Awareness came to her. Under her back she could feel the comforting discomfort of her bedroll, earth and grass crushed beneath it. Her body was warm under its embrace, though a cold wind stung her face. Experienced as she was she could tell it was not time to wake up yet, but awake she was. She opened her eyes to see the night sky, the moon so close she felt she could reach out and touch it. The dark shadows of trees broke up the night sky like cracks at its edges.
Elynna Lavellan sighed and tossed aside her bedroll, sent a questing hand to her pack beside her to find her shawl. As she sat up she tossed the wool garment over her shoulders, wrapped her cold fingers about her staff and used it to push herself to her feet.
She stood in a clearing, a forest of rowans and alders surrounding her. The cool light of the moon revealed that she was alone, her bedroll and pack the only signs of people in the forest. She turned around to see not ten paces away the ground suddenly vanishing into a sheer cliff. She slowly made her way towards it, leaning heavily on her staff.
As she peered over the edge she saw the soft darkness of the sea. Its dark waters moved silently and peacefully below what looked, to her eyes, much farther than the sky above.
She carefully prodded the earth close to the edge with her foot and, after she found it was soft and malleable, leaned her weight fully down onto her staff. The carved willow sank into the earth down an arm's span before it stopped, and the weight she leaned so heavily on it dragged her down its length. She loosened her grip and allowed herself to slowly fall to the earth, settling cross-legged beside her staff. She leaned somewhat towards it, allowing her sunset hair to drape against it.
Elynna gazed at the sea below, felt the wind tousle her hair. She closed her eyes as she basked in the peace.
A soft rustle sounded behind her. A step. Light and purposeful. It had been intended, as a greeting. She did not respond to it as a figure settled down beside her and sat down cross-legged as she was.
"Greetings Lethallin," the figure said softly. "I apologize if I have disturbed you."
She recognized the voice. "You haven't disturbed me Solas," she replied easily. She kept her eyes shut, enjoying now not just the feel of the wind and the sound of the sea.
"I am glad," he smiled. He remained silent for a long moment, seeming to enjoy the tranquil spot as much as she did. "I do not believe I have been here before."
She nodded softly and answered the unasked question. "Southeast of Markham. We're about a day's ride off of Longfisher Point. I don't know if this place even has a name."
"How did you come to discover it?" Solas asked. She could feel him move beside her, like an animal settling in. She smiled as she imagined him circling a spot before curling up to rest.
"By accident. I was looking for harralander, for tea. It grows farther north when you come closer to Ansburg but apparently not here. It usually grows higher up, so I made my way up here through the forest in hopes that I would find some."
"And so, finding this place was accident on the search for tea?"
"Just so. I found this view cleared my head better than any tea."
"You visit often then?"
"Whenever I can. The clan travels by Markham this road only twice a year."
"Yet I see you come even when you do not."
His strange reply caused her to open her eyes and cast a sideways glance his way. He smiled slightly, loosely. He looked wistful.
She looked away from him, back to the sea and stars that seemed to merge far away at the horizon. Where the blurred, dark sky took on a strange greenish hue.
She sighed. "I suppose I already knew where we truly were."
"One can still find peace in the fade, correct?"
"Perhaps," she replied. "I suppose so." She cast her gaze away from the haze far away and turned it to her companion.
Solas was dressed as he usually was, a pale roughspun tunic over dark green trousers. His strange wolf-jaw talisman seemed to reflect the moonlight here, even while remaining a blackish hue. "Sahlin revas, Lethallin," he said softly.
She shrugged. "Revasan would be a fitting name, if it were not already taken."
"Indeed." He answered, his smile dying.
She looked back to the sea alone with her thoughts. Uneasy silence pervaded between them for a time.
When Solas finally spoke his voice was formal, courteous – if she didn't know him better Elynna would've characterized it as timid. "I have a question if you will indulge me."
"You could just ask," she chastised him.
"Very well. I shall." She glanced at him, this time seeing it was he who stared over the waters below. "You are the Inquisitor. The hopes and prayers of many have been placed upon you. I find myself concerned. It is a great deal of responsibility for one person. Are you… alright?"
"You want the truth?" She asked, realizing immediately that her question was rhetorical. She gestured to the waves. "When I was last here I was the First of Clan Lavellan, expected one day to take up the mantle of Keeper. I was to remember the People, for the Clan and for us all. I was to lead them as my keeper had done, and as her keeper had done."
She looked down to her left palm, the jagged scar that cut across its length dark. Inactive. There were no breaches nearby, though she was unsure how the mark would react to them on this side of the Veil. Or even if it would, seeing as how she wasn't truly there.
