#felon'din

[trashwarden]

Some time ago I commissioned amazing @badasserywomen once more to draw Vaxus and Falon’Din from @jessicapendragon Bloodlines’ drabble. This combo makes me weep, so beautiful.

For all their cruelty and madness, Falon’Din does not lie.

It is the one thing that gives Vaxus hope, whether it is hollow or not. Whether it cuts deeper in the end, it is something he cannot let go of and keeps close through each dark day when the sun shines but he cannot feel its warmth, when the birds sing and he cannot hear a note. When he forgets the color of eyes and the shape of a smile for however briefly and it is an act of betrayal that makes his heart ache.

But today is not one of those lost days, for Falon’Din has kept their word. Even so, it is a hard thing to believe he is walking through the royal amphitheater in Tevinter, harder still to believe the crowds they pass are not just figments of illusion or images from a slowly decaying memory. Vaxus is here, and somewhere below the vast crowd, tucked behind velvet curtains and armed guards, his family is here too.

The dead bring him news of Dorian and Felix. Wraiths and ghouls and bones kept together by Falon’Din’s powers, more and more of them as their power has grown in the corners of things thought conquered and forgotten. It is the only company he has besides the fallen Evanuris. There have been whispers of war, old things torn down and new things rising to the surface, with Dorian and the Lucerni at the forefront. There was nothing for a time. Vaxus is not sure Falon’Din kept news from reaching his ears if only to torture him, or the world stood still once more, but then it sang out a new tune. The heir of House Pavus is to become emperor of Tevinter, and Vaxus is here to see it done.

Although no one can see him. Falon’Din has wrapped them both in magic that allows them to pass through the crowds - through them, like they are made of nothing but sunlight and shadow. It is an unnerving feeling, but a fleeting thought in Vaxus’ mind among the tangle of them the closer they get to his family.

A platform stage floats in the ribcage of an old amphitheater, cracked pillars fallen and a stage where countless plays and speakers once performed now sunken beneath clear water with some of the stands swallowed up as well. Lights and movement shimmer in the water and jump above the surface like fish made of stars. Flowers rain down from the bottom of the circular disc and fall like slow rain, disappear before they touch the water, a constant stream that has no beginning or end.

It is beautiful. It is nothing compared to what comes next.

There’s a sudden hush in the crowd, an inhale of surprise, before the constant murmuring stops as a split in the sky above the platform appears. For a moment Vaxus’ heart lurches. It is not green and malicious, like so many Fade rifts from days’ before, but his whole body remembers, reacts like battle is breathing down his neck. It is not demons and ichor that emerge, however.

Two figures appear, a man he does not recognize holding an ornate headpiece and a woman he does - Maevaris, holding a long scepter. They are too far away to see her expression, but the press of her shoulders is strong, proud. Vaxus’ heart does something else at the next to arrive. It is Dorian, wrapped in red and gold, head held high. Already regal in the way he carries himself, like he was always meant to carry this weight.

And he is not alone. Vaxus’ heart does another dance to see Felix standing beside him. It hurts and heals at the same time, like the removal of heavy shackles to reveal the raw flesh. There’s a hoarse cry in the back of his throat stuck on upswell of longing and love inside him, a pull on his feet greater than any order given. They are here, so close and so far and Maker, he would give anything to be able to see their faces clearly, to touch them, to let them know he is here.

It is not the Maker than answers his prayers. There’s a hand, light upon his shoulder, long fingers tinged blue wrapping around. “We are not rabble to be mingling among the common masses. I do believe we deserve grander seats, do you not agree?”

It feels like nothing changes, but after a breath they’re rising up and up, above the crowds and on their way to the platform. Vaxus doesn’t worry about falling, doesn’t concentrate upon anything but his family growing closer and closer and closer until the details bloom before him. The handsome grey beginning to kiss Dorian’s temples, the braid almost hidden within Felix’s wild hair - perhaps he wanted to match his father. Vaxus’ gaze swims with tears and he wipes them away quickly, wanting to see. Needing to see. He takes in everything he can, soaking them up like this is the end of the dry season and with rapturous release, the waters finally come. He had forgotten what happiness truly felt like, and it is the awkward, brave face Felix makes in front of all Tevinter, how Dorian glances aside at Maevaris with a look of utter boredom for a second even as his eyes shine with absolute triumph.

