Disclaimer: Alistair from Dragon Age: Origins and the world of Thedas belong to Bioware. They in turn inspire me to write and expand the vision they have created within my mind. For that I am grateful. As a result I have written a story that attempts to capture the feelings that the game inspired in me through the use of interludes that capture the feel of the codex and cameos of many of the characters that players fell in love with in the game, at the same time making my own interpretation of the world and belief systems therein.

The Balance of Wings

Prologue: Svenya and the Black Swan

Folktale

Not all beings of the Fade are evil. Some are just and can be moved with compassion for the suffering of mortals. Thus was it in the story of Svenya.

Svenya was betrothed by her father to a powerful lord and did not meet this lord until the day of the wedding. On that fateful day, the first time she looked on her husband she was greatly distressed. Though he was physically perfect in form and handsome in face, she could tell from the gleam of his black eyes that he was cruel and unkind, but being a woman and bound by the oaths of her father she had to go forward with her marriage.

In the years that followed she suffered in silence under the persecution of her husband, causing her to feel completely alone and helpless. Many nights she cried herself to sleep, but even in her sleep she had no relief and often her troubles followed her into her dreams.

One night, after a particularly bad beating by her husband, Svenya went to sleep and dreamed of a vast lake in a clearing surrounded by trees and shrouded with mist. It was so peaceful that Svenya sat at the water's edge and dangled her feet in the water. She was just about to completely surrender to the peace when suddenly the trees behind her combusted and roared into flame. The woods were on fire and she was trapped between them and the water. Unable to swim, Svenya desperately dove into the water to escape the burning woods that suddenly seemed to crackle and shriek with the same voice as her husband.

She allowed the water to swallow her and assumed that she would die there, but she comforted herself with the thought that at least it would be peaceful here and closed her eyes. Just as she thought her spirit would leave her, she felt herself lifted through the water and floating to the surface. She opened her eyes to find that she was riding the back of a great black swan.

She realized in that moment that she had crossed into the Fade, so Svenya was not surprised when the swan suddenly spoke to her, "Evil has followed you to the threshold of my peaceful home. What is this that has pursued you?"

"It is the wrath of my husband," Svenya explained, "it persecutes me always, even in my dreams beyond the borders of the Fade."

"I see," answered the swan with a voice of compassion, "I have no strong power beyond the Fade, but he cannot pursue you here. Stay and rest for as long as you like. If you need it I offer sanctuary."

"Thank you," breathed Svenya into the softness of the down at swan's long black neck.

"However, there are rules that you must follow," the Black Swan warned. "You must be careful not to pass to the far side of the mist on the water. That is the border between the Fade and the Land of the Dead. I often help carry souls to the other side when it is their time, but it is not your time yet. If I were to carry you I would be interfering in the natural progression of life that the Maker has laid out for everyone. To trespass beyond that border would result in dire consequences for both me and you."

Svenya nodded solemnly, "I accept the terms and promise to follow the laws of the Fade and the world beyond."

With that promise, Svenya had a place to retreat to in her sleep where the terror of her husband could not touch her. As time progressed, the peace that pervaded her sanctuary pervaded her waking life as well, in spite of her husband's cruelty and continued abuse. It even enabled her to share that peace and compassion with those around her, particularly those others who her husband victimized.

Her husband watched her transform before him from a timid creature into a strong and compassionate woman. Regardless of how badly he beat or abused her, she remained kind and constantly reached out to those around her, even if it caused her further abuse. His people began to love her more than they feared him, and she had a quiet form of power among them that he regarded with jealousy. He tried to come up with ways to discover her secret of limitless peace. He had her followed wherever she went and had women try to gain her confidence so that they could report back to him. The spies that he sent to her, however, also began to flourish under her kindness and came to love her as well, even to the point where they would not report back to the lord and ran away or chose to die for disobedience to avoid being forced to inform the lord of anything that might enable him to harm her.

Becoming desperate in his anger, realizing he would never discover her secret through guile and knowing he could not openly kill her without starting a rebellion among his people or hurting his alliance with her family, he locked her away in a tower of his home, isolating her from the company of other people. The only person she had contact with was the deaf, mute woman he arranged to bring Svenya bread and water and wait on her, assuming that since this woman could not hear or speak that she was beyond his wife's influence.

