I had to give Abelas a cameo, because... I love him and I hope he returns in the future games, lol

Also, thank you to everyone who's followed, reviewed or favourited this! It's so lovely to know people are interested in this story!

Chapter Two

The eluvian's magic rippled over him as he slipped through it, it's faint, wispy tendrils cloying at his robes as he stepped free from the mirror. He strolled lazily through Mythal's temple, his robes dragging behind him and catching on the twigs and roots that scattered the ground of her home. Then he heard their voices and he hesitated, pressed a pale hand against a stone pillar and listened to them speak.

"This is not wise," Mythal's protector and guardian begged. From what small interaction Fen'Harel had had with him, he'd come to recognise him as an entirely depressing, mournful man. Fitting then that his name, Abelas, meant sorrow. "He will balk at the sight of her, at the very idea-"

"I have seen her heart," Mythal replied calmly.

"She is mute; convinced she is no better than-"

"Quiet."

Recognising that there was little point in eavesdropping any longer, Fen'Harel stepped towards them. The confident smile that graced Mythal's features when he approached them made him wary. She looked far, far too pleased with herself and he frowned, his eyes narrowing as he cast his gaze around the room.

"There is no need for such suspicion when I only bring you here to give you a gift," she chided.

"Elgar'nan has given me many gifts in the past," Fen'Harel replied carefully. "They tended to involve bruises, so you will forgive my hesitation."

"This will involve nothing of the sort." He still didn't trust her as she beckoned. One of her servant girls slipped out from behind a pillar and approached. The best response he could manage was to raise a sceptical, confused eyebrow at Mythal who simply chuckled at him.

She gestured towards the girl. "Take her."

He stared at the goddess for several moments as if she'd gone mad. Finally he managed to croak out, "What is this?"

"This is Lavellan. She was one of my servants, and now she will be yours."

"I do not want her," he spat angrier than he'd intended, because if Mythal thought the way to stop his rage overcoming him was to give him something that repulsed him every time he looked at it, she was seriously misguided.

"But you will take her."

"I will not."

"Do you prefer the alternative?"

He could only stare at her. Clearly spending decades playing mediator between the gods had seriously ruined her ability to think rationally.

He took the girl, if only because refusing would have brought Elgar'nan snapping at his heels and he knew Mythal would not defend him a second time. He wasn't sure what to make of the servant girl, Lavellan, whatever he was meant to address her as now. He'd never wanted someone waiting on him, so the moment he brought her to his home he left her alone and walked away, wondering if perhaps she might leave if he ignored her presence. But she followed him. Very insistently. Through winding corridors and stairs she followed, until, frustrated, he spun around and she halted immediately in her tracks.

"Leave," he told her. She stared at him with big, violet eyes. "Bother someone else. I do not want you."

Not a muscle in her body twitched. He sighed, cursed Mythal for what she'd forced upon him and pinched his brow. Whatever the point of her plan was, he couldn't fathom it. The girl continued to gaze at him as if she was incapable of independent thought, which, he realised with a pained sigh, was probably more accurate than he realised. He shooed her, but all it achieved was her jerking away from him and then returning to standing there, waiting on him for instruction.

"Go do whatever pleases you." He paused to see if she would react. She didn't. Evidently doing what she pleased wasn't something she was familiar with. "Clean, then."

She blinked at him. He frowned at her. And then, in a split second, she turned on her heel and scurried away, presumably to undo the years of mess that had been accumulating in his home. Poor girl could spend months trying to make his place presentable, but compared to the fate others bestowed on their servants and slaves... He snarled at the thought and continued stomping up the stairs to his quarters.

It was cool beneath his fingers, smooth, precious metal with delicate raised strips that wound and twisted across it in an intricate, elegant pattern. It hummed with energy in his hands, this orb of his that was as much a part of him as his heart. He'd poured so much of himself into it, perhaps too much for now he couldn't be without it. Absent-mindedly he traced the patterns on its surfaced as he sat in a chair in his quarters with one leg draped lazily over the arm of it. It was peaceful here. Quiet. It had not been an accident that he made his home away from anyone else, only accessible by the eluvians. He refused to call it a temple, either. He was one who did not wish to be worshipped, not any more. The idea that he should put himself above others simply because he-

His thoughts were interrupted by the subtle creak of a door. He turned to stare in the direction the noise had come from. And he found nothing. Dismissing it as a particularly stubborn memory cloying at the veil, he returned to his thoughts.

