Chapter Nine
Such a Lovely Dream
She wasn't sure what to expect when she awoke, but this sure wasn't it.
Grimacing, Lyna sat up in the bed she was in, covered in a soft fur pelt. It was an aravel…one she was intimately familiar with, considering it was Ashalle's. Distantly, she could hear the crackle of the camp fire and the faint chattering of the halla, and the hearty smell of venison stew that made her mouth water. Home, she thought, and all the energy drained out of her as she felt like crying in relief. It was all a dream.
She really did cry when Tamlen's all too familiar face appeared as the aravel's flap was brushed aside, his happy expression turning to outright panic when she busted into uncharacteristic tears. "Lethallan!" He stuttered and blinked, unsure what to do as he came in and immediately sat down next to her, the warmth of his skin as he put his arm around her so tangible she could feel it send familiar shivers down her spine. "I…I thought you'd be happy," he said somewhat desperately, stricken.
"Of course I am!" she snapped, punching him hard enough on his arm that he nearly fell off her bed. "Nehn numin!"
Tamlen still looked hopelessly confused and she could see Fenarel stick his head in briefly before what sounded like Merril dragged him away by the ear. It made Lyna chuckle until she heard her sister (in all the ways that counted) say, "Leave them be! Their uthmelana was just last night! I'm sure they want to be alone for a little this morning…"
Uthmelana? She blinked, startled out of her tears, and glanced at her hand that did, indeed, have a fine gold band laden with a small inscription engraved into it. Uth emma lath. Forever my love. Still frozen, she stared at Tamlen's hand that was draped over her shoulders, holding her close and noticed the same band on his finger as well. Traditionally, a bonded pair who'd had their uthmelana – the eternal time ceremony that was the shemlen's equivalent of a wedding – wore bands inscribed with their own personal vows on their fingers for the ceremony and the following day, in which they would celebrate the bonding with their clan, before usually wearing them around their necks so that they would always remain near their hearts. But they…Tamlen had never…
"Uthmelana?" she said faintly, and Lyna could feel the heat rising from her neck and up towards her ears.
"I told Junar not to give you that much of the ceremonial wine," he sighed, though his bright elven blue eyes twinkled in barely concealed amusement. He was so close and Lyna could smell the scent of pine and leather that was always so…him and raised her hand to trace one of the lines of his vallaslin near his lips tentatively. Was it all one horrible dream? A trick of the mind by Fen'Harel in her dreams? All that stuff of Blights, the life debt…
"Perhaps you are right," she murmured, smiling when he brought his own hand up and tentatively mimicked her own touch. Leaning her forehead against his, she breathed in the familiar smells, listened to the familiar sounds, and closed her eyes as she let the tension melt from her shoulders. "It just seems like…like a dream."
"Such a lovely dream you have, then," he whispered, his breath tickling her nose before he placed the barest of kisses to it, making Lyna smile wider. "Now we must go, before Ashalle storms into the aravel and drags us both out by the ears like the errant children we were."
She laughed, barely managing to grab her bow (mostly from habit) before he pulled her outside.
The entire clan let out a cheer (and several hoots) when they saw them, Tamlen's pale skin turning as red as her own before Lyna forced her head to remain high even as Fenarel and Junar teased them with the most ribald jokes they could think of. Ashalle couldn't stop beaming, practically dancing as she showed her the aravel that would be theirs. She and Tamlen would have the day to turn the plain, empty husk of a vehicle into something more personal with the help of their family – their clan – before everything would go back to normal tomorrow and they would simply be bonded hunters of Clan Marethari.
Merril waylaid her at one point after lunch, giggling and congratulating her again after lunch while laughing about how Tamlen had been so silly to wait so long on asking the Keeper to bond with her. Lyna nodded, but mentally she frowned. Why could she not remember her own engagement? Her own bonding, for that matter? She would never forget that! Not after all the none-too-subtle-hints she recalled dropping him in the past years. Hints Tamlen hadn't gotten.
And Junar…he came up shortly after Merril, beaming and giving her a kiss on the cheek before telling her how happy he was for them both. While that certainly wasn't odd, she saw nothing else in his eyes as he said this. Lyna wasn't blind. She'd known for some time of the one-sided crush Junar had on her. While she'd made it clear that she couldn't return his affections, and he'd understood why, there was always that little bit of sadness in his eyes whenever he spoke with her after that. He was not a guy who let go of anything easily, after all. Things had gotten better, but she still saw it. Fenarel saw it, for crying out loud, and he could be denser then steel about such things.
