of trying to keep the survivor alive, keep meticulous record of all the ways this prison has failed her, justify her death was unpreventable because so many watched it unfold. To those yelling over the Dalish’s fate beyond this row of cells, that would be enough to satisfy.

It would assuage their worry, to watch her fade to nothing. To some, it would provide relief. Their Chantry, no longer under threat—nor scrutiny.

They should be measuring her temperature. Whether she perspires. Whether, and how often, she stirs.

It is due diligence—and perhaps atonement—that an elven apostate from nowhere does all three in their stead.

Her brow is warm against his knuckles, but less than it was. Her body adapts to fight the mark. In the harsher chill of night, the cell damp and lightless, her brow is free of sweat, the loose curls once plastered to it hanging free over her temples.

He thinks the barest trace of a frown passes over her at his touch, but it vanishes, her face again serene at rest, too fast for his tired eyes to register.

Once he makes record of all three, writing in the margins of the healer’s notes, he rests his head on the cool stone behind him, allowing his eyes to fall shut until the next hour demands he rise anew.

~

The survivor screams before the sun can crest the mountains.

He must give her credit: it earns her the attention of all those who’d been content to debate her survival from afar. Within moments, the cell is crowded with everyone endowed with both local renown and an opinion.

The Seeker’s voice is loudest. He supposes he should have expected as much.

“Surely you know what this means, Adan?”

The healer—Adan—is clearly in the Seeker’s good graces enough that his sneer doesn’t earn him retribution. “I don’t understand. Her pulse is normal now. Her fever, gone. And the screaming comes in fits… but why?”

Then, naturally, he turns his puzzled frustration on the nearest apostate.

“You wrote her pulse was high through the night.”

That nearest apostate, still knelt at her side, commendably ignoring the bruising on his tailbone, keeps his voice perfectly level. “I did.”

“And that it didn’t change until the thrashing began.”

“I did, yes.”

“And after administering elfroot to hasten her wakening, it had stopped—”

“Very observant.”

That earns him a scowl from the Seeker and more than a fair few muttered insults from the other half-dozen people inside the cell. More soldiers, someone in Chantry robes convincingly pretending not to tremble behind them.

“Don’t play coy with me, elf,” Adan sneers, pulling the apostate’s attention back.

Before he can brace for some spit curse, the survivor’s hand jerks out from under his. Her spine arches, her ear scraping over the stone when her neck follows suit. His palm lands gently on her shoulder before she can tip herself onto her back, but does nothing to stop the kick of her leg.

“The grey,” she slurs, lips catching the dirt of the cell floor. “The grey…”

“Maker’s fucking breath,” Adan hisses, reeling back. “What is she…?”

“The grey,” the survivor groans again, muscles still tense, unconscious eyes screwed shut.

Every gaze in the room finds his mark on her palm—save for hers. The magic lights stronger, rift-green blazing up the veins of her wrist. Only when it dims do her convulsions ease.

“So it is true,” the Chantry member mutters, soft as prayer. “She is chosen.”

“Chosen?” Adan echoes, whipping back long enough to fire off what is probably a scowl. By the time his attention returns to the Dalish survivor, a more dangerous sort of ire has hardened on his features. “No. This—this mage shit cannot be a sign of anything good.”

“Is that what you call it?” Indignation burns up the apostate’s throat before he can think to smother it. “What you belittle with the profane may well be the only hope you have against the demons amassing beyond these doors.”

“Watch yourself, apostate,” the Seeker warns, a hand on the pommel of her blade.

This time, he meets her glare. “Are you so sure that I am wrong?”

“Enough of this fucking charade,” Adan declares, throwing up his hands in distaste. “Andraste’s ass—there’s not a healer alive who could understand what so possesses her. If she makes it past midday, someone pry me from my drink.”

With that, he shoves through a half-dozen humans, neither sword nor glare leveled against him on the way out. Instead, the prattling Chantry member follows on the healer’s heels, and the Seeker on the Chantry’s, and the soldiers on the Seeker’s.

With them gone, the cell falls silent. Not for the first time, death and the Dread Wolf loom together over the body of a mortal.

The next spasm starts: rigid spine, arching neck. This time, his hand finds not her shoulder, but her wrist. Thumb driven deep into the meat of her palm, he feeds the mark a morsel of his own magic, a beacon sent out over the churning forces inside the survivor’s skin.

A flare of dull green light, and the spasm stops.

Rather than a scream, she surrenders a murmur. “The grey…”

He eases her onto her back, careful not to relinquish her marked palm. Smooths hair from her face with his free hand, another sliver of his magic employed to mend her abraded ear. Dignities the Chantry, the Seeker, and the prison guards, for all their talk of prophecy, still do not afford their Dalish charge.

“I know. I know, lethallan,” he answers, once he is sure no human ears are near enough to question his tongue. “Ir abelas.”

~

The first attempt on the survivor’s life comes, brazenly, at dusk on the second day.

While the apostate takes a meal a floor above her cell—only at the Seeker’s stubborn insistence—the cell lies guarded by another. When he returns, that other is bent over her motionless body, a dagger unsheathed from their belt.

At his shout, the Seeker barrels down the stairwell past him, shield drawn. She collides with the would-be assailant a second after the noise turns their attention away from the survivor, pinning their body to the floor. Another soldier clamps manacles around the assailant’s wrists, but murmurs assurances that certainly, all was done with the best of intentions.

It is all the apostate can do to quell the urge to send a streak of rift-green sailing past both their faces, goading them to speak their so-called assurances for all the fortress to hear.

As they draw close to move up the stairwell, he meets the assailant’s gaze and mutters, “You know not what you trifle with.”

The Seeker, though she is in earshot, does not listen to the assailant’s bitter retort. Rather, she faces the apostate after several moments, dark circles under her topaz eyes, a hand raking through her short mop of dark hair.

“Do you really think…” she pauses, folding her arms. “Do you really think she could be our only hope?”

She will not look at the survivor, so he does. His mark burns bright even across the room, steadier now. If it hasn’t killed her by now, it won’t.

“I am certain,” he answers. Then, because it is what most everyone here has already decided: “She is a miracle.”

But they have not lived to see millennia wax and wane. They forget a crucial detail.

Miracles, be they borne of flesh or circumstance, have one thing in common.

They should never have been real.

~

The second attempt on the survivor’s life comes far past nightfall, when the apostate’s eyes are closed.

This time, her would-be killer is the very soldier to have clamped manacles on the first.

When heavy footfalls thunder down the stairwell in answer to the screaming, the apostate watches as they rush toward the soldier—only to reel back when their torchlight glints in the ice pinning their comrade to the wall.

The apostate claims it was self-defense with hardly more than a shrug, failing to flinch in the face of six pointed blades.

Afterward, the Seeker only leaves the cell to sleep.

~

The dawn of the third day is the last he has the survivor alone.

Bleary-eyed, he parts her lips with the knuckle of his thumb to administer three more drops of elf-root tincture on her tongue, disparaging the common name. When he does, he whispers its name in the language her people have taught her—vhenanalas, heart-root—because it is similar enough to the one he knows.

Once, it was said that all elvhen would wake to their own tongue, like a mother calling children home.

All the Dalish survivor has done, thus far, is frown.

Through the night, the roar of demons from beyond the cell climbed louder. Whiling away the hours, pretending not to hear, he found that the magic of his mark swims through her veins to follow his touch, unless he wills it not to.

Three days, and still he does not know if the mark pains her, or if she’ll do more than knot her brows together or press her lips white-thin when she’s conscious of the new power in her marrow. What he does know is that each hourly administration of elf-root twists her face the same way. When she stirs enough to tilt her jaw, the digits of her right hand curl, but not her left. When the mark of his magic flares brighter, a noise always rises from her throat—one that stops sooner if he makes a single sound, like it had only been seeking an answer. Any answer, he found, once he’d made a series of unintelligible syllables in reply to test the theory.

She fights it on her own, now, even though he no longer risks the press of his thumb over the gash-shaped green. He does not know her name, and yet is powerless to deny her stubborn will.

“Perhaps that is why they have marked you for the Keeper of Secrets,” he mutters to no one, watching the blood-markings beneath her lower lip smooth as she falls motionless once more.

No tip of the jaw, no curled fingers on right hand or left. She slips into relative peace, the ailment of his magic overcome, for now.

He almost laughs, but the sound cuts short. Instead, he whispers, “You will need that stubborn streak, with what lies ahead.”

She never gives him an answer. The next time she frowns, and the next and the next, he speaks in her language until the Seeker wakes.

Vhenanalas. Vhenanalas. Vhenanalas.

Ir abelas. Ir abelas. Ir abelas.

~

Demons encroach too close to the prison, nearer by the hour. The derisive look the Seeker snaps to him says that where she goes, so, too, will he.

He leaves the survivor because there is more he can do to ensure she lives by holding back the horde outside these walls. He swears she stirs at his hushed goodbye, mouth hanging parted the last time he looks back.

The sun strikes him too brightly, after days without it, worse for its glint on the snow outdoors. The first demon to fall before him collapses with a splinter of ice through its core, and the apology he cannot speak aloud sticks thorns in his chest. There is nothing he can do for it, or anyone, without the focus he’d so callously lost.

By the fifth, a haze settles over his awareness, a guard against the lapping tide of remorse.

The thrum of his magic outside his skin pulls him out of it. Every shriek of these unwilling spirits, painful against his eardrums. Worse, when crossbow bolts find their mark, when the Seeker’s sword sings as it is pulled from her sheath.

He cannot turn with a shade pressing its advantage, instead forced to arc his staff and pull forth the power behind another icy blast. The green of his mark careens into his periphery while he stands rooted, and then the survivor pulls it back—

To shove a lone blade through the demon with her opposite hand, crackling with violet energy. 

Then, with his vision still blurred, his ears still ringing… quiet. The last demon of this rift, vanquished. Only his erratic pulse and the remains of his focus thrumming in time with it from the gash-shaped glow in the survivor’s palm.

“Quickly,” he gasps, already moving. Just enough to alert her to what is to come. “Before more come through!”

He has no time to process that she is awake, standing, before his grip curls around her wrist, thumb pressed into the soft of her palm. As with each time before, the magic within—his magic—follows his touch.

In a mockery of his every hope for the Veil, a verdant ray erupts from her skin. Its power plunges into the rift above them both and, under his guidance, sews it shut.

After, only wintry sky remains in its place: no touch of Fade nor lick of its magic. This time there is no great urgency to the quiet that falls. Only the rhythm of the survivor’s ragged breath, as fast it had been the first night.

She slips the mark—her hand—from his grasp. A sliver of warmth leaves his core as it goes.

When he pries his eyes from where the rift once existed, she is already peering up at him. The sight drives another guilty lance through his sternum before any haze can dull the blow.

The green of rifts is threaded around her pupils, tainting even her otherwise stone-grey gaze. His mark—the one that’ll end her life—rooted in her every inch.

Her white-blonde hair is still streaked with the dirt of her cell floor. Her ear’s still red from where he mended scrapes. Dark circles beneath her eyes betray the weakness these days have awarded her.

And under, her panting mouth curves into a disbelieving smile.

“What did you do?”

“I did nothing,” he answers, too fast, avoiding the Seeker’s cutting stare that looms behind the survivor. He neglects to append save for cause the curse that’ll end your life. Instead, amid the stench of slain demons, heedless of the cries of battle still raging on ahead, he summons a pleasing smile. “The credit is all yours.”

The Dalish lowers her eyes, brow furrowing. His world narrows on the way she studies her palm, her own thumb running over the mark, following the curve his had just taken. She concentrates on the motion, repeating it, a thin press to her mouth not unlike the one she makes when heart-root lands on her tongue.

Calculating, now that she is conscious. No longer a simple show of distaste, but an equation she visibly puzzles over.

Her eyes lift to greet his again, something in them hardened now. “You mean this.”

He tries to ignore the way the mark’s thrum strengthens in response to his own dogged pulse. “Whatever magic opened the Breach in the sky also placed that mark upon your hand,” he says, just as he’d told the Seeker hours ago. He leaves out and I’m sorry for my role in it. “I theorized the mark might be able to close the rifts that have opened in the Breach’s wake—and it seems I was correct.”

The Seeker seems just as pleased now as then: barely. “Meaning it could also close the Breach itself.”

“Possibly,” he says, just true enough. Something guaranteed, from millennia of knowing, is indeed also possible.

The survivor, meanwhile, watches him still with open curiosity—the sort that borders dangerously on hope. The expression is a dozen questions in itself.

He scrapes another apology from his tongue, searching for some other answer to her wordless prying. Something that will buy them all a little more peace, a little more time. 

He manages, if only just, “It seems you hold the key to our salvation.”

