#ameridan:verse:wintersbreath

[skyheld]

“You insist that you know me”, Ameridan says, gazing into the chaos of Hakkon’s eyes, the glacial storm of whites and blues. “Yet if you did, you would know that before I was a commander I was a Fade-hunter, trained to withstand beings such as you, and you cannot hope to snare me. I will not be coerced. I will not be tempted. I will not be forced. I am very tired of this, Hakkon, but you cannot even wear me down—you do not have time. Let me sleep. It is pointless.” The shape changes again. The face narrows, the body shrinks, becomes lean and straight-backed, wiry underneath the notched old-fashioned armour. Red hair falls in tangled knots from a braid that's been caught under a helmet. Spidery lines trace the high cheekbones and the straight nose, fanning out across gaunt cheeks. Oh, I know you, Hakkon says with Ameridan’s voice. Wars fought with magic and mind are still my wars. I have your face. It would not be a stretch to have your body too.

i don't think suicidal ideation is the right tw for this, because accepting death when you're dying isn't suicidal, but it's something in that vein so under the cut it goes. the other tws are lighter, I think.

Keeper Levinia has stopped fretting. Maybe that is how he knows.

She used to come into his tent every now and then to ask if he’d eaten, and how much. He'd reply, truthfully, and she’d say, ‘sounds like a stretch to call that eating’ and produce something she just happened to be carrying around—a flatbread fresh from the cookfire outside, some blueberries the gatherers had found that day, cold jerky from the august ram the hunters felled earlier. He’d take it because he knew she worried, and maybe for a mouthful or two he’d enjoy eating it. But then it would taste like nothing and the weariness would come and he would lie down with his back to her and sleep. It was all he really wanted, to sleep.

But she has stopped asking. She has brought the herbal tea that dulls the ache in his bones and some roasted chestnuts on a plate which she places on his bedside but doesn’t ask him to eat. She sits on the edge of his cot, watching his hands around the clay cup as though she’s not sure his strength is enough to hold it.

Maybe that is how he knows, because she knows.

“I received a letter from Sura—from ‘Dalish’”, she says, smiling slightly at the nickname. “It was dated a month ago, but all was well with her then. I hope things have not changed.”

These are troubled times. He remembers hearing the others speak of it, that the spirits are restless and the people, too. They have not told him much; no use bothering him, he supposes, when there is nothing he can do. “Was Skinner with her?”

“Always is.”

“Good.” He brings the cup to his face, let’s the steam warm his lips. “Send her my regards when you write back.”

“Would you add a few lines yourself?”

“No—not this time.” His writing is shaky now. She would notice.

For a while Levinia sits with him in silence. Outside the children are playing and he thinks that maybe later, if he feels stronger, he’ll come out and sit by the fire and maybe they will want to hear a story. In his heart he knows he’ll never have that strength, but it’s a nice thing to think about.

When his tires the cup lowers and she takes it from him, sets it half-full on the bedside table, and smooths out her Keeper’s robe as she rises. If she says anything when she leaves, Ameridan does not hear her. He has lain down with his back to her and fallen asleep.

He knows. And he isn't afraid.

It still seems like a heavy thing, dying.

————————————————————————————————————

Even she has given up on you. Pitiful.

Except he does not sleep, really.

The location the god-spirit has plucked from his mind this time, or which his mind has plucked from itself, is an army camp somewhere on the frontline of the Blight. The tent is small and clearly shared with others; it isn’t the Inquisitor’s tent but a commander’s, or several of them, their bedrolls separated by canvas to create tiny rooms. Everything is stained in mud, torn and threadbare. Ameridan sits by the fireplace in the center of the tent, dressed as though he just got out of his armour.

Opposite the fire, Hakkon lounges as if the foldable chair is a throne. His shape is that of an Avvar warrior, but it’s constantly shifting—he’s a war mage in blue paint, then a scout in hunting gear, then a thane with a pelt across his shoulders. He’s old and scarred, then young and unmarred.

Ameridan considers ignoring him, but he’s not so tired in the dream; his mind is as quick as it used to be. “It is not pitiful to face the inevitability of death.”

It is if there is another option.

“But there is no option. Not for me.”

Hakkon snarls and shifts in his chair, growing in size as he leans forward. Now a mighty warlord, a berserker perhaps, his face grows hard as though chiselled from rock.

You choose to give up.

“You insist that you know me”, Ameridan says, gazing into the chaos of Hakkon’s eyes, the glacial storm of whites and blues. “Yet if you did, you would know that before I was a commander I was a Fade-hunter, trained to withstand beings such as you, and you cannot hope to snare me. I will not be coerced. I will not be tempted. I will not be forced. I am very tired of this, Hakkon, but you cannot even wear me down—you do not have time. Let me sleep. It is pointless.”

The shape changes again. The face narrows, the body shrinks, becomes lean and straight-backed, wiry underneath the notched old-fashioned armour. Red hair falls in tangled knots from a braid that's been caught under a helmet. Spidery lines trace the high cheekbones and the straight nose, fanning out across gaunt cheeks.

Oh, I know you, Hakkon says with Ameridan’s voice. Wars fought with magic and mind are still my wars. I have your face. It would not be a stretch to have your body too.

“Get out of my mind!” Ameridan snarls, but the younger, prouder version of himself smiles a smile he never would have worn, gleeful and triumphant, and leans back in the chair in a way that makes him want to snap at him to sit up straight.

You cannot deny that this was you, once! You stood at the forefront of battle, commanding armies—

“I had to.”

You attended war councils. You shouted down generals for their poor tactics—

“I have not forgottten.”

You fought me, Hakkon says and silver shoots into his grey hair, the stolen face falls in onto itself, dark circles dig deep underneath its eyes. You were old and tired even then, yet you fought me, alone in that cold ruin.

“I remained myself.”

Did you? Creators, he does have a piercing gaze in those pale eyes.

Ameridan closes his fist around the small scar on his palm. Hakkon wears his lyrium brand on his forehead; here, in the dream, it is a void, a black sun burnt into his skin.

He looks older now, but younger still than when Ameridan last looked at his reflection. He has aged a century in those ten years since the Inquisition found him in the Frostback Basin. Death sits at the back of his eyes now. Death as an embrace, as rest at last.

There will come a day soon when he closes his eyes to sleep and it isn’t Hakkon waiting for him across the fire. Long ago it was said it would be Falon’din. Now he does not know who will be waiting, but he will take their hand regardless. He is not afraid.

Ameridan, Hakkon says and his face changes again. This is my last offer. I will make no attempt to take control of your mind. Your body will be yours. You will be strong again, and no longer in pain. I will aid you. Against that which is coming, you and I will both be needed and I can do little from here. I cannot return to my people. I am bound to you as you are bound to me. I have no choice. I WILL AID YOU.

