First of all, I do not own anything. The world and all characters in it belongs to BioWare.
Second, this is my very first attempt at writing fanfiction and it is planned to be an exploration of who the Inquisitor was before he became the Inquisitor. We know quite little about the Ostwick Circle of Magi, which has led to me taking some liberties to imagine how life there could be like.
This story is rated M for upcoming violence and possible adult themes.
Chapter 1: Whispers.
There were whispers everywhere he went these days. They were etched in the great brick walls, carried by the occasional bursts of chilly wind through the old, badly isolated windows and echoing between the many bookshelves lining the walls in the library wing where there should be no possibilities of echoes carrying. The whispers were frightened, furious or curious in nature, but their message rarely reached him and that made him feel privileged. It was not that he was unaware of the general content of the whispered words that were carried like the plague around the Ostwick Circle of Magi. After years of tension rising in Kirkwall the mages there had finally rebelled and it was said that the conclusion had been terrifying, that blood had ran through the streets like a flood, that abominations had roamed the streets and that the whole city had been burning and covered in corpses; civilians, Templars and mages alike.
A chilly breeze made the hairs on his arms bristle and he wrapped the soft fennec fur tighter around his shoulders while turning a page of the heavy tome placed on the table in front of him. The candle's warm flame flickered slightly and hot wax slithered along its side. The words on the page were tiny and blurred slightly before his vision. "Few studies have succeeded in measuring adequately the perception of organic and non-organic objects and their relation to the Fade…" He realized he had not understood anything of what he had just read and reached to rub his tired eyes with pale, dry knuckles. The black velvet of the night had descended upon the library, the only sources of light the wax candle on the table and four ornately caged torches placed strategically along the circular walls.
Suddenly, he felt frightened. The fear grew inside of him like a tumour, clasping at his innards with twisted claws, tearing at his vocal chords and his lungs. The library was empty: he was alone. What if the whispers had come true? What if everyone was…? It was difficult to breathe, as if the fear had forged a barricade in his throat, blocking the air.
The tension had been rising in the Circle over the last couple of months; fear, anguish and anger brewing among the mages as a result of what had happened in Kirkwall and other Circles around Thedas. He had seen it among the Templars as well: the Ostwick Circle had always been a peaceful, small and quite pleasant Circle compared to what he had heard of others. Sure, the Circle had a Libertarian fraternity that were occasionally loud in their voicing of displeasure, but it was relatively small and could hardly be seen as rebellious. The Templars of the Ostwick Circle had always been quite friendly with the mages: as friendly as the jailor can be towards their prisoners. A mage and a Templar chatting in the library, a Templar offering a word of advice in good will or a mage smiling and nodding while passing a Templar in the stairs were not entirely uncommon sights in the Circle tower. He was aware that the Ostwick Circle had a reputation of having a quite pleasant atmosphere, where the mages and Templars were rather at peace with each other forged by as large an amount of trust as could be expected under the circumstances.
But over the past few months he had noticed a decreasing contact between the Templars and the mages in the tower. He would rarely see a mage and a Templar chatting and many of the Templars he had thought of as quite friendly had stopped smiling when they passed each other in the corridors. A common sight were now two Templars sticking their heads together, speaking in hushed tones with a weary, anxious look in their eyes that shone emptily through the metal frames of their helmets. And over the past few weeks, the Templars and mages alike had appeared more skittish, more secretive and an increasing odour of paranoia had started to rise from them.
Perhaps the brewing displeasure and paranoia had finally reached a point where it boiled over? When he heard the thuds of plated footsteps approaching from the doorway, heavy Templar armour clanking with every movement, the claws of fear grasped at his heart and squeezed.
"Trevelyan, it's late. Time to return to your quarters." The booming voice that echoed spookily through the Templar bucket helmet was that of Ser Broderick, a young man of twenty-five years or so that had been assigned to the Ostwick Circle two years ago. He did not invite any friendly conversation, but were a stern, pompous noble-born who took his duties to the Maker very seriously.
