Taking Names
They take away your name.
That is what the world does, when they make you into their saviour. They take away any identity you ever had. They make you into something greater, some force that is above being mortal or flawed or having our own lives. They strip away your face and your name, until all that is left is a race, a gender, and an accomplishment.
Worse still is that they don't stop there. They take it away, and then they shove everything they have made you into in your face.
Who will be grateful in a dozen days, when they've counted the casualties? In a dozen weeks, when the lesser injuries have healed, who will stand and say they saw me on the front lines? In a dozen months, will they even remember that there was a red-haired elf who saved their lives from the Red Templars, the Wardens, the demons, the Venatori, from Corypheus and the end of our world? Or will they repaint it as a force of nature, a whim of the Makers' or Andrastes' or the Elven so-called 'gods'?
Will they take away my face the same they have every other figure in their mythology? Like they did the Hero of Fereldan a decade ago, or the Champion of Kirkwall? Even Morrigan never called him by name, and he was her lover, from what I understand. Varric never names the Champion anything but Hawke, but that is not a name any more, is it? It is but another title, a label to paint us in a light that is easier to grasp than whatever our given names are. I imagine being Hawke is but a burden to him; the Apostate that slew his friend and sided with the mages and later rent our world in two. No, I take that back; I do not imagine, but I know. Being Lavellan is the same.
And this is all without going into the crimes he has committed against me. Luring me into the trap of thinking I was special? That I need to be separate from my people, from the world, from all my allies and friends, because I made it my responsibility when I seized the orb in the Temple of Sacred Ashes?
How dare he. He took his pretty words and he used them to recreate me. And I let him. I know that. I let him take my Vallaslin away, because he told some story of it being a long-ago mark of slavery. That is the truth of it, as I informed Sera: we Dalish cling to our blood writing and claim it as a reminder of our past, but all we succeed in is making ourselves seem the fool in the eyes of the memories we may witness within the Fade. He took away my Vallasin, and now how am I to return to my clan? I would be an outcast. He marked me as being like him.
He called me beautiful, and told me what I meant to him, but his words must have been as much a game for him as the rest of this charade, for he is gone now, and with it, he has taken whatever piece of myself I still had. All for my damned duty. And yet he never called me by my name, either. Just Lavellan. Dalish. Inquisitor. 'Heart'.
Emma uth harel? Emma din-hala ha'mi'ina, latha, ena'an'sala? Emma dineth vir har' vhenan-dala. Emma abelas ar'lana. Emma din tu ma'solas, nuvena 'ma vena nehn. Emma din tu abelas ena sal. 'Ma din-dara ir u in Tera'selahn sule halamshiral.
You once asked me what I planned to do, Josephine Montilyet, when this war was won. Leliana asked the same, and Vivienne, and just about everyone else. Here is my plan: I will be gone for a time. I'll be back eventually, when I've remade myself, or redefined myself, or I know what I am, or who I am, or what I could be.
I don't want sculptures of me. I don't want paintings or portraits or any visual image. I want Varric to tell my story, because he is particularly good at it. But I want him to make me seem like something real. I want him to get Cassandra to help, and Cole.
I want them to remember that Ser Blackwall has been cost so much more than we had a right to claim from him, after all we have wrought to mages and Templars, elves and humans and Qunari and dwarves. I want Sera to be paid for what she has done, but not so much that she believes I agreed to her bribery. I would like Bull to be a general or someone to frighten off those that will oppose your changes, but for the good of Thedas, do not put him in a uniform. Let Cole help people, but do not let him return to what he was before Rhys. Help Cassandra craft the world she envisions, but ensure she works with Leliana and Vivienne, they both have such wonderful ideas, but the world cannot go back to what it was before; with those three on the same side, Thedas can be won. Keep Cullen off lyrium, help Dorian with whatever he requests, and please ensure Varric is no longer imprisoned. I do not need the fate Cassandra lent him plaguing my conscience, whether it benefitted us all or not.
Do look after yourself, Josephine. I could not bear to see your family shatter, or you overwork yourself. There is no need to worry about me, either. I can care for myself.
Emma then sahlin.
Ma serannas,
'Your Inquisitor'
Word count: 946
Pairing: Solas/Lavellan Inquisitor
A/N: May be continued, but for now, this is a letter. Approximate translation of the Elvish is:
1:[Why] Am I always decieved? Am I not in need [deserving] of rest, of love, of a blessing? I am not safe from fear of heart-break. I am sorry [that] I allowed so much arrogance, to wish for myself to find joy. I will not repeat this sorrow [mistake]. I am not to be more alone in Skyhold [lit. 'Place where the Sky is Kept'] until the end of [my] journey.
2: I am alert now.
My thanks.
A/N#2: Obviously I don't own Dragon Age, that would be the geniuses at Bioware.