#ameridan:verse:wintersbreath

[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]

"Tell me what other mistakes I made." /ameridan! bc someone real with leadership tips, not just in her head :')

THE THIEF | accepting | @ingllvar

"You told the truth, first of all." Valeria's question is direct, so Ameridan's answer is too; he's not harsh in his judgement of her actions, nor is he wrapping it up in silk. She does not need that. "You told him some gods out of heathen legend had taken control of something he was supposed to know more of than you. What was he suppose to do but doubt you? If the other Wardens hadn't believed you they would have thought him a fool, and if they had they would have panicked. You gave him no choice."

It's rare for him to suggest dishonesty, but sometimes that call has to be made. What he saw at Weisshaupt has hardened him to the events that led up to it. He didn't know until he was in the midst of that battle how much of the Second Blight he still carries with him. It seemed so long ago, and then he was there.

"What you should have done is tell him something he could safely believe and act on. You had the corrupted Blight at D'Meta's Crossing. You could have asked him for advice. It would have been easier for him to admit he needed to know more if you had pretended you knew less." He thinks for a moment, then adds, more softly: "There's no telling if it would have helped. By all accounts he might have refused to see reason whatever you had said. But it is something to keep in mind for another time. We are the only ones with the full knowledge of the threat our world is under. It falls to us to use it responsibly."

[skyheld]

plotted starter for @mercysought

He starts shivering almost as soon as Hakkon withdraws from the front of their mind. The war-god leaves a residue, the cold of deep winter, spreading from the inside and out so his bones freeze first and then the skin. Once he is fully in control—it takes a little longer when he has given it up for so long, more than the momentary shift in battle—he stands and moves closer to the fire, and he sits there a while, watching the colour first drain and then return to his fingertips.

When I leave he dies, Frost-thaw.

He knew this. It was never in question. He can feel it, the way Hakkon's magic seeps through him after every battle, scabbing over and lifting up, wrapping around the pieces if him like so much string, round and round until it's held together and nothing spills out. If it goes on for too long, maybe that string will be all there is. Just a husk to hold the fragments inside. An urn for the ashes.

He dies.

But to hear it like that, spoken with such certainty—as if it doesn't still hurt? As if, having gone through it once, it will be easy to go through it again? As if he can ever go back to the Lavellans, the aravel and the bed and the sun and the campfire?

His mind whirls, thoughts raging like storm winds, and at the back of his mind Hakkon feels and fuels it with his own storm of anger and frustration. They are a stormy sea, waves whipped from two directions to crash into each other, intensifying with each collision. True abominations are born of such storms. When a spirit, even a benign one, embraces and is embraces by a host's distress; when the host lose themselves in the spirit's pain.

But Hakkon and he are both stronger than that. They both keep their thoughts to themselves, Ameridan breathing deep for the both of them, until slowly both the storm and the shivers settle.

It's late when he knocks on the door of Asharen's room. He slips inside like a shadow, two shadows, one looming over the other's shoulder. But it's Ameridan closing the door behind them, Ameridan's feet crossing the floor softly, it's him looking at her face for permission before he sits down close to her. They need to speak, but he wouldn't force it on her before she feels ready. He sits in silence for a while, gathering his thoughts to speak. His face is turned a little to the side and his gaze is down.

"Asharen." When he looks up at her, his heart overflows. There's guilt, both old and new for what he allowed Hakkon to tell her, and there's the grief he always feels when he looks at her, for what she's going through—but there is gratitude, too. "You defended me." It comes out instead of the apology he wanted to make, instead of asking her how she feels, and he reaches out to touch her hand but stops himself just before his fingers come to rest on hers. "There was no need for you—you do not need to stay on my side—" but looking at her he knows she will. She defended him in front of Hakkon. She was strong in the face of the spirit's callousness, she didn't give in, she didn't plead—but she defended him.

"Thank you."

[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]

@theodosiani asked:

Vhenatish’an stares oddly at the elder elf, their eyes squinting slightly every so often when his posture suddenly changes and his words take a more biting tone. There is a spirit curled within his gut—but not like the way that they are—were—a spirit stuffed into a body. Still it is similar and at times seems to exhaust the elf, the transition back and forth vying for control. Vhenatish’an wonders what spirits the two were, before they came to argue over a vessel. Domination for the Other but for the old elf, it’s harder to say.