"I wasn't prepared for this. To lead humans, to be the Inquisitor – whatever that truly means. I was to lead a clan, to be one of many keepers of many clans. Not be responsible for healing the veil itself. Not to lead a foreign religion." She found her grip tightening on the staff, her peace gone.
"It is understandable," he answered, reassuring. "To feel as you do. I often wonder of the character of those who choose such responsibility willingly, who desire to hold the fates of the many in their hands." He idly ran his hands through the soft grass as he leaned backwards.
"I miss the Marches. I miss my clan. I miss Keeper Istimaethoriel. I miss," she gestured to the sea again. "This."
She cast her eyes to him to see a look of the most heartfelt and heartbreaking sympathy she had ever seen. "Though I know it only a small comfort, you shall always carry them with you." His voice carried that same sympathy.
They sat in silence another moment before Elynna spoke up again. "I have a question for you Solas," she said to the sea.
"Of course," Solas answered back to the sea.
"I've always been able to control myself here in the Beyond, but ever since the mark…" she searched for the right words. "I've been stronger. Dreams shape more to my will," she tapped her staff for emphasis. "I've rarely visited this place in my dreams. Dreams are usually ugly, dark, formless things that I can't wrap my mind around. Now…"
He hummed quietly in confirmation. "As a mage, you have control of yourself in the fade. Now, you have control of yourself as well as the fade to an extent. Do I understand correctly?"
"Is it the mark?" She asked, feeling foolish now that she'd voiced such an obvious question.
If Solas agreed with her, he didn't show it. "It is the mark. It is a key, a key to open the fade both within and without. Or at least, that is what I understand of it."
"Well," she responded dryly. "At least something good has come out of it."
The waves continued their slow crashing into the cliff below as they sat. She again looked off to the distant horizon, saw the green tinged spot she had seen earlier. She kept her eyes on it, willed the Beyond to reveal itself.
The Beyond itself seemed to eat through the sky as she commanded. Her hand began to itch, and she saw that the mark now flickered in the darkness. She pushed herself upright with her staff and thrust her hand towards the ever expanding hole in the dark.
Her hand exploded in pain, a pain she had grown all too familiar with in recent months. Its light grew, blinding emerald, forced her to look away. The keening wail of its energy rose in volume, accelerating the pain. She wasn't sure how much longer she could hold it.
Finally the mark hit crescendo and she was forced down onto one knee. She would've fallen had she not clutched her staff so tightly. It took a moment for the pain to die down to a tolerable ache and her comprehension to return. When it finally did she opened her eyes.
Solas stood above her with his hand outstretched. She took it gratefully, enjoyed the brief weightlessness as she was pulled to her feet. Solas smiled at her, though in the now hued light of the fade it looked more like a grimace.
"And so illusion has faded from sight," he murmured.
They now stood in the strange dreamscape of the fade. Strange rocks formations floated in the mists around them, ancient ruins of designs that hurt her eyes to look at spiraling out from them. Oppressive acidic light lit the world around them, bathing it in sorrow. Far away in the distance the Eternal City hung as it always did. It always seemed to be watching somehow, as if the city was a living thing unto itself.
She shivered involuntarily.
The particular island they stood on hardly had enough ground for the two to lie down. A strange rock tree rose behind them, jutting out of the side, casting a too large shadow over the entirety of the floating space.
She breathed deeply, collected herself. Then she spoke. "You always speak of your trips and dreams in this place. Usually I don't get anything more than a nightmare." She gestured forward, to the space about them. "Would you show me one?"
He took her arm in his. "Of course. It would be my utmost pleasure, Lethallin."
Together they stepped off their little island.
Only to step on its side to see the world changed.
One thousand spears rose before her, carried by one thousand forms of fur clad men. They marched forth through a murky landscape, their standard indiscernible as their bronze-shot feet clanged against the earth below them. Those that Elynna could make out bore mantles of strange beasts she did not recognize, the hues of which varied so wildly as to boggle her imagination.
The eerie procession's matched march faltered suddenly, but not due to a lack of rhythm or some sort of mistake. Handfuls of men dropped, their spears clattering over their fellows as if felled by unseen axes. Just as their rhythm seemed on the cusp of complete disintegration, one loud voice near the center of the formation bellowed loudly.
"Statherá!" the voice bellowed, a course voice that stung like cold wind. She could not recognize the word nor even the language from which it belonged.
Its effect was immediate – the formation tightened, spears continuing to fall as their holders were felled but the steady staccato of steps remained constant.
The voice rose again, but this time in song. "Thárros! Timi! Eleftheria gia pánta!" It was a strange melody, rough to her elvhen ears, yet it held a strange and savage beauty nonetheless.
