It has been nearly a year now that she has been here, held captive but free of bonds. Nearly a year since the fighting, the desperation. The cold, wet nights and the harsh, bloody days. Nearly a year since she has seen her lover's face.
Nearly a year since the blighted snake fell and the Hero of Ferelden rose.
The aerie has fallen into disrepair, centuries now after the last one died. Still, the sound of beating wings echoes off the crumbling stonework, evidence of those thankful to find such accommodating shelter from the temperamental wind. The brittle straw and abandoned cobwebs that litter each cote make for warm nests, made warmer still by each tiny intruder.
This frigid place has become refuge for the elf from the suspicious gaze of those who should be kin. She sits at the center, the links of her mail slowly gathering frost, thinking of the lessons taught her by the witch she yet calls friend.
The first transformation is always slow, made slower still by the need to use what records remain. She hadn't been able to read the delicate parchment, and she had not been provided the translations she knew must exist. But she had studied the images, depictions of immense detail wrought in delicate lines of ink and charcoal. Page after page of the great birds in flight, in rest, in mating. Wings larger than aravels, talons the size of dar'misu. A feather, longer than her arm, had been tucked into the center of a scroll, each barb still sleek and smooth and undamaged from Creators only know how many ages of dust and dank and shadow.
She breathes, in and out, slowly knitting the magic together, the mabari with kaddis-blackened fur ever-present at her side.
The Wardens here are distrustful of her. They would doubt her word that the Archdemon is slain but for their peaceful nights and thoughts silent of sweetly-sick whispers. The First Warden and his Second are never satisfied when they ask how it is that she yet lives. Her first weeks here are spent in isolation, her only interaction an interrogation, repeated again and again in hopes her answers will change.
But with every inquiry her reply remains the same.
Faer'mana, she says.
Old magic.
There are few elves here, and fewer mages. All her senior in age and experience and none welcoming to Warden who vanquished the Blight. Each day she is joined by a dull Warden guard, stamping their feet and blowing on their hands to stave away the chill of the open air. Each day she is attended, and each day she studies. She watches the patterns the darkness of her eyelids make, and concentrates on the bitter kiss of the wind.
She can almost hear the snap of the campfire, taste the tang of failed spells on the air. The witch's voice echoes in her memory, night after night of harsh words crafted to make her understand.
The elf's mouth tips in a small, silent smile. Old magic, yes, but not soon forgotten. The witch's lessons are well-learned.
She allows her mind to be flooded by the sense of how it must have felt to be one of the last grand birds of war. The languid pleasure of cold kept at bay by layers of warm down. The smell of prey on the turn of the wind, sharp with the scent of their fear as they sense the end of the hunt. The weightless feel of the empty air teasing the edges of her wings. The brittle scream of the wind in her ears as she dives into battle at her greatest speed. She can taste the air, almost bitter on her tongue from such grand heights. Her mind is filled with the simple pleasure of effort, with the dizzying rush of flight. She can feel the clouds brushing against her feathers, the bite as the damp of the air freezes against her face. There is in her an unquenchable need to go higher, go farther. She can see the great expanse of the endless sky, feel the edge of the horizon, and she is filled with the certainty that it holds beyond it nothing she hasn't yet mastered.
Her heartbeat is a drum, and her blood sings the song of magic to her pulse.
She opens her eyes and stretches, her talons raking fresh grooves into the ancient stone floor. She lifts her voice in a cry that shakes the snow from the very mountaintops. The birds of the aerie lift in a cloud, streaking to the open air as an angry banshee choir. The mabari leaps at her side, spinning in excitement.
A pump of her great wings, a leap from the ledge, and she is airborne.
The wind roars in her ears a symphony of primal joy.
She careens through the open air, dancing with the changing currents for the pleasure of the wind through her feathers. Birds screech out in warning of her and her answer is deep and piercing, returning to her ears in endless echoes.
A crowd has gathered in her absence, shouting and pointing and all clamoring to bear witness. The gale of her wings buffet them about as she lands. There is a haze of not-quite-being and she is herself again, no less she than she was a moment ago, with fingers now instead of wingtips that nevertheless still tingle with the sting of flight. Her lungs burn with the cold air and her shoulders ache from the effort of keeping herself aloft.
The wild magic yet clings about her as they demand with awe and no little fear to know how this was done.
Her lilting brogue is mocking.
Old magic, she says.