“Good to know!” the dwarf from the cells near theirs interjects, striding closer to the survivor in spite of how her muscles tense. Bearing a wide grin, he jests, “I thought we’d be ass-deep in demons forever.”

The survivor flexes her fingers around the hilt of her dagger, a mirror of the way her right hand would curl in discomfort. Deliberate, now. Alive. Alive.

The dwarf goes on, “Varric Tethras: rogue, storyteller, and occasionally unwelcome tagalong.”

The wink he gives the Seeker is met with a scowl.

“It’s…” Blearily, the survivor manages a nod, a new set to her jaw she hadn’t had the mind to employ before. The line of it is sharper as she forces a smile. “Good to meet you, Varric.”

She hadn’t heard his idle chatter in the cell, then—or anything else, apology or otherwise. 

“You may reconsider that stance, in time,” the apostate asserts, suppressing a flinch at the line he knows he’s toed. He affixes that careful smile to his face as three sets of eyes land upon him, though only watches the survivor’s.

He’d assumed something of her. Too much. He looks for disdain in her raised brow, or perhaps for ire in the line of her mouth.

“Awww,” Varric mocks, wrenching him from the study. “I’m sure we’ll become great friends in the valley, Chuckles.”

Chuckles, in truth, can do no else but blink, just once. The survivor weighs the expression, watching in silence—whether a haze like his, simple fatigue, or something else.

“Absolutely not,” the Seeker takes over, voice stern. “Your help is appreciated, Varric, but…”

The raven blood-marked in the Dalish’s face shifts as she borders on a smirk. Haughty, irreverent, when it is her braids pulled half-free from days of unconscious tumult, her ill-fitting armor stained with all manner of dirt and damp.

“Have you been in the valley lately, Seeker?” the dwarf goes on a distant two steps away. Neither the apostate or the survivor turn to watch. “Your soldiers aren’t in control anymore. You need me.”

“Ugh.”

“My name is Solas,” spills from the apostate’s mouth, heedless of his will, near an entire minute too late. “If there are to be introductions.”

Varric and the Seeker stop to raise their brows in unison. The survivor, understandably, fails to mask her confusion.

“I am…” Pinned under three stares, he has no hope of uttering even a false explanation, nor an apology, nor anything to explain away the same dirt and damp staining his coat, three days and nights of foregone hygiene. “Pleased to see you still live.”

Pleased does not touch the bone-deep relief, nor the chill of dread that none of them can hope to grasp, but he still does not know her name. This will have to suffice.

Varric only laughs sharper, grins wider. “He means, ‘I kept that mark from killing you while you slept.’”

That, too, Solas supposes.

The survivor hums the beginnings of a laugh, low in her throat. Her crooked smile dimples a cheek, undeterred by the biting wind tousling the knotted strands of her hair. The green of his mark blazes in her eyes, crinkled at their corners. “Then I owe you my thanks.”

And her wrath, but that seems inconsequential, with demons in uproar higher on the hill.

Everything does, outside of the fact that she still draws breath. That all this might yet be undone.

“Thank me if we manage to close the Breach without killing you in the process,” he tells her. And, because three days and nights with her life in his hands is too long not to know: “Tell me your name.”

~

Ithalia.

One of the many names rippling across Haven on whispering tongues. Ithalia Haleir Lavellan. Herald. Miracle. Divine.

They can afford to whisper, to do anything but run for their lives, because it is she—without his touch—that has sealed the Breach and mended the heavens.

Three more days and nights she sleeps, but this time, no seed of doubt roots in Solas’ core.

He is certain: she will live long enough to mend the very world he aims to break, before it can be made whole again.

[dareactions]

for a shorter request: what about pre and post breakup Solas reacting to a warrior inquisitor with the templar spec going through lyrium withdrawals?

Pre: He wishes he could do more, his hands gently rubbing circles on their back. It's not easy kicking an addiction- especially not one that clings so well to the bones like Lyrium does. It's not something you just quit cold turkey either, it's a mixture of careful dosage lessening for months and dealing with episodes of 'needing a fix' as Varric so wonderfully put it. Solas frowns as he feels a shiver pass through them, ripping him from his thoughts. ''Cold?'' He mumbles softly, they're underneath a pretty warm duvet so that's a bit concerning. He gets the most pathetic little noise in response and Solas heart shatters just a little bit. Maybe he should rip the Templar building apart brick by brick at some point, for getting the person he loves to this point? ''You're wearing that expression again.'' The Inquisitor mumbles, a cold hand on his face. ''No clue what you're on about there, I believe you're imagining that one.'' Solas tilts his head slightly, inspecting the way a smile tugs at their lips like he would any artwork. ''Sure, alright. I'll let you off the hook this time.'' They laugh, it's a bit of a shell of it's former sound but Solas loves it all the same. He makes a point to pull up the duvet the slightest bit, adjusting the teacup on the bedside table so it's handle is closer. ''I do think I have a spell that can soothe, even if just momentarily.''

Post: It's one thing to watch someone you love suffer, it's another to watch them suffer from afar. He never takes his eyes off them for too long whenever their health starts to decline. Solas knows it's an uphill battle to betterment and how he wishes he could be there for it. Watching them seek out Cullen for understanding and bonding makes him feel - annoyed? It's not the right word but not even he knows what it is anymore.

He adjusts the book in his hand, forcing his eyes back to the page he has re-read maybe six or seven times at this point. He's not even gotten past the first paragraph.

It's so frustrating because it's his own doing too. He knew they wanted to go on this journey yet he decided to not go on it with them- and it just makes him feel a million times worse.

Solas likes to pretend he isn't the one leaving small notes with tea blends or whatever else he knows helps. It's easier for both of them to pretend its someone else.

[himluv]

DA: The Veilguard Predictions/Theories, pt. 3

Okay, last one, I promise. And this one is, uhhhhhh, real strong on the tinfoil. Bear with me.

Read part 1 here :)

Read part 2 here :)

3. DA:D’s Real Big Bad™

Okay, this is probably my most outrageous and unsubstantiated theory - but it’s also the one I’m most excited for. Buckle up, kids, because I think The Architect is back! 

So, when Bioware released the Dragon Age Day 2023 Thedas Calls trailer, Mark Darrah mentioned in the corresponding blog post that there was more to the trailer than just location reveals, “for those who listen closely.” Well, lemme tell you, I listened real close over and over again until something struck me.

“All the world will soon share the peace and comfort of my reign.” 

That voice… I know that voice, don't I? 

“I do not seek to rule my brethren. I only seek to release them from their chains.” 

The Architect told the Warden in Dragon Age: Awakening that it intended to use Grey Warden blood to return self-awareness and “freedom” to the Darkspawn, freeing them from their tethers to the Archdemons. 

But this was not The Architect’s first plan. No, its first plan was much, much worse. In The Calling, Maric, Duncan, Fiona and the other Grey Warden’s meet The Architect in the Deep Roads and learn that its plan is to spread the Blight over all of Thedas, thus ensuring a “lasting peace”. Nevermind that two-thirds of the population wouldn’t survive the process. **stares in solavellan**

A “lasting peace.”

“The peace and comfort of my reign.”

Now, sure, The Architect has stated that it doesn’t want to rule over its brethren, but that was in 9:31 Dragon. It’s been working on this plan since at least 9:10 Dragon (when The Calling takes place) and Dreadwolf is likely to take place somewhere around 9:52 Dragon. The Architect has had 40 years to scheme and experiment and come to the bitter realization that – if there is to be peace – it may have to rule after all. 

And I’m sure Corypheus’s rise and fall did not go unnoticed by The Architect. With Solas’s machinations putting a ticking clock on Thedas’s existence, perhaps The Architect feels the pressure to end the Blights once and for all, and bring its corrupted brand of “peace” to Thedas.

When you need to spread the Darkspawn taint in record time, what do you do? Oh, I don’t know. Maybe awaken two Archdemons simultaneously and unleash them upon the world? (as a treat?) After all, there can be no more Blights once all the Old Gods have been corrupted…

Which would directly pit The Architect against Solas AND the protagonists of DA:D. And, basically everyone, because no one wants a double Blight and/or to suffer a continent-wide Darkspawn plague.

So, yeah. That’s my super-duper tin-foil hat theory for Dreadwolf (now The Veilguard). Obviously, I could be completely wrong about everything. There’s so much lore in Dragon Age, and yet so little of that lore is unequivocally proven true. It’s all in-world texts that can be – and frequently are – wrong. So, even with exhaustive research and codex mining, there’s ALWAYS a chance that some fundamental piece of “evidence” turns out to just be… incorrect. 

In my opinion, that’s part of what makes this series so. effing. compelling. The whole world feels like an excavation, one where every interaction holds the potential for yet another clue. So, even if I am wrong, I can’t wait to learn the truth.

[dragonagedreaming]

this is a thought before da4 comes out and i don't think it's any spoilers but-

to me it makes perfect sense that the political landscape has changed in thedas, not only since origins but since inquisition. 10 years ago, donald trump hadn't even run for president yet in the us.

stuff can change in 10 years.

who knows what dorian has done in tevinter in 10 years? is gay marriage legalized? is it recognized? is it acknowledged?

who knows how much lore has been learned since the dread wolf's reawakening for the veil jumpers? has he left them clues? does he support what they're doing? how does solas feel about the dalish now?

it's going to be hard to come to terms how much has changed, but stuff has changed. it will be jarring for old players i think, but we have to remember that time can heal- and open- all wounds.

[andrewknightley]

da4 BIG spoilers

anyways discovering more things about solas and im like. i need to kill solas this is really the dwarves revenge against solas game. also he fucking killed varric like whats your deal with dwarves man

(i havent gotten to the reveal of varric has been dead the whole time yet but i started to suspect when lucanis went to buy food for Every Single Person but varric and the fact that everyong ignored him and never talked with him ever in the Chatty Friend Group. and with all the clues is basically confirmed so. lmao everytime they talk about varric in the past im like. im gonna murder solas)

[kaija-rayne-author]

Review 2 in series for Dragon Age Veilguard

Spoilers for Veilguard

First part of review series is below.

I'm not an asshole disclaimer (same as the first one, if you read that, you can just skip down to the cut.)

Something came to my attention. I need to make it crystal clear that I utterly love the diversity in DAV. It's fantastic. I'm also a heavily left leaning, non-binary, queer as fuck reviewer, editor, and author.

I'm on media blackout while I play this, so I'm only getting second-hand info on how awful it is right now in the DA Fandom. Please be safe and take care of yourselves. Arguing with incels and white supremacists is completely pointless. They sea lion worse than an actual sea lion. Your mental health is important.

Though, every single time the anti-queer brigade comes out for a new DA game, I sit there thinking 'have you bozos ever played any DA game, like, ever?' My guess is nope.

9 hours in, 7 hours playtime.

Negative review

While I'm incredibly grateful that I can play this game, because I really hope the story actually starts soon, (yes, I said it, the pacing on this is terrible, and I'm both an editor and a writer, I have a clue). I hate to say... I am soooo glad I didn't buy it. Or I'd be demanding a refund. I didn’t actually look at the price tag, but it must’ve been around $80 Canadian. Given our cost of living crisis, that's obscene but whatever. Games are expensive.

It's just not worth that much in its current state. Sure. Games on release often have bugs. I kinda hate spending money to be an unpaid beta tester. BG3 had nowhere near as many.

My computer comes down right around the middle of the minimum and recommended specs. DA4 doesn't even make it get hot like BG3 makes it. So I'm really thinking glitchy game vs computer issues. Considering I'm not the only one it's happening to... welp. (I looked the glitch up, it's pretty common.)

5 out of 10 loads, my character glitches back to the stock elf body. And if I continue playing, it corrupts my saves and they won't load. It has also happened mid-battle, too. So I have to figure out which save to go back to before the glitch bit. Which, without pics in the save files is fun /s.

'Balanced' play isn’t. I play on tactician/hard in most games. I'm on balanced, and keep fucking dying. TBH I'm not extremely awesome with the controls and moves yet, but I'm not bad either. I honestly just think the bad guys are too overpowered (way too fast, hit too hard, and it takes too long to break their armour) for beginning levels. And yes, I have my Rook in the best armour I currently have. Maybe if I could carry more than 3 potions, it wouldn't matter as much, but IDEK man.

And you know what isn't actually any fun in games? Dying a lot. Also? Having to drop my difficulty level for regular bad guys less than ten hours into the game. It's still teaching me moves ffs, so is sorta the tutorial. I'm not a 'get gud' type. I think that's ridiculous. Gaming is supposed to be fun. If it makes it more fun to drop the level for a boss fight or whatever, more power to you. But I usually don't have to until end-game material. If I have to at all. It's honestly pretty rare. Load time is ridiculous, so every time an over-powered not-a-fucking-darkspawn slams my rogue (which I swear shouldn't be possible, I know how to fight with rogues, they're my first and favourite class), I get creamed because I'm bloody stuck in a place I shouldn't get stuck in.