There are words and ceremony, not as much as days’ gone by, for this is a new, truer era for Tevinter, but there is always occasion to have occasion. Vaxus doesn’t pay attention to any of its meaning, only memorizing the curve of Dorian’s smooth inflection all over again, filling with color all the memories of conversation and devotion once more. He cannot ignore when Falon’Din finally speaks again, however.

“Your mage love has woven a great deal of protection all around,” Falon’Din says, waving a hand in front of them, and webs of spells appear glistening around the royal family and branching out around the complex. “He is quite talented, for a human. I am sure if someone with ill intent even dared to think about causing a raucous today, they would simply combust in his presence.” A hand reaches out for the nearest strand and passes through it unharmed, and unnoticed. “Of course, he did not plan for my kind. It is well that none now remain, and a good thing I am not here to enact any revenge for that fact.”

It is said breezily, in that easy mocking way of his captor, but Vaxus hears the threat of it like a clear cut bell. His loyalty is tied tighter than any noose and he is never allowed to forget. The hand at his shoulder pats gently, soothing the suddenly tense line. “I am here for you, my friend. Now, let us see if we cannot catch his attention. Watch closely.”

Falon’Din reaches in front of Vaxus’ face and flicks at a nearby spell. His finger does not pass through it this time but touches it, and like the string of an instrument it thrums and catches the attention of its instrumentor. Dorian’s eyes snap to the side and stare right into Vaxus’. Not truly, as they remain obscured, but it is close enough that he cannot stop the surprised inhale, the blush that spreads through him at the accidental attention.

He feels remade, alive unlike he has since he died, and so very much in love. And then Dorian looks away, and the world is cold. Cold, but not broken and decimated, an ember in the dark to hold to his heart.

Falon'Din tells him to take one last look and he takes as long as he can, as much as he can. And he does, the way Felix is growing and growing even right before his eyes in these few precious moments, the way Dorian laughs at the expense of the other poor man on the stage, and Vaxus tucks it all away to take with him.

Hope, and home.

[werewolves-are-real]

Uprising

This fic has bugged me awhile because I... don’t entirely know where it’s going? I have ideas but I have too many, incompatible ideas. It’s for Dragon Age and is I think a bigger AU than I’ve done before (in terms of just... the world, because all the characters are spread out and it’s tricky to make everything fit right).

Anyway, this is the intended first chapter +a bit more because I never properly post things on AO3 until they’re finished (I’ll never finish, otherwise).

Emprise du Lion, 9:40 Dragon

_____________________________

Solas wakes.

When he went to the trance it was spring, but white frost glitters over his cloak, his faded robes now only held together by webs of silver enchantment. Sitting up takes a few minutes; drifts of snow have flurried in, melted, frozen again, and he sticks to the floor. Finally he burns away these shards of ice with an impatient flare of magic, then immediately regrets it.

The temple's ceiling has caved in. Broad-leafed vines, viciously defying the weather, curl over the edges of the ruins and sprawl down above his head. Solas looks around the empty room and then paces it once, twice. The space is small. There can be no mistake, but he probes with another dear wisp of magic anyway.

Dark spots blossom in front of his eyes. Solas stops and grabs the wall for balance.

His power has been stolen.

The idea yawns in front of him, impossibly horrible, but Solas shakes it away. There are few who could use his power; none left, now, who could access it as it was contained. June, Felon'din, Sylaise – they are all gone. They cannot return.

(He has tried. He has tried.)

His staff is gone, too, but Solas has never needed tools for all his magic. Not even now, weakened as he is. With the slightest of sighs he steps forward, falling up into the body of a terrible black wolf, three-eyed, its stiff fur bristling with hard spines of pure magic.

This behemoth squeezes through the temple's door with his head low to the ground. Outside the statue of a wolf sits judging an empty courtyard. Statues of elvhen archers spot the distance, barely visible between the fragments of more crumbled stone and vines.

Solas starts to walk.