“Do not use her face against me!” Ameridan snarls, standing up, and a storm rips the tent to shreds as his fury takes hold of the Fade. “Not hers! I know how to fight you, even here—I will slay you if it is the last thing I do, if you take me with you!”

Telana looks at him passively, her face, warm and beloved, but wrong—wrong the way Hakkon twsists it, wrong in this time and place. She looks down—and then off to the side, as though listening. Her eyes widen.

Trouble, she says, her voice shifting as her face does, back to the Avvar warrior. You are under attack. There is no time—accept my offer! You have to—

But Ameridan is hearing it too. Screams of shock and terror. Weapons clashing. A spell rupturing earth. He focuses on that, and wrenches himself awake.

Fire.

There's fire outside, black smoke seeping past the cabin door, a sickly reddish light through its cracks. Shrill, frightened screams. Battle-cries—those of elves and those of humans. Bandits or mercenaries, they could be either. Bandits rarely dare attack a Dalish clan, but these are troubled times and people are desperate. For mercenaries, it is only a matter of payment, and there is always someone who pays.

Even with the strength of desperation standing takes precious seconds. The room spins. He can’t find his staff. It should be in here, all his belongings are, but he can’t find it. His hands, then; there is magic left in them. He stumbles towards the cabin door, legs stiff from days of unuse; when he reaches it he falls towards it, his hand on the door latch so it opens.

Darkness has fallen outside, but it has turned into an inferno, red sky and black smoke, black shapes running in front of the flames. They've been taken by surprise. There's no organized defense, only scattered groups fighting for their lives.

"Hahren—" There's someone standing just outside the aravel. Gawin, one of the better warriors, out of the immediate battle and waiting here. To protect him? No, not when others are dying, that cannot be— "Hahren, go back inside, it isn't safe—"The blade of a greataxe slices through his throat cleanly. Two thuds when he hits the deck of the aravel: body and head apart.

Ameridan clings to the doorframe as the warrior steps over Gawin's body and towards him. He's too well-armed for a bandit. A mercenary, then. There's always someone who pays. He has to fight; there's no choice. He slumps when he takes one hand from the doorframe and holds it out, pulling at the Fade.

The force magic rippling through the air towards should have sent the mercenary flying backwards, tumbling over the prow to crash on the burning grass behind. But it's too weak. Magic comes too slowly to Ameridan's fingers, and unravels before it's at full power. The bandit stumbles backwards, and rights himself. The only harm done is that he's bitting his tongue, so when he steps forward again, his smile is red.

"If that's all the magic you can do", he says, "it's time to pray to those heathen gods of yours, knife-ear."

Ameridan's hand is still in the air in front of him.

The clan isn't helpless. They are strong in numbers and in skill. But this attack has been sudden, and the mercenaries haven't struck in desperation; this has been planned, they know what they're doing and are certain of winning. He sees the halla-keeper slain by the cook-fire. They do not care who carry weapons. They may not spare the children, either, or if they do they'll leave them to starve.

"Hakkon Wintersbreath", he says, stretching his fingers fully, "I accept your offer."

————————————————————————————————

HE IS HERE HE IS HERE HE IS HERE

Hakkon laughs at the words and the will weaving their way to him in the Fade, laughs as he takes the hand held towards him, laughs as the hand becomes his, bones and blood and skin and sinew wrapping around his spirit-being, HE IS HERE HE IS HERE HE IS HERE! There are ribs around his lungs, lungs around his breath; he moves by way of muscle, pulling and bending limbs; a spine shoots from his bone-encased mind, snaking nerves through tissue; a heart beats blood through his body; skin stretches soft and supple around everything. It is him, he is it; he feels the thousand sensation of being alive, air on his skin and smoke in his throat and the planks of a deck underneath hardened soles. He feels the pain of old age and old wounds, the frailty of long illness, and he laughs; the pain is life, life is pain; it blooms through him like blood in water, he is here he is here he is here.

In front of him, the mercenary has stopped in his tracks, shocked by the sudden change in his adversary: the cold laugh bursting from his lips, the calm, casual straightening from the slump against the doorframe. Hakkon is in no hurry. Between them the elven warrior lies dead, sword still clutched in his hand. A good blade, if not his weapon of choice. The spine protests when Hakkon bends to pick it up; the fingers are weak with hunger around the hilt, the shoulders unwilling to move into the correct position, and still he's laughing.

It is glorious to live. It is glorious to hurt. It is glorious to kill. He is here.

The sword does its work, splitting the bandit from waist to throat, but the battle-axe that clatters to the aravel's deck as he lies squirming in his innards will serve even better. There isn't quite enough muscle to lift it, let alone swing it, but no matter, Hakkon lifts it with spirit-strength, swinging it casually as he steps down the landing from the aravel, his feet finding scorched grass. He is h—

Hurry. A voice, a will, momentarily lost in the shock of possession, makes itself known. Hakkon grits the teeth inside the mouth. Throughout the clearing the elves are being pushed back, dying one by one and there is a want that isn't his to leap in and save them, save all of them that can still be saved. You promised to aid me. Aid me!

Well, he did promise that, and he does want to slaughter, and so— he let's the will carry him forward, breaking into a sprint.

The nearest mercenary turns to face him. Hakkon laughs, spins, swings, and misses. Ah—his reach is limited, he is not very tall. Nor does he have enough weight to counter that of the greataxe continuing its arc. His spirit-strength holds fast the shaft before it flies out of his hands, and instead his shoulder cracks, shifting out of its socket. The pain blazes white-hot, blinding him. Hakkon laughs at its searing fire, spreading from shoulder and out into the arm, up towards the base of the skull; but at the back of his mind he feels Ameridan wince from it and remembers his promise: you will no longer be in pain. He cannot take it away entirely, but he can dull the pain for now, make it bearable.

He does so, and wrenches the shoulder back into place.

The rest is glory. It is revelry, it is life. He is here. Despite some difficulties with the new body, the bandits are no challenge, though they entertain. He wishes he could take his time, but to save as many of the elves as he can he must make quick work of most of the bandits, until they start running. Then they're fair game, then he can savour it. He is here.

He has run down one of the very last and killed her on the very edge of camp when he suddenly stumbles, the legs buckling underneath him. The body is trembling, little shivers all under the skin; the heart is beating frantically in an uneven rhythm. He puts a hand to his chest to calm it, but there is no doubt: if he goes on, he will do damage. The body cannot handle too much strain, even with his help. It will take time to build that strength again.

"Well", he says, "it was good for a first attempt."

Behind him, movement. One of the elves stand some twenty paces away from him, covered in blood and ashes, staff held in front of her not in fear but in preparation. Her face is set: angry, hurt, with an underlayer of fear.

