She can barely breathe as she enters the room and looks at the war table. The memories are still too fresh, but she forces herself to stand tall and strong, back arched, hands clasped together as she looks down.
Decisions had to be made. There were lives at stake.
Oh, a small voice in the back of her head whispers. You always make decisions. You decided to kill your clan. They were your people. You were their first. You doomed them. What a watcher, what a keeper.
Mistakes were made. Lives were lost.
She feels how sore her throat is as she clears it. Her advisers look at her. She can't disappoint anymore. She needs to strong now. They can't see what a wreck she is. That she hasn't allowed herself to sleep much this past days, always tired awake as she is asleep, she shuts it down as much as possible, hiding away I. The desperate attempt to cloak her face and mind.
Mourning is for peaceful times. This is war with the world, and if she fails, it will burn.
Cole notices. Of course, he does. She hides from him, sending him away if he proceeds to find her. She knows how she knows he only wants to help. But she can't accept his help. Can't fall prey to the weakness.
I am sorry, she thinks, as she brushes his attempts off.
The others notice too. They notice her weariness, her sick paleness and the way she eats almost nothing.
She fights with a feral and angry despair, smiling when they take camp, nodding and talking, planning, but some part is missing. The light in her eyes has died.
Hollow shell that she is, she proceeds to give everything she has, but it doesn't matter who she helps or what she kills. She is so far away she doesn't notice she wants to save everyone but herself.
People notice. She tells herself they don't and she tells them not to worry. She smiles, she assures them she is fine. But she is not. When they fight red templars one of them gets too close, and his shield knocks her into the water. She is dizzy. The water is deep enough her feet don't touch the ground.
And she isn't even trying to swim, just bathing in the tingling sensation of her body as the air leaves her lungs. Her limbs rocking back and forth as she sinks slowly, she closes her eyes and lets go.
It feels good to let go. It's relief.
She thinks of Nerith and Pava, close to the aravels, caring for the halla.
She thinks of her keeper, welcoming her as her first, telling her she has to fear nothing, as her eleven-year-old self-trembles and bites her lips.
She smells the wood, the forest. Rocking back and forth in the aravels as they travel.
And then there is Jalan. His smirk as he shoots the arrow. The way he taunts her. The way they laugh and the way she waits when he is gone hunting.
Decisions were made. People died.
If she drowns now, people will suffer. She knows, oh she knows, but this, this, sweet peace.
Her feet struggle to thread in the water. Where is up, where is down? That's when arms grab her and Sera pulls her out of the water. She coughs. Her lungs burn.
Cassandra pulls her up as they make their way back.
I am sorry, she thinks, as she stumbles trembling along with her companions.
They make her take a break. She doesn't want to stay in camp. She hates sleeping. She detests her dreams.
Her mind had been wandering, and so were her bare feet.
Closer, closer, voices sing to her. Closer bright one.
Her feet touch cobbles and leaves, bare skin, bare soul, there are longing and sadness where strength used to be.
The forest is familiar, and as trees surround her and branches brush her cheeks she wishes herself back.
Forget, something says, forget the pain, bright one, there is only love for you, come to us.
Forget. Nothing sounds sweeter. Her hands brush away a leaves that is stuck in her pale hair.
If I forget, the woman thinks, this will be over. I can just stay here. I am safe here. No one would dare harm me. The singing voices, like birds in this forest, they want her.
And no one wanted her for a long time. Only burdens. Only pain.
Then she remembers. These woods are not hers. This world isn't. And what is lost will not return.
Who else to remember but her? There is no one left to tell the stories her keeper taught her. No one to remember the hunts and the smiles and the fires they sat around.
She cannot forget. She won't.
And yes, the burdens she bears are hard. But they are hers. People need her. She can't afford to dwell here.
They care,she thinks, whatever that means. They care. I am real to them. You don't know me. You don't.
And so she ignores the voices that are sweet and promising,steeling her mind and wandering through the forest.
The fade will have to wait until her task is done. The living can not dwell where only memories remain.
Time doesn't heal. Not the way people promise it does.
She finds comfort in small things.
Listening to Solas voice telling stories helps. It is soothing.
Working in the garden, hands deep in the dark soil, smelling the plants and feeling the dark earth helps. She can help make things grow.
When she finds the dalish clan on the dirthamen it hurts. It feels familiar, and home, until the knowledge that here home is destroyed seeps right back into her brain. But it also helps. She speaks to the keeper and they welcome her. And when Loranil looks at her with eyes full of admiration she is proud. She sometimes sees him, when she is in the garden, and though he doesn't talk much to her, she keeps an eye on him.
Nights alone in her room are the hardest. The silence is deafening. She sits on her balcony, staring at the moon. And she cries.
Sometimes Cole is there, and she is glad to welcome him to her side.
She cries until she has no more tears for her clan.
As time goes by the pain gets away, like a distant acquaintance he comes around to remind her, heart aching, but still in her chest. She is alive. She has to make the best out of it.
Her home is not at lost as she thought it was, she recognizes. It was always right here at Skyhold. And when she thinks of her new clan, a smile is spreading across her face.