I know they had testing on this. Wasn't that why the date was pushed back? My memory isn't great since COVID but I think I might’ve seen that somewhere.

Solavellans will likely be disappointed in the first seven hours. You see Solas twice. He may as well not even be in the game.

And I really hate to say this, but I'm just bored. I wasn’t itching to play it like I usually am with good games. (If a game catches me up, it's about the only thing I want to do.) I still loaded it up tonight, didn’t have anything better to do. (Because I'd probably have done that instead.) I'm mostly playing so I know what happens in the story myself. And I was hoping we'd get some answers to all this lore that lives in my head, rent free. So, whatever, I'm still hoping it will catch me up. I'll keep playing in hopes we actually get something resembling a story at some point soon.

And the number of editorial errors is ridiculous. Both developmental and copy.

'Cause bodies can't decompose in the Anderfels? Because nothing external lives there? Granted, I have specialized knowledge there (former forensic anthropologist) but, that isn't remotely how decomp works.

Does your 3 week old raw hamburger not rot because it was in a cold, dark place without any external decomposers? (My 17 year old knew the correct answer to that, so did my 12 year old.)

The primary forms of humanoid/mammalian decomposition come from inside us. Bugs don't even start showing up for a bit. Why do you think bodies bloat? Our gut bacteria going wild. Why do you think bodies are routinely embalmed? No bugs (usually) in a funeral home or morgue either.

And y'know? I actually outright told Epler on Twitter (before it went to complete hell) that he needed a better editor or 4 after playing DAI. And DAV already has more editorial issues than I noticed in the whole first half of DAI. Way to prove my point.

I'm an exacting editor. I'm pretty good at it. And I don't expect perfection in anything. Perfectionism is a trauma response, after all. But so many errors so soon? Really?

I'm not even getting into the story issues. Because I'm still hoping we actually, y'know, get to a story? And if I'm really lucky? That story will cover some of the glaring errors.

But so far? I'm not impressed. I've never, since I started playing DA games, been fucking bored.

Next one is here:

[liberaquantobasta]

Here is chapter 6 of my Fanfiction The Ceiling above Us!

Master Tethras is not done yet ;)

[Chapter 1] - [Chapter 2] - [Chapter 3] - [Chapter 4] - [Chapter 5]

The Ceiling Above Us 

6. Tales of Redemption

Ainur'Len has no intention of letting her home succumb to the threats Josephine had so urgently described in her letters, begging her to return.

As she walks through the streets of the Crossroads, now ravaged by the Blight, she takes in every detail with careful deliberation. Everything must be under control. She cannot afford mistakes. Not anymore.

Before their separation, she and Morrigan had crafted a strategy: Morrigan would be her eyes and ears. While Ainur'Len focused on halting the advance of the Darkspawn, Venatori, and Antaam across Ferelden and Orlais, Morrigan would shadow Rook and her companions, ensuring that none of them truly intended to harm Solas.

This plan was hardly new. What was new, however, was the chaos unleashed by the Evanurs’ escape. Morrigan’s role was little more than what Ainur'Len had initially planned for Varric: a careful observer, one who would stay out of the way, ensuring nothing derailed the delicate balance of the Inquisition’s last gambit. The key difference now was the need for unpredictability—fresh, unknown people, outside the circle of Solas' influence.

For years, Ainur'Len had fought the Dread Wolf with agents of her own, handpicked through rigorous trials devised by the Inquisition. She couldn’t afford infiltrators, she couldn’t afford mistakes.

Disbanding the organization had been the first step in moving discreetly, operating from the shadows. Everything that had brought her to this moment was the result of careful calculation, decades of planning. She’d surrounded herself with only her most loyal collaborators, recruiting individuals of rare value: those who could serve her without raising suspicion. Ainur'Len had woven a web she hoped would ensnare Solas, without ever having to harm him.

But Solas was still the god of lies, treachery and rebellion — depending on the story. He always seemed to be one step ahead, even as he left behind small, almost imperceptible clues—hints meant only for those who truly knew him.

Morrigan, however, had been her unexpected ace. Ainur'Len had never expected to see the witch again. Yet, only a few months ago, she’d found her in Skyhold, drenched from the rain, standing in the garden where they’d often shared quiet moments. Back then, when the war against Corypheus still raged, Morrigan had spent hours poring over arcane tomes in that very spot.

When the witch explained her decision to take Mythal within her, Ainur'Len had felt she couldn’t refuse her help. From that moment, Morrigan had proven crucial in their pursuit of Fen'Harel. So crucial, in fact, that Solas was forced to speed up his ritual, leading to its disastrous failure and the flight of the ancient gods, an event that had reverberated across the world.

Together, they had used the Eluvians to their advantage. Solas had reactivated them to bring about the destruction of the Veil and the coming of Elvhenan. But Ainur'Len had ensured that some of the Eluvians had been redirected, their destinations changed, thanks to the help of the witch.

Morrigan had provided invaluable intelligence, information that no one else could offer. And she had shown a genuine interest in Solas, in his redemption, a goal Ainur'Len still struggled to fully understand. If, before Morrigan’s return, only she and a few others believed they could convince Solas to redeem himself, Morrigan had joined the group with that very goal in mind.

When Ainur'Len asked her about it, Morrigan had only told her to be patient, to trust in her larger vision. And, because she needed Morrigan’s help, Ainur'Len had accepted the witch’s secrets in exchange for the invaluable support she provided.

Now, as Ainur'Len steps through the Eluvian that will take her to Kirkwall, she places her trust in Varric’s most trusted agent: Rook. She knows her friend’s instincts were sharp, and though she cannot show her hand, Ainur'Len is determined to let Rook take the space she needs, free of suspicion that the Inquisition’s influence still guides her.

The cold air of Kirkwall’s harbor bites at her skin, sending a shiver through her. For a moment, she gazes at the grey, weathered city before her. As she continues walking, she realizes her heart has led her to the place she needs to rest before heading to Orlais to meet with Josephine.

Ainur'Len knows she has a home to return to, a gift from Varric after he became viscount.

She reaches the door, turning the key in the lock with a slow, metallic click. It echoes in the quiet, a sound that mirrors the emptiness in her chest.

She lingers there for a moment, eyes closed, taking a long, steady breath before stepping through. The room greets her in shadow, lit only by the pale light filtering through dark curtains. Dust and ashes drift lazily in the air. The few pieces of furniture are wrapped in red covers embroidered with the Kirkwall symbol, like abandoned coffins, reminders of how little she has used them. The silence is suffocating, broken only by the dull thud of Ainur'Len’s bag falling from her hands.

She shuts the door behind her with a soft click, feeling her legs tremble beneath her, as if they can no longer bear the weight of the world. She moves slowly toward one of the chairs around the large living room table. Varric had insisted she would need it—said it was large enough for their games of wicked grace.

She rests her elbow on the table, rubbing her forehead with a weary sigh, as if trying to scrub away the memories that cling to her. Her expression is grim, lips tight with resolve, but her eyes betray the weight of everything that has led her here.

She stays like that, in silence, forcing herself not to think of how many times she had promised to visit him, only to put it off with some excuse. There was always someone to save, something to fix, a trail to follow. And Varric was his friend, he would understand. 

Shaking her head and cursing through clenched teeth, she freezes as she spots something out of the corner of her eye that she hadn't noticed before.

A gift box, wrapped in beautiful vermilion paper with the symbols of the Inquisition printed in gold ink, sealed with a shimmering ribbon and carefully wrapped. There is also a note. 

Ainur'Len suddenly feels her blood boil, a sharp heat makes her shiver and her head begins to pound. She stares at the object as if she has seen a ghost, every muscle in her body tense and rigid.

Suddenly she jumps to her feet. She paces the room, back and forth, her hands behind her back. She stares at the gift, studying it defiantly, as if she were facing a demon, trying to understand its weaknesses, to attack it at the right moment. Then she stops, again. She averts her gaze. She wants to turn on her heel and run away.

"Ah, fuck it." she curses, grabs the parcel and unwraps it furiously. 

A book. The cover depicts a sorceress from behind, wearing an Inquisition helmet with two pointed ears protruding from it. She has her hand outstretched to the sky, above her a cloud in the shape of a wolf's head, surrounded by green light. an elf gazes at the scene with a mixed expression and a sad face. At the top of the cover, in large, clear letters, is the title: 'Tales of Redemption'.

Her disbelieving gaze shifts to the card, which has fallen to the floor in her haste to unwrap the present. She bends down to pick it up, not letting go of the book.

"Whatever may happen, this is the story you deserve.

I just hope you like the ending.

P.S. For now, it's an exclusive just for you, it's not for sale. Tell me what you think.

With undying affection,

Your friend Varric”.

Ainur'Len clutches the book to her chest, holding it close to her heart until she can swallow the tears that fill her eyes. 

With a wave of her hand, she uses magic to lazily slide off the cloth covering the sofa. She drops onto the soft mattress and falls asleep instantly, hugging the heavy tome.

*

When she wakes, she feels something cold on her neck. Still numb from a deep sleep she had not fallen into for months, she slowly lifts her eyelids. 

The first thing she sees is the reflection of the sun on a shiny surface. It takes her a few seconds to focus on the large blade pointed at her throat. She tries to jerk backwards on instinct, but the sword scratches her skin, pinning her to the couch. She cannot move. 

When she finally looks up at the person holding the weapon, her heart stops for a moment. 

A woman with short, raven-black hair looms over her, her grip on the sword unyielding and her gaze intense. Her icy eyes narrow to slits, burning with fury. Clad in full war armor, she stands unmoving, the blade in her hand a silent promise that she has no intention of lowering it.

"Hawke," Ainur'Len whispers in a hushed voice. The weight of the blade on her throat prevents her from swallowing. "Please. Can you tell me what time it is?"

“Good Morning, Inquisitor.” Marian does not flinch, ignoring the elf's clumsy attempt at a joke. Noticing the sparks flickering in her eyes, she raises a hand and waves her finger in the air, the gesture accompanied by slow clicks of her tongue. "Don't even try it, it won't work. I spend my days with a spirit possessed apostate, I know exactly how to protect myself from your magic."

Ainur'Len stands still, watching her opponent cautiously, and slowly raises her hands in surrender.

"I know why you are here. Marian, it wasn't..."

"It wasn't your fault?' Hawke interrupts her, her voice a hiss of anger. The blade presses harder and harder against her neck. Ainur'Len moans in pain. If Hawke continues like this, she will cut off her head: "I have lost so much in my life, but no, Varric, no. You shouldn't have taken Varric from me."

The elf looks at the human sideways. In that look of rage, she sees her own pain. In those eyes staring at her with hatred, she recognises the same feeling she has for herself. 

"No, the fault is mine alone," she admits without looking away from those cold irises. "You can kill me if you want to."

They stare at each other in silence, the tension thick between them. Marian’s breathing is ragged, as if she’s struggling with something inside herself. Her grip on the sword falters, her fist beginning to tremble. Ainur'Len feels the cold blade glide across her throat, the faintest pressure as it slides over her skin, a drop of blood warming her flesh before trickling quickly down the metal.

The elf remains still, eyes closed, bracing for the inevitable. But then the weight of the sword vanishes. The coldness against her throat disappears.

With a groan, Marian lowers her weapon, her breath shallow and uneven. Her eyes fall to the floor, where Varric’s book rests in silent testimony to the void he left behind. She clenches her teeth, her face contorting as she presses a hand to her eyes, perhaps to hide the tears that threaten to spill.

Ainur'Len gently massages her sore throat, the red mark from the blade still staining her skin. She keeps quiet, out of respect for Marian’s pain, though a strange disappointment gnaws at her. If Hawke had chosen to end it then and there, to take her head to Varric’s grave, perhaps she would have deserved it.

Marian releases the sword and collapses onto the couch beside her, burying her face in her hands, her elbows resting on her knees. Ainur'Len stares at a spot on the floor, lost in her thoughts. Neither of them speaks, the silence stretching for what feels like hours, though it’s only a few minutes.

"Before he left for Minrathous, he came to see me, you know?" Hawke finally breaks the silence. She rests her back on the soft surface of the sofa and lets her hands slide from her face, a nostalgic smile curving her lips. Her eyes look off into the distance, straight ahead.  

Ainur'Len sits down beside her.

"I didn't know."

"I tried to talk him out of it, I told him that some things can't be fixed with words. I mean, look what happened to Anders," she shakes her head and sighs slowly. She looks into the elf's eyes, her gaze is gentle, so different from a few moments ago. Ainur'Len feels her heart sink as she sees her smile. "But he was so confident. He said his friends needed him. That this time would be different, that he wouldn't let you feel the same pain as I had."

Hawke puts a hand on her friend's and slowly moves closer. "He really cared about you, you know."