"Ameridan", she says, "what have you done?"

The guilt that rushes into the chest isn't Hakkon's. Nor is the shame that follows after, or the grief, or the fear, or the self-hatred, or the regret. They aren't his, but he feels them all the same like a rising wave. They make him angry.

"What have I done?" he asks, forcing the legs to stand again, the back to straighten. "What have I done? I saved your pitiful clan, woman, I—"

He goes quiet. There is a will overpowering his, a will like a tidal wave, a will like the sun rising against night, and the body is no longer Hakkon's, the tongue no longer obeys. He is pushed and thrown down into the depth of their mind from where he cannot do anything.

Ameridan swallows, fists clenching and unclenching as he searches for words. A thousand apologies, a thousand pleas course through his mind and Hakkon's, but in the end, voice brittle yet calm, he says: "You know what I did, keeper."

She looks at him, and the shock, the disapproval, the fear in her gaze cuts deeper than any deathblow in Hakkon's memory. He wants to ask where is her gratitude, but Ameridan's will is a winter's worth of snow on the mountainside, keeping the mountain still, keeping him quiet. "You cannot stay."

He says, "I know."

There is more she wants to say, he can see it on her face, but her mouth tightens and her grip on her staff, and she turns away. Ameridan lets his body sink into the grass again. Hakkon isn't quick enough to catch it. They kneel, silent, in that storm of guilt and sorrow. Their body is still trembling.

We should eat, Hakkon says. We're hungry.

They lift the head together. "I suppose we are", Ameridan says.

[skyheld]

"You can't blame yourself." from asharen to ameridan

ASKBOX MEME 059 / ARCANE S02E07-09 | selectively accepting | @mercysought

It's the second time he leaves a place where he was meant to die.

Stands up on shaking legs, brushes the dust of time off his clothes and picks through the remains of his old life for things he needs to keep. There isn't much left, now. He gave most things away when he joined clan Lavellan, to the few friends he has made in the last ten years, or to the clan itself. He had no need or interest then in riches or treasure. Only a few keepsakes.

Some people watch as he comes out of the aravel. The last few weeks as his strength waned he left is more and more rarely, and while many come to visit him, there are some faces he hasn't seen in all that time --- faces of those he was never close to, or who felt too uncomfortable to sit in a room with a dying person, seeing the way life left him a little bit more each week. When he steps out now with a small pack slung over his shoulder and the staff in his hand, he stands straighter than they've ever seen him. There's strength in his legs, carrying him down the landing, and in the hand that holds his staff. His eyes are unclouded, his lungs draw deep the air of the forest around them. But he doesn't look at those faces, even the ones he loved most dearly. He's afraid they'll turn away.

And anyway, how can he ask for them to look at him? How can he deserve a heartfelt farewell from these people when he failed them so utterly? They took him in so he would be safe, so he would know peace. He risked their lives, allowing a demon to possess him. He brought them war.

Thanks to that they live, but he isn't sure that matters.

"I do not blame myself", he tells Asharen as they meet below the aravel's deck. She sees through him, of course, sees the guilt clawing at him from the inside, but it isn't blame. "I did what I did to save them. Now I live with the consequences. I just wish... I wish there'd been another choice."

Hakkon looking out through his grey eyes, seeing the things he sees and adding his thoughts and emotions to Ameridan's mind, blurring them both. Hakkon coming to him that night when the clan was attacked, Hakkon's strength in his dying body, Hakkon tearing their enemies to shreds, laughing with Ameridan's voice but not his laugh, not his joy in the killing.

He wishes the others didn't have to see it. That they didn't have to look at him now and know that the one they called hahren and bestowed the name of their clan is an abomination. That his back is straight and his hands strong and that he stands in the sunlight again because something else is standing with him.

Ameridan Talvas Lavellan, he was for a while. But he cannot use that name anymore.

"We should be off", he says. A little further away, others are waiting for them to catch up. New faces, but they seem like good people. The one they call Rook has put together a capable group. Harding. He'll need to tell her too when they reach their sanctuary.

He's not sure if it's grief or shame that wells up and fill his eyes with tears, but he turns quickly, lowering his head to brush them away. He wanted to stay here. He didn't want to die, but he was ready to let it happen as he knew it would; he got the peace he always yearned for, and if it had to end, at least it would end in the best way possible. But now all that is different, and that peace is gone.

You are making this so much harder than it is. Hakkon has been quiet in his mind, and now that he speaks it sounds like mockery. And yet he is right in a way. Staying here, thinking about what he's walking away from makes the walking harder. He needs to just leave. Without another word he brushes past Asharen and joins the others, giving a single nod of his head when Rook asks if he's ready for the walk to the nearest eluvian, if those are all his things, is he is alright---

But before they've reached the edge of the camp, where signs of recent battle are still visible, blood drying brown in the grass where Hakkon's battleaxe tore throats and chests open, someone cries out behind them. A girl has escaped her parents' vigilant eyes and come running, calling his name.

Elirin. She's lost two front teeth since last he saw her. When he was strong enough to sit by the fire and tell stories, she'd ask for ones with Da'harel in them, then curl up with her head on his leg and pretend to be a very small wolf while he spoke. Now she wraps her arms around his legs and sobs into them until he manages to untangle himself from her grip so he can crouch down and hug her properly. Her parents wouldn't want him to. They'd worry about the demon. But he can't push her away, and he knows there is no danger.

She's holding a straw hat, like the ones the members of the clan make for themselves and to sell. At first he thinks she must have just been working on it when she saw him leave --- it's clearly her handiwork, childish and clumsy and therefor lovely --- but she presses it into his hands.

"Oh", he says, as his hands close round the brim. "Is it for me?"

She nods, her face set with determination.

There clearly is no fighting that. He would hurt her if he tried to decline. Blinking away more tears he takes the hat and puts it on --- it's a little large, probably not made for him to begin with, but it stays in place if he's careful. There are places where the straw sticks out and places where the woven pattern breaks. He loves it. One of the adult's perfectly crafted hats wouldn't have filled him with as much love as this one. "Thank you", he says, voice brittle. "That should keep me safe from the sun in Antiva."

Satisfied, Elirin turns to run back to her parents. Ameridan straightens up. The straw hat casts a shadow over his face until he turns back to the others, facing the sun.

Ameridan Talvas Lavellan. Maybe he keeps the name, at least for now.

"I'm ready", he says, and this time he feels it. "Let us go."

[skyheld]

@mercysought petitioned a very benevolent and humble god

"I thought our meeting overdue, Asharen Frost-thaw."

