It caught her completely off guard. She had been making her rounds through Skyhold when she had approached a noble Josephine had emphasized that she pay particular attention to. The woman had looked at her and simply asked, "Who are you?"
Taryn Lavellan came to a complete stop.
Who was she?
She knew what the noble woman meant, what she wanted, but when Taryn opened her mouth to answer, nothing came.
Who was she?
It occurred to her then that beyond bestowed titles, she no longer knew. A cold knot formed in her gut.
There had been a time when she could proudly declare exactly who she was; A Dalish hunter, granddaughter of the Lavellan Keeper, servant of Dirthamen, and devout follower of the Vir Tanadhal.
But now… Now she could not truly say any of that about herself.
Hysterics had rose up in her throat and instead of introducing herself she flubbed together an apology to the woman and practically fled back to Skyhold's main keep. One of the Chargers had called out a greeting, but she was not sure she had even answered as she hurried down the main hall.
She supposed she could still say she was the granddaughter of Keeper Lavellan, but would her grandmother still call her that? She felt the bare skin of her face burn. Or would her grandmother disown her for allowing her Vallaslin to be stripped and falling into the temptations of the Wolf.
For that was the fear she almost certainly knew. The knowledge of countless priests of Mythal swam in her head. Recalling her own memories, little voices slipped forgotten snippets of conversation, muttered comments, previously unknown Elvish, all together like pieces of a puzzle. Some of the books he had asked for, that previously made no sense to her, suddenly held sickening implications to the truth.
Studiously she avoided the etching in the rotunda; The leering beast with parted jaws, unfinished, but all the more terrifying in its simple state.
If she was not the granddaughter of Keeper Lavellan, she most certainly was no longer Dalish; Perhaps in her heart, but she had already seen the looks the other Dalish of Skyhold had given her when they realized her Vallaslin were gone. Some had been simply curious, little judgment in their eyes, but others visibly contained their sneers, retreating from her presence. She had abandoned the way of the People. She was a pariah.
While she still felt the call of the wilds, the urge to run among the trees, bow in hand and daggers at her hip, she knew she could hardly call herself a hunter. Most of her time now was spent hunched over a desk with paperwork, not tracking the days old trail of a deer to feed hungry mouths and provide their craftsmen with much needed leather or bone powder to the healers.
Josephine had one day teasingly called her the hunter of the wicked, after Taryn had decided to turn the Inquisition towards keeping peace and justice when the nations failed. Taryn had smiled and said the right words of thanks, but the words had left little wounds behind. Josephine had meant no harm and Taryn knew, but her wild side resented the humans in her life that had slowly molded her into a figure. She had once been a person and, at times, a tool; Part of a whole, part of the People. Now she was a banner, a symbol to be held aloft.
Taryn slipped past nobles, head down, thankfully drawing no lasting attention. Bitter laughter was sharp on her tongue as she shoved the door to her stairwell open. She did not register the curious glances from the guards by the throne.
There was certainly no way she could call herself a servant of Dirthamen any longer.
There was a time when the marks on her face had meant something sweet, something dear. They had been a promise between a young girl, barely a woman, to her grandmother.
When her mother had died, taking ill after tending their sick as an epidemic swept the clan, Taryn had been often left in her paternal grandmother's care. She remembered her father's hesitation each time he was forced to leave to hunt or scout. He worried, leaving her alone, but her grandmother welcomed the extra company.
And so Taryn often found herself, seated beside her grandmother's older First, wiling the days away listening to tales and information she should never have known. Often her grandmother would wink and whisper to her, "Our secret, hm?"
When she was little, it had seemed funny and left her feeling as though she held a special place in her grandmother's heart. As she grew, she realized the true implications. There were some things, agreed upon by the council of Keepers at the last meeting of Arlathvhen(1), that only the Keeper and their First were permitted to know; Secrets her grandmother had shared with her.
The forbidden knowledge was precious to her. Snippets of Elvhen writing, spells she had no talent to cast, and lore that no other knew, but she, the First, and her grandmother. She knew it was a risk, that the other Keepers might punish her grandmother for sharing such secrets to one without the authority to possess it.
