Dreams for the Lost - Chapter 1

Senn scratched another mark into the worn wall of her cell. 54 days. 54 days since the assault on Skyhold, and the cold stone she slumped against now reflected it. Her capture had been methodical and swift. Varric and Cassandra had been the only ones to witness it, but even as they cried out to her, Senn closed her eyes. In that moment, the moment their "machine" had snapped into place around her wrists and ankles, this was the objective—she was the objective—of this bloody raid. It would go easier on Skyhold, on her friends and the people she protected there, if she let them take her. Senn had been right. The assault had receded as soon as the Lavellan inquisitor crumpled under the heavy ropes blasted around her by the contraption. The ropes had been enchanted with some horrid spell that gave off an acrid smell and singed her skin as it constricted her, brutally cutting off her concentration. Senn had cried out in broken howls of pain, but by the time her breath had returned, the enchantments on the trap had snapped her into a deep choking sleep. A voice had cried out as Senn's eyes closed to the cloudy afternoon and the riotous chaos of battle. From the ramparts, where he had been warding the barrage of archers, Solas cried out, broken and agonized as the helplessness of his position dawned.

"VHENAN!"

Then darkness took Senn deep into the dark waters of unconsciousness—far from the Fade, and from her new home.

54 days. Someone shoved a plate with a handful of stale bread under the door. The inquisitor waited for the footsteps to recede before carefully moving towards her dinner. She winced under the strain of her own bodyweight. Every morning, three of Senn's captors—all garbed in black—entered, woke her roughly, and injected something into her veins that prevented her from manifesting any of her magic. Once or twice, one of the black-robed assailants had roughed her up a little too, but she made a point of paying him back for it by grabbing at his crotch and twisting with all her might—this was also where the inquisitor was able to determine that her captors were male. Needless to say, she had not been struck by the same robe again. She had no other information about where, why, or who held her. At first she'd tried asking—or rather demanding, but this had resulted in the removal of the toenails on her right foot. Her captors were experienced. She did not bleed much from this torture, but the pain served as a diligent reminder. Senn therefore resigned herself to silence and detection whenever it was possible. She would capture glances around the door when her captors were provoked. She would accidentally catch hold of a ringed hand, a glimpse of coloured cloth, or sniff into robes of one of her assailants as they were forced to wrangle her body into a better position for her morning dosage. Any trick for a clue as to where she was would do.

Her friends were looking for her, of this much Maer'Senh Lavellan was certain. There was time. Whoever was keeping her did not want her dead, just weak. Each day, her connection to the Fade (her magic) guttered and failed her when she tried to mend her body. Perhaps her captors wanted to whittle her power, her connection to the anchor down before confronting her. Perhaps a zealous Chantry leader, seeking to paint the Inquisitor as a false god, a pretender, sent to deter us from Andraste's light. Lavellan scoffed at this, but even this hurt her whole body.

Her skin still bore the marks of those cursed ropes; burns of the blistering variety and blue bruises laced her skin, but it was the broken hands, feet, and rib that pestered her most. They had let her keep her smalls at first, but after her first attempt to harm the black-robed keepers, they had taken those too. It was disturbing to watch the shape of her legs and hips change so quickly. Senn was malnourished, and broken, but persevering. She conserved her energy carefully by sleeping most of the time. Her body had trained itself to spring awake at the slightest noise from the outside, but even all this rest was not enough to restore her enough to begin to heal; or perhaps it was the serum they forced into her blood.

Either way, her friends were coming. So she waited.

After letting the bread and water slide down her swollen throat, she dragged herself back into the warmest part of the cell (likely a side warmed on the outside by some sun), and tried to sleep. She thought of her time with him. She tried to piece together his study. The side-room. The wolf pelts. The smell of sandalwood and parchment. The soft light of his oil lamps, too long unchanged. The dimple in his chin. In his right brow. His freckles. The way his ears moved back when he first caressed her cheek. His warmth. His breath on her skin. His voice.

