A/N:
SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT! MAAAAAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE MOST RECENT DA:I DLC. You've been warned, dudes.
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Screw it. Just screw it.
I didn't even really ship this very hard till the DLC, but then... there was just so much freaking potential. I want to play with the whole Well of Sorrows-your boyfriend might be Mythal thing as well as the bit at the end of the DLC where the elves start disappearing all over Thedas, and where Abelas went, and how -okay, I'm gonna give all my plot ideas away. This chapter is just sort of a rehash of where we -our poor elven Inquisitor and friends- stand.
Chapter One: Dead in the Water
If I was not myself
And you were someone else
I'd say so much to you
And I would tell the truth
It's high, can't hardly breathe
When your hands let go of me
The eyes say standing out
And I feel things from selves
I'm dead in the water
Still looking for ya
I'm dead in the water
Can't you see, can't you see.
-Dead in the Water, by Ellie Goulding
Dryanna did not weep.
Instead she pushed up the sleeve of her robe and stared at the smooth, rounded end of her arm, where once her left hand and forearm had been. The skin was so smooth and perfect that the rest of the appendage might never have existed at all. The pain was gone, the pulsing, ever present tug of the Mark and the Fade beyond was gone, and the world felt utterly silent, still, as if she existed out of time.
Perhaps she did, she mused, taking in her strange surroundings. The Qunari statues were hardly talkative spectators. She shivered despite herself; what a terrible way to die, if they were truly dead at all.
She had woken, alone, armless, with only the fading vision of Solas –Fen'Harel her mind whispered traitorously, or perhaps it was the voices in the Well, unbidden- left to her. For a moment she had believed he meant to let the Mark kill her, consume her, a part of her -a large, nearly overwhelming part of her- had welcomed the end. In all her struggles and failings against Corypheus she had never wished for death, but under the weight of the truth… darkness had seemed preferable.
Gods help her, she could still feel the lingering press of his lips on hers; a strange numbing, and electric sensation that seemed to be embedded in her skin. The sensation was nearly as strong as the imprint of his sadness and regret, palatable and sharp on her tongue. The strength of his guilt had been beyond her comprehension. She felt suspended in disbelief, like an insect caught in amber –or perhaps a Qunari trapped in stone. She had once believed herself beyond such shock, such crushing, inescapable astonishment; after everything thing that had happened to her, she'd thought her days of world saving were over. It appeared that once again she bore a different mark, another wound in place of the old, this one pulsing in her breast with increasing persistence. Once again, she felt she held the fate of the world in her ignorant, fumbling hands. This time in the guise of an elven God's heart.
A sudden bubble of manic disbelief rose in her chest and burst from her lips in a bastardized version of a laugh.
"Fuck," she grunted, her voice oddly distended, unfamiliar in her ears. It was a word she'd never known prior to her introduction to the Iron Bull, but it had so many colorful uses. She could think of no better sentiment to encompass the sudden upending of the world she'd once felt she understood.
Everything –everything- had changed.
She wanted to hate him, Gods –the Maker, Spirits of the Fade, power hungry Magisters in the North, whoever would listen, whatever was real anymore- she wanted to hate him. To hate what he'd done and the intentions behind them. But even as he'd laid the intentions of his scheming before her, as he'd unwoven the tapestry of his elaborate deception and betrayal, something inside her had warmed to the idea. To her people restored, pulled out from beneath their oppressive shroud.
But that… that had been only the lingering effects of the truth she'd been raised all her life to believe –the lie that had been fed to her since birth. That the humans were to blame for the fall of her people, that they had once been beings of wisdom and power, only to have it dashed away by the selfishness of humanity. It was a lie that had begun to crumble in the Temple of Mythal –no, before then, as she'd wandered in confusing elven ruin after confusing elven ruin- and which now laid crumbled in the wake of the implosion.
What right have we, her heart asked, to rise from the doom we put upon ourselves? What right have we to unmake this world and shape it to our liking, when we proved we are incapable of managing such power?
If she'd had more time perhaps she could have made him see… could have made him understand… but how couldn't he already? He'd laughed with Varric and The Iron Bull, commiserated and talked with Cass and Blackwall –No, it was Thom now, Gods, must everyone she cared for lie to her? He had watched their struggles, witnessed their bravery and self-sacrifice, and it had not been enough to sway him. How then, could she?
Because, the voices in her head whispered, the Well cresting and fading in disjointed waves, he loves you. You saw it, the sudden uncertainty, the hesitation. Already you sway him, it is why he could not take you with him, it is why he fears to remain with you for long. His guilt spans oceans and eons, he feels there is no course beyond that which he has made to find recompense for all he took from his people.
"But what can I do?" she croaked, leaning heavy and broken against a rock. "What in Thedas can I do? Have I not done enough? Already they clamor for my resignation, my quiet retirement. They fear and hate me."
The voices trembled and rumbled like distant thunder before settling again. This time it was a woman's voice, old and tired, that whispered in her head.
