Girls of the Circle
Neria waited at the camp, at the foothills of the mountains, fed the campfire with logs and waited. The frosting howling wind whizzed from the peaks. Ferelden was never pleasant. It was like a cranky witch who could only upbraid people. Even summer time this place was rough and unforgiving. And the elf mage never thought that someday, that ever return to this muddy place where everything is grey and foggy.
She observed her liver-spotted hands as tried to warm them over the fire. She saw the more and more significant black veins, on them. She never thought that live out this. That one day she will hear that sweet, buzzing lullaby in her mind. She was supposed to die young. But she survived everything against every odd and now she sat in middle of the forest, on her ragged bedroll, her battered fur coat on her back and her old staff next to her, in reachable distance as always.
The evening was disturbingly calm. Even the wolves were silent, like the time froze around her. Something ominous was in the air. Shadows lurked in the darkness, whispers tortured her. She heard the Calling, just like all the Grey Wardens in Thedas. They were frightened, corruption and fear tainted their lines. The desperation darkened the mind of the leaders and they turned to desperate measures.
Neria saw what blood magic can do. She knew how unholy and filthy it is. She was just a teenager when her Circle has fallen. But every image, every voice burned into her mind and even after a decade she still had nightmares. She and Solona hid in the cellar, behind the phylactery shelves, listened as the iron boots of the templars clapped on the stone cold floor. They searched for them. The Knight-Commander enacted the Right of Annulment. Every mage had to die. But they knew better the Circle, they knew every secret nook where they spent hours after light-out and practiced or just talked.
But the templars eventually found them, and what happened after this was never clear for her. They dragged them to the Grey Wardens. Neria has never seen more handsome warriors. Even Cullen, the templar they were both infatuated with seemed like a perplexed little puppy beside them.
"These two were hiding." said a templar as yanked them before them. Both Solona and Neria fell to the ground. None of them dared to look at them, they just stared the floor and waited the inevitable. One of the Wardens, the tall brown one went to them, Neria saw that his metal boots stopped before her. He grabbed her chin and forced to look at him. His cruel steel-blue glance pierced through her. She was frightened to death and somehow he mesmerized her. Solona next to them sobbed silently. The Warden didn't pay attention to her, just surveyed Neria, who trembled uncontrollably.
"Can you heal?" he asked. Neria nodded uncertainly. "Both of you?" she nodded once again and stole a glance to Solona, who embraced herself and tried to be as little as she could. The Warden stood up with a hum.
"Took a chain on them. They come with us." he declared and the Knight-Commander obeyed without hesitation or question.
"Does it necessary to chain them? They are harmless. Look at them, they are frightened to death." The other Warden, the blonde one said. "They are just little girls."
"Don't let the innocent appearance mislead you, Warden." the Knight-Commander replied. "They are very capable mages, they were the little protégés of the First Enchanter."
"They are just filthy mages like the others, Alistair." The brown-haired Warden added taking a long disdainful glare on them and exited. The blonde one followed him and then a qunari shoved them on their shoulders to follow.
They have never seen the Circle again.
Branches cracked. Neria instantly grabbed her staff, and placed herself in attention. Her eyes scanned the perimeter. Everything was still, even the still, even the rustling wind silenced. The elf mage listened the forest, ran her eyes through the trees and soon two glowing green eyes and soon a cougar came out from the shadows with russet fur.
Neria lowered her staff and went back to her bedroll. "You are late." she stated as sat down. And when she settled saw Solona standing before her, smirking.
She always liked the dramatic entrances. She always made an impression. Everybody loved her, and Neria always suspected that she was Irving's favorite, even if their mentor never made her feel this. And she knew that Cullen wanted Solona, never her.
The elf ran her eyes through the other mage. They haven't seen each other since the end of the Blight. The Calling has reached her too. Her once marble skin became pale and white like milk, and her glance hazy. "Maker, you look like shit." Neria said as dropped a piece of wood on the campfire. Solona snickered and sat to a base of an oak tree, wrapping herself into a thick fur coat.
"Charming as always, Neria." she replied. "They say that the Calling is bad for the beauty." Solona stated stoically. "Especially when you hear the real one…"
"So it didn't cease?" Neria inquired. Solona shook her head and casted down her eyes, fixating them on the dancing flames.
"It's the real one." she whispered. "But it doesn't matter anyway. He died at Adamant." her voice trailed off, and Neria saw the tears glistening in her eyes. "He protected me when I stood against using blood magic. He sacrificed himself for me to escape." Her speech drowned into cry.
Solona was always more fortunate in everything and Neria always envied her. She came from a noble family, she was considered as a prodigy, she had everybody's attention, she had Cullen's attention most of all. Beside her she was just a drab, bookworm elf girl.