Cold and callous Hakkon watches the Fade-scarred lady who healed the sky, heart hammering with emotions not his own. Ameridan's spirit is strong even when he slips into the background of their being, listening but not leading; what he feels Hakkon feels, a faraway fire in the depths of them. The heart that isn't his beats with the fear that she will be unforgiving. The hands wants to close around the prayer that she will understand. The head wants to bow while it waits for judgement. The mouth wants to say, again: I am sorry I had to do this. I am sorry you must see me this way.

Yet Ameridan remains silent, as promised, down in the depths of them. Asharen must know who it is she is working with now --- both of them. It is Hakkon who watches the woman who once killed him through pale, piercing eyes, and Hakkon who lifts the head instead of bowing it, mouth set in an insolent quirk.

"I must, at least, apologize." (He feels Ameridan stir in surprise at this, but if he hopes Hakkon would beg forgiveness for his actions, he will be disappointed.) "In my dragon's-pride, ages bound, I did not consider you a worthy foe. I should have challenged you to duel."

A duel? You were a dragon, Ameridan says in his mind. Do not use my mouth to speak nonsense.

[skyheld]

"I can see through your tricks." from asharen to ameridan/hakkon

MEME TAG | SELECTIVELY ACCEPTING | @mercysought

"This is the Dreadwolf's doing, I take it", Hakkon says as he pushes an awl through the thick leather of the coat, making a hole for the needle to follow with its red string. "He lied to you, so you learnt to see lies in plain truths. He tricked you, so now you feel tricked when you aren't. You spook at shadows, Frost-thaw."

He sits on the edge, thin legs dangling over the abyss that surrounds the Lighthouse, the gaping maw of the Fade swirling underneath. In his lap, a coat of bear hide, dyed a greyish blue, with the fur on the inside for warmth. It was a gift from the Avvar of Stone-bear Hold and has seen some use lately even here in the north. At the outpost of the dwarves of Kal-Sharok high up in the mountains, where frigid winds blew and snow lay deep as home, a seam was partly torn.

A small thing, easily mended. Ameridan said no word of it when they returned to the Lighthouse; he laid the coat aside to deal with on the morrow and went to sleep. Yet Hakkon needs not sleep, and though the body needs rest he has leave to rise from the bed and find somewhere else to rest, some small activity to perform --- something that will not hinder its recovery but will give him a chance to live the world as his own. Maybe you could read, Ameridan told him, dryly, knowing Hakkon does not read. He is a spirit, used to watching and listening and existing with nothing substantial in his hands, he needs nothing to do.

But he saw the coat draped over the back of a chair and he took it outside.

It is a strange thing, mending. War doesn't mend, it tears, but it comes to him quite easily. He wonders if the knowledge is in Ameridan's hands, but more likely it comes from the Avvar, loom-weavers and skin-stitchers, who prayed him into being. This is armour, after all. Armour-makers, leather-workers, blacksmiths; they are all part of war.

He supposes, from the outside, it looks wrong. Using this body while its true owner sleeps. Perhaps she thinks he's trying to win someone over, doing chores; that this is some attempt to gain sympathy or trust.

She needs not trouble herself, but this he has learnt of Ameridan --- he has something which makes people want to trouble themselves over him. Some quality that makes them care. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that he cares. Hakkon would not know. War does not care.

"I would say I am what you see. But you see an enemy, and that I am not." Not now. "All gods are not liars, Frost-thaw, because all of yours have been."

[skyheld]

nobody'd ever told me that before. that i could be good. // from émilie to hakkon probably about gatt

the silt verses, pt. 1. | accepting | @mercysought

What a strange thing to tell a god.

Hakkon is used—insofar as he is used to anything, being so new to this world—to deep suspicion from the lowlanders, and to worship from those of his own people he has yet to meet. And so it has always been, in previous bodies, and when he has been called on in his domain in the Fade and by the Avvar's mages. He is not the sort of god one approaches with personal woes. He is petitioned for aid in warfare—for strategy, for blessings and for sheer strength—and no one lesser in power than a thane will be graced with a reply. He has never been invited to... small talk.

Yet this strange lowlander mage is not asking for anything, Not for power, not for advice on how to defeat her foes, not for confirmation that he is merely a demon pretending to be a god. For what reason she is telling him this he cannot tell, but it is not the usual.

And what is he to do with it? He isn't sure; he shrugs, looking directly at her with the pale gaze of Ameridan's eyes. "And so? Do you wait for someone else to tell you what you can and cannot be? Will you never exceed their expectations?" He should simply try to take control of this body, then; turn fully into the abomination they fear and slaughter his way through the palace. No one has ever told him he could be good, and is he not? Well, is he not at least trying?

"You are no spirit", he says, although the Fade clings to her like cobwebs. "You surely need not wait for change to come to you."

[skyheld]

"What tale will you have tonight?" from storylover Faust @witchsabre for Ameridan

THE BEAR & THE NIGHTINGALE | accepting | @witchsabre

If day and night passed at the Lighthouse like it does anywhere else, it would be dark by now and the stars, such as they may be in the Fade, would be out. Dinner is over, the table has been cleared and dishes washed. Hakkon, for once, is pleased that they've eaten well, quiet and complacent like a cat who tricked its owner into feeding it twice. It makes it easier for him to keep them together when they do the bare minimum to stay healthy.

It is the right time for fireside stories, then. No matter the place, no matter the age, this seems universal; nighttime is for tales spoken low to the flames, or songs sung under the breath. Some of the others retreat to their own rooms, but a few do gather; coffee is brewed to perfection, as are four types of tea in individual cups. For a while they chat over their cups, continuing discussions from the dinner table, until they go out.

In a break in the conversation, Faust looks at Ameridan and asks: "What tale will you have tonight?"

He brings the teacup to his lips, drinks to give himself time—he wasn't ready for it to be his turn to pick. Before he can decide, something makes him frown, and tilt his head down as though to listen to something very close—a voice whispered in his ear, though there's no one there to whisper.

"Of course you want that", he says under his breath. "But they asked me, not you." A pause. "Fair enough. They have never asked you." His gaze returns to Faust, expression somewhere between apologetic and slightly amused. "Hakkon wants to hear a story about your first battle. Or your first kill. Whatever is more interesting, I suppose." He thinks for a moment, tapping the side of his teacup with his finger. "I would ask for a tale where things are solved peacefully. Your pick."

[skyheld]

@theodosiani petitioned a very benevolent and humble god

The shift is subtle until it isn't.

It's only halfway through dinner when Ameridan pushes his plate away and slumps back in his chair, withdrawing from the conversation around the table. This is nothing unusual; he eats little and tires early, even with a spirit giving strength beyond what should have been the end.