So, on her eighteenth, as she knelt before her Keeper and her Hahren, she declared that she would not take the Vallaslin of Andruil, but of Dirthamen instead. Her teacher had been shocked, but her grandmother was not.
When she raised her head, she was met with a warm smile of understanding.
Those marks had meant everything to her for a decade and a half.
Now they were gone.
She stumbled up the stairs, fingers tracing her face in patterns that no longer existed. Her eyes stung bitterly. Some days she hated him for taking them. Others she felt free.
The door to her room was roughly shoved open and Taryn stood in the center in a daze.
The Vir Tanadhal(2) were perhaps what she had held onto the longest. She tried to twist them into her every day life, but it felt mockingly hollow. Aloud, she began to murmur the ingrained words.
"Be swift and silent; Strike true, but do not waver and let not your prey suffer. As the sapling bends, so must you. In yielding, find resilience; In pliancy, find strength. Receive the gifts of the hunt with mindfulness. Respect the sacrifice of my children. Know that your passing shall nourish them in turn."
She recalled the first time Cullen had heard her utter the words of the Vir Bor'assan. He had been quiet, staring at her for longer than his usually bashful personality tended. A little anxious, expecting to perhaps hear a passing remark about the validity of her people's beliefs, she had met his gaze, chin lifted just a little in defensive pride.
The gesture was caught, and his lip twitched, head dipping with amused acknowledgement of her fear. "In yielding, find resilience; In pliancy, find strength," he had repeated.
She nodded. "That is the Vir Bor'assan. The way of the bow and one of the Way of the Three Trees as taught to us by Andruil, Goddess of the Hunt." She did not dare add on the Goddess' second title that she had only so recently learned. Cullen might not take the words of a Goddess of Sacrifice as kindly.
His fingers rubbed along the stubble of his jaw in thoughtful consideration. At last, when he raised his head again, to her surprise he stated, "There is a remarkably profound wisdom in those words. One that I think many could stand to learn. Would you mind if I spoke them to the troops, the next time they train?"
Surprise had shown on her face. She had grown so used to her beliefs being shot down, of hearing nothing but the words of the Chant and praise for Andraste, that his sudden easy acceptance and desire to know caught her off guard.
"Y-yes," she stuttered. "I mean, I would be honored."
"You seem taken aback, Inquisitor. Is something the matter? If you would rather I not—"
"No!" Taryn broke in. "I—I mean, it's fine. Honestly, I am so used to scathing remarks or disapproving frowns when I mention my beliefs I didn't… Well, I thought you might feel differently. I'm surprised is all."
The furrow that had formed on Cullen's brow had been endearing. "Scathing remarks? Who is saying something? They know better than that. Josephine has been working to foster a safe environment for everyone's beliefs."
"Honestly?"
"Honestly. Who?"
"Well… The Inner Circle, actually…"
That had surprised him. She watched as he pushed back from the War Table, his surprise melting back into a more thunderous expression. "You're serious… Who?"
Taryn shrugged. "Who hasn't? We all know how Sera feels about people being 'too elfy'. Iron Bull was all about the Qun at the start, though he's pretty mellow now. Blackwall is firmly Andrastian and wasn't so fond when I refused to acknowledge that she sent me from the Fade. Vivienne was much the same in that regard, though she was far more subtle about expressing her feelings. Cassandra also was a bit more discreet, but I could tell it upset her when I adamantly refused to call myself Andraste's Herald. And… And S-solas, well…"
She was grateful when Cullen did not comment on the way she tripped over his name. "Solas? But isn't he fond of lore and Ancient Elves? He was always going on about it. The Dalish are trying to preserve that, aren't they?"
"Yes, we are… And according to Solas we were doing it all wrong and he was rather… unhappy about our 'fumbling attempts' to recreate history."
Cullen snorted. "How can he claim it's all wrong? He was not there to witness just as the Dalish weren't."
"He was right, actually." She did not dare state her growing realization that Solas might just have actually been there after all. It would make his offense at Morrigan's remarks in the Temple of Mythal make frightening sense.
