Author's Note: This story is one I'll be updating as I find time to do so, which will make my updates sporadic and unorganized. My main focus at the moment is college and my family; my second priority is 'High Tide'. I will still be updating this story, but as of now, it's just a writing fun exercise for me. I'm still trying to figure out how I like to write my point of views, and writing in the many different styles is how I imagine I'll discover the one that suits me best. I would also just like to mention, I do not have a Beta Reader, so any typos or grammatical errors you find; please tell me? ~Pride 3
It was a fickle thing, hope.
It frolicked in the dreams of the dammed and equally in those of the saints and heroes. It did not find judgment in wishes or desires, it just gave them the audacity to aspire for their fruition. It gave light to where people thought none could be seen and positivity to where it could not be found.
But, hope— hope could be painful as well. It can feel like claws sinking into your chest and like vines strangling your lungs; like walking through fire and wondering why it burned. It was as painful as love and just as rewarding.
To hope one needed to be brave, for hope was not just for the naïve or for the young and youthful; it was for the desolate dreamers who see too much, it was for the struggling minstrels looking for their voice, it was for the warriors wondering if they were doing right, for the wife who cries alone at night and the man in a cell waiting to die young.
Most of all, it was for the hunters with no arrows and dull blades, for the knives in the dark looking for a light, for the slaves of Tevinter holding out for one last rebellion, for the keeper doubting their place in the clan, and for the elves looking for a home. Hope was a flickering glow of green, like the fade. For the fade was in everything and everywhere, much like hope was in everyone and found in all actions.
As the sky tore apart and the fade was rendered destabilized, Hope watched the fire in the people of Haven be reduced to just embers of a once mighty inferno. The essences of Faith, Purpose, and Curiosity that had once flocked to the conclave were now screaming in a way no spirit should, as their very beings twisted in on themselves. Hope watched as a boy, the Vallas'lin still fresh in his skin and on his soul, fell from the veil-wound.
He was post-Elvhen, nothing but a shell of his ancestors, echoes of a history ravaged apart and put back together with the pieces missing. He, and many others of his likeness, was Elven, mortal. A name only belonging to a new generation, a new wind, a new way of life and culture.
Most of all, he was unconscious.
Hope was there to see it all, the soldiers scurrying around the mountain, the ashes of the fallen scattering in the wind, and the scouts finding the mortal lying prone underneath the torn veil.
It watched as they carried him away, in shackles. It watched as the wolf hidden under sheep's wool spilled not-lies but not truths either. Hope was always there, drifting just beyond tangible perception, just on the other side of the veil; waiting.