Gods…54 days. Tears stung her head as she tried to remember.

"Da'len-Senn! Vhenan! Hold onto it!" he said.

Senn bolted upright sending a surge of pain through to her entire body, right through to her tailbone. How long had she slept? The light was gone, and she shivered in her cell. For an instant, she swore she could still feel him, her Solas, his palm on her cheek…her shoulder? She panted mutely. The sweat chilled her further, and she balled herself against the cold and the pain. After some time, exhaustion once again took her, and she pondered on her strange dream until she drifted into another restless semi-sleep.

Haven still smouldered. Singed earth and the sour metallic stench of battle carried on the wind for miles. Senn walked slowly, toe to heel, as she used to do in the soft moss undergrowth of her home clan. Her boots were gone. The light brown dress of her ordination wrapped around her form like a blanket. Haven whispered and crackled like coals as she stepped—almost floating through the courtyard.

"Senn!" Solas called out. She had been here so many times, but Solas had never interrupted this dream. Elated and light to see him, she spun, but his form did not appear on the balcony as she expected.

"Senn!" He called out again. She was sure it was him. His voice.

"Senn," Yes. It was her Solas. Clearer; surer than ever. She ran to the other side of the courtyard to peer at the gate, but no trace of the elder elf found her eyes. Senn faltered there in the courtyard.

"Senn." Senn spun about. Solas stood not four feet from her, bare feet to the stones. Tears stood in his eyes. "Stay calm Da'len."

"Solas!" Senn mouthed as she stumbled towards the man, the weeks of solitude, fear, uncertainty, and pain—constant pain, lifted from her for a moment, even in this dream. But when she blinked. Solas was no more. Senn spun again, he was gone. Just as he had been standing before her not a moment passed in such detail as even her waking memories could not recall, he was gone! Senn felt the sting of bitter tears behind her eyes.

"Vhenan," the wind whispered.

The Inquisitor gasped, stumbling, her bare feet slapping the stones erratically. His voice was quieter now. Far away. He was far away. And it was only a dream.

"Vhenan!" Again. Louder. Senn closed her eyes, willing his form to return as two tears fell to the stones.

Suddenly, a cool hand on her cheek lifted her eyes once more. When she looked up though, no one stood there to comfort her. She was alone.

"You are not alone,"

Solas stood 10 paces before her, just as if he had never left. As if she had never…as if none of this had ever happened—that nightmare she would wake to once again. Senn braced herself to run to him.

"Vhenan,"

Solas stepped back, long fingers extending with caution. "You must stay calm, Da'len. You must follow this memory. Follow me. You are slipping from the dream,"

"Solas," Senn sobbed as she stayed herself. It was agony not to go to him, but something in his words urged her to obey. She felt it beyond the dream and the man before her now.

"Calm your mind…please, stay with me,"

Senn made herself close her eyes once more. The terror that her Solas might not be there again when she opened them pushed another tear from her and she trembled, but obeyed. She listened to the sound of her breath, smelled the charred stone, let the wind blow her hair about her shoulders.

"Now walk through the memory. Trust it to carry you to the other side," Senn paused.

"The other side?" a cold grip seized her mind as she turned the idea of death over in her mind, wondering what her sleeping body was suffering through now. Was this specter simply a spirit sent to guide her into death? A spirit like Cole, a kind entity, gifting her one last moment with her Solas before death breathed her out of this world? Wait…what if…the other side.

"Solas?" Senn reached out with her mind.

"Is that really you? Are you trying to find me in the Fade? Gods, tell me it's really you—that it's not just another one of their tricks," she whimpered, her resolve crumbling once more.

"Yes, Vhenan! But your manifestation is weak! You are slipping!"

Senn's senses burst forth in a torrent of relief. She struggled for a moment to maintain the door between her dream and the Fade, but she felt herself falling. She felt the cold stones of the cell floor beneath her, she felt the pain in her side, and heard the footfalls outside in the hallway… it must be morning.