Once again, he was wrong, and though the woman could not hear or speak to Svenya, she was still touched by Svenya's kindness through her gentle actions and the servant was completely devoted to her. Eventually the servant offered through gestures to help Svenya escape from the prison, but Svenya refused knowing that her husband might possibly kill the servant in his rage and she did not wish to bring evil upon the woman. Instead Svenya accepted the servant's company, teaching her to read and write so that they could better communicate, even going so far as to reveal some of the secrets the black swan imparted to her through its compassion. Over time, Svenya even discovered a way to restore the servant's voice and hearing. Though they tried to carefully conceal this fact from Svenya's husband, one day the sounds of their singing and laughter wafted on the breeze to the courtyard below when he was stalking about and he heard the joy that he could not seem to destroy.

When her husband discovered that he had once again been foiled by Svenya's kindness, he fumed and in the blackness of his rage he decided to execute the servant and wall up the door leading into the tower so that Svenya could no longer receive food or contact from others. He cruelly informed Svenya of his intentions and built the gallows for the servant underneath the main window of the tower so that Svenya could witness the death of her faithful friend. The night before the scheduled execution, Svenya went to sleep and retreated to the sanctuary of the Black Swan.

Weeping, she begged the Black Swan to help release her from life and allow her to accompany her servant to the other side of the veil between the Fade and the Land of the Dead. The Black Swan, with deep regret, reiterated as it did the first time that it could not help her to cross over before her time. Svenya wept even more piteously as if her heart would break and the swan, though it could not break the law, was moved to even deeper compassion.

The Black Swan told Svenya there might be a way to save the servant from death. Though the swan had very little power in the waking world, it might be able to gather enough strength to intervene through Svenya, but it would require a great sacrifice on her part. Svenya listened patiently to the swan's plan and eagerly agreed to the required price in the hopes of saving her friend from her husband.

The next morning the servant woman was led to the scaffold to be hanged, surrounded by many of the peasants of the land and with Svenya's husband looking on smugly, knowing that this would break Svenya's kind heart as she watched helplessly from the tower. He prattled off a list of crimes before the people, though they all knew as well as he that they were lies and the servant was innocent. The guards roughly placed the noose around the servant's neck and were about to push her from the platform when suddenly a great black shadow flew down from the window of the tower, swooping just over the heads of the guards and Svenya's husband. In their terror by the sudden appearance of what they assumed was an evil spirit, the men scattered and ran for cover. A peasant man plucked up his courage, ran forward and untied the servant, helping her to escape amid the confusion. After that, many of the peasants hid the poor woman and smuggled the servant away from the lord's lands out of their love for Svenya.

The black shadow, once it had inspired its chaos, returned to the tower from whist it came unnoticed because of all the confusion. For many days nothing stirred at the window and Svenya's singing could not be heard in the courtyard. After a month, Svenya's husband, assuming that she had died in her loneliness and grief over losing her friend, ordered that the wall over the door be broken down so that he could confirm that she had died. Once all the brick and mortar had been removed, he entered the tower and walked proudly up the tower steps alone, congratulating himself the entire time for being clever and defeating Svenya.

However, when he entered Svenya's room at the top of the tower, her body was nowhere to be seen. He looked everywhere and could find no trace of her. His rage began to boil within him again and he swore, and cursed, and tugged his beard in frustration. He believed that she had somehow escaped him and that he had been betrayed by his people. He yelled that he would execute every last man, woman and child in the surrounding village until they revealed where she had escaped to and continued to fume until his ranting was interrupted by a jarring cry from the window. He spun around to see a large black swan sitting on the window sill. Honking it shook its head and beat its great wings at him, as if scolding him for his cruel plans. Without thinking, still in a rage, Svenya's husband charged at the bird with the intent of killing it, but it flew into the air and the lord stumbled forward, unable to stop his momentum, throwing himself out the window, screaming until hitting the courtyard below with a sickening thud. The swan disappeared as it flew to the east, never to be seen again.

A distant relative of the lord came and took over his lands. Unfortunately he was not much better than the first lord, but thankfully he wasn't as extreme in his cruelty. Many of the neighboring lords heard of what happened and some believed that someone had used blood magic to curse the lord and inadvertently caused his death. These beliefs made the nobility far more superstitious, but the peasants knew that there was no evil done to the lord, but the revisiting of the evil he did to others. These people told their children about the black swan and they believe that the swan was actually Svenya who chose to sacrifice her human form in order to save her friend and live out the rest of her days as a bird who could freely travel beyond the borders of her earthly prison.