I'm in the process of moving to AO3, as I prefer that format, so this is a heads up to any subscribers that I can be found there under the same name as here. I will continue to update my two in-progress stories both here and there, as the updates occur to me to write, but I will slowly migrate to AO3 entirely. Meanwhile, here' s some Solavellan fallout feels.
Written in the Blood
Each glance is a slap. Her face is bare, the better to feel the withering sting. Even the Keeper falters in her greeting. Somewhere between andaran and atish'an there's a pause, a sharp drawn in breath, harsher than any spoken condemnation. This, Lavellan thinks, is no less than she deserves.
"Aneth ara, Keeper," she replies, her head held high as if to spite the angry flush spreading down her neck and up into her hairline. She should have given better warning. Instead, exactly one cryptic comment, a postscript to the official Inquisition letter announcing the Inquisitor's planned arrival in Wycome: things have changed, Keeper, and they're best seen, not explained.
The welcome feast is strained. The only thing keeping the peace is that it's Wycome's welcome also, not just the clan's. That reckoning will come later, away from human ears and eyes. A new role in Wycome is not enough incentive to discard the old ways. No reason it should be. To earn the right to wear the vallaslin is at the heart of being Dalish, and here she is, a barefaced insult to them all. She takes the time to stare down two of the younger hunters, Ellaris and Syndrel, whose scrapes and bruises she often mended before this all began, then raises her jeweled goblet with her marked hand—a statement, if only one she alone knows she's making—and toasts to friendship and to progress.
#
"You wish to talk, da'len?" Keeper Istimaethoriel is not old enough to be her mother, but she shows motherly enough concern. As First, and herself a gift of past Arlathven exchanges, she fostered Llyrae into the Clan when she arrived, a silent and scared six year old, clutching a polished stormheart pendant in a tiny fist crackling with lightning. As barefaced now as she was then, Lavellan remains hers to care for. Even when she makes for herself a smokescreen of the Inquisition's trappings.
"Yes. It's why I asked you to come."
The Keeper gives no indication she takes offense at being summoned. Which, in a manner of speaking, is the nature of any of the Inquisitor's requests, even when they come scribbled on a scrap of torn journal paper, and include words like "please," "ir abelas," and "Llyrae." But then, the Keeper also knows Lavellan well enough to interpret her aloofness as the guilt that it is, and so the Keeper lays her staff aside, claims a seat by the window, and gives Lavellan her attention with the same graceful ease as if they were at the firepit by her aravel.
"About my vallaslin—" Lavellan falters. She has a speech rehearsed, stayed up half the night going over the long and clever thing composed of elegant half-truths and kind omissions. As sleek as anything Solas ever said. The room suddenly feels stuffy and close. "I'm sorry, Keeper," she says between uneven breaths. "I don't know what to say."
"Forget that for now, da'len. You've been here a week already. Why don't you come back with me before you return?"
"I don't know."
The Keeper smiles. "You do know."
#
The Clan's last used campsite has been chartered into Wycome's new bylaws as belonging to the Dalish. Lavellan read the writ herself within hours of arrival in the city, and didn't care who saw the joyful tear on her cheek as she ran a finger over the document's formal cursive. Still, she feels like an intruder walking among the aravels, almost as daunted now as she was twenty some odd years ago. The aravels have been strewn with flowered garlands and leafy wreaths, and kindling has been piled high at the hahren's fire pit, where the clan has gathered, waiting.
She turns to the Keeper: "You planned this." Not an accusation, not far from one either.
Keeper Istimaethoriel nudges her gently forward. "Welcome home, lethallan."
#
Homecoming is easier and harder than she expected. Easier: they don't hate her. Harder: an explanation is, however impossible, still owed.
#
"I'm telling you, the trees were fantastic, a tangle of branches and leaves, reaching up to the blue sky like lovers not yet sated." Catcalls and whistles spread—you should give the hahren pointers, someone calls out. "No, really." The heat of the fire and heat of the spirits have loosened Lavellan's tongue, made her reckless. She dares herself to say, "You looked up and felt like you could fall forever into that ancient green, the same rush as when a night with your vhenan turns your blood to fire." Inside her fist, the mark thrums with eager magic. She can almost sense the vibrant smaragdine of the Emerald Graves as she talks, a warm buzz on the tongue, and she's never been one to wax poetic of the forest, let alone liken it to a lover. That lover—no other earns this comparison. "Not even the giants could make it any less perfect."
"Giants? Hah!" Hadriel, one of the older hunters, spits into the dying embers. "Aren't they extinct?" But his tone is mild, and the corners of his eyes crinkled.