"Solas!" Senn cried, panic gripping her voice as the dream collapsed.

"NO!" his voice echoed into the stone beneath Senn's tender head as her eyes opened to the real world.

Her side felt as though it would pierce through her skin as she panted and blinked the tears from her eyes. The cell was lit with pale morning and the grinding of the iron door receiving its key ran sharp into her head. Anger flared up into Senn's flesh, and she gritted her teeth as two robed figures who smelled of bonfire and blackened fish and ale approached to administer the serum. The vallaslin that covered her body coursed a darker green as her blood quickened and her breath came ragged and defiant through her nose. The first figure grabbed her broken hand and yanked it about until she collapsed with a yelp. He then knelt on her bent knees and wrenched her other arm behind her back. The second plunged the needle into the vein the first robe held out for him. When the needle was removed, she bit down hard across the arm of the figure as he struggled to rise from her legs. He cried out, but she still could not cipher an accent. The rebuttal was a brutal price however. The second robed figure hit her hard across the cheek and kicked her side as she fell, spurring new pain into the broken bones there.

The wind knocked from her, the two hastened out of the cell before Senn could see straight. The pain wracked her for another ten minutes. When it finally subsided, she dragged herself back to the worn sleeping place and closed her eyes. Solas WAS trying to find her in the Fade. Her heart pounded and she wept with relief for a long time. Her purple and blackened hands pulsed with this workout however, and sleep did not return to her. Senn resolved to spend the day awake to ensure she slept deeply that night.

She spent a few hours trying to drag herself high enough to peer out the window, but this project proved fruitless. Her broken feet and ankles could not provide enough strength, even for one leap from her knees to the rusted bars. Her heart pounded all day. When her dinner, the stale corner of yeasty bread and water was shoved under the door, she dragged herself to it, ate quickly, and placed another notch in the wall before making her bloody way back to her sleeping corner, heart still racing. Senn had not spent this much energy she did not have since her first days in the cell, and her eyes grew heavy even before she could recite her clan's autumn poems. As the moon rose, the small smudges of blood from her attempts to get to the window glistened on the stone floor, and she counted the streaks—14—before sleep enveloped her.

Once more, Senn tried to construct his study in the rotunda, and his quarters just to the west of it. The tilt of his head when he found himself lost in a text. The smell of parchment and sandalwood. The warmth of his hands on her as he healed the welt on her bow arm. That memory always struck her when she reached out in the Fade. But here, in this cell—the serum—she was cut off. She must be a beacon, Solas must find her, she thought. Senn cleared her thoughts and began again, Solas's lessons echoing distantly in her tired mind. She reconstructed the cell instead; concentrated on the smell of the night air, the elevation, the shape and colour of the stones. The memories of her captors. The songs of the occasional birds outside.

She stood in her initiation robe on the roof of Skyhold. It was night here also. She closed her eyes once more. The Fade was close, but it did not embrace her yet. She could not step close enough into this memory. Once again, she tried the rotunda.

"Senn?"

Senn started. Cole! It was Cole!

"COLE!" Senn cried out, trotting toe to heel down the steps. She was once more on the roof of Skyhold. Cole sat cross-legged on one of the ramparts.

"Cole, you dear boy! Are you alright? Is everyone alright? Are you at Skyhold?" Senn rambled. The compassion spirit nodded.

"Inquisitor…They hurt; he hurts—but they are all resting, trying to rest. Working to find some peace when nothing more can be done today. It keeps them from resting a lot," the boy stumbled on his words. Senn could hardly hold back the tears of joy at seeing her friend again.

"Cole, I need you to carry a message back to them for me," Senn instructed, wiping her nose.

"Yes, I know,"

"Tell them the people holding me want me alive, but broken. They are forcing a serum into my blood that keeps me from channelling magic; that keeps me from the Fade. They will have to find me, just like you have. I don't know what they want yet, but I will keep trying to get more information. Can you tell them that for me?"