But a moment later he shakes himself, straightening, and pulls the half-finished plate closer again. His posture has changed. Casual and careless now, one elbow on the table, he shifts one leg to fall over the side of his chair instead of the front.

Why should the war-god not be comfortable? it is not as though he can hide his eyes alight, spirit setting flesh afire.

"Well? Continue the story, teller", Hakkon demands when the silence stretches stringlike, eyes on the mage across the table. "He is still listening, lest you think him so rude as to leave a tale half-heard. He says he is done eating, I say we are not. So I shall eat for the both of us. I wish to hear of your death-magic, how you bested the barons."

[skyheld]

Hakkon quirks a brow.

"Lesser?" he echoes, holding up a slender hand, spotted with old sunlight, as though to look at it anew. "In stature, perhaps. In raw strength. I can fell fewer foes then I did in my last body, it's true. But i am not lesser."

The hand is warrior's hand, but not one he would have chosen to wield. Those narrow fingers have never held a greataxe before and are too weak now to do it without spirit-strength in the sinews. Hakkon was a more fearsome foe when the Dreadwolf last met him, scale-slick and winter-winged, tail a lash and a spear in his frost-fury. And yet...

"War is more than bodies on the battlefield", he says. "I slew thousands in that form, yet I was dragon-bound, chained to her fury... I am more now, while this body holds. Perhaps that is why I see you clearer now." He looks at the Dreadwolf in the dim greyness of the prison, and wonders how he ever thought him fangless. "Then I saw the figurehead, fate and Fade in their hand, but not the true threat behind. Dragon-eyed, all I saw was prey, for to a dragon all things are prey until they meet the one that kills them."

His had been the command to find and bind her, and to call him across the Veil to fill her flesh with frost and beat her wings with war. But her wrath had been greater than he had expected. Her will he could quench, her spirit he fought down but her wrath became his before he knew it. Only when reborn could he see what he lost in her mind. Sense. Honour. When released from the binding spell, weak and bewildered, he could have gathered his remaining followers and fled, north to nurse wounds and numbers until they were ready to strike again. But he had not. He saw no strategy. Like the dragon frightened and furious deep inside her mind, he wanted only to kill.

"I wonder if it is the opposite for you", he says, mouth a snarl at the wolf's lunge. "What did you lose to stand taller than you did then?"

War has become him so utterly, so completely, that he scarcely notices its approach. Its drum has beaten without relent, without rest, since he was inflicted upon the world. Its rhythm is that of his very heart within his chest.

And, as always, he rises to face it.

(He has no other choice).

It wears a different face than he remembers. A face that ought to have been allowed to rest, and yet, like so many of the People, is called to violent purpose. Again, and again, and again. He smiles to see it, though it stretches like a ghost across his face.

"Perhaps it is a matter of perspective- you are lesser now than you were then, after all," he suggests. "Though I have said before that lies are inherent to the lives of every apostate, or at least every successful one. Can there ever be honesty in a world that penalises truth?"

He is no god, but if he were, what better patron than apostates? Liars and tricksters, all, neither part of the world nor separate from it, tethered in some liminal nowhere that has always been his fate. Allowed to touch community, to feel its warmth as one feels sunbeams on the skin, but to never become it.

Solas bristles at the observation. His right hand makes a fist, the left bending to cradle it behind his back.

"I have lived in a cage since before you were a dream in the Avvar's eyes," he seethes, fist trembling behind his back. "Those centuries you spent, impotent, waiting for more capable hands to free you, are but the bat of an eye compared to what I have lived.

"It seems even war breeds complacency. But fear not, Lord of Winter."

Over his right eye, an old scar burns, hot with the memory of his own blood. And hers.

"I will free myself."

[skyheld]

AMERIDAN:VERSE:WINTERSBREATH

VEILGUARD COMPANION VERSE.

Around the time of Solas' ritual, Ameridan has been living with clan Ghilain in northern Orlais for about a year. While he tried to stay in the fight for as long as he could, he no longer has the strength do it; he is, at this point, actively dying, and he knows it. Shortly after the ritual, Keeper Levinia sends a message to the Inquisitor, saying that his health has deteriorated; he barely eats and no longer leaves his bed. She’s seen many old (older) people on their deathbed. This is it. The message is forwarded to Harding, not only because they know each other but also because of its second part: Levinia is also asking for help to defend the clan against bandits, displaced in the chaos after the failed ritual.

Rook will find an eluvian leading to the clan's location. It has just been attacked, but the bandits have all been slain --- cut down mercilessly by someone extremely powerful. As Keeper Levinia points out Ameridan sitting solitary on the outskirts of camp, suspiciously well for someone who was supposed to be dying, she explain that he saved their lives --- and that he has to leave, now. While she has promised the Inquisition she would keep him safe as he lived out the last months of his life in her care, things have changed. She never agreed to harbour an abomination.

Once approached, Ameridan will explain what happened. When Solas attempted his ritual, the disturbance was felt throughout Thedas. That was when Hakkon Wintersbreath, the Avvar god of war who was his enemy so long ago, appeared to him in his dreams. Killed by the Inquisitor a decade prior, Hakkon has been reborn from the prayers of the Avvar, but while powerful he is still unstable. He was drawn not to his worshipers, but to someone he had an even stronger connection to — eight hundred years caught in the same spell. Feeling the Veil weaken and the Fade shiver and maybe the awakening of powers beyond his own, he made an offer.

Ameridan refused it multiple times. Each time it was made more favourably for him --- more desperate from Hakkon. He kept refusing until the clan was attacked, at which point he finally accepted, and took Hakkon's spirit into his own body to give himself his strength back. Now the Keeper wants him gone, and he has no reason to stay. He's strong enough to fight again, and will offer Rook to become a companion. When you go to war against the gods, what better ally than a god of war?

MISC.

he combines his own force and nature magic with Hakkon's skills as a two-handed warrior.

his 'room' at the lighthouse

on the avvar gods

on the deal with hakkon

PERSONAL QUEST TBA.

while Ameridan is too old and, frankly, too stubborn to be easily moved by a single person's decisions, Hakkon as a newly formed spirit is more susceptible to change. If the people around him --- namely the Veilguard and their allies --- are honourable, just and kind, Hakkon will remain so, and honour the deal he made with Ameridan. If, however, they lie, break promises, and use underhanded methods, Hakkon may become more ruthless, and perhaps tempted to break his promises and take control.

[skyheld]

"I suppose", he repeats, voice hard with an edge of annoyance. He is not used to speaking to someone so unwilling to bend. Ameridan was the same, but need drove him to accept what Hakkon offered at last—how long until such need presents itself to the Inquisitor? How many questions will he be expected to answer, how many barbs traded? He is not made for arguments. He commands, demands, suggests, advises; however he does it his words are followed, because he is a god, because that is what it is to be a god. His people understand this. They understand that for there to be godhood there must be worship, that power flows in two directions, and there must be an exchange.

