A Lapse in Reality

Note: This story is AU post-DAII and filled with OCs.

…...

It's cold, dark, and rainy. I'm miserable as I trek down the muddy dirt road. I scrub at my face to try to get feeling to it again. I love the rain, the mist, the feel of the morning dew on the plants I run my hands across, but I hate the big, fat almost icy raindrops that are falling down and drenching me now. I'm miserable. The earth is too wet to make camp, and I can't find a hidden place I can huddle in. I looked; no crevasses between rocks, no hollowed out trunks of trees, no tiny caves. Nothing but dark and rain.

As I turn around the closest bend to the right, my sensitive ears – so sensitive I can hear a mouse fart, I've been told – start to pick up the distant pleading cries of a frightened horse. My hand goes around the hilt of my sword as I hesitantly start to approach the source of the cries. As I get close enough to make out details in the eerie glow of the cloud-covered moon, I see a horse tethered to a small cart just barely off the road's stone-marked path struggling to free itself of the deep mud that had been hidden in the grasses. The horse's master is on the ground futilely pulling at the reins. I can see that it's never going to move like that.

I stand from the edge of the marked road, a few feet behind the master's back, and call out to him as I raise my voice to be heard over the pattering of rain, "I can help you! Will you let me?" I know from experience, that it is not wise to go up and offer aid without permission to a stranger on the road. The scars are still healing from my last attempt.

The back of the horse's master stiffens visibly, and then the cloaked figure turns a little and gestures for me to come forward with a short wave. I think I startled him. I come up, but don't look at the master as I cup my hands around the frightened animal's mussel and whisper, "Aneth ara. Ma din emma harel. Emma lethallan." I had felt the cloaked figure's eyes on the very visible scabbard of my sword as I approached, but now he abruptly brought his head up and tilted it to look at me. I think my words have startled him now.

"Don't worry," I say. "I am no savage Dalish come to take your possessions and your life. I only wish to help." I bend down to look at the horse's feet. They're up to the knuckles in mud. "We need wood," I point to the cart's wheels. "If we can wedge it under the wheels, we should be able to pull the cart out of the mud." The cloaked figure makes no moves to do as I instructed, so I head to the tree-line myself. After I shove the few measly branches I could find under the wheels, I ask the cloaked figure to unteather the horse, and he does. Without the weight of the cart holding the horse down, after a few struggles, the beast is free. I move to the back of the cart, and the horse's master moves with me, and we push. I'm not sure how long we struggle with it, but eventually we manage to push it onto the road.

The horse's master helps me back onto the road, since now I'm covered in just as much mud as the horse. He extends a hand towards me, and in the dim light I can see it is tanned and larger than my own. I take his hand, and he raises his other to his cloak's hood. Mine had flown off long ago during our recent exertions, and his comes off quickly without pause for thought on the rain.

I feel my breath catch in my throat as recognition startles my mind. I look at him with wide eyes, not quite believing what I am seeing, and he smiles charmingly, bright and brilliant. "Thank you for the assistance, mi bonita. I suppose I should introduce myself, I am Zevran Arainai."

Suddenly time flashes before my eyes, and I'm startled by the flooding memories.

…...

Note: Thank you for reading, reviewing, following, etc. I haven't decided when I'm going to update this fic, but likely every week or week and a half. The cover image was digitally painted by myself, and a full-sized image can be found on my deviantart: musicalrain0

This fic will also be filled with elvish and Spanish (I've taken Spanish courses for years and almost minored in it, so I am using it as the Antivan language). Thank you again! :D

Translations:

Aneth ara: A sociable or friendly greeting.

Ma din emma harel: 'I am not one to cause fear'. Or: 'I am not to be feared.'

Emma lethallan: 'I am a friend.'

Mi bonita: 'My pretty.'