After resting, walking, hunting down a rabbit, fighting off a particularly stupid bear, and stopping for three more breaks, Solas is forced to admit that he is concerned. He should not be so exhausted, even without the powers left within his orb. He may have made a misjudgement before consigning himself to the deep sleep.

He had hoped to wake in a kinder world, his mistakes forgotten. But he cannot forget, and as he walks through the silent, snow-covered forest he wonders with rising horror if there is anyone else even alive to remember.

Finally, at last, he spots the town.

It's a pitiful little thing, a hodge-podge of little houses crammed together near a wall. The poorest of Mythal's slaves lived in better comfort. And, drawing near, he realizes with contempt that there are no people here after all. Small, squat shapes flicker between the houses, some slow, bent with age, others smaller and darting. Quicklings.

Solas paces at the trees' border. These short-lived things began appearing by the People's territory after his mistake. He has only heard rumors of their harshness, but he believes those tales; they cannot be natural. He crouches lower into the brush – a pitiful camouflage for his great, shadowy hulk of fur – and watches as two old women step out between a pair of houses and move toward the forests.

“Quit your sighing, now, I will not have it,” one sniffs. “There will be food even for you – I finally sold that old mine away, and what does it get me? I must provide for everyone else, of course. You should be grateful.”

“Yes, miss.”

The words are useless gibberish. The second woman carries a basket and trails behind the first. Solas gets a look at her and flinches. Short, small, weak – and pointed ears.

Old.

So the curse continues.

And so does the slavery of his brethren, somehow. She has Falon'din's markings. The two make more sounds, but some burning lure pulls him forward. He must know. After all these years – all this time -

The quickling sees him and cries out, jumping away. And the half-person screams, far louder, and says, “Fen'Harel!”

Good.

The half-person faints, and the quickling runs back into the town, leaving her behind.

Solas hesitates. He is accustomed to many reactions – awe and submission and scorn, all – but this is new. After some contemplation he resumes his elvhen form.

The women stirs slowly. She cringes away until she sees him, then quickly gasps out a string of useless sounds.

“I cannot understand you,” Solas says impatiently. “Can you not talk?”

The woman – Solas supposes she must be called some form of elf, or something like – hesitates. “You... see him?” She asks anxiously, in a garbled version of the proper language. “Fen'Harel?”

Solas ignores the question. “Are there People here?”

“No,” says the women. “ - Only me.” She looks over Solas anxiously. His appearance doesn't seem to have comforted her much. “...Magic,” she says suddenly.

Solas frowns.

“You,” a string of the sounds, “magic?” and she gestures at his long glimmering robes, the bands of silver around his arms he has all but forgotten. He looks down at himself.

“I suppose,” he dismisses.

The elf steps back. Before she can respond three men come rushing forward from the edge of the town. Only one is properly armed, but that man wears a fine coat of armor. Embossed on the front is the symbol of a sword wreathed in flames. It is not a symbol Solas recognizes.

The soldier yells something; the elven woman leaps away, and Solas finds himself staring indifferently at the end of a sword.

“Did you summon the beast here, apostate?” The man demands.

The words mean nothing.

“I have been dreaming,” he tells the woman who looks almost elvhen, the only one here who matters. “What is this place?”

The woman jabbers at the man with the sword.

The soldier raises his arms and starts to chant.

Glass and oil spread over Solas' skin, into his skin, constricting his heart and seizing his lungs. Flickers of lightning crackle from his fingers and then disappear – snuffed in an instant. It's like the veil, he thinks absurdly. A veil in his own body. What have these creatures accomplished?

But Solas can traverse his own veil; he can overcome this, too. He raises one hand and sweeps a sputtering line of fire at the soldier.

The woman screams. The soldier and the men jump away, gaping and yelling, like somehow they didn't expect him to respond to an assault on his very magic. But the effort makes him stumble.

When the soldier raises his sword again he takes the wiser part of valor and flees. He shifts as soon as he is hidden in the undergrowth, and for two more nights he runs with the memory of that frightened elf-like face and the red lines of Falon'din burning in his mind.

One of his own strongholds is toward the east, hidden by strong magics, but that safe-haven is a last resort which will probably be deserted in his absence; it will tell him nothing of the world. Solas makes his way west, after a fashion, and the land levels out into green valleys and thick groves of trees. Green vines and emerald leaves tangling over the old stones of temples fallen into disrepair.