You have learned the truth, child. Elven Gods were merely beings of supreme power, mortal and greedy. A power which lingers in this world despite all the Dread Wolf has done. A power which can be discovered, unraveled, by those who have the means to look. You've held a strong connection to the Fade all your life, you do not need your Inquisition to find this knowledge, but you may find a way to harness the influence you have wrought. Though your search may take you from the light, and into shadows.
Dryanna swallowed thickly, pressing down a lump of bitterness and bile. The Well was mostly silent, growing ever more dormant over the past two years -this was easily the longest 'conversation' she'd ever had with 'it'. She had only taken it to preserve what was left of her people in the first place, and oh, how foolish she felt now. She had learned early on how to suppress its whispers and promptings, though her dreams were another matter, though they were often so disjointed and misty they hardly made any sense at all. She'd suppressed it mostly out of fear, but partially out of necessity. After it had told her how she might defeat Corypheus, she had carefully sealed it away inside the vaults of her mind where it could not distract her from what she had to do.
Gods, Solas had been so angry with her. More angry than she had ever seen him, but there had also been fear there, and uncertainty. At the time she had assumed it was for her, a worry born of the love she was sure they shared, now she thought that perhaps it had been for him –how had her drinking from the Well disjointed or bent his plans? Had he feared discovery?
The moment he'd turned toward her, silhouetted in the light of the Eluvian, his eyes so distant and cold, the Well had risen in a fury of screaming recognition, a chorus of rage and envy and only the burning of her Mark had scorched the chaos clean. How had it not recognized him before? Or had the whispers always been there and she'd merely ignored them?
No, no, she could not have ignored the madness the Well inflicted as Solas's eyes glowed blue, it had been uncontrollable, unstoppable. Something had changed. He had changed. Or perhaps he had merely been revealed, the layers of his disguise pulled free and left bare. The answer was there, somewhere in the voices of the ages, but she had almost no understanding of how to harness them.
She'd always known the Well held enormous potential. Morrigan had made it very clear, with bitterness and envy burning in her eyes –that is, until her mother had appeared, and then there had been only relief. It was a potential that had frightened Dryanna, not excited her as it had the Witch.
Flemeth's words -Mythal's words- echoed back at her. The truth is not the end, it is the beginning.
It was that beginning she had feared, had avoided since the day the Breach had been sealed for the last time. She wondered if perhaps she had always known the truth of him, of Solas, but the ache in her breast told her that wasn't true. Despite all her stoicism and careful words to her friends over the past two years, she'd carried a hope inside her, desperate and raw, that he would return.
And so he had, she supposed bitterly, looking again at her arm, or what was left of it.
And so he had.
With the weight of the truth heavy and suffocating, she rose shakily to her feet. It was a quiet, peaceful place. If not for the tortured faces of the frozen Qunari she might have been tempted to never leave, but their expressions made her skin crawl, as if they were truly watching her, tracking her every movement. And the voice inside her, not born of the Well, but the one that had led her up the mountain after the Conclave had exploded, the voice that had led her into Adamant fortress, through the horrors of the Fade, and back through the ruins of Haven, reminded her that she was strong, that she was more than her love for a man who was beyond her comprehension, or her trust.
The Dread Wolf take her, indeed.
She was more than this self-pity and heartbreak.
She did not save Thedas only to let someone –whoever that someone was- destroy it. She had learned that it was easy to hope when the only other alternative was utter despair. Cullen had once told her that not everyone was capable of making the distinction, that it was one of the many things that set her apart, but she had never known another way. She would believe that she could change this, that she could stop him, because she had to. Just as she'd had to believe she could defeat an ancient Magister when everyone and everything seemed to think otherwise.
Dryanna looked toward the Eluvian Solas had stepped through, its surface black and unmoving like the spaces between the stars, then toward the one she'd followed him through, glowing blue and bright. Right now she needed her friends. She had choices to make, new paths to carve. Through that mirror waited people who loved her, cared about her, who did not deserve whatever fate Solas weaved for them in his blind desire for reparation.
The first step forward was the hardest, of course, it always was -Gods it was always the hardest. But then it was like a landslide, a force of nature barreling forward until she felt she couldn't stop moving even if she wanted to, like if she tried to stop now, she might never start again.
Var Lath Vir Suledin, she had said to him. Desperate, broken, breaking. It had been the truth, as close to the truth as her weary heart could manage, she only wished it wasn't. Gods, how she wished it wasn't.
She stepped through the mirror and into the future.
Varric, Dorian, and Cassandra studied her warily for a moment before the dwarf held out his hand to the Tevinter Magister, tears in his eyes and a wavering smirk on his face. "Pay up, Sparkles. Told you she'd lose the arm."
A/N:
Thoughts? Short chapter to start us out, next chapter much longer and deals with the impending dissolution of the Inquisition and the aftermath. No beta here, so be kind, but don't be afraid to point out mistakes, we all make them.
According to Tumblr 'Var Lath Vir Suledin' means: Our love has the strength to withstand this path that you walk.
Speaking of Tumblr, you can find me there under (you guessed it) chasingperfectiontomorrow.