They find him once, slumped against a wall and breathing roughly. The Other is quiet but a spiteful quiet, like when Mamae is upset with them. They bray weakly in sympathy, “Is it too small? Does your body feel oddly?”

They lift him up with ease, setting him back on uneasy feet and keeping a large cool hand pressed gently, like a cradle, around the back his neck. Like Mamae did for them when their body felt too tight for their soul.

He had noticed Vhenatish'an's stare but thought little of it. Whatever they are they are a child, still figuring out the world. They stare at many things. Ameridan lets them look, speak gently when they come near, and tries to answer any questions they have without it showing on his face how much it hurts him that they exist. A horrible as that sounds, there really is no other way to express it. They were created in a terrible way, for terrible reasons. It does not make them wrong, but it is wrong that they were made so.

He could say something similar about himself. Abomination. It shows whenever the facade cracks and he and Hakkon struggle against each other instead of following fluently. Hakkon is not allowed to hurt him, or to take control without his consent, and there are lines he has not crossed—yet. But the knowledge that he could is a wedge between them.

They've been training—they are still figuring out how to work with each other, how to be one will in battle when they're two in everything else. Frustration gets the best of both of them. They both hate to back down when something is difficult, and though Ameridan can usually admit defeat with some grace, Hakkon's anger at the very idea turns into anger of his own. He calls a stop when they begin to do more mistakes than before out of frustration with each other, and sits down outside with the war-god's anger pounding in his chest.

"Leave it", he snaps, as Hakkon's magic seeps into his muscles to ease the sores of exercise. "I can survive a bruise." "I am honouring our deal", Hakkon replies irritably, but he does withdraw, leaving just the magic that is always there, that which keeps them whole.

Ameridan let's his head fall back against the wall and breathes out. The anger is not his. It is not truly Hakkon's either. It is theirs, and so is the task of resolving it.

Vhenathish'an's looming shadow falls over him, and he opens his eyes. It is still disconcerting to look at them, but he does not think they can tell; the strangeness of their appearance is offset by fondness for them, and the smile is quick to his lips.

"Is what to small? I am just tired, if that is—" And maybe if he was not so tired, he would have reacted quickly enough to protest before they can lift him up. Pushing them off is futile; it happens too quickly for them to notice it, he only has time to brace his hands against their arms and then he is on his feet, finding his balance. As they let go—almost, there is still their hand at the back of his neck—he looks up at them.

He cannot, will not frown. There is a smile again, but it is forced. "—I am well. You can let go of me now, please." How will they hear do not do that again? Will they hear it as anger, as terror? He still has a hand against their arm, and now he makes it soft, reassuring. "I know you mean well, but I prefer to stand on my own. If I am able."

[skyheld]

You have done wonders already. I am—do not think me ungrateful, Hakkon. (from @aestuum)

THE BEAR & THE NIGHTINGALE PART II | accepting | @aestuum

"And yet you disapprove, Warden."

He sits on the edge of the infirmary bed, statue-still, willing his pulse to stay even as Casadh turns his wrist over in their hands with unneeded gentleness. The bones have fused again, but not correctly. To set them right they need first be broken, and in the right places, along the fault-lines. It is easier for Hakkon to suppress the pain if he is fully in charge; it goes through him, then, and he can keep it from reaching the other presence, pressed into the back of their minds. It is not necessary, Ameridan says, but it is part of their deal. You will no longer be in pain.

Or perhaps Hakkon is only looking for an excuse to be in control.

"Though I have done wonders, it is not enough." The tea brewing over the fire carries thick herbal scents, heady and unpleasant. Something calming, Hakkon assumes, with a grimace. Something strengthening and perhaps something to further dull the pain. Well, he needs not be the one to drink it. "We have gotten hurt. We have been tired. This is not acceptable to you. You would see us reduced to sitting around a campfire sharing stories and caring for children. Perhaps you would see us restricted bed-rest. But that is not our choice."