Tristan shut the tome with a heavy thud that had a certain finality to it, stood up and forced it into its shelf with a slight grunt. He blew out the wax candle on the table and walked out of the library, followed by Ser Broderick.
"Thank you. Good night, Ser Broderick."
"Good night, Trevelyan."
Tristan continued along the dimly lit corridor, his soft fur slippers hardly making any noise. The high, ornately barred windows that adorned the brick walls revealed nothing but darkness outside: it must have been a cloudy night, since he could not see a single star.
As he reached the grand spiral stair, he continued upward toward the mages' quarters. He had passed his harrowing several years ago and he had to admit that he enjoyed the perks of no longer being an apprentice. For one, the apprentices had large dormitories with ten beds, which allowed no privacy at all: the mages only had to share their rooms with a single other mage and the rooms were split ingeniously by high, sturdy bookshelves. The risk of being disturbed was hence much smaller and he was no longer forced to withstand the eager gossiping and hushed conversations that could go on long into the night in the apprentices' quarters.
The downside to this arrangement was that the mage that now shared his room – a middle aged, odd-eyed elf that probably would prefer living alone in the woods without seeing another living being ever again – did not approve of Tristan reading after midnight. In fact, there was little that he did approve of. As Tristan reached the top of the stairs and closed in on his own quarters, the whispers came travelling through the air towards him again. The tower was old and the roof was tremendously high. Hence, the acoustics were marvellous, which led to him often hearing the Chant of Light from the Circle chantry, the delicate tones seemingly bouncing off the walls and the roof, filling the tower with sound. What he heard now, however, was not the Chant of Light. He could not pinpoint where the voices originated from and they were little more than whispers. It could be anything, of course, he thought while pacing on slowly, guided only by the caged torches adorning the walls of the corridor. It was hardly uncommon for lovers to meet in the night, trying to gain some privacy and a few hushed, loving words away from Templar supervision. He passed a few Templars that sternly stood guard outside the doors to the mages' private quarters, offering Tristan nothing but a nod, seemingly indifferent or unaware of the hushed conversation.
When he reached his own quarters, he noticed that the heavy oaken door was not properly shut. Siveran, the elf that shared the room with him, usually guarded his privacy like a dragon guard a golden treasure, which made the slightly open door seem odd. Suddenly, a hushed voice crept through the slit of the door, and Tristan stopped with his hand on the doorknob. It was not Siveran's throaty growl, but a woman's pointy, heated whisper vividly coloured by her broad Starkhaven accent.
"… But it'll have to be soon, Siveran, because I've seen how they look at us. If we don't act soon, they will!"
Tristan stood alike a statue, frozen on the spot just outside the door with his hand on the doorknob. He felt a chill settle in his hands, creeping through his veins and freezing them solid. The fear reached out its clawed hand and pulled at his innards, tearing at his flesh. He was not certain what it was that he had walked into, but for some reason the woman's words and her tone that was tense with anxiety made his blood freeze in his veins.
"Did you get word from your contact in Starkhaven?" Siveran's voice was a low growl, forced forth through grit teeth. Tristan could imagine the tall, lanky elf's knit brow and the moss green and nut brown eyes below the wispy eyebrows thinning.
"No, not yet. I'm starting to think that maybe…"
"Please, Veronica... Don't say that." Tristan was surprised to hear the elf's voice soft and hushed and compassionate, emotions that he had assumed was out of reach for the man, and he picked up a faint gasp as if the woman – Veronica – was about to protest.
"Look", Siveran halted her, "Let's wait three more days. If you haven't heard anything by then, we'll move forward anyway. But there's no point in getting ahead of ourselves, you realize that, don't you?"
A shaky, although not tear-filled – Tristan believed – inhale drifted through the slight sliver between door and doorframe.
"All right... You're right. I should go. The Templars will be here any minute."
"Be careful. Don't lose hope."