Brown eyes blinked widely at her, caught off guard. "Oh… Well then."
Taryn's expression crumbled and she rubbed at her face. "Everything we thought we knew… We were so wrong."
Consumed in her thoughts, she had not noticed when Cullen had moved around. The weight of his hand on her shoulder jerked out from the mire of voices in her head.
"I'll talk to them."
Taryn blinked at him dumbly. "I'm sorry, what?"
"The others. I will speak to them about what they say."
"Oh! No no, it's alright. I mean… I don't want to start anything, honest. Besides…" she trailed away with a sigh. Her gut churned. "They may be right anyway… Our Gods may not be Gods and if they were… They were not the people that my People believed them to be."
With a groan she dug the heels of her palms into her eyes. "Gods… I don't even know anymore. I wish I had never gone to that damn Temple. I wish I never knew what I know now."
There had been nothing for him to say to that. In his own way, he understood. He had seen his own share of horrors and gained knowledge that he too desperately wished to forget. Together they stood for a time in the War Table, simply absorbing the mutual sense of comradery.
Desperately she yearned for that feeling now. Instead, she wandered her room aimlessly.
What purpose did she have? Who was she now?
She was a pariah to her people and her clan, she had all but cast away her Gods who had grown into a sinister weight on her mind, and her role among those close to her had changed so wildly from what she once was. A creature of the wilds, eager to explore, to learn, she was now a figure head sequestered away in dark stone room to attend stuffy meetings and push papers.
What did she do with herself now? Any number of her followers had the potential to take her place as Inquisitor. She felt like a part, easy to replace, among a mass and no longer like an intricate piece that held meaning.
A knock on the frame of her door drew her from her thoughts.
An Elf woman bowed her head as Taryn's eyes turned to her. "I'm sorry, M'lady, I know you have work today but he kept calling for you."
Tiny hands released the woman's skirt and Taryn crouched to swoop up the little body that flung itself at her.
"Momma!"
With a weak smile, she pressed her nose to a much smaller one. "No need to worry Ghilain. I think I am done for the day anyway. You can do as you please for the rest of the evening."
A bright smile flashed with thanks, and her son's maid hurried down the steps. Bright silver blue eyes watched her intently, and the similarity to their sire's hurt her heart.
"Were you being trouble for Ghilain, little cub?"
"Uh uh!"
That was most definitely a yes, if she knew anything about the boy. "Talen…"
"Well… The barn cat…" Fidgetting, he played with Taryn's short auburn braid draped over her shoulder.
Taryn shook her head with exasperation. "How many times have I told you not to chase the cats?"
Tiny cinnamon brows crinkled in petulance. "He hissed mean things!"
"Maybe he wouldn't hiss mean things if you stopped chasing him."
"He scratched me." The scabs of that particular encounter were still visible on his nose and it was hard for her to stay stern and not smile.
"Because you chased him. No one likes to be chased."
"I do!" he cried gleefully. In her arms he turned into a mass of wiggles, eager to be free. With a laugh she finally released him, watching as he bounded across the room. He turned on his heel, pin wheeling as he nearly toppled over, but he hardly seemed bothered.
"Look! Look what I can do now!"
Small hands cupped, Talen blew into the bowl they formed. Little turquoise flames danced on his palms. That was nothing new to her. She had known of his magical talents since he was a few months old and singed his burping cloth.
But the flames coalesced, growing in size and taking shape. Taryn stepped closer, kneeling before him to watch as the flames twisted into butterflies. With a grin, Talen tossed up his hands and sent them scattering. The long shadows as the afternoon waned were shattered with the eerie blue glow of veil fire as the magical insects darted about the room.
"See!?"
"Yes," she murmured, emerald eyes tracking one particular flame as it fluttered around Talen's head in a halo. "They are very beautiful, little cub."
Excitedly, Talen bounced on the balls of his feet before he took off after one. In silence, Taryn knelt, watching as he made chase. Mid-bound he took a form that had grown all too familiar to her, a form she had kept secret from all but those closest to her in fear that others may not understand.