There is a slight smile at the first crack, even as he must reach out to pluck the sensation from its roots and crush it. Spirits feel pain, but not the way physical bodies do. It twists and tears but has no weight to it. This is life, as much a part of it as hunger and weariness. But it is not for him, as he made a promise.

"It is not our choice", he repeats, at the second, careful crack, reopening the sealed fractures so they can be set properly and healed anew. "This is our choice. Should it break us, know that it was our choice to break."

Some wisps are hesitant to come into the presence of a god, but a few are brave. They come at the Warden's call to wrap around the battered limb, their very essence a caress. Hakkon sees and feels the healing begin, though Casadh has warned that it will be slow; a week, at best, until they grip a battle-axe again. The bones, broken twice, will be liable to shifting or fracturing further if they aren't given time to heal throughout. It does not mean bedrest, but it does mean they stay away from battle.

Sorrow, when they find out, will be most vexing in their concern.

Hakkon looks at the wrist as the swelling slowly settles a little. The bruising will remain; it's only clotted blood, nothing damaging in and of itself. "Should it break us", he says, "know also that I did what I could." He shifts, finally, the fingers of his other hand closing. "I am doing what I can."

[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]

“Why should I care what happens with my body when I die? Cook up my heart and liver if you have a particular craving, though I think I'd be a bit gamy.” Kasaanda to Hakkon

JUNIPER & THORN | not accepting | @theodosiani

"Now there is a thought", Hakkon says through his teeth, a needle between his lips to keep the thread taut as he fixes the position of a strap come loose from a pauldron. Once in place, he holds it in one hand while the other takes the needle and pushes it through two layers of thick leather. The back of the needle goes into his thumb with the force of his push. He pauses, calmly pulls it out and closes the tiny wound before he tries again, pinching the needle between thumb and forefinger instead of pushing with the pad.

"An offering I would not normally consider", he continues, more clearly now that his mouth is free. He asked what the qunari do with their dead out of idle curiosity, because if she's to sit in his hall at night while Ameridan sleeps, she may as well keep him entertained. Her answer does not disappoint. "But if you insist on it—I could probably do good magic even with a little heart like yours."

The needle is pushed from the back of the pauldron to the front, and gets stuck halfway. He uses his teeth to pull it out, his eyes on the assassin. "And a liver, now, I am sure there is power in those."

[skyheld]

"We might someday attain a relationship of mutual respect." /hakkon!

THE THIEF | not accepting | @ingllvar

"Is that so?" He glances at her as he runs a hand over the greataxe's blade, checking the sharpness of the edge. His thumb finds a spot not quite sharp enough, and with a smile still on his thin lips he picks up the whetstone again, though his eyes remain on the Mourn Watcher.

Hakkon respects a capable warrior in whatever form they come; swordsman or mage, spy or or politician, the farmers raising their pitchforks against a tyrannical lord or the lord crushing the farmers under their boot. He respects a good strategist, with an eye for the pieces moving across the board. He respects a leader who sees the strengths in her people as well as their weaknesses. He respects courage, cunning and resilience. He has little patience for compassion, but then again no one is perfect—he would likely find them mind-numbingly boring if they were—and so the Mourn Watcher gets a pass for that.

He respects her. He knew quite early on that he would. But the smile sitting cold on a face that usually leans more towards warmth gives no indication either way.

"What would it require?"

[skyheld]

Her tone betrays her mood even if her expression doesn't. Ameridan could say he's not being coy, only honest, but even if that were true—and that is debatable—he would likely only offend her further. He needs her to remain willing to listen to him, and it's clear the ice he stands on is thin. Another insult like that, no matter how small, and he may just have smashed it underneath his own feet.

He breaks away from her gaze then, giving a small nod of deference. "Forgive me. I did not mean to offend."

He lets her speak until she's finished then sits silent as his shoulders fall slightly. He will have to tell her, then. She's giving him no choice. If he keeps deflecting she'll only realize that that is what he's doing, and she'll lose what little trust in him she has.

Granted, she already will.