He'd have thought a Dalish elf would understand that better than most lowlanders, but he sees now he was wrong. All she can see is her own gods betraying her. She could easily have new ones, but she will not accept that, will she?

"I am able to put old grudges aside. That should come as no surprise", he says. He would not be sitting here, like this, if that was not the case. He would have taken possession of Ameridan's body by force, and he would either have failed and been cast out, or succeeded—and he would not have been here if he'd succeeded. "But if I were in you position, and I decided you were untrustworthy, then I would indeed strike you down—regardless of whose face you wore." And that is the issue, was it not? Had he taken some stranger, an Avvar mage gladly accepting his request, she would have fought him, fought them.

"This is futile, then. You will not trust me, so you question me, but you do not trust the answers. How can I earn your trust, if not by speaking? By leaving him? Is that the only way?"

He stands up. Slowly, careful not to seem threatening, he turns his back on her and walks towards the fireplace, feeling its heat on his skin. His back is straight, his head held high, his steps are even and measured. There's colour on his cheeks, and they're filling out a little—this has always been a narrow face, as it has always been a lean body, but there is more substance to it now than there was. There is strength in the way it moves, the way it stands, the way it breathes.

Yet he turns around again, and the firelight deepens the hollows under his eyes. "Do not be fooled by what you see." His voice deepens, sinking like snow on a mountain at night, softening the sharp ridges of the cliffs. "We stand here because of me. We breathe and move and fight because of me. I have returned a little strength to this by eating well and because my healing allows it to exercise, but it is negotiable, and there is also strain—the battles take as much as I give or more. All the rest is me, and it will not stay unless I do. Do you understand? When I leave he dies, Frost-thaw. Not in a year, nor in half a year. He dies."

His eye twitches, and the woman in front of him becomes blurry. In surprise he raises a hand to wipe at the corner of his eye. Then he holds his hand in front of his face, looking at the salt moisture on the tip of his finger, intrigued and uneasy. How... disconcerting.

"Forget my people, you do not know them. He wanted a peaceful death. The god you love has made that a near impossibility. Let him have one that matters."

   "You suppose?" she repeats, her brow arching. Her back rests against the chair and she keeps her growing exasperation for the other from spilling fully into her expression and voice. She wished, truly wished, she could still believe like she had during Inquisition. That all that joined her ranks and attempted to aid her were doing it from the goodness of their hearts but both Solas' agents and the Antaam had made it clear that trust could only lead them so far.

They needed to be lean, and they needed to be intelligent, intelligent enough that if they were to take a risk on more, close, allies then that the leaking of information would not come with the potential side effect of more deaths on their hands. She trusted Ameridan with her life, Hakkon? He had the single grace that without him her family wouldn't be alive. She trusted him as far as he had shown for his actions that he should be trusted.

And that was: at an arm's length "If you were in my position, can you truly tell me that you would you have even allowed me to speak, Hakkon? Or is it more likely that you would have struck me down the second I stood in your sights?"

And perhaps she was wrong. But were he to be Inquisitor (a thought she had no joy in having, even in passing) and she had been the dragon that had nearly killed her not even a decade ago, what would his reaction have been? She thought that distrust had been more than earned.

   "It does not matter if I like the contents of your answers or not. You may do as you please." she answers, clipping her voice to the strictly necessary as her eyes narrow "I just want to understand who I am dealing with. You know as well as I that lying to me would not be beneficial."

And she didn't think he was lying to her. Not outright. Her lips turn into a thin line and she feels the weight of the fatigue roll on her shoulders when he asks his question. The answer was disappointing, but not surprising. Asharen stands seated for a moment, digesting the answer, her brass hand coming to rest on the arm of her chair.

   "I cannot say for certain." she had a few good educated guesses of what might happen given what she knew about the structure of the Veil. What she knew about the Fade as a whole. And what she knew about their own world and how it interacted with the breaches. Her light blue eyes look down to her own hand, holding her breath "But I have my thoughts as to what would happen to your... people was Fen'harel to be successful. And to other spirits beyond the Veil."

Or to people like him and Ameridan. She had a clearer idea of what might happen to her. The thought gave her chills. She could only hope that it would not come to pass. Or that she was deeply, completely wrong.

[skyheld]

Hakkon does not like to consider what he comes from, what he's once been.

He is ancient, as the former Hakkon was ancient, as the Avvar have prayed to him since ancient times and shaped him with their faith. Yet he died but ten years past, and has been alive again only for one or two. If he thinks about, he could not have sprung from the Fade fully formed in such a short time; he has come from somewhere, something, someone. A spirit, an ordinary spirit, which found itself or made itself a vessel for those prayers. War. Valor. Victory. He does not know what he were once, and he does not want it to matter. Whatever he has once been, he is now Wintersbreath. Surely it is so.

The Inquisitor's distrust tugs at him. His brows draw closer together, his jaw sets. If she refuses to trust him, why should he keep being honest? If she won't show gratitude, why should he give her a reason to be? Yet underneath the surface, Ameridan is still listening and his thoughts soften Hakkon's, not by anything he tells him but by their very nature. There's admiration there for her stoicism in the face of something so strange; there is approval of her line of questioning, there is a soft, sad joy that she is glad that he lives; there's the relief that she doesn't hate what he has become. Hakkon can tell these emotions from his own, but he still feels them. It blunts the edges of his anger.

"I suppose you are right, it would be foolish not to question it", he says, features smoothing out as he leans back in his chair again. "But any question you ask is pointless if you do not trust the answer. I have been forthcoming, have I not? You ask and I answer. You do not like the answers. Shall I then change them? Shall I you what you expect to hear?" He is perhaps exaggerating how forthcoming he has been, and yet—he has not lied to her, not once.

He thinks her focus lapses for a moment, as she concentrates on something else. There is something odd about her. Some spell constantly in effect. Perhaps it is nothing more than a protective barrier to keep her from harm.

The question makes him turn his face away, his gaze once again passing across the room, the Dreadwolf's lair from which he planned and ran his rebellion. It is a good question. He means to free the spirits of the Veil, that is what they say. They would roam free the way they did once; the physical world would be within their grasp. The spirits know this, they want this.

"Would I benefit from it?" he asks. "What would happen to my people? They worship me because I can reach from across the Veil to touch them; would they do the same if they could reach so easily back?" It is not the true reason, and it is. There is a limit to his honesty.