Ainur'Len lowers her gaze to the woman's fingers brushing against hers, in an attempt to escape her gaze. She does not have the strength to hold it. She bites her lips, trying to control the wave of pain that crushes her heart in her chest, and she keeps her eyes wide open, as if to freeze the tears that slowly cloud her vision. 

“Marian…”

"I looked for someone to blame. Solas was the easiest target, but you were the one I could reach. I thought that hating you, hurting you, would bring me some relief—it had worked before. But I can't. It's not your fault. Varric chose his path, and he died for what he believed in. To blame you now would only cheapen his sacrifice."

As Marian speaks, the elf listens in silence. She searches for something smart to say, but can only focus on the feeling that warms her chest. Varric's best friend, who needs her compassion and whose pain she can only imagine, stands before her and does nothing but offer comfort. The guilt is tempered by a feeling of infinite gratitude.

“I understand how you feel, I’ve been there.” The human continues. “But I’ll tell you this: if Varric saw something good in Solas, then I trust him. And someday, things will get better.”

The elf can no longer hold back the tears that slowly flow down her face. She sobs softly, and Hawke looks away as she rests the back of her head on the pillow behind her, giving Ainur'Len the privacy she needs. She never loses the gentle smile that curves her lips.

"Thank you." The elf manages to whisper in a thin voice. "I promise I will do everything in my power to honour Varric's sacrifice."

Marian nods softly and closes her eyes, waiting a few moments before she resets her gaze on her friend.

''Make me a better promise.'' She says, giving her a wink. "Promise me that you will lend me Varric's book when you have read it. I'm curious to know the ending."

Ainur'Len laughs and wipes her tears with her palms.

"Deal."

[spellbladecrow]

Knowing what I know now that I've finished the game, now that I'm playing through it again, I spotted yet another very early clue about Varric that I somehow missed my first time through.

When Rook first speaks to Solas in the Fade, immediately after the ritual.

3:03 is the approximate timestamp.

Keep a very close eye on Solas's face when he responds to Rook here. It's quick.

That quick little glance to the side. You can see the wheels in his head turning. In that single moment, the Dread Wolf has planned everything.

Varric inspires and motivates Rook = the gods are killed and the Veil is torn down = mission accomplished

[serensama]

In Sacrifice, Glory: Chapter 5

Thank you @illneverrecover <3 Read on Ao3

Cassandra had been muttering under her breath since their meeting with the Templars. Every so often she would burst out with a ‘Has Lord Lucius truly gone mad?’ or ‘How could he do this?!’ startling them to no end. She remained distracted as they searched for clues for the friend of Red Jenny, with the warrior often walking into the back of Varric and never rising to the occasion to any of his barbs. The dwarf looked at Elissa and Solas completely at a loss as to how to break the Seeker from her thoughts, and they all silently agreed to give her the time to adjust to the knowledge there was a newer, more sinister leader of the Seeker order. 

It was not until another elf made herself known at their rendezvous point did she snap out of her self-imposed daze, the loud and lairy rogue bright enough to shock someone back from the brink of death. 

“Y-You, you are the Friend of Red Jenny?” she asked, mouth slack and surprise plastered across her face, her expression only deepening the more she heard the woman talk. 

“Well yeah, one of them anyways. Name’s Sera. This is cover. Get round it. For the reinforcements. Don’t worry. Someone tipped me their equipment shed. They’ve got no breeches,” she giggled, a look of pure cheekiness upon her young face. 

“Breeches?” Cassandra echoed, completely confused and struggling to catch up with what was happening. She looked between her companions to see if she was the only one who felt as if she no longer understood the Common tongue with the way this stranger wielded it. Cassandra glanced at Elissa who only shrugged but readied her staff for whatever was to come their way. 

Thankfully the fight was quick and the Herald and Sera seemed to understand each other and made light work of recruiting the archer and her network of ‘people’ to aid the Inquisition; their brief interaction ended with Sera skipping away from their group with a promise to meet them back at Haven. 

“That is by far the oddest elf I have ever met,” Cassandra baulked after her as she shook some blood off her blade. 

Solas made a strangled noise at the back of his throat and gawked at Cassandra. “Oh no Seeker, this has nothing to do with her being an elf at all, we have all had the pleasure to bear witness to what a storm looks like trapped in skin,” he groused, shaking his head disbelievingly. 

“Yeah, and yellow plaid slacks,” Varric chuckled as he pulled out his book and wrote something down that made him snort at his own cleverness. Elissa tried to peek over his shoulder but he noticed and snapped the book shut from her prying eyes with a small smirk.

“What, are you writing a note to buy some for yourself? Sorry to break it to you Master Tethras but you couldn’t pull it off,” she tutted with mock sincerity which earned her a light snicker from Solas. “Solas on the other hand could definitely make those trousers work.” 

Solas abruptly stopped laughing which caused Cassandra to snort inelegantly; allowing for Varric to write an additional note about them all undisturbed. Elissa could only imagine the tales the dwarf was spinning about them, but she yearned to be there when it was all over; sat by the fire to hear him recount their tales just like he had about Hawke and their friends. She could envision it, everyone- right there with her as they listened to the storyteller well into the night. The madness they were currently fighting, nothing more but an entertaining memory to warm them for years to come. 

A distant tolling of a clock let her know just how late it was, reminding her that she had yet to rest since leaving Val Royeaux earlier that morning. Elissa suggested that they head back to their lodgings and get cleaned up and get whatever rest there was to be had. They had to have their wits about them, she knew that for sure. She could almost hear Leliana in her ear, a faded memory playing in her mind. ‘You cannot enter an Orlesian event without arming yourself. Douse yourself in etiquette and only speak if you can promise a chance of intrigue; pair it with the right shoes, Lissa- and they cannot touch you!’

Unfortunately for her she only had the boots the Inquisition had commissioned for her, it would just have to be enough for First Enchanter Vivienne... whoever the hell she was. Elissa squeezed her eyes shut to try to block the ringing in her ears and the creeping pain across her temples as the memory faded away, the pit of worry in her stomach descending ever further. Each time she gained a memory it was always accompanied by pain. She could not shake the feeling that whatever her mind was hiding from her was so sinister, that it may be better to continue on as she was. That whatever her past held, was better left forgotten. 

---

Orlesians. 

She couldn’t have been bloody Orlesian. The only one she could stomach for any great length was Leliana. Of course she understood pomp and pageantry but these people took it to a level she could not grasp. A part of her appreciated the beauty of it all; their architecture, their fashion and the general opulence the empire held- but if she had to listen to another Orlesian noble harp on about some random Vicomte or Baroness she would try to drown herself in the shallow fountain in the centre of the room. 

She had already managed to convince a Comte and Comtesse that everything they heard about her and the Inquisition was true. She was just about to tell them that at night bluebirds came down from upon high, to lift up her blankets and tuck her in and sing her sweetly to sleep. Unfortunately a particularly sour fellow interrupted her and started challenging her to a duel. She was about to accept and thus escape the inane drivel of the salon when ice encased the man, not letting him move, let alone breathe. 

Did she do that? She had thought that was getting her magic under control but- 

“My dear Marquis, how unkind of you to use such language in my house... to my guests. You know such rudeness is- intolerable.”

Oh thank goodness. It wasn’t her. 

Their host, a fiercely clad woman in ivory and silver, turned on her heel to address her. “My Lady, you are the wounded party in this unfortunate affair. What would you have me do with this foolish, foolish man?” 

Elissa did not bother to glance over at the frozen Marquis in case the irrational thought of smashing him to bits with her staff proved too tempting. 

“I did not come here for the Marquis or to take heed of any nonsense he or anyone else may espouse. Truthfully he bores me, so I leave him to you, to do as you please with him,” she replied, trying to sound as aloof as possible to play to the crowd that had stopped to watch their every move. She slowly released her held breath to ensure her nervousness remained hidden; relieved their host had chosen to spare the idiot, publically humiliate him true, but spared him nonetheless. Whilst she certainly didn't like him, she would never wish him dead. 

Once the Marquis made his shameful exit and the rest of the party had spread out to continue with their Orlesian style revelry, the mage motioned for Elissa to follow her to a more private area to talk. 

“Allow me to introduce myself, I am Vivienne, First Enchanter of Montsimmard and Enchantress to the Imperial Court,” she declared so confidently that had she offered her hand to Elissa, she would have taken it and kissed it without a moment’s hesitation. “I wanted to meet you face to face, it is important to consider one’s connections carefully. As the leader of the last loyal mages of Thedas, I feel it only right that I lend my assistance to your cause.”

She bristled at the term “loyal mages” but decided not to prod at the snap happy First Enchanter lest she be turned into the next ice sculpture of the salon. 

“Why seek me or the Inquisition out, Lady Vivienne? You seem quite well off here already as First Enchanter and Enchantress to the Empress, what’s in this for you?” Elissa questioned wanting to understand this woman’s motivations. She watched as the Enchanter smirked and tilted her chin up, somehow making herself seem even more larger than life than before. 

“The same thing anyone gets by fighting this chaos. The chance to meet my enemy and to decide my fate. I will not wait quietly for destruction,” she declared, her body language screaming at Elissa to dare to contradict her. 

She had to give it to the evening’s host, she was every bit as fierce in persona as her bold choice in attire. Perhaps she had found another Orlesian she didn’t immediately want to kill by choking them with their own frilled collars. 

“The Inquisition will be happy to have you, Lady Vivienne,” she smiled as she called over a wandering server with sparkling wine and took two long stemmed glasses, one for each of them. Vivienne quietly thanked her and offered the rim of her glass for Elissa to clink against her own in celebration.

“Great things are beginning, my dear. I can promise you that,” she proclaimed before taking a long sip. 

“Oh of that I’ve no doubt First Enchanter,” Elissa agreed, raising her glass up in salutation to the frost mage. “No one dressed as fabulously as you are could promise no less.” Vivienne’s mouth pouted and twitched at the corners, Elissa surmised that was the Orlesian equivalent of a smile. 

“My darling, oh I do think I actually like you. Well done,” she acknowledged as she moved back into the thrall of nobles, leaving Elissa to her own questioning whether gaining the Enchantress’ approval was something to be applauded or feared. 

---

“I just got back Leliana,” Elissa groused as she stared down the Spymaster from across the war table. At least the redhead had the humility to look abashed by her request. To think she had just literally swung her leg off of Charlotte and handed her reins to Master Dennett, when a scout raced out letting her know that her presence was requested inside the Chantry. Maker be praised that she didn’t need to relieve herself first, perhaps have something to eat or even try to pretend the inside of her thighs weren’t burning something dreadful due to the travel to and from Val Royeaux. If there was one thing Elissa was damned sure of, she was going to teach the former Left and Right Hands of the Divine some bloody patience.

“I understand that Herald, and I would not think to ask if it were not important,” she implored as she pointed to a mark on the Hinterlands. “This is the last known sighting of the Warden.”

Elissa scratched at her neck in irritation, racking her brain for a reason why Leliana thought it imperative for them to find some random Warden, it wasn’t even about Darkspawn, what good would the Grey Wardens be? 

“Surely it is more important for me to get to Redcliffe and meet with Fiona and see if she and the other mages would join our cause? Can we not look for him on the way back after speaking to her, or better yet, after we’ve finished what needs to be done with the Breach?” she asked, pointing at the map herself. “It does not make sense that we wander around the entire expanse of that countryside looking for one man, that has nothing to do with what we’re trying to accomplish here.” 

Leliana looked like she wanted to smack Elissa on the back of the head but instead plotted the proposed course she would take with her finger in order to find this Warden Blackwall. 

“I am not sure that is entirely true Herald,” she stated, waiting for Elissa to show curiosity at what she said before continuing. “The Grey Wardens have now disappeared both in Ferelden and in Orlais, and we need answers as to why. My last contact here within the Wardens has stopped responding to me and I hear no reports at all from Vigil’s Keep… we cannot rule out that they know something that we do not, and knowledge is everything. Warden Blackwall is the best key to get that knowledge.” 

Elissa sighed heavily and acquiesced, she knew that Grey Wardens were important to their world and with all the craziness that had been happening, she would be foolish to discount the possibility that something had happened to them too. She was not happy about it, but she would do it. The weary mage gathered up all the missives relating to the Warden and carefully placed them in her pack before giving the Sister a withering glare.

“I did not mean you had to go right away Elissa!” she called out as she made her way out of the Chantry. 

“There’s no need for me to get comfortable if all I’m to do is leave again, I’ll just restock on some supplies and be on my way,” she sniped over her shoulder, waving to Josephine as she passed her office. “See you when I see you.” 

Josephine rushed from behind her desk to see the Herald stomp off into the village, clearly annoyed but still kind enough to say hello to everyone who greeted her. Leliana looked over at the diplomat and shrugged, unsure if she should go after her and try to make nice before she left the camp again. 

