A/N: Warning: this contains spoilers for the witch hunt DLC!
Now that big bold is over with, hey! I was playing through the DLC the other day, and I was playing it through as my Dalish elf Lina (I swear, it's the same elf in all my stories; I don't name them all Lina) and I could totally imagine her feelings as she walks through the Elven ruins along the path that she once walked with a healthy, living Tamlen! This is a sister-one-shot to my other ones, Winter and Aphrodisiac.
And thus, this was written. I hope you all like it! Review to tell me what you think! (They make me better :P)
Tap, tap, tap.
The sounds of Ariane's boots betray the fast beating of Lina's heavy heart as she stands outside the main door that leads to the inside of the ruin. Ariane is walking around needlessly, no purpose in mind but to give Lina a chance to gather her bearing before she truly enters the place that changed her life forever; the place of her hardest and greatest sorrow. Finn simply stands there, not knowing what to do but guessing by the dog's sad whine and Ariane's pacing that he need to stay quiet. And he does.
Lina gives a shuddering breath, berating herself for acting so weak in the presence of others, feeling that it's been three years and she shouldn't be so upset. She knew she was coming here, had prepared herself for it and made herself promise she wouldn't act too different.
Funny, she thinks, how that changed once she'd made her way down the pathway through the forest towards here.
The door is cool to the touch under her left hand, but decidedly warm under her right. Lina feels the presence that is drifting around her, and it's strange to her how under her right hand is the same place where Tamlen's hand had been placed on the door three years prior. She prepares herself, pushing hard onto the door and seeing some dust rise from the floor as she scrapes it along the floor to push it open.
Ariane and Finn both snap their heads up, startled at first and then alarmed when they see that she has disappeared, following the dog through the door and spotting a half-hidden Lina with an arrow nocked in her bow. She raises a finger to her lips, quietening them as they open their mouths to speak, and motioning to the two pairs of elves at either end of the corridor.
Finn gives a nod, immediately setting a paralysis glyph that triggers quickly, paralysing two of them and leaving the other two to Ariane and Lina. Lina's arrow flies through the air towards one infected elf, killing him instantly as Ariane spears one with her sword. By the time the glyph breaks on the other two infected elves, they're both dead by arrows and magic.
Ariane mutters something about them being tainted for a long time, although Lina searches the faces beneath the helms. She knows that none of them can possibly be Tamlen. She'd killed him a year and a half ago in the dead of winter, snow had fallen thickly and covered the tainted elf's face that she had killed, but she knew it was him. No other elf could tell her he loved her so sincerely before attacking with cries of pain at his actions. It still stops her from sleeping to know that she was the one to kill him.
Lina stays in her dark thoughts as they fight their way through the ruins, her mind fixed on how Tamlen would have never entered this ruin without her, how she should have walked away from the entrance and he would have followed. And he's guiding her through the ruins right now.
Lina can see him walking along beside her, mouth agape in wonder as he stares at the architecture, the memory of him playing out before her and as clueless in her memory as he was in the reality. It's burned in the back of her eyes, and with each step the memory becomes clearer before her. Looking to her left, she can almost count the different number of splotches of blood on his face from when they'd killed the humans much earlier on.
Vaguely, she wonders if she is going insane.
Ariane's sharp yell snaps her completely from her thoughts, the image of Tamlen walking alongside her with a nervous smile fading from her view as Ariane hands her a rusty, blood covered key. The fact that they need a key at all is proof to her that someone has been inside the ruins before even the tainted elves and damaged the tumblers of the locks. Years ago, she'd been able to open the doors at Tamlen's insistence with only a broken lockpick.
His sneaky smile plays before her eyes as she bends to push the key in the lock, and her broken memories change the shape of the thick key for her, her mind remembering the thinness of the broken lockpick and her nimble fingers moving swiftly to move the tumblers from their locked place.
For a fleeting moment Ariane, Duster and Finn disappear from her senses, a faint but audible whisper of Tamlen's thanks deafening her and forcing a sharp pain to stab at her chest. Silently Lina bites her lip, forcing back the tears as she remembers what lies on the other side of this door. It's not the mirror room, but it is the corridor where Lina had been knocked to the floor by a trap and Tamlen's worried yell had pierced through the sounds of everything else.
In the dusty, dark and monster-filled ruin, Lina had shared one of many moments with Tamlen, his raw fear for her safety having had tugged at her own heartstrings as he had pulled her close to him, gripping her tightly in fear for the life of his closest friend. Back then, she knew she loved him and had been hazily aware of his feelings for her, but that moment had strengthened her love for him. She'd wanted to cry, then.
Lina pushes the door open, momentarily feeling arms wrap around her and warmth encircle her, but it's gone before she recognises it. She knows now that had she cried, Tamlen would have taken her straight back to the clan camp. She wouldn't be here going through the pain of having to relieve her journey through the ruin.