But Aedan Cousland, he was the first who noticed Neria and this was enough to ignore what he had done. He ignored that he destroyed an entire clan, she ignored that he let the Tevinter blood mages to drag away the city elves. She forgave him that he took away her virginity so violently and then threw her clothes to her and ordered her to dress up, like she was a cheap whore.
She loved the Warden, because he was the first who chose her over Solona. And just after he married to Queen Anora and became the Hero of Ferelden, breaking her heart telling her that she was just a bed-warmer, that she meant nothing.
But it was too late. They, she and Solona performed the Joining. They were Grey Wardens, bound to the Order by blood, and signed their own death sentence.
She couldn't stay at Ferelden. Solona was relocated to Orlais and she headed to Weisshaupt. She had an eventless life there, serving there, ignoring the corruption that ate the Order from inside, always waiting for something, she didn't even know what.
She had suitors in Weisshaupt but after Aedan, she hardened her heart, closed out everybody. Her days spent lonely. They exchanged letters with Solona sometimes, but beside that she buried in her own voluntary solitude.
"It is funny." Solona hummed. "It finishes where it began. I never thought I will return to this muddy place once again." Solona looked on Neria. The elf mage took an inquiring look on her. Her soft curves hardened and a huge scar disfigured her face. "Have you ever…?"
"No." Neria cut her. "Nothing else left here for me after the coronation."
"I've never understood what you loved in him. He kept us as animals, chained. He left nothing behind but suffer and pain. He killed Alistair, the only who was kind to us then."
"It was necessary." Neria burst out. After all these years in bitter solitude she still tried to justify his acts. It was easy for Solona, she always got the attention, the love. She had family before a Circle, while Neria lived in an orphanage before the Templars came for her, surrounded with cruel and indifferent overseers.
While Solona was surrounded by appreciation in the Circle, she was the shining star what glimmered brightly, while she was always in the shadows. Her thirst for attention was and love was so eating when they were dragged away by the Wardens that she almost offered her on a silver tray for Aedan.
The other one, Alistair was of course infatuated with Solona. He was so similar to Cullen, bashful, respectful, chivalrous… he was weak, falling for her, like everybody else before him. And Neria was almost satisfied when Aedan cut down his head from his body at the Landsmeet.
That night with the traitor Loghain she and Solona performed their Joining. He gave no other choice. Aedan always earned what he wanted. And he needed Grey Wardens who die instead of him, killing the Archdemon. He needed someone who carried out the dirty work and he only needed to reap the credit for it. He became the Hero of Ferelden, the invincible hero, not Loghain, who really ended the Blight, sacrificing her life for his homeland.
Yes, Neria should have seen her as Solona, as everybody else. He was really a monster, using everybody, but still, she defended his acts. Looking at her hands, seeing the black veins, hearing the buzzing lullaby in her mind, knowing that tomorrow as they reach Orzammar, her life will end so unglorified. It was all his fault and yet he was the only one who really appreciated her.
"Neria," Solona addressed her "For whatever it's worth, I'm glad that it is you with who I will die." The elf snapped her head. "You were my only true friend in the Circle. And to be honest I missed you in Orlais."
"Even you had him?" she asked. Neria got an invitation to her wedding, she knew that Solona was madly in love with her fellow Warden in Orlais. As always she got the better end of the bargain. In Orlais she was happy, found a home, while she buried herself in sorrow at Weisshaupt.
"He was the love of my life." she answered gazing the fire. "But you are my best friend." Neria skipped a breath. She wanted to tell her the same that it is so miserable that beside all her envy, jealousy she feels the same way, but nothing came out her mouth. She just laid down on her ragged bedroll and turned away from her to not show her tears.
"We should sleep. Orzammar is a long road ahead." Neria suggested. She heard shifting and dead, mourning silence pestered on the forest. Only the sound of the cracking fire filled the air. Ferelden was always foggy and gloomy, but that night the whole place felt like a great tomb.
It took two days to reach Orzammar. Neria and Solona stood at the gates of the Deep Roads, listened the litany of the dwarves who funereally saluted for them. They sniffed the air filled with smoke and death, heard the darkspawn underneath them.
They adjusted their Warden uniform on them and began to take the steps to the gate, listening the threnody of the dwarves.
Strangely Neria didn't feel fear or remorse, she just accepted the inevitable. She should have died long ago, in Kinloch Hold, but Aedan gave them time, gave them a different life, not trapped in a Circle surrounded with templars. Maybe this was his only good deed.
"Solona," she said as they stepped through the gates and it closed behind them "it's been an honor." The other mage smiled at her as readied her staff.
"It's been an honor." She replied and they vanished into the darkness of the Deep Roads.