The other god's, even Mythal to an extent, expected to be worshipped and praised. They expected others to bow at their feet, to-

A soft patter of footsteps wrenched him to reality once more. He snapped around, trying to pinpoint the noise and found only his bookshelf. His surprisingly tidy bookshelf. Gone were the tomes scattered on the floor collecting dust, the rotting alchemical reagents that he'd left lying on the shelves. It looked... organised. It was not something he was particularly accustomed to seeing. In fact, it surprised him so much that when a set of fingers pried his orb out of his hands he didn't even register it for several moments. When his brain slowly put the pieces together he whipped around and was met with the sight of the girl crouched on the ground before him, rubbing his orb on her clothes. Which he now noted where filthy.

Had she tried to clean his entire home with the fabric of her clothes because he hadn't thought to provide her with anything else? He grimaced at the thought. Then remembered what she was holding in her hands and rashly blurted, "Give me that."

She flinched away from him, stuffed the orb in his hands and scurried away. And he could only groan and curse Mythal once more for inflicting this upon him.

Tracking her through his home after she ran from him was not difficult, he only had to follow the bright spirit he could feel blaring against the rest of the dull emptiness pricking at his senses. And failing that, he could have just followed the trail of cleanliness. She was huddled in a corner when he stumbled across her, rubbing insistently at a filthy bowl that had several decades ago voided the chance of ever being made clean again. He crouched beside her but she didn't even acknowledge him, so he sighed, took the bowl from her hands and placed it on the ground.

He watched her hesitate, watched the confusion dance across her features for minutes until she finally glanced up at him with those same big, curious eyes. She might have been pretty to him if her face wasn't ruined by being covered in Mythal's symbols. She would have been pretty to other masters. Fortunate for her then that she would have been spared their touches by being in direct service to Mythal. Her clothes where filthy though, and he sighed because he realised it was more or less his fault. He would buy her new ones.

"Do you speak?" Her lack of a response was an answer in itself. He shook his head and gazed at her. For all the servants he'd seen working for Mythal, she was nothing like the rest. So fearful and submissive she acted around him, it made him wonder if the goddess wasn't being entirely truthful with him.

He stood and extended a hand to her. She stared at it as if she couldn't decide if he was going to hit her or help her. When he muttered, "Come with me," she cautiously placed her palm in his and let him pull her to her feet.

He led her to his eluvian, opened it with a casual flick of magic from his wrist and took her through the crossroads and to a marketplace. The moment they stepped out in public, she latched onto his clothes and squashed herself against him. He frowned, attempted to pry her away but she had a surprisingly good grasp and he couldn't command her to do anything without feeling terrible about it. She was timid enough as it was without him ordering her around.

Unlike earlier where he'd killed the man for doing the same to his slave, this marketplace was nestled in mountain ranges with a bitter wind sweeping through the open area and snow blanketing the ground. White flecks dotted his black robes and his bare feet hurt as they pressed against the frozen ground. He reached effortlessly for his magic, creating a bubble of warm air that followed him and engulfed them both.

People stopped and whispered as he brought her to a stall, clearly not accustomed to seeing the god who'd spent so long fighting against slavery now having a scared girl with a marked face clinging to him. The rumours would fly and half the empire would know before the end of the day. But he was particularly good at ignoring what people thought of him.

"Which one do you want?" he asked and gestured towards the clothes the merchant was offering. She didn't respond. He suppressed a groan. It was going to take a while for him to get used to watching over someone who didn't speak.

"Can you point, instead?" Or is that beyond your capabilities too? he mused but chided himself soon after for being frustrated with her for acting the way she did, when it could only be the fault of another that she was like this in the first place.

She peered up at him. He raised an eyebrow at her. Cautiously, she pried one hand from his robes and gestured at a dress. He bought it and held it out to her. She gazed at it for several moments, and then let go of him completely and took it from him. The expression that danced over her face was difficult for him to describe, but the best he could manage was that it was the look of someone who genuinely had never been given anything before and didn't know whether to be happy or suspicious. She seemed to eventually settle on happy, because she grinned at him and he shrugged awkwardly and began trudging back to the marketplace's eluvian. She followed, but rather than before where she'd latched onto him and refused to leave his side, now she plodded along a few steps behind him, her eyes engrossed in the gift she'd received.

He stopped when he saw the master shouting at her slave. The beast raged and spat inside him, his lips curling into a sneer as the nails on his fingers turned to thick, pointed claws and his teeth grew into fangs. Then something cold and wet was flung into his back and he snapped out of it as quickly as it'd come on. He glanced over his shoulder and the servant girl was standing there, one hand behind her back, staring at him innocently. Except the longer he watched her, the more he noticed the mischief bubbling beneath the surface. With a single, well placed snow ball she'd quelled his anger, and, he admitted, probably saved that slaves life. He did not doubt the slave would have been killed if he attacked his master.

Perhaps Mythal had known what she was doing after all.