All her thoughts stop, however, at the disappearance of the statue of Falon'Din that had once stood directly opposite the Eluvian chamber. It's a sign that someone has definitely been here lately, and it tugs at her nerves but proceeds no further one she walks calmly down the corridor and towards the door directly in the middle. The trap that once lay there has long since been disabled, and looking down she sees the broken string, covered in dust and a reminder that it was her who triggered it. Something else catches her eye, something silver and gold, covered in layers of dust and almost blending in with the dirty floor of the ruin.
Still, Lina recognises it immediately, and bends down to grab it from the dusty and cobwebbed floor. Dangling in front of her eyes to make sure it is really what she thinks it is. An acorn-shaped pendant, made from pure silver hangs from a golden chain, the hidden healing spell inside designed to slowly heal its wearer. A smaller object also hangs from the chain, a silver ring that Lina also recognises. It's a ring given to those who are going to ask another to bond with them, given to the young elf for luck and carved along the inside with the name of the person being asked to bond.
Lina Mahariel
The name is visible only when Lina rubs her finger along the inside of the ring, Ariane looking at it curiously and taking it from Lina's hand when the blonde elf nearly drops it as a sharp stabbing pain hits her again. Ariane recognises it too, reading the name and frowning.
"But this is your name – oh… I- I'm sorry."
Lina doesn't say anything, simply takes the chain, pendant and ring and ties it, slipping it over her head and letting it hang from her neck, acorn pendant resting gently on her chest. Ariane gives her a sad look, Finn runs his hands along the wall in wonder and Duster simply pushes his nose into his mistress' hand. Lina smiles down at him, ruffling his ears.
"You'd have hated him, you know. He was the type to come over and start a brawl for 'practice.'" She grins at Duster's small growl of confusion, before looking up away from him and towards the door that led her to the room that had changed her life forever. Just as she places her hand on the door, Ariane speaks up again.
"Warden… If you had the chance to turn back time and stop yourself from entering this room, would you do it? Would you give up becoming the Hero of Ferelden and saving us all just to get it all back?" Lina pauses, fingers curling on the door and her nails scratching against the wood as she looks down, eyes shadowed and refusing to show her feelings to Ariane.
"Ariane… I cannot stay with the humans because too much attention is based on me after my defeat of the Archdemon. I cannot go to my clan, because everything I see or do reminds me of Tamlen. The tent we'd shared as young Children, the fights we would have, the pranks we pulled, and so much more. I am forced to wander the forests. So yes, if I could give it all up to get my family back, to get him back, I'd do it in a heartbeat."
Then, before Ariane can answer, Lina pushes on the door with all her might, feeling a shadow beside her watching her every move. It withdraws once she opens the door, but Lina knows it is the same presence that has led her along the old route she once took through the ruin with Tamlen. A healthy, young, untainted about-to-propose Tamlen.
Lina moves directly towards the mirror, looking sideways only once to see the skeletal remains of what she assumes to be the Bereskarn once hiding in this room that had clawed her a dozen times over during the fight.
The mirror still stands as tall as it had done on that fateful day; glassless but the frame still intact. Looking at it now she hopes to find something in the frame that captures her attention as much as it had captured Tamlen's three years ago. With a frown she realises she feels no pull to it, knowing she will never know exactly why the mirror had attracted Tamlen how it did.
"I- I can feel the power behind this… and its malevolence. I am sorry to bring you back here." Ariane picks up a shard of the mirror, holding it before her eyes and idly dangling it in front of a light of Arlathan. Lina shakes her head.
"Right here, in this very spot where I stand, was where I last saw him healthy and alive…" Lina fights back tears, feeling a wind pick up near her despite there being no windows for wind to enter. It's a warm wind, tugging at the braids in her hair and lifting the corners of her mouth a little. Warm arms seem to wrap around her once more as Ariane starts an argument with her dog, and Lina shrugs it off as she looks up at the mirror again.
It hurts to be this close to it; it hurts knowing that she should have resisted against Duncan and searched more than she did. Tamlen had to have been here when she searched, waiting for her to find his sick body and help him. But she didn't do it. She signed off the life of the one she loved as a lost hope, never knowing or expecting him to appear a few months down the line. She'd almost been entrapped by Zevran, almost fell for him, but had had her heart shattered on the day the Ghoul appeared at the camp. Zevran didn't even try after Tamlen had told her he'd always loved her.
Whatever the warmth around her is trying to accomplish, it isn't closure.
Closure isn't something Lina can be allowed to have.
Even after Morrigan is found and allowed to leave through the Eluvian, Lina no longer finds shelter in the woods. After entering the ruins something had changed inside her for the worst. She makes one last appearance to her clan, a goodbye occasion before she leaves for the deep roads, chain around her neck and tainted body singing for the Deep Roads as she makes her way through Orzammar.
And even then, in the dark, claustrophobia-inducing tunnels, Lina cannot find a way to end her grief.