Here, again, the old gods lay destroyed.

It is everything Solas once wanted, but he treads among these fallen testaments to the evanuris with unease. Stone wolf sentinels guard the plains, the clearest and most respectful remnants of the past. They might be a sign of respect, or even of worship. He never could convince some of his followers to treat him as anything but a god.

Offerings sit before some of the wolves in tiny platters. Someone, then, must live nearby, but he finds no trace of civilization.

After days of searching he treads deep into one of the more recognizable temples, a lonely bastion to Mythal. It is one of many and he does not recognize it. He sleeps in the shadows, and dreams, and crosses through the Fade.

Wisdom meets him.

You are back, says the spirit. You were here so long so where did you go?

“I woke,” Solas answers. “I returned to the physical world.”

But spirits have little understanding of this world, that world. Not even Wisdom. Why did you leave, Wisdom asks.

“Because I could not stay,” Solas responds, which seems to satisfy. “I would like your assistance. There is a language I do not know. I heard it several days ago; can you teach me?”

Why do you want to -

“I am asking about the People,” says Solas. “I must discover what became of them after my mistakes. I must know who escaped the evanuris.”

Wisdom grieves for him in flares of blue and gray-white. I will teach you, teach you, it says. And then, amending: I will try.

Solas discovers cooking fires and fresh pits – signs of recent camps – but moves on anyway after retrieving a staff from a derelict temple to Elgar'nan. The wolf-sentinels and dead shrines loom like hollow corpses.

He moves ever westward until the edge of the sea thins and fades and he comes across another group of quicklings. By now Solas feels more confident with the clumsy words of their unwieldy, blocky tongue. Wisdom teaches him the words in exchange for knowledge and glittering tricks, though he lacks the context to shape them with the right inflection, to understand hidden meanings, to smile or even frown when strange phrases fly past his ears.

There are some phrases he hears – May the Maker bless you, the Maker protect you the Maker guide you and Curse you and Hate you – that he cannot understand at all. But he checks his arms and fingers for the tell-tale signs of a miscast ice spell when he first sees the benevolent figure of a stone matron in the first city he enters, holding court like the second coming of Mythal herself. A brazier sits in her hand like a beacon to the world, but Solas does not recognize her. Her ears are blunt and dulled. Quicklings worship other quicklings, but he must believe that the farce is all the same.

Some things never change.

There are no elves in this city, but when he asks, the quicklings wave him out, out, talking about a people called the Dalish, wanderers and nomads. He finds a group of them in the north.

The Dalish village reminds him of a slave camp – one of those terrified, overwrought huddles of people on the outskirts of Arlathan. Refugees who live on the fringe of society after desperately fleeing from their masters. Such people must always be approached carefully.

He says, “My name is Solas.”

A hunter approaches him and responds, “Go away, shem. We do not want you here.”

Solas does not know the word. But it sounds elvhen, though they speak to him in the quickling tongue. The strange woman has the stern vallaslin of Andruil upon her cheeks and brow, but the other Dalish wear a scattering of random marks. The children are not marked at all, like they have been picked for sale instead of being established servants of the evanuris.

He does not understand.

“What gods do you serve,” Solas asks. But the hunter only scowls.

He ignores the warning of the hunter, and when the other Dalish notice him he is welcomed reluctantly. The Keeper, who wears the vallaslin of Sylaise, asks him to sit by the fire; it rests within a wide triangle of three of the camp's aravels, the rest of which are penned in a small square to confine a tiny herd of halla.

Solas repeats the question to the Keeper, who seems more tolerant despite the suspicious looks Solas begins to attract. “There are nine elvhen gods,” the Keeper explains patiently, as though he does not know this. “There is Mythal, the all-mother, to whom we pray for protection; Elgar'nan, who - “

“But who do you serve,” Solas interrupts.

The Keeper frowns. “We are Dalish,” the man says. “We serve all the gods.” And he explains what this means.