More voices joined in, singing in voices as foreign to her as the words that they cried. In them she felt strength, she felt their pride. She could not help but feel it well up in her own chest, the stark defiance and grim determination. They would endure. They would survive.
Voices dropped as spears fell, the footsteps continuing hard. As they marched away from her their forms muddied further, until all that remained of them was a blot in her vision and a chorus of voices fading into the horizon.
Finally it was silent, and they stood in an empty plain littered with footprints.
"They marched to their deaths," Solas spoke from beside her. She jerked in surprise, seemingly unmindful that he had been present as the procession passed before her. "A people, forgotten by time, singing of their eternal survival. They marched into the arrows of their foes and died all together, fear cast aside like torn cloak. One final, proud song, sung in a final, desperate march."
She stood still a moment before responding. "Evidently unforgotten by the Beyond, it seems."
Solas nodded slightly. "Names, faces – all fall to the wayside of the attentions of spirits. They remember the emotion, the feeling – but even that fades with time. That this ancient passion still holds any form at all speaks to its strength."
"Is this truly how you experience these dreams? Unfocused memory of ages past?"
Solas shook his head. "No. The experiences I see are more vivid, clearer – some details yet still survive in the eyes of the spirits. What you witnessed was a memory, my memory, of those spirit's recollections. Were you to dream where I had, when I had, you would see with the focus of a direct remembrance."
"Rather than the memory of a memory?" She asked wryly.
A smile cracked across Solas' face. "Yes. That's it."
"Then could you show me something here? A spirit's memory of Skyhold? You've spoken as if this place is special."
The smile faded immediately. "Yes. It was Elvhen, but as to its former owner, its purpose… that can only be guessed at."
"But do the spirits remember anything?" Elynna persisted. "Can you have them show us?"
Solas' now actively frowned. "I cannot 'have' them do anything. I can invite them and see what they are... willing to show us."
"I would love to see whatever they would be willing to share with us." Elynna said.
Her companion's frown weakened at that, yet his brown remained furrowed. "Of course, Lethallin." He raised his left hand then, grasped at the empty space before him as if he held a staff of his own. Even as her eyes narrowed over Solas' empty grip there seemed no outward difference between the air between his fingers and that which flowed around.
He made as if to tap said staff into the earth below – and the world changed once again.
They stood in Skyhold, in the rotunda. Like in the present, painted scenes surrounded the pair on the walls around. A multitude of elves stood on field of orange earth, their backs stooped low and shackles strung betwixt them. Above in the clouds, interwoven amongst gargantuan trees but independent of them hung a crystalline city. Above even that hovered empty faces, masked behind clouds but clearly visible.
Another scene practically shone next to the first. An elf, face cloaked in shadow but clothed in rags casting aside his chains as a wolf stares from the sky.
Flitting her eyes quicker to the next scene brought Elynna the most splendid fresco of all – a mighty dragon, fallen to earth, knives raining from the skies above and impaling it.
Before she could take in the next work her eyes were drawn towards movement at the center of the room. A group of murky figures stood, congregated around one taller than the rest. The figure raised a hand to the sky in an all too familiar gesture.
Elynna fell heavily on her rear, disoriented. Before her lay the sea, cloaked in night, gently caressing the shore below. She looked behind her to see a forest of rowans and alders. "What just happened? How did we get back here?" She asked incredulously, unmindful that in her turnaround she hadn't caught sight of Solas.
"I am… unsure," his voice answered to her left, opposite of the direction she had turned.
She spun to find Solas sitting beside her at the cliffs edge, his feet dangling into empty space.
His neck held his gaze taught over the sea, his gaze not straying to her.
Elynna grunted in frustration. "You enjoy doing that way to much."
He crooked a brow, still not turning to her. "And what do I enjoy much too much?"
"Showing off. Here, in the Beyond, at least."
He finally turned to her, a small smile cracking across his face. It did not fully reach his eyes. "I suppose I do indeed."
Elynna cocked her head at him. "While we're at it... perhaps we could return to Haven."
Another questioning brow.
She smiled bashfully as her face reddened. "I would not mind feeling the whole world change again… as before."
He looked at her intently for a moment before turning his gaze to the sky. "Nothing would please me more," he said tiredly.
Elynna turned to look at the sky, trying to make out what Solas saw. "...But?" She asked after a moment.
Suddenly he turned back to her and kissed her right on the nose. She nearly fell over backwards in shock. Her face darkened from red to crimson. When she recovered herself enough to look back at her companion a wolfish grin lit his face.
"But it is time to wake up."
In her chambers atop Skyhold's tallest tower, Elynna uselessly slammed her fists into the bed beneath her. Frustrated, yet smiling.