"You realize I could go myself", he says, looking at her again. "Nothing keeps me here but duty to the Inquisitor and my desire to help the people of your country. The only reason I ask for your approval is that if I rally the Avvar holds and you refuse to negotiate with them, it will be far better for them to hole up in the mountains and stay out of the fight for as long as they can. If that is the case, then I could be of better use to them. So you understand that I am not begging for your permission to leave, I am asking you to help me make the best of it."

He crosses one leg over the other and rests his forearm on his thigh, leaning forward slightly. "You also understand that as an elf and a mage, my position is already precarious. I am putting my life in your hands. I will not risk throwing Ferelden into chaos by ending your life should you come for mine."

Will we not? Hakkon asks inside his head. Can you promise that?

Ameridan's expression remains blank, but the god-spirit all but confirms a suspicion he's already considered. Hakkon will not allow them to be killed. For the sake of the queen, and perhaps all of Ferelden, Ameridan has to make sure she does not try.

"The truth, then", he says, with a twitch of his jaw the only indication of nervosity, but his heart was pounding hard. "When Gatt slew Hakkon ten years ago, he was possessing a high dragon. As a spirit, he can be drawn into a physical body and control it, more or less. The dragon's own spirit was lost in the moment of possession. Mine was not. I am still here. I need not speak to the Avvar for Hakkon; he will speak through me."

Anora tries very hard to keep the blinking as neutral as possible, expression calm as they keep talking. It amazed her, truly, how even the elves from Orlais seemed to have adapted so much of it, even one as old as he was - or how old he and Gatt claimed him to be. Anora didn’t know when the Game was invented but she presumed that it had been during the Empire’s inception when the rottenness took its toll. It seemed that it permeated well beyond the walls of the empire, into the very roots of every single body of water perhaps. It was something that even the Dales had become well versed in, before their eventual destruction by that same Empire’s hand.

It was a cruelty, but one that had been borne with a clear intent and purpose. And one that many within Ferelden knew better than they would like to admit and know: it is the hallmark of the force they had attempted to keep out, the curve of a smile and the half spoken words in a thin smile. The words looked solid, logic following through, but put it up against the sky and one could see the sunlight piercing through each of the spaces.

It was empty. Or made to lead someone to a conclusion the speaker had, hiding something more vicious underneath. Her father had seen it. Anora could see it too.

   “Do not play coy with me, Inquisitor Ameridan.” her clipped tone should be enough to speak for his suggestion. She had spoken with the Avvar, the Chasind - some of their leaders. Ferelden could not afford to remain in the same weakened state as it had been before the Fifth Blight.

There was information they were willing to depart with, and others that they would do so only under duress. If Ameridan was such an expert, someone that had spoken to them, he too would know this and he would know of the fraught relationship. Having a scholar versed in their knowledge that didn’t rely in outdated information that had been unearthed during Orlesian occupation? It was a hard ask. And one that Anora had no time or patience to entertain given the circumstances “I may not know much about the Avvar and spirits but last I checked Inquisitor Gatt killed this… god around ten years ago.”

A pause, eyes narrowing. “How do you know this spirit has been… reborn?”

As far as she knew Hakkon had been a dragon, a dragon that Inquisitor Gatt had killed and somehow saved Ameridan from. The details were few and too fantastical to take at face value.

   “You are not of the Avvar, somehow I doubt this would be the type of information they would have shared with you freely.”

This sort of information felt closer to a type of secret that the Avvari would prefer to take to their graves than to share with outsiders. But maybe Anora was wrong about this too, there was an ocean that could be filled with the matters that she didn’t know.

   “From where I stand, you ask me to take the risk of sending you off into danger, through darkspawn infested lands with little protection - endangering yourself and your companions only to ask the priests and receive no answer for or call for help.“ the same way that one might call upon the Maker and receive no answer beyond a hope that a prayer might be received. Three blights had a way of shaking one’s faith in the silence of the Heavens - but that too Anora kept herself silent on. It wasn’t her faith that they were discussing that and even the Sisters would not be consulted on such matters.