"Giants." She gestures widely, smacks her hand into a young hunter apprentice's forehead, continues undaunted. "They had tusks, and warts, and matted fur on their haunches. And the stench—" Mythal's mercy, she almost says. Though the Well's voices have lapsed intro troubling silence some while, there's an instant where an uncomfortable tug pulls at her from an unnamed and unfathomable beyond, and it feels somehow as startled by her notice as she is by its presence. It takes focus—that's right, indomitable, you bastard—to continue her story. "The stench was incredible, a living thing all its own."
"How about dragons?" The apprentice, eyes wide. She is Syndrel's sister, and every bit as eager for the fight. "Did you fight dragons?"
"Some." That memory is less pleasant, but she finds it preferable to thinking of Solas, or the Temple of Mythal. "They are magnificent creatures," she adds softly, pushing away her still half full cup. "So much power. It's almost indecent to extinguish it at all."
"But you did. Extinguish it. What was—"
"Da'len, it's late, and Llyrae is tired." The Keeper sits up, a sign to all that the evening is ended. "Maybe you can ask her tomorrow."
Lavellan is grateful for the Keeper's interruption. She could have continued, happy to simply laze around the fire and tell stories like she never left at all, but the Well's sudden intrusion has taken a toll. Later, as they stretch out for the night in The Keeper's aravel, she says, "Thank you."
"Lethallan?"
"This." But for the time that passed they could still be Mae and Llyr, talking at the end of the day. "I don't know how you managed, but tonight was just right."
"I didn't manage anything, lethallan. They're your people."
#
It's because they're her people that she allows Ellaris to corner her the next day. No matter how idyllic the reunion, questions still demand answers, and she's tangled enough with the Game to know the need for an opening gambit. Easy enough: go for a solo nature stroll. Even easier: pretend she's so lost to memories and old sights that she doesn't notice him tracking her.
As expected, he waits until they're a good distance from the campsite. "Welcome back, Llyrae." He's stepped out in her path, barring her passage.
"Thank you, Ellaris. Assuming you mean it."
"And if I don't?"
She knows Ellaris never gets to his point without provocation. So, then, mild tone, just close enough to condescension: "That is your right."
"Fenehdis. That's all you have to say?"
"To posturing, yes. Now, if there was something substantial you wanted—?"
Ellaris droops his shoulders. Unlike Syndrel, and in spite of his youth—a mere month before her departure Lavellan assisted the Keeper when he gained the dark swirls of Elgar'nan's tangled thorns—he's always responded well to being called out. "The Keeper says to let it be," he says, almost contrite. "That whatever happened to make your vallaslin gone is not our business." He kicks a pebble with his toe, and darts a sly glance at a nearby thicket. Syndrel, no doubt, is hidden there. "But, I don't know—"
"You think that it is?"
"Maybe."
"You're both right," she says after a time, pitching her voice so that it carries. "How this happened is private. But know this, lethallin: it wasn't a decision I made lightly, nor one meant to say I wish to be less Dalish." Then, the closest she comes to an apology, because no apology can glue the pieces of the past back again: "I should have said that before now. I can't be less than what I am. Our faces set us apart, not define us."
"That's not what I meant."
"Isn't it?" Then, to forestall his incoming objection: "It's all right. Change is dreaded by all." At the edge of her thoughts she can sense the surging shapes of the Well's voices, though as before, their tumult is too quickly gone. "And things," she says slowly, "things must change in order to grow."
#
Lightning dances across her skin, and the spirit blade is a vertigo in her fist—she always wields it with her marked hand, has plans to thread it with the Anchor's rift magic. Fen'Harel's magic—the Wolf howling under her skin, small enough difference to any vallaslin.
Waiting for her at Skyhold are stacks of tomes from Tevinter and Orlais, what few notes Solas left behind, and a rift magic expert the nascent College of Enchanters promises is more coherent than the addled human Leliana dug up all those many months ago. Beyond this, she hopes to coax Varric's friend Merril to Skyhold; her return route has already been scheduled through Kirkwall. But first, improvement: she lunges forward, an adapted version of what she's seen Cassandra do countless times before. Hardly perfect—weightless weapon, staff instead of shield for counterbalance—just a decent enough start. She's claimed a portion of the southern battlements for practice while in Wycome, and draws a slightly larger crowd every morning. Josephine would approve: it's good publicity, seeing the Inquisitor in action. Not that Lavellan disagrees. Lunge, thrust, sidestep, slash, subtle wrist flourish that would be wasted on a foe. She's so absorbed in her performance, she never hears the Keeper walk up.
"Nice work, lethallan."
"Keeper." The blade dissipates with a low, melodic hum. "I thought you'd wait until lunch."
"I couldn't. I was up all night. And now I see," she adds with a smile that belies the tight hold she has of her staff, "that I must wait after all."