"Of course Inquisitor. It will be good for them. So much pacing of the head, so much fear and helplessness. It is all for the soon. The now is too hard. Birds on the south wind with no scent. Too much wind."

"Birds…" Senn turned the idea over in her mind. There was something about it, but she couldn't put her finger on what. Her delirium and the serum were both too strong, keeping her from coherence—especially here so close to the Fade. She shook the thought from her mind with little time left.

"Cole, thank you for finding me,"

"He doesn't walk the castle anymore," Cole said, distracted.

"What?"

"He doesn't wake. He sleeps always. He searches always," Cole murmured. Senn's eyes welled up once more. 'Oh, Solas,' she thought.

"He hurts most. The most anger. He is angry with himself. With the world. He wishes it would end. And again. He is walking always in the Fade. Two feet or four. Always smelling and searching for a painting. A story. A picture," Cole struggled.

"A picture. You mean an impression? A vision of where I am, Cole?" Senn tried. Cole's face lit up a little.

"Yes! A vision,"

Senn's heart leapt again and she held out her hands to the boy spirit.

"Here. Take one," she said. Cole understood right away and let the elf rest her hands in his. Senn gave him the picture of her cell, the voices of her captors, the wind, the stone, the birds. The birds! That was it!

Cole took the images and impressions easily.

"Pass these along to Solas, Cole. He will know what to do. He will know how to help you ease the pain," Senn struggled to give the words without the tears behind them. Most of all she gave him the bird calls she had heard outside her cell. Someone would find those birds. Thrushes. Golden throated thrushes. She did not know their migration patterns, but Senn was willing to bet one of her friends would find out. All this, she slowly imparted into the boy before her. The compassion spirit cringed.

"Senn!" he stuttered. "You are hurting so! There is a cloud between your eyes and the eyes you need. Stumbling, crying, losing memories. Hands grasping, fighting, flesh. Your body fights the distance, the blackened parts. You hurt from the inside to the air. Purple and sick,"

"I know, Cole. It'll be alright soon. Get the message and the impressions to the others quickly. That will end the hurt. I promise," Senn struggled out, wiping her nose again. Cole nodded solemnly.

Senn blinked, and the compassion spirit was gone. It was colder now, and Senn struggled to breathe on that roof as an icy wind cut right through her.

Pale blue morning woke her with that same icy wind that had cut through to the very dream. Small beads of snow fell in through the narrow window overhead and melted mutely on the stones at her feet. Hypothermia could now officially be added to her list of clear and present dangers.

Senn repeated the actions of the previous day, refusing to sleep until exhaustion took her. She did not antagonize her serum administrators this morning, but instead once more attempted to set her careful tracking nose to their garb and breath. She picked up fish once again, salted this time, perhaps a routine breakfast here. A coast? No, too much trouble to salt a fresh catch. No need to preserve them unless they were travelling. Where could she be then…

She spent the day trying to catch glimpses of the birds and the nuances in the echoing steps that penetrated the door's frame every few hours. There were at least 2 more rooms on this floor, but no other heavy metal doors were opened. Either hers was the only captivity cell, or the others were in disuse. There were stairs, she had known this since she first arrived, but just how many was difficult to tell; she lost the sounds after 9 steps down. There was no calculating her elevation level in the building at this time.

When night fell, Senn spent what must have been close to 2 hours meditating on the space around her, and hopefully…the space around him. She tried to reach out. She mouthed her clan's prayers with his name. Her hands were getting worse. She couldn't feel them anymore. Some of her fingers had come out of place, and they blackened and grew numb. A fever had started in her that evening, likely brought on by the cold, Senn told herself. She had seen marrow fever in unlucky ones in her home clan. If the marrow from her rib was in her blood now, she had only a few weeks to live if she couldn't heal herself. The fever made it easy to fall asleep despite the cold. Staying asleep however, proved to be a problem. Senn stirred and shook with cold sweats often. Finally, close to the 4th hour, her fever broke, laying her deep into a much needed sleep of the blackest pools in the sky. Senn slept and reached for him.