The thought is ludicrous; the evanuris quarrel too much to possibly share servants. As Solas listens he realizes all at once that this Keeper, these Dalish, are entirely deluded. They serve no one. They dedicate themselves to remnants of a religion and order that no longer exists. They waste their lives.

The Keeper finishes his recitation by saying that Fen'Harel is a trickster, a coward, and the enemy of all the gods. He is the bringer of death and destruction; he brings deliberate death to the Dalish whenever he can.

“So you understand nothing at all,” Solas concludes when the Keeper's explanation is finished. The old elf looks irritated.

“You cannot say that, shem,” says the young elvhen hunter from earlier. “Our gods are far older than your Maker.”

“I do not know of any Maker,” says Solas. “But your stories are ridiculous fabrications. You have completely misconstrued even the basic attributes of your own deities – and even those details were, themselves, nonsensical pieces of propaganda even at the time of Elvhenan.”

The hunter scoffs. She is not the only one to look angry. “Next you will tell me you know what Arlathan looked like, and perhaps the ancient elves were friends with qunari and they all fought the Imperium together. You don't know more about our history than anyone. Less, I should think. If you cannot bother to be polite to your hosts, shem, feel free to leave.”

“Sanaya,” the Keeper reproves mildly. But he does not seem to disagree.

But Solas just nods and does indeed his leave; he has learned enough. In any case he has a new goal, now, entirely unintended.

'Next you will tell me you know what Arlathan look like', the woman said. But whatever could have happened to that great city, the capital of the elvhen world, which was still standing proud even as Solas sunk into the deep dreams of uthenara?

II.

Orlais is like a pale reflection of the world he once knew, glittering on the surface and filled with subtle poison. It does not shine like Arlathan, but the cities are airy and have a quick beauty on the surface; one must look deep to see ugliness, poverty. One must wind into the deepest crags of the towns to find elves.

The elves and the humans live together, which is one more thing Solas cannot understand. Their lives are equal now, he supposes, short and terrible, but he cannot imagine what they might have in common. And the elves, for some reason, seem to be treated poorly. He understands this when he walks through Val Royeax and gets called knife ear three times for simply peering at shop displays.

He disposes of his useless silver ornaments, the ancient and priceless remnants of elvhenan that came with him through the sleep. He is paid a pittance. “Are you planning on selling that?” someone asks Solas when he steps under a low veranda. The young woman nods at his staff; this little shop holds a few magickal oddities.

“No, of course not,” Solas says. “Though it does not quite suit me; I really must find a better one.”

The human shopkeeper smiles fixedly. “ - Oh,” she says. “  - You're. Actually a mage?”

“Of course.”

“Are you from Tevinter?” The woman asks nervously, eyeing him.

“No.”

“Are you a warden?”

Solas doesn't know what that is. “No.”

The woman nods weakly. “I see,” she says.

It could be useful to purchase a runestone, but his funds must be saved; he will have to make his way to another of his safehouses and find some stored treasures sometime. He should have a better staff somewhere, too. Solas leaves quietly and wonders where he might find this town's elves; he has barely seen anyone worth talking to in this place.

Within a few minutes he has finished walking through the main square – oddly empty of people - and has just resolved to try the docks when half a dozen soldiers seem to step out from nowhere and surround him. Each of them bear polished swords and polished armor, all emblazoned with a strangely familiar sigil of flames. After a moment Solas recognizes the sign. It is the same symbol as that of the man who attack him when he first woke from Uthenara.

“You need to come with us, mage,” their leader says.

“Why?” Solas asks slowly. He shifts his staff to position it against the ground, noting that several of the soldiers shift in response.

“Are you from a local circle? Are you an apostate?”

“I do not understand what you think I have done.”

This only seems to make the commander angrier. “You're a magic user!” he accuses.

“And is that a crime?

The humans look at him like he's insane. Ah. Solas lifts his staff.

The commander lifts his sword.

A terrible, glassy feeling sweeps over Solas. He can't feel his staff at all for a moment – he can see it but it doesn't exist, and there is cold wood between his fingers but nothing, nothing. There is no substance and no magic. There is no magic anywhere. The world flatlines to lines, angles, grayscale colors that threaten to tip him back into the endless sleep.

An arrow spins down and sinks into the commander's shoulder.