“Did you tell her why you were sending her out there instead of one of your scouts?” Josie asked, already knowing the answer. 

Leliana shook her head and pursed her lips, thinking of the best way to reply to her Antivan friend. She retreated back to the war room knowing that the ambassador would follow until she received her answer.

“No Josie, I did not tell her the reason I sent her,” she relented as she carefully slid herself onto the corner of the table. 

“Was that not your mistake then? If you told her why you thought it was important maybe she would have been more understanding?” she reproached her, looking far too similar to a Reverend Mother admonishing her young initiates. 

“Because the last time I told her something she passed out Josie,” she bit out more harshly than she intended. “So I thought, if she were to meet with a warden, talk to them, perhaps that would help jog her memory naturally and she wouldn’t have to go through more pain.” 

Josephine gave her a sad but understanding smile and motioned for Leliana to make room for her on the table to sit beside her. 

“Alright, that makes sense. But why did we have to send her? We know where he is and we could have invited him here to Haven, ready to speak to her,” she asked, trying to understand her reasoning. Leliana opted to keep those reasons secret, mainly because they were not hers to say. She had gleaned from her time with both Elissa and Alistair that not only could they sense darkspawn, they could also sense other wardens. If Elissa could feel whatever it was they felt when looking for the Warden, perhaps that was the key to unlocking who she was. 

“The more she is seen out in the field, doing the people’s work- they will see through the lies the other clerics have been spewing about her, about the Inquisition. She needs to be seen amongst the people and not someone leading an army to take over Thedas,” she said instead, not entirely a lie, but definitely not the whole truth. It would be of great benefit indeed to their cause for the people to see Elissa as one of them, though it would be even better if they saw the Herald of Andraste was also the Hero of Ferelden.

Josephine linked arms with her and lay her head on Leliana’s shoulder, enjoying the reprieve from her never ending mountain of correspondence. 

“You do realise you will have to somehow make it up to her, yes? She had been on the road for quite a while with little to no rest... she probably feels more like the Inquisition’s lackey than any sort of Herald,” she said, jostling her friend slightly when she did not reply.

“I know, I’ll speak to her when she gets back...” Leliana faded off at the sharp look Josephine gave her, “...after she has had a long rest and is ready to discuss things with me.”

Josephine smiled proudly and nodded her approval at the Spymaster’s change of tactics then hopped off the table.

“A fine plan, perhaps you could make a night of it then? I could give you one of the bottles of wine I’ve brought along from my family’s vineyard and you can both get drunk and bond like two noble ladies sneaking into the cellar after a ball.”

“That sounds awfully like something you are suggesting from your personal experience, Lady Montilyet,” Leliana chuckled as the diplomat’s mouth opened and closed in surprise. 

“Of course not Sister Leliana,” she gasped, smoothing down the front of her blouse. “I would never sneak and I would also never wait until aftera ball, all the best wine would have already been drunk.” 

---

The bloody pack would not stay fastened to Charlotte no matter what she did; she could not tell if she had managed to forget how to secure the damned thing in the two hours she was back in Haven or if the bag had somehow broken. Elissa pulled it down to inspect it closer, only for the loosened flap to open and spill out her newly acquired provisions. She threw her bag down and raised a shaking hand to shield her eyes from the midday sun, unsure if she was going to swear or scream or cry. Maybe all three, she deserved to treat herself. 

She heard someone greet her and looked down at her feet. A man was bent over picking up her dropped items, brushing off the dirt and snow from each object before carefully placing them into her pack.

“Oh Commander, you don’t have to do that-” she started, ducking down to help him.

“It is no trouble,” he interrupted her, giving her a warm smile. “Sometimes this is the Maker’s way of telling us to stop for a moment.”

“Is this the Commander’s way of ordering me to stop for a moment?” she questioned, grin playing at her lips at the way he paused at her gentle teasing. 

“Not so much an order as it is wise counsel. It will do you well to take a second before heading out to -?”

“The Hinterlands. Leliana wants me to go out and search for a random man in a random place,” she frowned as she threw the rest of her belongings into the pack to save any further embarrassment at having the head of the army pick up after her, like the parent of a petulant child after throwing a hissy fit.

“Certainly, and as uh, important as that mission sounds, it would serve you better to have some rest and go back out there with your head screwed on straight. I’ve seen many great soldiers not come back because they were too tired to think clearly,” he explained as he secured her bag and attached it to the back of Charlotte- who did not look impressed to be travelling so soon, much like her mistress.

Elissa could not argue it was indeed wise counsel. She remembered seeing soldiers come back from a campaign and some so weary they did fall off their horses. She hissed when a sharp pain exploded from the back of her eyes and she fell against her horse for support. Cullen’s gloved fingers gently took hers in hand- she had not realised she had clasped them around her face- and pulled them down to examine her. 

“Herald, are you alright?” he asked, panic colouring his voice. Elissa slowly opened one eye and then the other, afraid another pang would hit her. The world unblurred and she was looking into warm pools of honey, scanning her face and hands frantically for any injury. “Did something hit you? Are you unwell? I should call for Solas-” he scrambled, already waving for the nearest scout to come to him. 

Elissa stilled him and waved back the running scout, apologising for scaring him over nothing and that she was perfectly fine. 

“Fine is it? Is that why you’re still holding onto my arms to stand upright Herald?” he said, calling her out on her little white lie.

“Jokes on you Commander, I was just holding onto you because I’m trying to steal this fantastic surcoat of yours, it is far prettier than anything I own and- ah!,” she gasped as another bout of pain attacked her senses, her fingers clinging onto his armguards. 

Ignoring her protests he guided her over to the closest tent and sat her down, he had thought to carry her but he was not sure what that would do to her pride and for the troop’s morale. To them, she really was the Herald of Andraste and he was not going to shatter any illusions that kept their spirits high. 

“Please stay here, have something warm to drink and you can get some rest-”

“Truly, Commander, it’s fine, I’m fine-”

“No, you’re not. So now it is an order. You will stay here until I or Solas give you clearance, do you understand me Herald?” he asserted as he pressed a cup of freshly brewed tea into her hand, wrapping his hands around her smaller one to make sure she had a safe grip on it. 

Elissa stared up at him, even as he knelt down and crouched forward; he was so much bigger than she was. Everything about him was large and strong. The pain she felt swiftly receded and replaced with a rush of something else, his touch and manner firm but gentle... Elissa get a grip, he was just helping because you’re their Herald of Andraste, stop deluding yourself woman. Just drink the damn tea. 

“...I’m not hearing a ‘Yes Commander’ there, Herald,” he smirked, thoroughly enjoying the way she licked her lips as she looked up at him. The Maker preserve him, he was going to be struck down by lightning. 

“Yes Commander,” she whispered as she brought the cup to her lips, watching him watch her with rapt fascination. It was not until he recognised his gloves that he realised his hands were still wrapped around her hand and the cup. 

Cullen could feel his face flood with colour to the tips of his ears as he released her suddenly and fell back, almost losing his balance. 

“Commander! We need your assistance here Ser!,” a lieutenant called out to him, allowing him to escape and save face. He repeated that she needed to rest and that he would be back shortly but to call out if she needed anything, not quite able to meet her gaze for fear he would combust.

He hadn’t meant to flirt with the woman, he had only wanted to help her. He had seen her ride in with the others and was glad to see that they were all in one piece and seemed in good spirits which surprised him considering the reports that were sent from their trip to Val Royeaux. However they did come out of it with new merchants and allies so it was not all for naught. 

Cullen still hadn’t made up his mind about the Herald since his last chat with her. He could clearly see that they looked like the same person but it was just too fantastical to think of someone coming back to life just to help them out of the mess they were in. The Maker had long abandoned them, or so said the Chantry, so why would he send her? 

As he watched her head into the main camp he could not help but watch her walk away; he was not a blind man, and she was for all intents and purposes a very beautiful woman- one who happened to look like Elissa Cousland’s twin. Back in the day, there were talks of the Hero of Ferelden being a warrior whose beauty dazzled both the darkspawn and the Fereldan nobles into submission. Bullshit. Even as angry as he was back in the Tower, he knew the woman could fight and had both talent and spirit enough to defeat demons and abominations, it was not just about her appearance. Yet he had to admit, looking as she did probably assisted more than inhibited her... and probably why she was so free with her charms; he doubted anyone would deny her whatever she wanted, especially if what she wanted was them. 

One of the recruits slipped and he helped them up with a hearty pat on the back, Cullen told them to take a quick break before heading back out to complete the drills, when he remembered that it had been more than an hour since he had left the Herald. She was probably long gone by then, already taken that horse and rode off into the Hinterlands to do what was needed, why would she heed his order? Still he made his way to where he left her to find her sitting closer to where the soldiers trained, hands holding the empty cup and watching them go through the exercises with a look of wonder and appreciation on her face. He could not help but be amused by the sight, after all he probably looked exactly the same when a group of Templars had arrived in Honnleath and he trailed after them day after day, completely awed by their skill and knowledge. 

Cullen took a seat beside her but she did not notice, her attention too focused on the recruits using a sword and shield. Her eyes darted back and forth as they sparred and her smile grew wider each time one of them managed to successfully complete an attack or block one. He watched her from the corner of his eye as she placed the cup down and leaned forward, her chin resting on the heel of her mark-free palm, grinning as the spar grew more intense. Finally the more experienced soldier managed to find an opening and struck the recruit in the side, winding the young man and causing him to fall to his knees and surrender. 

“Oooh poor dear, he should have kept that shield up,” she muttered to herself as she clapped for them both nonetheless. 

“Have you ever held a sword before Herald?” he asked, genuinely interested if the woman had any skill for melee combat with something other than a staff. She sat still and continued to watch the other soldiers so he had thought she hadn’t heard him and was about to repeat himself, when he noticed her shoulders moving up and down slowly and her lips pressed tightly together to hold in her laughter. What was so funny that she had to- “Oh, you’re just as bad as my men!” he scoffed as her giggles bubbled out of her.

“My apologies Commander, but truth be told, I don’t remember if I’ve ever held a sword.”

“Well, would you like to try? Oh- Herald would you stop laughing!” he crowed, unable to hold back his own grin at her japes. “Would you like to train with the troops? Only if you’re feeling up to it of course.”

“Why Commander, I thought you would never ask.”

Elissa beamed and stood up with her hand extended to help him to his feet which he accepted happily. As he pushed himself up he realised he was standing too close to her to be considered proper, with less than one arm’s length between them. Cullen stepped to her side and led her towards an open area where she had more room to practise without too many soldiers to stare at her. 

Cullen went over to a nearby weapons rack and picked out one of the training longswords, probably the same weight as her current staff, perhaps even lighter.

“Try this one Herald, tell me how it feels.”

“Cullen if you keep making it this easy to make everything you say into a double entendre we will literally be out here all day,” she smirked as she manoeuvred the sword in her hands to see what felt most comfortable for her.

“Truly, that mouth of yours will get you into trouble one day,” he snickered before realising what he just said, throwing his hands up in the air in mock surrender. “Let’s just begin with a basic attack. Now first put your left foot forward and the right behind you- yes like that. Now make sure your hips are facing your opponent and not on an angle. Sword held at your shoulder height.”

“Like this?”

“Yes. Now grip the handle firmly, starting with both hands, and what we want are smooth, fluid motions. We want to close the distance between you and the enemy, but when you move forward ensure you move out of their line of attack- whether that is to the left or right is up to you- this way you are ready for any counterattack. From here bring your sword down in one straight swing down towards their head and neck.”

Elissa looked at him unsure of herself, she had just gotten used to her staff and that had taken weeks. She could only imagine how long she would have to be at the training dummies before she could do anything that looked remotely like an attack. She had to remind herself that he was very used to seeing men and women take their swings during training and she couldn’t embarrass herself that badly in front of him. 

Ah, stupid girl. You made that sound like a challenge. Not only will you not stop flirting with him, you will now be able to show him how bad you are at actually holding a sword. Double entendre or not. Bravo.

“Is the sword too heavy, Herald?” he asked when she stood there unmoving, silently berating herself. “I can get you another, perhaps we have a wooden training sword somewhere-”

“By wooden sword do you mean that toy sword that one of the tavern server’s son plays with?” she questioned incredulously, almost offended at the idea she looked that weak she could only lift a child’s play thing. Cullen didn’t answer except for a shrug as his smile broadened, his silence enough to light a fire under her to prove him wrong. With her self-consciousness all but gone, Elissa moved toward the practice dummy and swung down, easily slicing the burlap where the neck would have been. 

The Commander blinked a couple of times to register what happened; most times people who had never held a sword would miss or move very clumsily, however the Herald moved with no hesitation and in one clean sweep. It could have been beginner's luck of course.