There were more concerning matters to attend. Anora’s eyes remain locked on Ameridan’s ”When, instead, your combat and wisdom could be used here. I don’t imagine I need to voice what my answer to this whole hypothetical will be if I am not given a satisfying answer.“

[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]

@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 was well aware she had little reason to believe—any of this. There was no irrefutable proof that he was who he said he was. Time magic was rare as it was, and unheard of at such a scale; the Inquisitor had seen it in one other place but that had been destroyed with no survivors of the people trapped. Gatt had chosen not to reveal anything about it, as the blood of slaves had been used to power the spell and it had tore a rift in the Veil. The ruin was better off left to the elements, any research not collected by the Inquisition turned to dust, rather than ending up in the wrong hands. And the Queen clearly did not trust Gatt farther than she could throw him.

As for Ameridan himself, he could tell the Queen anything she wanted to know about the Divine Age, but how would she know it was true?

His claims about the Avvar should be somewhat easier to confirm. "I know this information because I have spoken to the Avvar", he said, his tone so neutral it bordered on sarcasm—the knowledge of their spiritual beliefs truly was not out of reach for the Queen on whose very border they lived, it was simply a matter of choosing to collect it. "Surely there is someone you can ask to confirm it—you must have some scholars versed in other religions, other people at your court."

It was, of course, mostly deflection. The issue would not be to convince her about the rebirth of spirits, but that they could help her. And he still was not sure how to even begin to explain that.

He sighed, a small sigh escaping him as he leaned back in his chair. He'd expected this to be difficult; frankly she had been more willing than he had hoped, and her questions so far had been reasonable. It would not get easier, but the fact they had gotten this far was almost a miracle in itself. It really was not that different from trying to convince devoted members of the Chantry that mages should be allowed into society again at a time when they all seemed convinced Andraste had said they should all be killed. But then, Drakon had backed him up, and the Inquisition had been more powerful.

"As a mage", he finally said, "spirits are able to speak to me in dreams, and I am able to speak to them. I would expect that to you it sounds dangerous, as the Chantry teaches us to avoid contact with spirits at almost any cost. And it is dangerous if done irresponsibly, but when caution is taken it is no different from the danger of a person in power, or a skilled warrior." Well. It was certainly different, but not necessarily more dangerous, depending on the spirit.

"The augurs of the Avvar—their priests, more or less—have their own means of communicating with spirits without being asleep. They are the ones who maintain contact with their gods. Hakkon will speak to them, and they will speak to their thanes. That is how he will vouch for me."

She had hoped the headache would subside as more information was provided.

Granted, she knew relatively little of the actual costums of the Avvar - fewer still about the Chasind. But there had been some Avvar tribes around the southern parts of Gwaren when she was a child - she had known some. Both from the stories and from the little she had come to learn when she had played with some of the children that had wandered close enough to her father's lands - or if she had wandered close enough to theirs.

Anora had hoped but she could see now that had been a foolish thing to hope.

The more she heard Ameridan talk the more she felt her head sink into the palm of her head, her brows arch and the sense of sanity attempting to escape her body. Truly, these were the end times, that she should be standing before an apostate, hearing them talk about such things and to consider them an ally. The Maker had truly left them all to fend off for themselves and it was hard, hard to hold onto the hope that they still might survive this too.

   "Assuming I understand and believe everything you've just told me." which was not a given. Truthfully, she was fighting every fiber of her being from allowing herself to fall to the growing unease and fear that pressed against her heart. Spirits, Gods, rebirth - never once spoken in the Chant and yet appearing from the woodworks as Tevinter messes once more with the Veil, now with a would be Elvhen God at its head.

Anora rubs her temple again, clipping a sigh before her shoulders straighten "How..."

Does she even want to know? The answers to what she needs to get to the bottom of. Truthfully, Anora felt that the more she knew the more it sounded like she was drinking from whatever delusion had befallen the older elf in front of her. She wondered if Inquisitor Gatt even knew that he was talking to her - but was none of her business - she would take whatever help she could for Ferelden.

And that was the crux of it all, was it not? She would sit before an apostate and discuss options she they made sense - if in the most tenuous aspect.

   "How do you even know this information?" she asks, blue eyes finds his, pale, impossibly pale. A figure pulled from history's darkest chapter when the blight ravaged the lands, only to witness it once again "How exactly would he vouch for you?"