Caitlin Amell saw many things.
Caitlin always remembered having the dreams. When she was very small she remembered waking in the night screaming and a soft voice reassured her. They had always been so vivid. So real she could almost reach out and touched the figure which flitted in and out of her ever shifting mind.
But then they came to separate her from her mother. Caitlin remembers being pushed onto a ship by men in gleaming armour with a flaming sword on their chest. She knew they would come for her. She had been seeing the flaming swords for weeks before they had come.
The Templars come to take her to the Circle.
Caitlin remembered so little of before that she felt next to no loss. She barely remembered 'freedom' so she never wanted it. The Circle was all she knew. However, the clearest memory she did have was of her mother's sobs as she was led away and the door of her former home closed behind her forever.
Magic must serve man and never rule over him, so said the Chant of Light. There was no choice.
Still the dreams came. She would babble to anyone who would listen to her. The other apprentice children would always look at her strangely and some called her names and pulled her hair before running off to tell on her. Most of the elder mages clucked their tongues and scolded her.
"Liars are not permitted in the Circle of Magi." they would tell her.
"But I'm not!" Caitlin remembered screaming at them once. She was many things but Caitlin Amell was never a liar.
That was the first of many punishments that she received at the Circle. She was ordered to clean the floors of the apprentice quarters for a week for talking back to a senior mage. She never forgot but in time she forgave them. They didn't understand her gift, she didn't understand her gift, and there was no one at the Circle who could teach her.
On good thing about her oddity, the Templars rarely bothered with her and the same with most of the mages save her mentor. It also lead her to the two people she could truly call her friends, Jowan and an elf apprentice named Brynden (or as he was more commonly called, Surana).
Griffins flying high in the air. They sing to each other in a tongue she doesn't understand and she wants to lift her head an sing with them but they leave her. She watches from a mountaintop as they fly south, over Par Vollen, Antiva and the Free Marches. South and south they go. As they fly more and more rise up to join them. More and more griffins with their feathers pure as snow. Their song echoes in the ears of all who hear them.
In the months leading up to her Harrowing, Caitlin began to dream of griffins.
Everyone knew that the griffins had died out and now only the fortress of Weisshaupt showed any signs that the mighty creatures had once lived. Caitlin knew this but she also knew what she saw. Griffins with feathers the colour of new fallen snow flying high in the air and calling to each other in song.
They were calling out to her too, heralding their return.
She had never remembered being so entranced by something before in her life. It was like a part of her soul had been hidden away and now was suddenly exposed to pure light. She could scarcely begin to understand the change that had come over her; she couldn't find the words to truly express herself.
But, then again, she was quiet anyway so she doubted if anyone besides Jowan and Brynden would even bother with her if she did choose to speak.
It was a well-known piece of gossip, in the apprentice quarters and beyond, that she was half mad and she had long since given up correcting anyone. Her early years of constant babbling had an impact that no amount of hard work or talent could ever quite erase. That was half the reason that they had waited so long before even considering letting her undergo her Harrowing.
She tried to ignore it. Caitlin knew that if she didn't do something then she would truly go mad. This spark of...something (Inspiration? Determination? Hope?) was too precious to lose.
She took off to the Circle's great library with a gusto she had never known. She wanted to know everything about them. Where had they come from? How did they and the Wardens come together? How were they trained to allow men, elves and dwarves to fly on their backs? Why had they died out in the first place?
The Library of the Circle was the best place in Ferelden for information, second only to the libraries found within the Palace in Denerim. If there was any information to be found, it was there. Granted, the best place for what Caitlin was looking for was probably Weisshaupt itself, but she highly doubted that First Enchanter Irving or Knight-Commander Greagoir would allow her to leave for something so frivolous in their eyes.
But it wasn't frivolous, not this time. Caitlin could feel it in her gut. This was the clearest image she had ever had and that had to mean it was important. Usually her dreams were filled with blanks or symbols she couldn't recognise until it was too late to act. This time everything was clear. She knew what she must do.
She is discrete when she gathers the books and hides them amongst the texts she is supposed to be memorising. No one will miss them. None of the Templars or the senior mages looks strangely at her as she sits down and begins to scribble in earnest, copying down as much of the text as she can whilst under the guise of studying and she will sort the useful facts from the mass later.
Also, no one misses the few books she does manage to smuggle from the library. Caitlin is nothing if not talented at eluding suspicion. It wasn't easy, she suspected that one Templar (young and somewhat handsome…Cullen, she believed his name was) had gotten wind of her. He certainly seemed to pay more attention to her than most. Brynden and Jowan believed he had a soft spot for her but she knew what some Templars were capable of, especially to young female mages.
Whenever she saw him coming towards her, she covered her notes and gave him a friendly smile.
This was far too important to her to risk losing.
Fire on the distant horizon. Foul creatures with putrid flesh and whispering in a language like metal scraping against stone. Hundreds. Thousands. A great dragon flies ahead of them. Its screams make her heart tremble in her chest.
Her visions had been coming in a steadier stream ever since that first dream of griffins. It wasn't always like this, sometimes she could go several months without one night troubled by dreams but now she was waking every other night with images burned into her mind. It was unsettling and terrifying. She couldn't help but wonder if the spirits of the Fade were calling out in warning of terrible things to come.