“Again Herald,” he instructed, gaze fixed at the sword in her hand. 

Elissa nodded and completed the exercise another three times without being prompted, each swing powerful and effortless as if she did not have to think about it at all. However he supposed after weeks on the road the training with Cassandra could have prepared her much better than anyone expected- even if with a completely different weapon. He called over a recruit and told him to run to the tavern and ask for an assortment of vegetables varying in size, whatever they had that was already turning and about to be thrown away or fed to the animals. 

Whilst he waited for him to return, he continued to observe the Herald who had started to move with more confidence and had experimented with different angles of the sword to hit the top of the head, the shoulder, the top of the arm- in almost a practised pattern. He could not deny that she held great promise and could not discard the idea that she had previously been trained, or at least began her training in swordsmanship prior to the Conclave. 

The scout returned with a small crate of cabbages, onions and potatoes to pass to Cullen. Thanking him as a dismissal, Cullen carried the humble assortment of produce towards a nearby wooden post where they were about to build a new dummy to train on. Carefully he balanced the largest cabbage on top of the post and called the Herald over, still practising the simple attack. 

It was one thing to be able to attack a large target, if she could control her sword to accurately slice the vegetables up there could be no doubt she was either a prodigy or she had been previously taught. 

She came over to him and wiped the sweat that had already formed around her hairline, her sword held up with the tip in the air and the flat of the blade against her shoulder. The proper way to travel with an unsheathed sword; not that he had taught her that, nor was it something she would have had the opportunity to see from any of the soldiers around camp. 

“Herald, could you please try to aim for this cabbage using the move you’ve been practising?” he said, gesturing to it.

Elissa stared at him as if he had grown another head.

“Come now, you were doing a fine job with that now dummy. If that was a person they’d be well and truly dead.”

“Yes, but that dummy had an unnaturally large head. That cabbage is much more head sized and not attached to anything else I can stab,” she rebutted, trying her best to dissuade the Commander of this idea. 

“Unfortunately for you, you’ll find most people have more head-sized heads than not,” he pointed out, stepping outside of her sword’s range so she could begin. “Please, just try your best. If we find this is not something you’re able to do yet, it is something we know we need to work on.”

“Has anyone told you how annoying it is when you’re being logical and right?” she mumbled but still fell into the correct stance.

Cullen laughed through his nose and tried his best to suppress the smug smile that threatened to bloom across his mouth. “Not today... or at least not out loud, Herald.” 

Elissa took a deep breath and then another, completely focused on the cabbage with its browning edges and smaller area for attack. She imagined the arc of her blade, the way it would cut through the air and where it would end. Her feet moved and then her arm, smooth and clean, the cabbage lying in twain on the ground. Not a perfect cut down the middle but still, if that were a head- the person would not be alive to mock her for a less than stellar hit. 

Without missing a beat Cullen took out a large potato and set it where the cabbage was upon the post.

"Again, please,” he asked, his hand motioning towards the brown vegetable. 

“Commander-”

“You did not think you could hit the cabbage. You did. Just try it, please.”

Elissa huffed and got back into position, shaking her head in disbelief. The man was being stubborn and pushing the limits of her abilities. 

The arc of your blade. The sound of the air it cuts. The point of your sword when the swing is done. 

Two portions of the potato lay near the man’s feet and he let out a low whistle of appreciation. She had great control, strength and aim, that much was assured. 

“Hey, would you look at that! I did it! Commander did you- what the actual-... Cullen!” she screeched as he threw an onion at her without warning. Instinctively she cut down the projectile enough to deflect it from hitting her. “What the heck? Are we just pelting the Herald of Andraste with spoiled vegetables now? I expected this when I first woke up from the Conclave not bloody weeks after, man!” she ranted with no particular heat behind her words.

“My apologies Herald of Andraste,” he saluted, his eyes fixed on her as he grinned. “I just had to see.”

“See what? If I’d look better with a black eye?” she voiced, cleaning the juices off the blade on the back of her forearm. “I’ll save you the wondering, I do not. Just ask Cassandra when one of the rogue Templars out in the Hinterlands managed to land a punch on me. Looked like an angry little badger for a week. Though it smarted for longer than that- the bastard.” 

Cullen’s smile quickly faded at the thought of someone from his previous order hitting her and turned solemn immediately. Of course he knew that everyone there was in danger and anyone at any time could get injured or killed; but the idea of her being hurt in particular, did not sit well with him. It was probably because she did not sign up like he did, joined the Inquisition out of necessity and not out of free will. Probably because she was so easy to get along with and helped boost the people’s determination by her mere presence. Something like that. Probably. 

“I am sorry to hear it Herald, and no, it is not something I would like to see on you,” he said gravely, something in his tone making Elissa look up at him. “I uh, I mean anyone. Anyone within the Inquisition of course. I hate the idea of anyone under my charge getting hurt, of course.” 

“Of course,” she smiled politely, the warmth not quite reaching her eyes as they normally did. 

“I just needed to see if you were able to hit a moving target and you could, quite well considering the size of the object,” he praised her, pointing at the ground where the pieces of onion had landed. “It is not something a green swordsman could do, especially when they were not expecting it. You have been trained Herald, the only question is how much.” 

Elissa rested the sword against a nearby dummy and pondered on his assessment. She had to admit that she felt more at home with a sword than she did with a staff, something familiar and comforting in the movements. Perhaps that earlier memory of the army was of her in an army. Was she part of the King's Guard? Made sense why she knew what the name of the pub in Denerim was... 

“... I would like to test this, but the only way to do it is get you out there and to fight someone. Would that be something you’re interested in doing?” he questioned, already thinking of the best suited soldiers to call upon. 

“What? Oh, yes that would be fine,” she agreed, not quite understanding what she had consented to until Cullen returned with a handful of his troops who looked a little too thrilled to be chosen to help train the Herald of Andraste.

“Are you ready Herald?” he asked as one of the newer recruits walked toward her with his sword still sheathed.

“Good day Herald, it is a pleasure to meet you. My name is Devon,” the young man said. Elissa looked over the lad and he couldn’t be a day over 18, a child fighting a war.

“Good day Devon, thank you for helping me today,” she replied as kindly as she could, hoping he wouldn’t notice the tinge of sadness in her voice. 

“Not at all Herald, it’s the least we could do,” he chirped excitedly, drawing out his training sword. 

“Begin!” Cullen yelled out, surprising the two fighters. 

Elissa registered that she was starting to panic, going from dummy to flying onion to person was a massive change in the space of an hour but it was too late to object. Devon was side stepping in a circle and she followed in suit, not entirely sure what she was doing but it was better than becoming a still target for him to wallop. 

“Devon, we’ve established the Herald can walk, please do something else,” Cullen instructed from the sidelines, watching the both of them intently. 

“Yes Ser!” he called out before flashing Elissa an apologetic expression and swung at her, which she clumsily evaded. He tried again but she managed to parry his swing and rotate the blade with such force the sword flung out of the soldier’s hand.

“Next!”

“What, next?”

“Good afternoon Herald, my name is Edmund,” he said quickly before running at her with his sword ready to thrust into her abdomen. Elissa squawked as she jumped out of the way, almost tripping over her feet as she put more space between her and her opponent. She calmed herself and set herself in position to brace for attack and allowed Edmund to rush her, eyes fixed on him like a hawk, reading his movements to effectively block each incoming swing. She had stopped thinking and allowed her body to take over, it seemed to know what to do and her thoughts were only getting in the way. 

There, she thought as she realised how open he left himself whenever he tried to attack from above. Without a second’s hesitation she reared back and placed a well-aimed kick to the left of his groin, hard enough to push him back and pretend to stab him through the stomach where he lay. 

“Lysette, your turn!” 

“Lysette? She’s a bloody trained Templar!” Elissa panted, whipping her braid back with a flick of her head. 

“Do not worry Herald, I will not harm you,” the taller warrior said, saluting to her before pulling out both her sword and shield. 

“I have a new found empathy for your recruits Commander,” Elissa quipped, sending him a glare which he accepted with grace. 

“I’ll be sure to relay that to them all,” he replied proudly. If all of the new recruits learned to fight like the Herald then they truly stood a chance to defeat whatever was coming. “Keep your wits about you now, this will be a real fight. Lysette might be a newer Templar but she has been well trained.” 

It hadn’t escaped Elissa that more of the army had noticed their sparring and had stopped their training to look, no matter how hard the Lieutenants had tried to refocus their attention. Lysette looked ready to dive into their duel whilst Elissa suddenly felt like the tavern server’s son with a toy sword playing at war. Lysette, armoured and imposing with her sword and shield, bowed graciously before charging at her. 

The Templar was indeed well trained, with precise strikes and practised defence, it was all Elissa could do to stay on her feet and not have her head rung like a bell. Lysette pressed her advantage forcing Elissa to retreat from her step by step. 

Elissa wanted to surrender, there would be no shame in it, she was outmatched. She was just not at the other woman’s level and she should have been proud that she lasted for as long as she had. But the words would not come out of her mouth, too bitter for her to say; the words just fizzled on her tongue as she bore her relentless strikes one after another. Her pride would not stand for it. She would rather be knocked unconscious than to say she would give up, and once again she cursed her predilection for putting herself in circumstances that could get herself killed.

In her mind, she pretended to be a seasoned warrior, determined to at least put up a fight. She blocked, parried and attacked, and though she may have looked a fool- at least she wasn’t a quitter. Elissa’s blunted longsword continued to fend off Lysette's once confident advances, slowly turning the tide for the mage. 

Elissa knew she had to end things quickly in fear she really would fall to a well-aimed blow as she could feel the effects of the fight start to weigh down her arms. She spotted a shield on the ground near where Devon and Edmund stood and seized her moment; stealing and attaching it easily as Lysette hunted her down. Did she know how to wield it properly? Who knew, but she did know that her left arm felt like it was missing something whilst she fought and she knew she would only be balanced with a shield to hold on to. Or maybe hide behind. 

The additional heft on her arm briefly slowed her movements as she adjusted herself, but found she was filled with a renewed vigour, this is it, this is who she was. Sword and shield, this was the Elissa she should be.She parried Lysette's strikes and delivered a series of powerful shield bashes that pushed her adversary back awestruck. Both women, exhausted and battered, locked eyes in a moment of mutual respect. It would be shameful for Lysette to keep fighting an opponent who was obviously well trained but just not at their best, and thus she withdrew to not debase herself by continuing. 

“A draw for now then,” Cullen said as he dismissed the other recruits. “A testament to you both.” 

“A rematch though? In time?” Elissa called out to the Templar, who simply saluted to her again with a genuine smile on her face. 

Elissa waved goodbye to everyone before she sunk down to the ground, driving the sword into the ground and holding onto the hilt for balance. Cullen had someone bring over a water skin and offered it to her, which she thankfully accepted and guzzled down more than half the contents, only pausing to gulp an equal amount of air. 

“Would you like to hold a sword, he says, need to know if I’m trained, he says- truth of the matter is the Commander of the Inquisition is just a sadist with a cute smile,” she wheezed, emptying the remainder of the skin’s contents. Swinging and fighting with her staff was one thing, her muscles had become accustomed to moving in a completely different way and there were no jarring vibrations from the clash of steel to contend with. However, no matter how tired and sore she was, she could not remove the large smile off her face. 

Cullen knelt back down and rested his arm against his raised knee, a shy smile playing at his lips. 

Oh curse that scar, how is it right that a scar could add to someone’s looks? Bloody ridiculous.

“In truth, I had started with the intention for you to sit and maybe have something to eat, so you could rest and travel safely. I had not meant for you to massacre my troops so efficiently,” he admitted, massaging the back of his neck awkwardly. Elissa rolled her eyes comically and exhaled loudly, looking over the sheepish man. She proffered her hands out as a sign of peace and the Commander took them willingly, helping her up like she was just another training sword. She supposed wearing such heavy armour and swinging around weapons all day would tend to make one quite strong. 

Elissa took a moment to steady herself and did not relinquish her hold on the Commander’s hands, not that he seemed like he was in a hurry to reclaim them.

“At the very least, Commander, I had a lot of fun and we can now be sure of two things.”

Cullen looked at her and raised his eyebrows in wait for her revelation, quite aware he was still holding the Herald’s hands but in no rush to release her. She was tired after all, she may be unstable on her feet. 

“Whoever I was before I woke up here, I was a warrior. Whether that was to hide my magical abilities or if they were just dormant, I do not know,” she explained looking up at him, marvelling at how tall he seemed but if she was just bold enough to stand on her tiptoes... 

“And the second?” he queried, his voice naturally lowering, much to his surprise, as he tried to ignore how well her lashes framed her eyes.

“That as a warrior, I have in fact, held many, many swords,” she affirmed, her mouth spreading into a smile that spanned from ear to ear. 

