"Stay here tonight." Keeper Hawen's face was serious as he made the request.
"Keeper?" Fen'lath noticed the stress in his voice, the worry and pleading tone that was in it as well.
He ran a hand over his hair, other hand fisted at his hip, "Your companions can stay as well if that's what it takes, but we need you to stay, da'len. One of my tanners… she has been Scented."
"Ah. I will help, of course." She gave the Keeper an uneasy smile. It was only the second time in her life she would be called upon as a Harel'len to divert the Dread Wolf from someone's scent. "Do you have all the necessities? I can provide some of what's needed, but I'm sure you can understand why I don't have all of it."
"We have all of it. We had a Harel'len who went to Falon'Din a few years ago, and kept all of his ritual supplies."
"Hmm. I will use my own clothing, then. I will let my companions know we are staying in your camp tonight."
"Would you wish for them to watch? I'm not sure I feel comfortable with that."
"Only if you grant them permission, Keeper. Our secrets are not for any old eyes, but these three I trust with my life and some Dalish secrets."
"I will think on it while we prepare, da'len."
Bull and Dorian had set up camp on the outskirts of the Dalish camp, and the Keeper had, much more kindly than Fen had expected, advised that the ritual wasn't for non-elven people. Hawen had invited Solas. He didn't say it, but Fen got the impression that he wanted her arcane advisor to feel a connection to the old ways.
Fen stood at the outer edge of the ring of seated elves, the tanner in question seated in the center, dressed only in a tunic of unbleached cotton. A trench had been dug and filled with lumber, kindling, and lumps of resin that would give off thick clouds of black smoke. Fen plucked at the white wolf fur edging her leather tunic, and brushed a nervous hand over the strands of wolves' teeth and shards of carved bone that decorated it.
Solas sat apart, a break in the ring with space for at least three on either side. As Hawen spoke with his First and Second, Fen sat next to him. His mouth turned down in disapproval, "Do you really believe that Fen'harel has somehow marked or cursed this woman, and you can divert his attention from her?"
"Does it really matter what I believe, Solas?"
His brow rose as he turned to face her. "How so?"
"I don't have to believe that the rite works. What's important is that she believes that the rite frees her, and that her clan believes she's been freed from Fen'harel's attentions. I am required to do nothing beyond the rite, let alone believe in it myself."
"That is… not what I had expected, Fen."
"I aim to do the unexpected." She gave him a tense smile. "Perhaps if my hah'ren had treated me with the same honor other Harel'len receive from their clans, I might be a believer. As it stands, I am doing what I can to help a distraught woman remain with her clan."
"Da'len, it is time." Hawen handed her a wolf pelt.
"Stay, and just watch, please." A delicate hand stopped Solas from standing to leave. Others of the clan moved to specific place, pulling wolf pelts over their heads, taking out bodhrans, rattles, and rasp instruments, and sitting down. She didn't know what to make of the look on Solas's face as he took it all in, especially the black wolf pelts with the stitched red eyes of the Dread Wolf on them.
Fen walked over to the trembling woman, Vissi, in the center of the circle, and knelt. "I'm going to drape this pelt over you, all right?"
She simply nodded, keeping her head down and knees clasped to her chest. Fen placed it over her shoulders and head, showing the glossy white fur and eyes of emerald green stitched onto it, a contrast to the red of Fen'harel's.
Hawen handed his dhal'Mythal staff to Fen, then stepped back to his place in the circle and sitting. She clasped her hands around the haft meditatively. With a deep breath, she circled, shooting fireballs carefully over the seated elves' heads into the trench starting in the north and moving clockwise. When the ring of flame was completed, Fen nodded to Hawen, who stood up while pulling his own wolf pelt over his head.
The members of the clan holding bodhrans stood up and started drumming. Hawen started chanting, then Fen and some of the pelted members of the clan started howling and snarling like a pack of wolves. Specific chanters joined in, those who had trained in throat chanting. As the buzzing and drumming wove and rose, Fen began to dance around Vissi, moving like the smoke starting to weave from the flames surrounding them.
A pause, a call to Dirthamen's ravens, Fear and Deceit. Summoning them to banish the fear of Fen'harel's presence and deceive the Dread Wolf with Fen's presence. The rasp instruments were stroked, imitating the quorking cry of ravens. The whole of the clan was standing, either chanting, playing an instrument, or stomping to the beat.
Fen's dancing went from weaving smoke to a huntress's movements, staff held like a spear as she wove around in the dance she'd been trained in since she could walk. The drums settled into a hypnotic rhythm, with the raven quorking again. Leaping to Hawen, Fen laid the staff at his feet then ran at Vissi, sweeping the pelt from her shoulders and over her own, while in the same motion sweeping the black cloak Vissi had been sitting on over her, hiding her from sight. Her movements changed from huntress to wolf, slinking through the smoke that shifting air billowed at her. Still, her movements were in rhythm with the sibilant pulse of the drums and chanting.
It wound up, more intense, louder, a throbbing echo across the Plains, and the shouted climax ended with Fen sweeping down at Hawen's feet, poised like a puppy begging an elder wolf to play, while at the same time the three mages of the clan doused the fire in ice. In the blindness caused by the sudden absence of light, the members of the clan including the Keeper who were wearing the wolf pelts turned and looked outward from the circle, becoming representations of the Fen'harel statues on the edges of the camp. Fen stood and led Vissi out of the ring while none of the clan could see them.
Leading her down to the river, they both stripped and scrubbed down, getting the scent of the smoke out of their hair and off their skin. They didn't exchange any words, and when they dressed, Fen put on Vissi's tunic, bundling her own clothes under her arm. Shivering from the chill, Vissi wrapped herself up in the cloak, covering herself from head to toe. The camp was much as any camp would be at this late hour on any other night, only the watch shift stirring, and studiously avoiding looking at Vissi and Fen when they approached.
Fen silently led Vissi to her aravel, then went to the bonfire in front of the Keeper's aravel and stripped off the tunic, leaving her in leggings and breastband. She took up a bundle of sage and rue that had been rolled and stuck through a ring of sylvanwood, and wrapped it in the tunic, then threw it in the fire.
She walked quickly to her tent and crawled in next to Solas, tucking the clothing she'd been wearing during the rite into her pack. Fen could feel the questions radiating from him. "Not now, Solas. Please. I need sleep first."
"As you wish, vhenan."