Lavellan's first impulse is to relent. Instead: "I'll make it quick, Keeper."
She resumes her practice, though she is conscious of being more restrained than other days. She puts herself through the paces regardless, if only to spite her own anemic verve. By the time she's finished, she's worked up a sweat, an appetite, and scant enthusiasm for conversing with the Keeper. She decided it would be best to handle things this way, so why is she so hesitant to see it through?
"So." She busies herself with wiping down the back of her neck. "You read my notes about the Temple of Mythal."
"That such a place exists!" Wonder and disbelief war on Keeper Istimaethoriel's face. "It's extraordinary! If even a portion of what you wrote is true—"
"All of it is true."
"What I meant to say is, that these records, along with your descriptions of the inner sanctum— Fen'Harel mosaics?"
"Next to Elgar'nan, yes. Another facing the most elaborate of the ritual walks. And carved wolves everywhere." An impatient gesture: "You read this already."
The Keeper remains thoughtful a long while. "Did drinking from the Well make you lose your vallaslin?"
"I didn't lose anything!" Sharper than it sounded in her head, if the look on the Keeper's face is any indication. "Look," she tries again, unsure whether she's trying to mollify herself or the Keeper. "I'm more grateful that you will ever know for your faith in me, and for making this visit so easy."
"But—?"
Lavellan is one step away from resurrecting her prepared speech of some nights ago. It's only the thought of Solas's half-truths that gets her to say, "It wasn't the Well. I don't know what kind of magic removed my vallaslin." Raw memory, raw voice: "I can tell you why I made this choice, but you must be certain that you're prepared to know."
A moment as charged as any interval between a lightning flash and the inevitable clap of thunder, then: "I'm sorry for prying, Llyrae."
#
Homecoming is easier and harder than Lavellan expected. Easier: she doesn't have to explain impossible secrets. Harder: if she hasn't told them now, she'll never tell them.
#
They discuss the implications of the Temple of Mythal, and the Well of Sorrows, long into the afternoon. By dinner—soft ewe's milk cheese, clay baked Marcher flatbread, grapes, roast hare dressed with pomegranate nectar, fragrant wine the color of pale citrine—they work out as well as they can a chronology of all the times they know of Asha'bellanar crossing paths with the People. Inevitably incomplete, but good enough for starters.
With evening approaching, they make plans to spread the stories: the Song of Sylaise first, followed by the texts on Mythal, Andruil, and Ghilan'nain, at no point omitting where they were found, or the prevalence of wolf statues in the place. The addenda on Dirthamen, Falon'Din, and Fen'Harel Lavellan obtained from Orlais will remain in reserve until they can be substantiated through actual elven sources. Finally, Lavellan pledges full Inquisition support to any Dalish wishing to go to the ruined Temple and see for themselves, and drafts a similar proposal to present to Wycome's hahren later.
"It will take time to get the word out," says the Keeper when they've finished.
"I have the resources. But Mae—" Her old nickname for the Keeper hangs between them, an echo of the past. "You're tired," Lavellan adds. "Go get some sleep."
"I will. Listen, I'm glad you came."
She wants to remember this moment, the scrolls and notes strewn across the table, the map marked with the red marks of Flemeth's contact with the People, the dark smudge of ink above the Keeper's right eyebrow. Lavellan wipes it off with her thumb, and says, "I'm glad I came too, lethallan."
#
Her last day in Wycome is blatant affirmation of the Inquisition's power, and of the visit's perceived success: nobles, merchants, dignitaries of all stripes and colors present their respects; hands are shaken, promises of friendship renewed; doves are released from a balcony with much fanfare; someone even pushes a plump human baby at her—for blessing—which she pats on its downy head with what she knows is a bemused expression.
The Clan extends its own farewell—an honor guard of hunters, their green armor gleaming, escort her outside, and then array themselves like trees on either side of the path leading to her mount. By the red hart, the Keeper waits. Beyond her, the Inqusitor's entourage, at a respectful distance.
She's ready to speak the formal farewells, when the Keeper pulls her into a tight embrace. "Be safe, lethallan," she says, and presses something into her palm. The feel is so familiar, Lavellan knows before looking it'll be the iridescent blue-green sheen of polished stormheart that she'll see. "I didn't see you wearing yours, so—"
A replica of her mother's pendant, given to her when the fateful Arlathven of her childhood concluded, and later shattered in the Conclave blast, rests in her hand: longer than hers was, and the stone darker. She nods, slips it around her neck, and gets on her mount. "Aneth ara, Keeper."
"Dareth shiral, da'len."
Lavellan urges the hart forward, onto the path that stretches out before her, wide as the promise of the future, its call as unyielding as anything written in the blood.