Cullen let go of her hands and raised his own in defeat, releasing a peal of laughter loud enough for some nearby troops to hear over the din of the training yard. 

“You are impossible, Herald, even when exhausted you are impossible!”

Chapter 6

[a-world-in-grey]

I've been thinking about Spark verse!Prompto.

Being a kid with no training, she probably doesn't have the best control with her magic. She would have worked out how not to start random fires or shock people with lightning, but if magic users are able to sense each other. Well, she might not know that or how to hide herself before she meets Noctis. Which presents Opportunities :)

Because Noctis might actually notice Prompto's resemblance to his friend Luna, assuming the Tenebrae visit wasn't butterflied away, and ask her about it. Which might clue her in that she was looking at the wrong magical monarch when looking for her parent.

Or, which I personally find much more Fun, Noctis did not meet Luna in this timeline so when he's confronted with another magic kid. Well, he comes to the obvious conclusion. The same one that Prompto had. And being a cat of a person that he is, he just goes "I know it, you know it, Dad (probably) knows it, we're apparently not talking about it, let's just hang out and play King's Knights."

So. Normally I hc that magic users usually cannot sense each other unless the magic is brushing up against them or actively being used (Sola/Ardyn being the odd case) so Regis and Noctis wouldn’t sense Prompto if she’s hiding.

But.

This is Fantastic.

I haven’t decided if the Marilith attack will still happen or how the situation in Tenebrae will develop, but either way let’s say Prompto takes enough after Besithia instead of the Fleurets that she doesn’t immediately trip Noctis’ (or someone else’s) familiarity with Tenebrae’s royal family.

Prompto has spent years learning to hide her magic, suppressing it as hard as she can. Nope, no magic here, no siree. The scorch mark on the carpet is explained away as Prompto accidentally knocking over a candle, and while she’s bummed to not be allowed any more candles in her room, keeping her magic secret is a bit more important.

Thing is, suppressing her magic actually makes it harder for Prompto to hide it. Magic isn’t supposed to be suppressed, isn’t supposed to be bottled up and crammed into the deepest corner of her soul. Adopting a headcanon from @secret-engima’s Cyra-verse, in that having a build up of magic with no way to relieve the pressure causes health issues. I don’t know what kind of health issues I’d go with, perhaps something playing off of Oracle magic being heavily geared towards light and healing.

Paradoxically, despite her health issues, Prompto actually heals from injuries far faster than normal. It’s not to the point of noticeable regeneration, but those who look for it in hindsight can tell that Promto is healing anywhere from a 25-50% faster than what is normal, and Prompto is not yet so desperate as to re-injure herself to hide her magic. (Ironically, were Regis or Cor to ever learn of Prompto’s healing/health issues, they’d assume it the result of whatever experiment Besithia conducted, not magic.)

So Prompto spends about a decade trying to suppress her magic. A decade atrophying whatever innate control she might have had, a decade shrinking her reserves even as the slow build up of magic strains to escape its ever decreasing confines.

The first time she sees Noctis, in primary school, Noctis cannot sense Prompto’s suppressed magic. They are both young children with still developing reserves, and Noctis has no reason to look. Prompto is able to stay in the background even as she resolves to better herself so she can stand as her brother’s friend, because she can tell from a fifty paces that Noctis is achingly lonely.

(Of course, between then and the beginning of high school Prompto develops her health issues, but she hardly lets that stop her.)

She introduces herself to Noctis in high school, and to her surprise and delight, Noctis immediately accepts her overtures of friendship. (She tries not to think of how lonely Noctis must have been, to accept a new friend so quickly.)

On Noctis’ part, he is blindsided when one of the girls in his year comes up to him with an easy confidence and bright smile, brimming with magic to his senses. (Because as Prompto’s reserves got smaller with no outlet for the magic already there, it became easier and easier to sense her magic.) He accepts her overtures of friendship mostly to figure out who the Pyre this girl is, but finds himself liking her more and more as a friend until they’re practically attached at the hip.

Noctis mistakes Prompto for a Lucis Caelum instead of a Fleuret. After all, Prompto’s parents (to his knowledge) are Lucian merchants who have never left the country, and as far as he knows the Oracles haven’t left the Niflheimr continent since they were annexed by the Empire. No, it makes more sense that Prompto is his half-sister.

(Prompto and Noctis don’t acknowledge their presumed relation, not at first, but those who assume them to be dating (far more than either would like) are met with disgusted expressions and denials of ‘they’re like my sibling.’)

Of course, because Noctis can be blind as a bat when it comes to things he doesn’t want to think about, it takes him awhile to do the math around Prompto’s birthdate and realize that Regus would’ve been fooling around with Prompto’s mother when Aulea was only a couple months pregnant. That realization puts Noctis in a mood, especially when a couple offhand questions to Prompto reveals that Prompto’s parents stopped working for the Crown shortly after Prompto’s birth.

(I could make it worse and have Aulea’s death be a couple months after Noctis’ birth, so Noctis thinks that not only did Regus know about Prompto, but Regis also deliberately concealed and rejected Prompto. Due to grief, shame, or because Prompto wasn’t Aulea’s, Noctis doesn’t know, but the timing is too suspicious for him to think it a coincidence.)

Poor Regis has no idea why Noctis seems to be so cross with him all of a sudden. Clarus suggests it might be a simple teenage rebellious phase, and since Noctis isn’t getting into trouble Regis leaves it be and waits for Noctis to talk to him about it. Ignis and Gladio try to figure out what the Pyre is going on, but Noctis refuses to budge, and Prompto is equally baffled when they ask if she has any idea - Noctis hasn’t told her either.

Noctis not introducing Prompto to Regis baffles everyone too, until Clarus makes the observation that this is Noctis’ first friend that wasn’t chosen for him, so it stands to reason he wants to keep her for himself - dragons don’t exactly like to share. (Noctis is embarrassed by that assumption when he’s simply trying to help Prompto keep her LC heritage under wraps, but he can’t say that so the assumption stands.)

(Prompto thinks Noctis’ grumpy possessiveness is cute. It’s not like she isn’t grateful for the excuse not to meet Regis. She still thinks she’s successfully hidden, but that doesn’t mean she’s anywhere ready to meet her presumed birth father.)

Things come to a head when the four are hanging out at Prompto’s place - her parents out of town once more but she’s now old enough at 16 to not need a babysitter - and Prompto’s health issues flare unexpectedly, leaving her shaking in pain. It’s not the first time this has happened since she befriended Noctis, but this is the first time Noctis has been present for the flare up, and he has the benefit of being able to look at the issue with fresh eyes.

Specifically, Noctis feels Prompto’s magic surge against the steel grasp Prompto has on it as Prompto doubles over in pain and realizes that Prompto suppressing her magic is hurting her. And Noctis can’t ignore the catoplebas in the room anymore.

Prompto has a panic attack when Noctis reveals that he knows. Fortunately she’s recovered as well as she ever does from the flare up a couple days ago, but it’s not a great time for either of them. Noctis explains how he knew from the minute he met her a year ago, and how he’s tried to help hide her from his father because Regis would also notice. But Noctis tells her how she needs to use her magic, if only a bit, or her health is only going to get worse.

Noctis starts teaching Prompto to control her magic. It requires telling Ignis and Gladio about Prompto’s magic and swearing them to secrecy (Gladio looks poleaxed when he learns) because Noctis and Prompto aren’t sneaky enough to do this without help. Gladio also helps train Prompto in self-defense, because the thought of a royal being defenseless is stressful enough to give him grey hairs (he’s grateful the secrecy means eleven-year old Iris won’t be expected to take up Shield duties, but at the same time that leaves the Princess without a Shield).

Prompto proves to be a crack shot with just about any firearm she gets her hands on, and her Armiger means she’ll never be unarmed, which is one worry off Gladio’s mind. As for Prompto’s magic - it quickly becomes clear that she’ll never have more than the basics. Warping is beyond her entirely, to Prompto’s jealousy, as are shields. Prompto gets a passable skill in Elemancy for all that she’ll never match Ignis’ talent for it.

The only magic she really takes to is stealth spells. Refracting light to conceal herself comes almost as easily as shooting a gun. (None of them think to explore if Prompto can heal beyond making curatives, and the other Oracle magics are unknown to them.) She also manages to figure out a minor trick that lets her create a little night light that she can easily explain away as the flashlight on her phone if anyone nearly catches her.

Best of all, Prompto’s health issues fade. They don’t go away completely, probably never will with how much damage has been done, but any improvement is one Prompto will take.

Once Prompto gains enough control over her magic to successfully hide from Noctis even when he’s trying to sense her, Noctis grudgingly introduces her to Regis.

[vir-tanadahl]

Timeless

Summary: Isera Lavellan is living in modern Thedas completing her research on plants when her research takes her to a place in the Solasan Mountain range. The discovery of a strange glowing mirror takes her to a world she has never known before where she meets someone she never thought existed. (Find on Ao3) Fen'harel (Solas) x Lavellan

Chapter 12: A Truth Beyond Time

Isera stirred, her eyes fluttering open as the world around her shifted in and out of focus. The ceiling above seemed unfamiliar, casting her momentarily adrift. She blinked, the faint light filtering through the curtains offering no immediate sense of time or place. Slowly, her surroundings settled into clarity, but the hazy feeling of disconnection lingered at the edges of her mind.

The untethered feeling that had anchored her in confusion yesterday—had it been yesterday?—felt lighter, as though the tension had evaporated overnight, leaving behind a strange, quiet calm. She frowned, trying to grasp onto the memories, but they slipped away, as fleeting as the remnants of a half-forgotten dream.

But she knew it hadn’t been a dream. The gaps in her memory, the unsettling blur of how she’d ended up back in her room, lingered in her mind. Isera’s eyes scanned the space, searching for any clues—anything that might tell her how long she had been here. The quiet room revealed nothing at first glance, yet the stillness felt heavy, as if time had stretched and warped in her absence.

Her gaze lingered on the window, where soft light filtered through, but was it morning? Afternoon? She couldn’t tell. A vague sense of unease coiled in her chest, urging her to piece together the fragments of her reality.

The creak of the bedroom door swinging open pulled Isera from her thoughts. An elven woman entered, balancing a tray with a steaming pot and a clean cloth draped over her arm. She froze the moment her eyes landed on Isera, wide with surprise.

“You’re awake!” the woman gasped, nearly dropping into a bow before she regained her composure. “I shall get the Wolf!” she added breathlessly, bowing once more before scurrying out of the room, the tray still clutched tightly in her hands as if she hadn’t quite processed what she’d seen.

Solas. The Dread Wolf. His piercing blue-gray eyes flashed in her mind, sharp and unsettling. The memory of standing on the beach in Rivain surged forward—the moment when he’d touched her, when something inside her had shifted, snapped like a seal being broken. But that had been a dream... hadn’t it? She remembered waking up after it, so it had to be a dream.

And yet, a creeping sense of realization lingered, insistent and undeniable. It felt real, too real. A cold knot of dread tightened in her chest. What if it hadn’t been a dream at all?

“Huh.” The smooth, ever-amused voice of Felassan drifted into the room, breaking the silence. He sauntered in, his expression smug as usual. “You’re awake,” he mused, stopping at the edge of her bed. “How surprising.”

She stared up at him silently, her mind flickering with memories of their last encounter—his attempts to engage her in conversation as she worked on the poison, the way his casual demeanor had shifted when she didn’t respond to their usual banter. She remembered the concern that had flashed across his face, quickly masked, and the vague recollection of the hushed argument that had erupted into something louder after she’d left the poison on Solas’s desk.

His words echoed in her mind, a shard of memory that sent a chill down her spine—‘her mind… breaking.’ The phrase clung to her thoughts, twisting them into knots.

When she didn’t respond, Felassan began to hum softly, a sound that sent a cold ripple through the air. His eyes sparkled with mock curiosity as he tilted his head. “Or perhaps…” His voice trailed off before his lips curved into a smirk. “Maybe your mind was torn asunder,” he mused, the words dripping with unsettling amusement and curiosity.

Isera continued to stare up at him, her gaze sharp and unwavering. She inhaled slowly, her jaw tightening as she spoke. “My mind is fine, Felassan,” she replied, her voice steady with enough edge to cut through his smugness. “But if you’re curious what it feels like to have your thoughts scattered, I’m sure we can arrange that.”

A part of her secretly enjoyed their banter, the way his humor often cut through the weight of this strange world she’d been thrust into and the way he always managed to amuse her, even in the darkest moments. But right now, it grated against her nerves, more bothersome than amusing. Her words were a thinly veiled warning, and she knew he would pick up on it, as he always did.