Too late, Tristan realized that the duo was breaking up their little meeting. His heart throbbed lazily but sickeningly heavy in the base of his throat and it still felt like it was pumping ice into his veins instead of red hot blood, but he managed to break himself off from the door and stalk soundlessly around the corner of the corridor: he was not certain why, but he had a feeling that the consequences would not be light if he was caught eavesdropping.
This... This was not two lovers meeting in the dark for a few stolen moments, this was not idle gossiping or a friendly game of late night Wicked Grace. This, what he had heard, reached far beyond the Circle and it could possibly be related to what he feared the most would happen. Blood everywhere. Fire. Magic that felt like a freshly sharpened blade and raw lyrium, clinical in its precision. Screams. And pain, so much pain. He heard the oaken door creak on its hinges as it swung open slowly and soft, almost soundless footsteps descending the corridor. The woman's – Veronica's – woollen robe rustled softly with her careful movements and soon the entire world around Tristan was laden with silence, pressing against his ears and clutching at his spine.
He willed his legs to start moving and with a few steps, he stood in front of the door to his chambers again, this time not hesitating to open the oaken door that was now shut tight. The room looked just like it always did; the deep, velvety red walls stretching up to the high roof, the grand bookshelf of dark oak stretching through the length of the chamber, full with books and – Tristan noticed – with a thick layer of dust adorning its upper shelves. The source of the dim light were four of the customary caged, greasy beeswax candles that threw the room in a soft, yellow light. Siveran was seated on the edge of the bed to the left of the bookshelf; his long, lean legs stretched out and crossed by the ankles under a moss green and wine red robe. The elf's long, pointed ears shivered slightly as he lifted his head to fix those deep, odd eyes – one moss green, the same exact nuance as the ornate pattern on the robe, and one hazel, although the dim light made it out to be pitch black – on Tristan as he entered the room. A deeply unpleasant sneer curved the elf's thin lips and he didn't even grace the human with a greeting. Tristan's heart was still pounding furiously: the intense fear that had been clinging to him since he left the library and that was not entirely understandable to him refusing to let go. He turned his back on the elf and stalked over to his own bed, relieved to be out of Siveran's view.
Certainly, the rebellion at Kirkwall's Circle of Magi that had set off similar events at several other Circles around Thedas, would impact on Templar and mage alike. And certainly, Ostwick's Circle of Magi would not be the only Circle where these events would not have consequences, despite the feverish clinging to neutrality. Tristan was aware of this, and he was also aware that whatever it was that he had heard, it might not have anything to do with a possible uprising. But, then, what was it that made him so afraid that his blood would freeze, his heart would threaten to break free of its chains of ribs and skin and flesh and leave his body? Tristan was, admittedly, not thrilled by the constant supervision, the Templars' gazes that lingered upon every little movement he made or the constant, lingering threat that was as natural as oxygen in the Circle tower – if you slip up, just once... However friendly, or at least civil, the Templars seemed with their smiling and their nodding, every single mage knew that every single one of these Templars would not hesitate for a second before they eliminated the last flicker of life, spilled the last drop of blood from your veins. It was a life of imprisonment, a life of bitterness of what could have been and a life of isolation. But all the same it was a quiet life, a life you could live in peace and quiet with books as company and a sheltered life, shutting the mages in from the rest of the world for the safety of all and for good and ill. That's what they said.
Tristan was as tired of it as any mage. He was tired of the constant fear, tired of mistrust and tired of the lack of freedom of making your own choices. But there was a difference between being tired of the lack of rights and being prepared to kill, and perhaps die, for a possibility to gain those rights. Yes, there had been a time – it seemed so long ago now – that he had thought he was prepared for that kind of sacrifice for a life he believed he wanted. A life free of supervision, a life free of restrictions and boundaries and rules about every single aspect of life. But that has all changed, Tristan thought with a sting of slight bitterness. All he wanted now was to be left in peace.