It made her wonder, truly, what had once been the nature of this spirit. Common wisdom related to spirits told them that spirits were often manipulated, its nature changed by this waking world. Some were of the opinion that it was the world itself, others about the influence of those living in it that made spirits twist into their nature and sink into the darkest parts of themselves. Asharen was no expert; apart from making sure to not tip such aspects whenever she stood in the fade, keeping her mind calm, she didn't know much about where spirits came from and if their nature was truly quite so mutable and which strings of influence pulled it.

However, it did always surprise her, that for such old, immaterial, powerful beings that the concept that their short livespans was what made their hard earned, generational passing, long living wisdom all the most valuable... It surprised her more than it likely should. Hakkon liked to talk, and despite not liking what she heard, it was useful, it was good that she learnt as much as possible about him.

It might give them an edge, were they to need it.

It says that you a predator, an opportunist, and one that will push until another is backed into a corner. A scavenger too. An albatross atop Ameridan's shoulder. She let's it roll off her shoulders; it told her plenty, but it told her that despite all the sacrifices that Ameridan had gone through already that if more difficult and impossible choices were to come his way, that he would still make the right call in the end, the one that benefited and protected the ones that needed it the most: even if it came at a deep, steep personal cost.

She only hoped, if circumstances came to pass and she found herself facing a similar, hard choice, that she might make the right one.

   "Me?" she asks, the confusion allowed to spill over her freckled face, pulling at her brows and twisting her face. Why should my own personal feelings weight on your answer to my question? "Of course I am glad that he lives. But to not question it would be foolish."

She could say that being suspicious was her job, as Inquisitor her inner circle was smaller for a good reason (and her mended broken heart was another) - but that would have been a cheap lie and so she doesn't say it. Perhaps he was right; she was not giving him the benefit of the doubt. But that too was for good reason: he had preyed on the deepest fears and circumstances, the fragility of one that she loved dearly. He didn't deserve it.

Her brow remains quirked as he finally answers - it might be deeper than that. Given the nature of the fade and the intricacies of the nature of spirits after being pulled from hosts, especially strong enough, she wasn't sure if he could have picked another host. Truthfully, Asharen was beginning to suspect exactly because of the ritual that they both had been bound to for so long... that Hakkon likely didn't have much of a choice.

   "Drawn to him." she repeats, her lips twisting for a second as she nods. She reaches towards the barrier of the well, the question at the tip of her tongue, the whispers are loud but nothing jumps out and so she pulls back immediately. Her jaw tenses, a chill holding the back to her neck, a tenderness settling in the back of her ear. Her flesh hand comes to rest against it, her body allowed to relax for the moment. Pressing against the runes, she looks to Hakkon "Why help me? Would you not benefit from the Dread Wolf's goal?"

[skyheld]

@theharellan petitioned a very benevolent and humble god

It is easy for Hakkon to slip between the many-folded furrows of the Veil and find the Dreadwolf down deep in his lament-cage, burden-bound, sorrow-scourged. When his host sleeps he is free to go where he wills, taking the body or not. Down here no body goes, the border cannot be crossed physically, and on the way he considers shedding the form of the elven mage and take on one more familiar, wear the warrior of windblown mountains, or the augur scrying his sacred skies. But the form clings, like clothing tied by a too-worried mother, like war-paint slathered too generously, then left to dry for too long. He enters the prison with a curious side-step, trying to slip out, but finding that it follows.

Ah, well. No matter. War has a thousand and a thousand more faces, and Hakkon wears them all. The grieving father, grave-bent, keening; the orphan fearing the face of her foe. This one, too, he knows. The old commander, worn and wearied, forced to fight once more. He walks proud in that shape, wearing a smile it has never worn.

"You seemed smaller back when you killed me, Dreadwolf", he says by way of greeting, voice his filling the vast Fade-space. It is a good voice, deep and resonant; it carries well. He uses it more liberally than its true owner. "A Dreamer, dull and dreary, staff-bent and sullen. Had I looked closer, would I have seen this then, the cunning trickster?"

Perhaps he had seen. He remembered, after all, when most of the others had faded. Perhaps in his arrogance and anger, awakened after ages bound, Hakkon had only ignored what stood before him.

"Though not so cunning after all, for here we stand in reverse. Infuriating, is it not? To be trapped and trammeled, caught is a cage of your own creation, all because you underestimated your foe. I know. So many times I wished I could stretch my dragon's neck and bite his head clean off his shoulders." He is not gloating, unless it's in the sense that he is always gloating, because the nature of war is to gloat over the defeated as it drags heavily across to the next border. He is, in his own way, sympathetic. Rebellion, too, is war. He has worn the face of the trickster, the traitor, the truthsayer.

"Fear not. One gets used to it."

[skyheld]

She is quiet, makes herself unreadable, and Hakkon finds himself curious about the thoughts she hides so closely. Her suspicion is obvious, her dislike understandable. He supposes her worry is justified, too, given what she knows about him, and what she probably believes about possession, being a Lowlander. But there is more; her tight-lipped smile hides deeper thoughts, more complex ones that what he can gauge from her questions. He wonders what they are.

He keeps his curiosity hidden from her as her thoughts are from him. Instead he leans back in his chair and studies the decorations around the circular room, the sweeping staircase leading to a landing from which corridors lead to other rooms, tapestries hanging down over the railing. When Ameridan looks around the room, his eyes land on certain details and brushes past others. Now, Hakkon chooses where to rest his gaze. There's nothing of particular interest, but a change of pace all the same.

"You people are so short-lived, years hardly matters for wisdom", he says, shrugging his narrow shoulders to show he doesn't care. He is no great judge of wisdom. Ameridan does not refer to himself as wise, but then he's humble to the point of exhaustion. "He was not wise enough to see the benefits of this arrangement, nor to refuse it when it became necessary. What that says, I cannot tell you." Or will not. His gaze returns to her face, studying it for a reaction.

One thing she does not try to hide from him—her pride in Ameridan's strength, her trust in it. Yet he raises an eyebrow at the suggestion that he's contradicting himself. "I see there is still no end to your suspicion, Frost-thaw. It is getting tiresome. Flattery is falsehood, what need have I of it? I speak truth. If all you see is flattery, the fault lies not with me."

He is still under her scrutiny, impassive, until her eyes land on his forehead and he has to think for a moment to remember what she sees. Ah, the mark. Another age, another sacrifice, another scar. By now it is second nature.

"Why Ameridan?" he repeats, mouth twisting into a sneer. "Why not Ameridan? He is alive, and here, and able to fight; why question it? Are you not glad?" They are alike, he thinks, flexing the hands, stretching them, taking note of the way the skin smooths and wrinkles depending on his movements. Not his hands, but his to use. They are alike, Asharen and Ameridan, in how they twist and turn themselves to hurt—making a wound out of such a simple solution. "You are familiar with the Fade. The way it binds, the way it pulls, the way it remembers. For eight hundred years the Fade shaped our prison—not through the Veil but through the magic drawn through and out of it, stitching time to place to make both unmoving. It remembers, as I do, as does he. Yes, I could have found a willing host; my people understand the honour. But I was drawn to him."