With a hearty leap, a gangly wolf pup sprang to snip at one of the butterflies, but missed. He landed with a grunt and a grumble of disappointment before launching off again, tail wagging furiously.
Most thought the boy simply exceedingly gifted for magic. Vivienne had already approached her about sending Talen to the Circle. Taryn nearly kicked the woman from the keep. She would never let the Circle have him, or the College. They would recognize her son's 'imaginary friends' for what they were, Spirits. Or, more likely, they would think them Demons and Tranquil the boy.
They would not understand the excited stories of his dream adventures or how he could take the form of an animal he had never seen when it should have taken years of intricate study to obtain.
Few knew that there was something more to the boy, that these were gifts given through the blood of his sire.
And only she knew the entire truth. Her lips curled with bitterness. Perhaps she still held some faith for Dirthamen and his love of secrets.
She had never told anyone why she had furiously collected every scrap of information she could find on Fen'harel. Nor had she spoken of her suspicions. Her eyes darted to her shelves, lined with books of theory, ancient lore, and relics of a time gone by.
Pieces of conversations past came to mind. Half forgotten words that, at the time they were spoken, held little meaning or hid half-truths. Years later, they made a bitter sense.
His knowledge of Arlathan came from the Fade, and yet the ruins were said to be lost to the world. He had told her that he could only see the memories of a place he was physically near.
Always he had muttered defenses for the wild wolves they faced.
"Do you know a lot about wolves?"
"I know that they are intelligent, practical creatures that small-minded fools think of as terrible beasts."
"You're different, Solas. Sharper. You're in both places."
That devious smirk on his face when she had claimed a shrine to Fen'harel for the Inquisition. At the moment it had been half in jest and half to preserve Elven culture. His amusement over it had been puzzling at the time, but it had brought her joy so she had never questioned it.
His anger with Morrigan for her talk of the Elven Gods, Fen'harel most of all. So swift to jump to the Dread Wolf's defense, it had rung bells of alarm in her mind.
"Well if some vicious Elven God wants to help me put my axe in some barbarians, I'm fine with that."
"He just might help you, at that."(2)
Why, of all animals, had he painted howling wolves around the Inquisition's heraldry in his mural? Why the wolf looming over the dragon's fallen body? His intimate knowledge of Gods that were nearly forgotten.
"They are not gone so long as you remember them."
"I know."
"But you could let them go."
"I know that as well."
"You didn't do it to be right. You did it to save them."
"Solas… What is Cole talking about?"
"A mistake. One of many made by a much younger elf who was certain he knew everything."
The foci. The loss was a sad one, but the utter despair on his face as he held its shattered fragments in his hands had troubled her, made her wonder and doubt.
"Such relics were said to be foci of the Gods."
Had it been his?
"He hurts, an old pain from before, when everything sang the same. You're real, and it means everyone could be real. It changes everything, but it can't. They sleep, masked in a mirror, hiding, hurting, and to wake them..." A gasp. "Where did it go?"
Forgotten figures, asleep within a mirror prison. Morrigan's story of the Eluvians leading to other places.
It seemed so impossible that it could be the truth, yet there were so many clues that swam in her mind. The voices of Mythal's priests gave affirmation to her suspicions where she had hoped they would deny.
Everything she had been taught said that they had was impossible, wrong; That Fen'harel was a conniving creature, vicious and selfish. And yet… There had been such gentleness when they touched. Words of soft encouragement when her anxieties got the best of her, respect when she held her ground, even if he did not necessarily agree with her choice.
"The thrill of finding remnants of a thousand year old dream? I would not trade it for anything."
The giddiness he had expressed when entering the Fade and the joy that lit his eyes any time she asked for another story of his travels in the realm of Spirits.
Their first conversations in private had been less enamoring. But for all his anger, there had been a sadness in the bitter bite of his voice, forlorn longing.
"Our People… You use that phrase so casually. It should mean more, but the Dalish have forgotten that. Among other things. While the pass on stories, mangling details, I walk the Fade. I have seen things they have not."
