"What was that?" If she hadn't been attempting to keep the bear attacking them from ripping her face off, Fen'lath would have stopped and stared in awe at Solas, who had just...vanished from in front of the charging bear to its flank. It was a magic she had never seen before.
"Not the time, Grace!" Varric yelled at her as Bianca twanged and another bolt shot at the gigantic, roaring fury of tooth and claw that Cassandra was holding off with her shield. Fen whipped her staff around, using it as a focus for gathering ambient Fade energy and winding it like a spring, waiting for the perfect moment before slamming the blade into the soil at her feet, releasing a burst of lightning into the bear.
A sheet of ice locked the bear into place, allowing Cassandra to get her sword up and in, and the beast collapsed with a groan. Solas turned to Fen and raised a copper brow, tone turning a bit snide, "Do the Dalish not know how to Fade Step?"
She pressed her lips together and spun around, sending up a flare so Inquisition scouts could come and gather the carcass for meat and the hide. "I haven't seen anyone do that particular type of magic before, no."
"Imagine, Elvhen magics the Dalish do not know." Fen felt her cheeks heat, and kept marching forward, carefully pulling out the flowers she'd taken from the widower in Redcliffe and checking them for damage.
"Why did we come all the way out here when we are needed back in Haven, Herald?" Cassandra slung her shield onto her back and began wiping down her sword. "That strange Tevinter mage will be waiting for us in the Crossroads, and I doubt that he will be welcome."
"The Iron Bull and Warden Blackwall went with him, Cassandra, and they should be able to vouch for him and keep him in line. And this is important. It's not closing a rift, but providing comfort to an elderly widower is just as necessary when it feels like the world is falling apart. It provides a sense of stability." She clambered up the hill and found the shrine, setting the bright blooms across the top of the little offering bowl, and reading the inscription aloud.
Senna, beloved,
May your ashes be gathered by Falon'Din
and carried safely,
after all the long years you carried me.
"Right, back to Redcliffe right quick, and then on to meet up with Blackwall, The Iron Bull, and Dorian in the Crossroads." Fen was taken aback momentarily when Solas offered a hand to help her down after she skidded on some loose soil. "You are quite surprising, Lady Herald, both in your insight and your reasoning."
"I-thank you, I think." He simply nodded to her, then strode off to fetch their mounts, four Ferelden Forders that Horsemaster Dennet had given them to help their travels in the Hinterlands while he rounded up more horses to send on to Haven. Fen shook her head. She didn't understand Solas.
Solas observed the Herald speaking to the widower, encouraging him to sit and talking softly, then taking something from him with an odd look on her face. Cassandra and Varric were looking over a bookseller's cart, haggling over prices and arguing the quality of reading material in a back and forth quickly raising in volume. Fen'lath approached, her steps tentative, "May I ask you a question, Solas?"
"You may ask, but I may choose not to answer." In his experience, the Dalish were overbearingly smug about their 'knowledge' of Elvhen lore, and he did not wish to be driven out of the Inquisition and lose his chance to recover his orb because he offended their wolf cub, interesting though she was a times.
"That is fair." She paused, then spoke carefully, "You heard the man say, when he asked us to visit Senna's shrine that they tried to keep to the old ways, though they knew they were as children to me, yes?"
"Indeed." Fen'lath waited for more, then sighed. She fidgeted, twisting her fingers around a small halla amulet on a leather thong. "Is that how the Dalish you approached treated you? Like a child?"
"A foolish child at best, a dangerous one to be driven off at worst." He watched Fen'lath out of the corner of his eye, watching her run slender fingers over the amulet and ruminate.
"I'm sorry." She looked up, Fade eyes meeting his as he turned to her in disbelief.
"Excuse me?"
"I ignored you or scoffed at information freely offered because you were not Dalish, even though I myself know how resistant Dalish are to change. I apologize." Contrition, real contrition, was on her face and in her voice.
"Apology accepted." Solas placed a hand over hers tentatively, stilling her fidgeting fingers. He felt the need to make sure something of the Elvhen made its way into her hands. "On the way back to Haven, would you like for me to teach you how to Fade Step?"
Fen'lath lit up, "Are you serious? Yes!"
"Then I shall do so. I warn you I am a taskmaster when it comes to teaching, Herald."
"Remember, Fen'lath, pull the Fade around you and use it to push you in the direction you wish to go. Don't force it, just try to feel it. Be a leaf on the wind." Solas moved Fen's arms in a motion like a bird flapping its wings, gesturing for her to repeat it, and then lifting her wrist and adjusting her hand, making sure her staff was angled just so.
"The last time I tried to be a 'leaf on the wind' I nearly impaled myself on my own staff, Solas." She dropped her arms, frustrated. Solas had been attempting to teach her to Fade Step the whole of the trip from the Crossroads to Haven, and in the three weeks Leliana had requested to have her people scout Redcliffe and the situation there, as well as gather information on Magister Alexius. So far, she could move forward faster, but the liquid, misting slip into the Fade and out had so far eluded her.
"The principle is the same, but if that visual does not work, figure out something that feels more natural. It must feel natural, or the Fade Step will continue to elude you."
Fen closed her eyes, pulling the Fade to her, wrapping around her like a cloak, building and billowing as she lifted her foot and prepared to Step forward. What visual to use, though? A memory from her youth, eleven or twelve, sprang to mind. A white wolf exploding from its hiding place in the bushes, leaping across one of the tributaries of the Minanter to evade the clan's scouts tracking it. The visual caught, pulling on the gathered magic in a way that hadn't happened in her other attempts. Her arms flowed and she pushed forward, eyes opening as the world misted and disappeared for a moment. Haven re-solidified, and she watched the icy cloud dissipate around her feet. The staff in her hand slid home in the sheath on her back, and Fen clapped her hands to her mouth.
"Excellent, Fen'lath! Perfectly executed," Solas called to her from the other side of their training area.
Fen let out a happy shriek and bounced over to a startled Solas, leaping at him and giving him a tight hug. "I did it! I did it! Oh, I have to go show Dorian! Thank you, Solas! Thank you!"
Skipping up the path to the stables and blacksmith, Fen almost danced with joy.
Solas watched Fen'lath go, effervescent in her triumph. Emotions warred in him. Satisfaction that she had finally Fade Stepped after banging her head against the proverbial wall for a month. Dismay that a skill that Elvhen children had learned almost as soon as they could walk had been lost to the shifts of time, and hadn't made it to these shadows of what the Elvhen had once been. Most of all, he was disconcerted by the happiness that had bubbled up at the way the smile had lit Fen's face, and the pleasure he had taken from a simple hug.