Asharen makes no comment about his comment; nor his belief that she would have been crushed were they to come to blows. It was likely, but she had no wish to linger on the image nor give him the satisfaction of such. It was odd, that he would feel such a way, that things turned out for the better at the end by having him die.

The Inquisitor does not need to ask if this had been one of the rules set forth by Ameridan; his face and tone had been enough to draw a conclusion about such. She wondered, though, what ever could he have gained by dueling her. Perhaps this satisfaction that was purely based off emotion. Or perhaps it was all about a way of exercising power: knowing she wouldn't want to hurt Ameridan and having him wear his body would put her on uneven footing to begin with. Perhaps it was not about that at all, perhaps it was simply to demonstrate that he was still this God, and that no one could defeat him - not truly.

He would need to keep wondering, Asharen grants him a single tight lipped smile. Who would have thought, that Hakkon's reigns and god like wants could be allowed or disallowed by a single elf? She keeps those thoughts to herself, not to antagonise him.

Though the thought of seeing Hakkon, in his dragon force, being flung into the wildest sections of the fade, did bring her some sort of twisted joy. Joy that is only reigned in because she knows that is not the reality they are in. Instead, she narrows her eyes, her face growing neutral once more "Ameridan truly is wiser beyond his years."

An agreement. An agreement strong enough that Hakkon was, for now, bound or compelled to follow. She could only wonder what were the implications and when they came to be tested, what would happen. I do not take control; he grants it. At that, her brow arches, shoulders straightening. We are speaking now because he wills it.

Wiser indeed, but perhaps this should not surprise her. The Inquisitor who had dealt with both Orlais at their strength and rallied the dalish in Orlais, such a feat was to be expected.

   "And you say you never flatter." she offers, with a small smile, her tone genuine. She could tell how much admitting such things must tear at him.

Interesting, he was not what she had initially expected and perhaps that was part of it too: lulling her and Ameridan into this false sense of security up until they pulled the rug. The Inquisitor studies him for a few moments longer, there were few words that could describe how uncomfortable it made her feel, watching him talk made her think of a fox crushing a rabbit's bones between their teeth. The feeling made no sense and yet the imagery was alive and well in her mind's eye. Light eyes fall on the glowing symbol of the sun, and then return to his eyes. Hakkon's.

   "Why Ameridan?" she finally asks though imagining she might know the answer "I'm sure you could have found a different, willing host?"

[skyheld]

The Inquisitor is uneasy. It's evident in the way she looks at him as though she hopes to see through him, see the person inside of him --- but she will not find him now. It's Hakkon who looks out through his pale eyes, setting the irises aflame in cold frost-fire and making the Chantry sun glow on his forehead. It's Hakkon who pulls the thin lips into a smile, shaking his head slightly.

"I never flatter." When has war ever flattered anyone? War drags people through the dirt of the battlefield and tosses them out either shattered into pieces or hardened into steel. Some may imagine themselves lifted to the heavens by it, having waged their war to take throne and crown, but such illusions fade swiftly. A throne washed in the blood of one's enemies will never lose its stains. A crown wrought from the bones of the slain will sit like a vice on one's brow.

"But fair enough, Frost-thaw", he says, leaning forward slightly, "it would have been an uneven fight. I would have crushed you, and the world would have suffered for it. It is for the best that you slew me then." Death angered him. He'd hated the Inquisitor when first he saw her, and he hated her even more as the death-blow fell, when life went out of his dragon-heart and he, bound to that great beast, felt his own being unravel like the threads of a ruined tapestry. He died as the dragon did, as he'd died many times before, in other shapes, other bodies, other wars.

But there is no anger now. She killed him fairly --- more than fairly, with her three companions against all his might --- and she saved the world. If she hadn't, it would have been the end of the Avvar and thus the end of Hakkon. It's expertly done.

"Still", he leans back again, "it is a shame. I wonder if we would be more evenly matched now, but unfortunately I am not allowed to duel you." Ameridan would make sure of that. So far he and Hakkon too were evenly matched in their minds, though there hadn't yet been a true battle of wills between them. They had a covenant. It had yet to be put to test.

This, he supposes, is what the Inquisitor fears. It's what she's looking for, studying his face --- Ameridan's face --- wondering if he's even still there. And if he is, for how long?

"We have an agreement", Hakkon replies evenly. "The terms are in his favour, because he is stubborn and refused me until both our hands were forced. I do not take control; he grants it." As he speaks, the brow creases, and lines deepen around the mouth. His acceptance of his terms, or even his offering of them, does not negate frustration. "We are speaking now because he wills it."

His face looked wrong. The way that Hakkon wore Ameridan made her feel uncomfortable, and she guessed that was part of the reason why he did it. It was Ameridan's voice, his face, yes. But that mean spirited quirk of the lips was enough to put her off the entire situation.

The concept of possession was not one that she was unfamiliar with. She had read some notes about some cases of possession that worked more like a parasite and host instead of a full, immediate take over. There was Cole, of course, whose existence wasn't so much possession of a living host but of remembering a living host too closely in hopes they could keep living through them. Morrigan herself was in a specific situation that was harder to place, not quite this either but being able to pull from knowledge and feelings that were not truly her own.

If Asharen truly wanted to stretch, she supposed her own situation with the Well of Sorrows could be seen akin to those two situations, however, she would truly need to be stretching to reach such a conclusion.

She is still watching him in silence as he apologises, her brow quirking lightly.

   "You are trying to flatter me." she hums, giving him a clipped smile, holding her brass hand over her flesh one, feeling the coldness of the metal against it. Which was saying something however, he would not be the first God trying to court her ego and she had had enough to those, elvhen, Avvari or otherwise for a lifetime "I am wiser than to fight a dragon one on one, or head-on, for that matter."

She pauses, her brows knitting together for a moment as she studies his face. When she had received the letter from Rook she had feared the worst and now? The fact of more, and more loss was going to continue being a constant in Asharen's life, she knew this, but it didn't mean she wished to see it come to fruition any swifter than necessary. That she saw him walking, that she knew he was in there? And yet to talk to Hakkon, the same dragon that they had slain so many years ago, how long until the tables turned and he would pull the rug from under them? Ameridan and her both.

   "How?..." she starts but her words disappear as she attempts to place her thoughts into line. She takes a good look at him again, lips strained into a line. She could only wonder, for now, given what she knew of Ameridan how much of a difficult thing this had been. If it had been a choice at all "How does it work? Between you and Ameridan."