And then she knew her purpose.
A levity flooded her veins that was heady. Laughter bubbled at her lips. Across the room, Talen barked, thinking her simply amused with his antics.
She had asked Solas to teach the Dalish, but he had dismissed the idea as fool hardy, impossible. Solas had encouraged Abelas, but in the years since she had last seen the Ancient, she had heard no word of him or his people. Both had simply vanished with all their vast knowledge.
In her mind, the memories of hundreds churned in dizzying circles.
Her eyes fell to her son, who watched her curiously, head cocked, as he realized that his mother was no longer paying attention to him. Her smile was soft, but bright for the first time that day as she held her hand out to him, silently calling to him.
She would teach him. With every last piece gathered from the Well and her research, she would teach him the truth.
The truth of the Gods, the truth of the pride and arrogance of Arlathan, the truth behind its fall, the truth of their Gods, the truth of the Dales, and why, when he turned eighteen, why she would not brand him as a slave.
If the Ancients would not teach the People, if they would not help them to sort through the hazy memories and forgotten truths, than she would.
Maybe the People would cast her aside as they had Solas; Think her mad and spit at her feet. But she would not give up as he had, as Abelas had. Her arms banded about the furry body that wiggled into her lap and she buried her face in her son's fur. If nothing else, she would teach her son never to fear his father.
She rested her chin on the pup's head.
"Talen, would you like to hear a story?"
In an instant she had an eagerly nodding little boy in her lap.
"This is a story of the Dread Wolf, Fen'harel. Like you, Fen'harel loved to travel the Fade. While he did not often interact with mortals, he loved the Spirits there and was quick to befriend them."
"Like me?"
"Yes, just like you, little cub."
"But one day, while he was wandering the Fade, he heard a cry for help. Curious, he reached out to the Spirit, but to his dismay, he found a dear friend."
Eyes wide, Talen rocked back, head tilted to stare up at her in nervous anticipation. "Were they hurt?"
"In a way. You see, his friend, a Spirit of Wisdom, had been captured. It had been taken against its will and forced into our world in order to help its captors. But they had not asked its permission, and so it hurt the Spirit to be pulled."
It was with both sadness and pride as she watched her little boy's face crumple. "It's mean. I asked Joy once if she could come play with me when I woke up. But she said she couldn't. I said I could find a way to bring her, but she said it would hurt. I don't want to hurt Joy."
A kiss was pressed to his hair. "No, of course not. And she's right. Unless she can find her own way, forcing her would only bring pain. But see, the Mages that took Wisdom did force it. They never asked and Wisdom had no interest in finding its own way. Because of this, Wisdom was twisted into Pride."
"Then what?"
"Well, Fen'harel was very upset. He hurt for his friend, but was unable to leave those he was with. He went to the leader of his friends and asked, pleaded, that they might go to free his find from its suffering."
"Did they? They can't leave Pride!" Taryn laughed at the anxious boy that wiggled in her lap.
"No. No, they didn't leave Pride. Together, Fen'harel and his friends travelled to the Exalted Plains in the Dales…"
As the story went on and the night fell, the two remained, lit only by the pale light of the veil fire that fluttered about them. Neither rose to light the sconces as Talen hugged his mother and pleaded for another story of the Wolf as her tale wound to an end.
And with a laugh, she indulged him
Neither noticed the form that lay in the shadows of the Inquisitor's balcony. Head on its paws, the giant creature watched, as mother and child bonded. Six blue eyes squinted in contentment for the first time in over a thousand years.
(1) Arlathvhen – The meeting of clans, particularly their Keepers, that occurs every ten years. A time for them to trade the knowledge that they've gained about their history, religion, and culture and to trade artifacts, and sometimes those gifted with magic.
(2) The Vir Tanadhal – The Way of the Three Trees. One of two teachings told to the Dalish by the Goddess Andruil.
(3) This is a reference to another drabble of mine that I am writing about the Fallowmire. Bull seems fine with some angry Wolf God helping him kill things. He doesn't realize that that Wolf God might already be helping him kill things. ;)