Felassan remained utterly unaffected by her threat, his smirk only deepening, eyes dancing with that infuriating, never-ending amusement. “There she is…,” he whispered, his voice soft and almost teasing, as though he’d been waiting for this exact moment. His gaze settled on her with an unsettling familiarity, as if he knew something about her—something deeper, something hidden—that even she was still in the process of discovering.

It wasn’t just condescension; it was as though he was watching her unfold piece by piece, waiting for her to catch up to a truth he already knew. The smugness in his smirk was more than just amusement; it was anticipation, like a game only he understood.

However, when he uttered the words, “There she is,” Isera felt a sudden jolt, like a pull deep within her mind, tugging her back to that dream. The coast of Rivain flashed before her eyes—the wind, the darkened skies, the figures emerging from the swirling sands. It all replayed in her mind in an instant, vivid and sharp, before yanking her back to the present. Her breath hitched as she returned to the room, the memory still buzzing in the corners of her consciousness, disorienting her for a moment.

Felassan’s eyes were on her, as if he could sense it, as if he knew. But Isera blinked it away, forcing herself to stay grounded in the here and now, even as the dream’s shadow lingered like a faint echo at the edges of her mind.

“What’s going on?” Isera asked, her voice laced with suspicion as she moved to crawl out of bed. She tossed the blanket aside and placed one foot on the ground.

“You might want to reconsider—” Felassan began, but it was too late.

Isera had already placed her second foot down and pushed to stand. The moment she shifted her weight onto both feet, her legs gave way beneath her. She collapsed, catching herself on the edge of the bed just in time. Her arms trembled from the effort, frustration bubbling up inside her as her body betrayed her.

Felassan let out a quiet sigh, shaking his head with a smirk still playing on his lips. "I did attempt to warn you," he said, his voice filled with amusement.

Isera glared up at him, her grip on the bedpost tight as she willed her body to cooperate.

“What is going on?” Confusion and panic edged her voice as Isera gripped the bedpost harder, her mind racing. “Exactly how long have I been in bed?” Her words came out sharper than she intended, desperation creeping in as she searched her fragmented memories.

Felassan tilted his head slightly, his ever-present smirk fading into something more contemplative. “What do you remember?” he asked, the question almost teasing, like he was urging her to plunge into the swirling depths of her own mind.

Isera’s jaw tightened, her mind flickering through scattered images: the atrium, the poison, Solas, the vision on the coast of Rivain, the feeling of something breaking. But there were gaps, dark places her mind refused to touch. “I—” she started, then hesitated. “Everything is jumbled… I remember pieces, but they don’t fit together.”

Felassan watched her closely, amusement flickering behind his eyes, but there was a sharper edge now, as though he was gauging her reaction. “That’s to be expected,” he said softly, his tone dancing on the line between sincerity and mockery. “You’ve been through quite the ordeal. But, I wonder... how much of it is your mind protecting you from truths you aren’t ready for?”

The weight of his words crashed over her like a wave—an ordeal? The word reverberated through her mind, unsettling something deep inside her. “What do you mean?” she demanded, her voice shaky but forceful. She tried to process his words, but it was like grasping at smoke—each thought slipping through her fingers as soon as she reached for it.

“Ordeal?” Her voice trembled, and she hated the vulnerability in it, the desperate edge that made her feel small and powerless. She searched her thoughts, but it was like navigating an unlit hallway in the dead of night, hands trailing along the walls, hoping to stumble upon a door hidden somewhere in the darkness.

“What happened to me?” she asked, her voice cracking. It wasn’t just a question; it was a plea. She was clawing desperately at the walls of her own mind, trying to unearth the truth that felt buried deep within her.

He let out a low hum, the sound vibrating with amusement before it shifted into a chuckle. "Whoever sealed your magic," he said, his eyes locking onto hers, the intensity in them a strange mix of curiosity and pity, "buried it deep—so very deep in your mind." His gaze never wavered, as though he was dissecting her piece by piece, searching for something beneath the surface.

"I was almost certain that attempting to break that seal would shatter you completely," he continued, the corners of his mouth twitching into a smirk. "Well, it nearly did," he added, the words laced with a twisted sort of humor, his chuckle rolling out like an afterthought. "If we’re being honest."

“What?” Isera asks in disbelief. “What are you talking about?” she questions. They are speaking the same language, albeit even if it was slightly different, Isera had a secure grasp of this version of elven.

"What?" Isera's voice trembled with disbelief, her brow furrowing as she stared at him. "What are you talking about?" She shook her head, trying to piece together the fragments of what he was saying. They were speaking the same language, she knew that much—its rhythm and cadence only slightly different from the elven she had grown up with. Yet, despite her secure grasp of this version of elven, his words seemed to slip through her fingers like water, their meaning eluding her.

“It’s curious,” the familiar lull of Solas’s voice filled her ears, his tone smooth and contemplative as he stepped into the room. His gaze steady, cutting through the space between them with unnerving focus.

Every slight tilt of his head, every narrowing of his eyes, carried the weight of unspoken thoughts, pulling at the threads of his curiosity. Each look, each tilt of his head seemed to be an assessment, a silent attempt to understand her in ways she couldn't fathom.

With a subtle nod, Solas dismissed Felassan, who, true to form, left with a hum on his lips, a tune that seemed to mock the tension in the air. The door closed with a soft click, leaving Isera alone with the Dread Wolf's piercing gaze.

Isera’s grip tightened around the bedpost, her knuckles paling as she cast her eyes downward, avoiding Solas’s intense gaze. His words cut through the room, each syllable deliberate, echoing in her mind like the toll of a distant bell. “You are unmarked, your power stifled,” he said, his voice slow and methodical, laced with something between curiosity and calculation. “And the little access you do have to your powers...” he paused, almost savoring the moment, “you’ve barely used them since we brought you here.”

His words hung in the air, heavy and unyielding, pressing against her chest like a weight she couldn’t quite lift. Isera’s eyes flickered with frustration as she realized what he was doing, guiding her toward an answer she didn't possess.

His questions were sharp, like blades slicing into the silence between them. “Who locked your power away?” Solas pressed, his voice steady and unrelenting. He stepped closer, his movements precise, almost predatory, as if circling prey.

“How did you survive the fall?” he continued, his tone a blend of curiosity and suspicion. The space between them seemed to shrink with each question, his presence looming, pressing in on her, demanding truths she didn't have. Isera’s pulse quickened, her breath shallow, as she searched for words that wouldn’t come.

“You were not made era’nas’danal,” he said, his voice unwavering, each word deliberate, as though he believed she already understood the significance of what he was saying. “Your connection to the elgar'vhen'an remains intact, merely blocked,” he pauses, “and was lying dormant...” His tone was steady, factual, as if stating an undeniable truth.

“The power it must have taken to seal your abilities so deeply…” he trailed off, a hint of reluctant admiration slipping into his voice. For the briefest moment, it was as if he was genuinely impressed by the sheer force it must have required to bury her magic so completely.

The problem was, Isera didn't recognize the words he was using. Out of the two, she vaguely recognized elgar'vhen'an,because she knew that, separately, elgar meant "spirit" and vhenan meant "heart." But when strung together, they formed something just out of reach, layered with meanings she couldn’t grasp.

She felt as if she was standing at the edge of understanding, the pieces so near, but the whole just beyond her comprehension. The elven language was like that, with words that shifted and twisted, a frustrating way of layering meanings—similar, yet distinct enough that they could easily shift depending on context. And in this context, she felt lost, unable to untangle the true significance of what he was saying.

Isera's brow furrowed, confusion flickering across her features as she clung to the words he spoke, each one foreign yet laced with a familiarity she couldn't quite grasp. "Era’nas’danal... elgar'vhen'an," she repeated under her breath, the words heavy on her tongue, as if tasting them for the first time. Her lack of understanding only seemed to deepen the mystery.

"Whether you're genuinely ignorant or willfully blind to your own power," he said, his eyes locked on hers, as if peeling back layers of her defenses. His gaze was sharp, unyielding, a silent demand for answers she wasn't ready to give. "The seal on your magic—it’s been fraying, threads unraveling beyond your control. The most intricate bindings snapped a week ago, the moment we found you back where we first met." He paused, his head tilting slightly, eyes narrowing like he was searching for the truth in the way her breath hitched or her gaze faltered.

"You were trying to go through the eluvian," he said, his voice a low hum that seemed to reverberate with certainty. Each word felt like a stone dropped into a still pond, sending ripples through her composure. "When the seal finally gave way, it didn't just crack—it sent a shudder through the Fade itself, shaking the very bones of this fortress."

He paused, his eyes still fixed on her, the intensity of his gaze never wavering. “Felassan has taken quite an interest in you,” he continued, his voice calm but laced with suspicion. “He claims you’re not a spy, even after we found you attempting to escape—despite showing no inclination to flee before.” His words felt like they were circling her, wrapping tighter with each passing second, even though he remained mere inches from her. Isera clung to the bedpost, her grip tight, her face a mix of confusion and shock as she stared up at him, her thoughts a tangled mess.

Isera shook her head, instinctively denying his accusation, her eyes wide with confusion. Her mind flooded with memories of that day—the day after she had tried to connect to the power the elder claimed lay dormant within her. The disorienting flashes and the suffocating sense of being untethered washed over her again, as vivid as when it first happened.

She remembered desperately trying to stay grounded, clinging to the techniques that had worked before. She wasn't trying to escape; she was searching for something—anything—that could anchor her, to keep her from losing her grip on reality. Her eyes flickered back to Solas, the confusion in her gaze now mingled with a quiet plea for him to understand.

It was the pull of home, the unshakable desire to return to a place that felt real and solid. She'd convinced herself that if she could just find her way back to the mirror, she could step through it and make this... nightmare, this distorted reality, end. Isera didn't even know how she managed to find the mirror again; it was as if some unseen force was guiding her, urging her down the path where this entire maddening journey began. She hadn’t been trying to escape; she was trying to go home.

"I—" she hesitated, the word sticking in her throat, fear threading through her voice. "I was trying to go... home." The word "home" slipped out like a confession, barely louder than a whisper, carrying the weight of longing and despair that seemed to tremble in the air between them.

His eyes narrowed, a mix of disdain and disbelief flashing across his features. The way she acted—her confusion, the way she struggled with the words he spoke, and what he seemed to believe was feigned ignorance—only deepened his suspicion. "And where is home?" he asked, his voice edged with a sharp skepticism that cut through the air like a blade.

Isera paused, her breath catching as doubt flickered across her face. The truth sat like a weight on her tongue, heavy with implications she wasn't sure she was ready to voice. Was it wiser to lie, or would honesty do more damage? "A small village on the coast..." she began, her voice barely a whisper, her eyes locked on his, searching for any sign of softness. But all she found was the fire in his gaze—anger and frustration flaring like lightning in a storm. His lips parted as if he was about to lash out, to confront her with words sharpened to wound, but she pressed on before he could speak, her voice steadying just enough to hold his attention. "...in the country of Rivain."

Frustration still etched across his features, his anger gave way to a flicker of confusion, his brow furrowing as he struggled to piece together her words. His sneer curled slowly, disbelief twisting his lips. "There is no such place," he snapped, his eyes drilling into hers as though he could force the truth out with sheer will alone.

Her breath trembled, and a tear slipped down her cheek before she could catch it. "Not... yet," she whispered, the words almost lost in the space between them, her voice cracking under the weight of what she couldn’t say. She didn’t try to stop the tears that followed, each one tracing a path down her face, unbidden and unhidden.

Solas's eyes flickered ever so slightly, widening in a brief moment of shock crossing his usually controlled features as her words sank in. He took a step back, still holding her gaze, his eyes searching hers as if trying to dissect the truth from her expression. For a brief moment, something shifted in his eyes—a flicker of what looked like acceptance, a begrudging acknowledgment of her sincerity.

His head began to shake slowly, a contemplative expression settling over his face, as though he was processing this new revelation in a way even he didn’t expect. Without another word, he turned on his heel and left the room, his movements smooth and deliberate. He leaves her standing there in silence.

As he crossed the threshold of her room, the door shut behind him briefly glowed with a sharp, magical hum—a clear sign of a spell sealing it shut. Isera didn’t need to test it to know—it had been locked by magic.

[first-flower-of-my-house]

hi! 6, 13, and 14 for the DA hype asks??

Thanks for the ask!!

6. Do you have your Rook(s) planned out to any degree? If so, would you share some details or ideas you have?

I’m currently tossing around ideas of a Veil Jumper elf mage named Kaylin, and a Qunari warrior named Rhaenyra (not sure what faction for her yet). No clue who either will romance yet!

13. What's one thing you've seen confirmed so far that you're a fan of?

The fact that Solas and the Inquisitor’s stories are linked has me absofuckinglutely feral I’m not gonna lie

14. What's one thing you've seen confirmed so far that you're NOT a fan of?

“Ancient elves go bald after a thousand years” stupidest new lore yet lmao