Sometimes she saw the griffins, sometimes she saw demons lurking in the Fade in unassuming forms waiting until she had let her guard down to try and strike, sometimes she saw horrific creatures she'd only seen in illustrations, darkspawn, and The Blight which they heralded…but the most frightening thing she had seen recently was Jowan bathed in blood. Whether it was his own, someone else's or a sign that there was something more sinister to her friend than she had ever known was unclear. It was like that most of the time, her dreams only gave so much and the rest was her's to figure out.
She retreated farther into her books, anything to put off the niggling fear in the back of her mind. Her Harrowing was looming closer and closer and now these constant visions haunting her sleeping hours had robbed her of any peace.
She took sanctuary in the shadows of the library, most of the enchanters and templars didn't bother her for the most part. Probably they assumed she was merely studying her spells like every other apprentice. Sometimes she envied them, their blissful ignorance; they hadn't seen the things she had seen. They didn't know of the things lurking on the distant horizon just out of her sight.
Jowan and Brynden watched her with something between fascination and concern. Whilst they were more accepting of her gift than most, she knew that the things she was seeing now would test even their patience with her. Her visions of Jowan affirmed her decision.
"I don't see why you're so fascinated by them." He said, taking the book from her hands and earning a sharp look from Brynden as she scrambled after him "The griffins are dead. They've been dead for centuries. You're ill and you're just working yourself up over nothing. It isn't healthy, Caitlin."
She hadn't looked in a mirror in some time (mostly out of fear of what she might see) but she knew that her increased agitation made her skin pale and put shadows under her eyes. She had thought, or rather hoped, that her friends would not take much notice.
Brynden spoke up in agreement "You should rest. My Harrowing is in three days and then it'll be your turn. You'll need all your strength for it. Let dead things remain as they are, you can't bring them back."
You're wrong, she thought, snatching her book back angrily. She stormed away and didn't care to look back at Brynden's pained expression or Jowan's confused glance as she left them standing. They are not dead and they will return. I will see it so.
A castle burns in the night. A man with a smiling face sharpens a dagger behind his back. An old griffin with clipped wings leads a woman from a pile of bodies as she cries their names.
It had all gone wrong so quickly.
Brynden was sent to Ostagar after his Harrowing and then the next night Jowan reveals himself a blood mage? Maker preserve them all, Caitlin wouldn't have believed such events could be true if she had not seen what she had. Then she wondered if she had have spoken up could she have prevented some of it.
But it was too late for regrets now.
In the confusion surrounding Jowan's escape from the Tower, no one had noticed a second apprentice steal into the shadows. Caitlin couldn't stay here any longer. She needed to leave, to search for the griffins who were calling ever louder for her.
It was madness but what did she have to lose?
She used the tunnels under the Tower; Senior Enchanter Leorah had enlisted her help with clearing out a spider infestation there only a few weeks prior. Whilst all the Templars rushed to catch the maleficar, she stole away and unlocked the great doors leading down to the stores. From there, it was as simple as widening the deep cracks in the walls to create a tunnel down under Lake Calenhad and to freedom.
The difficult part was collapsing the tunnel behind her as she went. She wasn't afraid of the dark or even particularly unnerved by the closed space but she was afraid of what lay ahead. She tripped over her own feet as she hurried forward, with one hand opening the rock ahead whilst with the other caving in the tunnel behind her. Dust flew up in the air and made it difficult for her to breathe. She hoped freedom was worth it.
Once she was across the Lake, then what? Templars would be scouring the entire area for Jowan; if they found her…they would think her a maleficar too. There was only one punishment for that, death. She didn't want to die, she had a quest, a purpose. Ending her life now on the shores of Lake Calenhad would be a disaster.
Damn Jowan, had he not thought before consorting with demons? Had he not realised that sooner or later his blood magic would be revealed? As much as she might love him, he could be a great fool and this was just proof of it. Despite her friend's folly, she prayed that the Templars wouldn't catch Jowan. She didn't want her friend to die, no matter how much the Chantry preached of the dangers of blood mages.
Scrambling through her self-made tunnel, she finally emerged into the moonlight. Her apprentice robes were torn and dirty, her chestnut hair turned a dull shade between brown and grey by dust and what skin was exposed caked in the softer mud of the shore…but she was free.
It felt odd, bathed in moonlight which had only previously been filtered through windows and breathing in the scent of pine on the wind. Caitlin didn't quite know how to feel about her freedom. She knew that other apprentices and mages had attempted to escape and had failed multiple times. Is this what they felt when they first reached the other side of the lake and stared up at their former home? Their gilded cage. She had never been like them, she had always abided by the rules, never coveted life outside the Circle of Magi…and yet here she was. Caitlin Amell, escaped mage, apostate. The half-mad girl with the strange dreams who talked as if there was no barrier between past, present and future. It seemed like a fine joke that the person everyone least expected to try and escape was now free. But the past few hours had proved anything was possible.
She had little time to wait and with one backward glance at the Tower, at her home, she disappeared into the woods.
Fire and smoke. A burning sun. Statues of bronze come to life. There is death in the air. Death and despair. Through it all a figure bathed in cleansing light emerges from the chaos.