#credit to hans zimmer for these lyrics i borrowed lol

[rosella-writes]

hello happy friday, for dadwc I bring a poem for fettered Pride and her loves:

When Love with unconfinèd wings Hovers within my Gates, And my divine Althea brings To whisper at the Grates; When I lie tangled in her hair, And fettered to her eye, The Gods that wanton in the Air, Know no such Liberty.

From Richard Lovelace - To Althea, from Prison

I think this only answers this one in a sideways fashion, Blue lol. But it made for a wonderful excuse to try out this idea for @dadrunkwriting — Solas tells us raising the Veil was his best option, because every alternative was worse. What if he’d chosen one of the worse solutions?

Pairing: Pride & Wisdom Rating: T for Themes Summary: Wisdom witnesses the fall of Arlathan (after the Plagues)

~~~

Wisdom looks to the sky. 

She has been warned. She is ready. Her blood writing even now lays dormant as mere tattoos on her face. When it begins — if it begins — she is free to forsake her body and plunge into the Beyond, far away from what is to come. For the gods have gone too far. Mythal lies dead, and Pride has been missing for days — weeks — and Hope along with her. The Allmother’s blood calls out from the ground for justice… and only Elgar’nan’s vengeance stands to answer her.

It begins at night, in her dreams. It is so quiet that she is sure it is her own thought, her own soul, calling the words out into the darkness. 

I send a pestilence and plague.

Her skin crawls, itching and burning in the wake of those words whispered across it. 

Into your house, into your bed.

She wakes, the remnants of her dream ringing in her ears. She sees it still, scorched into the insides of her eyelids — the beauty of Justice, their Mother, plucking Elgar’nan’s Pride from him in the wake of the destruction he wrought. With each blink, she sees the sun’s return from where Elgar’nan had banished it. With each glimpse of the light out her window, she remembers Pride’s birth from the defeat of Elgar’nan’s rage. 

Into your dreams, into your sleep.

She casts her blanket aside and stumbles to the window. Her fingers grip the sill until it creaks.

Until you break, until you yield.

Wisdom pushes back from the window and nearly falls — stumbles — runs towards the door. She does not pause for her weapon, nor her armour, nor even shoes. She climbs the crystal stairs. Her hands run along the carven bannisters and feel the scrolling patterns that were painstakingly carved into them by slaves after generations of slaves. There are no slaves in these halls, on these stairs, now. 

Only she is awake. 

She emerges onto the landing that broadens its curved walls into an exposed balcony atop this, Elgar’nan’s favoured holiday home. It is the tallest building outside the walls of Arlathan, and stands alone in these fields outside Elvhenan’s greatest city. She turns her eyes towards the sky — she gazes at the far away spires of the Golden City, the spires that glow upon the rising of each day’s sun. 

I send the swarm, I send the horde.

Wisdom muffles a low groan of horror behind her raised hand. The voice still echoes between her ears, as near as her own thoughts — she wonders if all who wake now can hear it. She stares, unblinking, as the sky pollutes its softly flowing blues and greens and violets against the glossy black darkness with red. Nothing but red, sickly red that glows with the power of the Void. 

I send the thunder from the sky.

The sky cracks. Its luminous light snaps into nothing — all that remains is its red as vivid and deep as blood, twisting and swirling against the blackness like poison within wine. Wisdom watches through rising tears in her eyes as the forms of spirits grow clearer against every spire. They weave between them, as fish through seaweed. 

I send the fire raining down.

Arlathan’s wards flare then, bright and fiery, and blast apart the forms of what spirits linger too close to the spires. But more come, and more, and more, until their bodies are smoke swirling between the rising towers. Arlathan’s topmost points disappear into blackness. 

Wisdom knows now is the time. She knows where to go, what to do, how to do it — but she cannot wrench her eyes away. Her heart thuds in her ears, but the voice drowns out her every other thought. She finally recognises it for what it is, as the source comes into view. 

In the gnarled blackness shines a light. 

This light is not like the familiar ones of the Dreaming. It is not vivid with colour. It is sharp, blinding, whiter even than pure sunlight, and Wisdom knows if she were nearer what she would see at its heart — Pride, terrible in her rage, girded with armour and holding her weapon that sends forth that fearsome light. It glows brighter as the voice comes again, and Wisdom aches with the agony of its might. 

I send the locusts on a wind.

The scarlet magic that so sickens Wisdom to even behold begins to wind around each spire, following the darkness towards Arlathan’s core. Wisdom hears the first of what becomes many screams — she clamps her hands over her ears but hears them still. 

On every leaf, on every stalk.

Blackness seeps as poison from Arlathan’s heart. The gold and crystal become dull darkness — the scarlet joins this darkness and flows from the city’s roots, rushing with terrible certainty to swallow roads, trees, grass. It is inevitable, as magma from an erupting volcano is inevitable.

Until there's nothing left of green.

Wisdom backs away, eyes fixed on the oncoming wave of Pride’s fearsome power. She wishes to scream, just as those dying in the Golden City must scream still, but not a sound passes her clenched teeth. She can only turn and run, hands outstretched, back down the stairs. Wisdom knows, as only the wise do, that the only person she can save now is herself. 

In the moments before Wisdom throws open the doors to Elgar’nan’s home — his empty home, since the god himself is within the bowels of Arlathan — and lets the husk of her body drop to the ground, she hears a final booming cry. A final exultation, cast into the minds of all those who behold Pride and witness her bearing the weapon that allows for such terrible justice to be meted out. 

I send my scourge, I send my sword.

Wisdom tastes the blighted magic that rushes over the land, just as she crosses into the Beyond. It lingers, bitter as blood magic, cloying as poison, cold as death, at the back of her throat. 

She then feels no more.