I should really be studying for finals.

But here's my retelling of Inquisition, with both of my Lavellan babies. Hope you enjoy!

A Scar in the Sky

Waiting, waiting, waiting. Finirial Lavellan paced, ice crunching under his feet.

The keeper of their clan had sent both him and his younger sister Nanyehi down to Ferelden to spy on what Finn gathered was a meeting of significant importance. More like she'd tried to send just Nanyehi, who happened to be one of the clan's best archers; Finn wouldn't have that. He'd been protecting his little sister since he could walk, and important shemlen affairs be damned, he wasn't about to let Nani head straight into human territory without backup.

Haven was pretty enough, in a desolate, frosty sort of way, with its cozy wooden buildings and pine trees laden with loads of pale snow. Finn rather loved weather like this, when the air was dry enough that the cold felt like a fresh breath of energy and not a bucket of water dumped over your head. Crisp, refreshing. As First to the keeper, Finn needed an exceptional command over most types of magic, but he'd always found ice magic his favorite.

He paced again. Nanyehi had crept into the meeting two hours ago. He hoped they hadn't found her. A few more minutes, and he'd probably storm the meeting himself. Leaning back against the rough bark of a pine trunk, he tilted his head towards the sky and studied the wispy white clouds in the endless dome of vivid blue.

"You look like the sky," Nanyehi always told him, as if each time was the first she'd ever mentioned it. "Mother never mentioned why your hair's white. I suppose we'll never know."

Just a quirk, Finn had always suspected. His short ice-white hair tended to fluff up in funny tufts when he didn't manage it right, and most of the women in his clan liked to run their hands through it, a fact Finn usually tolerated. His eyes got lots of comments from them too: vivid eyes with deep navy blue radiating out from the pupils and a sort of crisp glacial blue around that. Finn didn't mind the comments. They were just being nice. His sister, at least, didn't fawn over his appearance, didn't call him "pretty" and touch his arm and bat her eyes.

Where is she?

Finn liked to think happy thoughts. He was a glass-half-full-of-smooth-mead kind of person. But when it came to Nani, well… He never wanted to take any chances.

Still nothing.

Finn blew out sharply through his mouth, watching his breath fog before him. Then he glanced over at where he'd last seen Nanyehi disappear, a growing sense of unease twisting his stomach. Something didn't feel right. The small town felt like it was holding its breath, and he couldn't quite place why.

That's it, he thought, pushing away from the pine. I'm pulling her out of there. This isn't worth her safety. No shem would take kindly to a Dalish rogue spying on an important peace-talk, even if said rogue's intentions were perfectly harmless.

An explosion rocked the world, sending Finn flying.

He tumbled past the pine, scraping himself on the bark as he flew like a ragdoll into the heaps of snow, finally rolling to a stop. His head spun, his lungs struggled to take in the breath that had been knocked out of them. When he opened his blurred eyes and stared up at the sky, he saw a great chasm above the mountains, a chasm of pulsating, rippling pale green light, with a twisting green spire descending below. His ears picked up the last sound he wanted to hear: screaming.

What in the world?

"Nani!" Finn yelled, scrambling to his feet and tripping over a clod of ice beneath the snow. He gripped his staff's handle tightly and ran for the village, eyes wide in panic.

No one seemed to care about the Dalish mage careening through the village. Finn hurried past hordes of frightened people, nearly running into a woman who'd paused to stare at the sky like she couldn't comprehend what had happened. A father ushered his son away from the site of the blast, in the opposite direction of Finn's path. Finn vaulted over a young girl stooping to pick up the cloth doll she'd dropped on the muddied dirt path and continued, his legs straining as he made his way up the rocky mountain path.

Don't be dead. DON'T BE DEAD.

He heard some Fereldan soldiers shouting behind him, probably heading for the same thing as him, but they wouldn't catch him. Finn could outrun any human. If he could just reach the site of the explosion, find Nanyehi, pull her to safety before anyone realized what the two of them had been doing…

His cloth-wrapped feet skidded as he made his way onto a frozen pond, and he recovered as best he could, sprinting up some crude stone stairs and gasping for breath. Within minutes he reached the temple the meeting had been held at, and he stopped, panting, eyes wide in disbelief.

Where a proud stone edifice had one stood, a grey bulwark against the mountain elements, now lay a smoldering ruin of rubble.

"Creators, no," he said, rushing for the rubble without a moment's hesitation. A path downward through what had once been stone walls led him through the temple's old hallway, and he followed it, dreading what he might see. And when he came upon the center of the ruins, he realized his worst nightmares couldn't have conjured something quite like this.

The corpses had been petrified exactly how they'd perished, mouths agape in agony, bony withered hands reaching for the sky, for a savior that would never come. There must've been hundreds, scattered around the ruins, little tufts of flame flickering on their mangled bodies. Finn covered his mouth with a hand, trying not to vomit. He stepped carefully around them, looking for a glimpse of deep, wine-red hair even though he knew his sister wouldn't even be recognizable if she were here.

Nanyehi was quick on her feet, and she knew to trust her instincts. Surely she would have escaped before the blast caught up with her. Surely…

Finn stopped, watching the air several yards in front of him. It warped and twisted, turning into a flashing green scar, and to his astonishment, the scar in the air opened up momentarily and spat out his sister.

She landed face-down on the ground, her cabernet hair a tangled mess, her pale skin covered in dirt and bruises.

"Nanyehi!" Finn shouted, running to her.

He flung himself to his knees and rolled her gently onto her back, feeling her neck for a pulse point. Thank the Creators, it was there; light, faint, but fluttering beneath the pads of his fingers. Her eyes were shut tight and she had blood crusted to the side of her mouth, but she was alive.

If he'd seen correctly, his little sister had just been dumped bodily out of the Beyond. And no one should've been able to physically enter the Beyond.

Finn strapped his staff to his back and gathered Nanyehi in his arms, struggling to his feet. It was then that the sound of pounding boots startled him from behind; he spun around to see a number of warriors rushing into the ruins, all of them laying their eyes on Finn and Nanyehi and probably coming to a hundred different wrong conclusions.

Shite.

Finn wasn't about to drop Nanyehi's body just to take up his staff and defend himself. He backed up, looking around frantically for an escape route, but didn't make it in time; the warriors surrounded him, blades pointing at him, and Finn steeled himself.

A woman with short black hair marched to the front, rage flaming in her dark eyes as she locked her gaze on Finn and stared him down. "What have you done?" she yelled, nearly slamming her shield into Finn, who dodged out of the way at the last time. "All those people! Most Holy was – Maker! I'll kill you myself!"

"We didn't cause the explosion!" Finn said. As if that would convince these warriors, who'd just come upon the scene of a heinous crime to find one Dalish elf trying to sneak another out of the ruins. He had zero chance. Mercy didn't even seem realistic at this point. "I don't even know what… Please – "

"Take them both to Haven," the woman snarled, sheathing her sword. "And let us have our justice."