I should be happy, she reminded herself, biting her lip in her and Tamlen's aravel while staring at her ring. All I can think about though is how this is WRONG. Something is WRONG.
"Something wrong?" The flap was pushed aside and Tamlen entered their home, his face worried as he knelt in front of her. "You've been distracted all day. I might be a bit slow, but I've noticed."
"Yes," she whispered, and Lyna stared at his eyes, looking for…something. Anything. Something to quell her fears that something about this whole day was wrong. It was then that she saw the spark – the flicker of an echo in her head of a voice that kept singing, almost like a lullaby, but in a voice that made her blood run cold. Running her hand gently down Tamlen's cheek, his skin absurdly soft for a man, Lyna swallowed and closed her eyes, her other hand drifting to her side where she always kept one dagger hidden. "Something's very wrong."
Lyna screamed her fury as blood arched in the air, the illusion shattering and leaving her in the still and silent world of the Fade that was varying tones of dull sepia compared to the lovely colors of forest and home that she ached for like a wound ripped open. Her heart bled for a love she ached to see with renewed longing that had become tolerable in the past weeks; the image of a man she'd stabbed through the jugular with her own dagger, however imaginary he was, with an expression she would never forget.
"Son of a bitch!" Lyna snarled, looking around. All she saw was endless sky and other floating islands in the distance, the wind sounding more like haunting laughter then anything peaceful.
It was such a lovely dream, Azalia thought with a saddened pang in her chest. But it was all it was. A dream.
Her father's face shattered as the illusion dissolved and she sighed, eyeing the Fade in renewed annoyance. The demon's spell had sent her back into the Fade, but little else. She'd known it was just a dream from the beginning and found herself even more annoyed then before. And there was still that stupid desire demon to deal with. She could feel her presence distantly, as if she was far away in the vast expanse that was the dreaming realm. Unsurprising, seeing as she was in a realm ruled by a sloth demon. One demon per realm, else they tended to fight with each other until one eventually dominated. Not even demons could escape that.
She watched as the Fade Pedestal up ahead glowed, signaling someone was coming and sighed. With so many of them lost in here, she'd figured someone would find her eventually. Best to stay in one spot, or so her mother had always told her.
She nearly laughed when she saw it was Anders.
"The entertainment arrives," she grinned sitting down against one of the many weird and pointy rock formations.
"Aw, and here I was prepared to do the whole knight in shining armor bit and everything," he pouted before sighing his relief. "I had it all down and everything. Shatter the lovely dream, wake you up, and run to save the next damsel in distress and hope to needle a kiss out of them as a reward."
"Can't wake me up yet, anyway," she sighed. Biting her lip, she looked at him with an impish smile. "Maybe if you go with them to Redcliffe I can give you that kiss after all, though."
Anders arched an eyebrow, intrigued. "Really now? Even more reason to escape then." With a sigh, he sat down next to her, his staff resting next to him. "I woke Wynne, that dopey templar, and the Antivan guy. You do not want to know what his dream was. I don't even want to know and I saw it! Kind of wish I could un-see it, actually…"
"I'm really going to have to ask Elena how he came about, anyway," she mused. "He wasn't with us in Redcliffe. She must've picked him up on the way to the Circle."
"So you're really…alright?" Anders said it lightly, but she could see the heaviness in his eyes as he asked. Too much death did that to people. She'd seen it on enough faces in Lothering after Ostagar and didn't particularly enjoying seeing it on Anders' face either.
"I'm fine." She scooted closer so she could lean her head on his shoulder, smiling when she felt his arm come up and hold her shoulder. "I'm out of the desire demon's realm for now, so she can't reach me yet. This one…well, once Elena gets woken up you guys can go kick his ass and then go save Irving. I'll stay here in the Fade and wait for you all to go kick the desire demon's ass and then I can come back and maybe give you that kiss you're so desperate for."
He laughed deep in his chest, and she felt his head rest against the top of hers as he sighed in relief. "I'm glad you're not dead," he confided, as if that were some secret. "I forgot how amusing you can be."
"You should join us then," Azalia laughed. "It's a riot a minute…when we're not getting framed for regicide and treason or killing darkspawn, anyway."
"I…think not." Anders shook his head slightly. "When it comes to darkspawn, I like to make it my policy to run away from them when possible. Ugly critters. Ran into a few on my last foray into the world outside of our little prison and if I ever do again it'll be too soon."
"You're loss," she chuckled, and Azalia could even admit to being a tiny bit disappointed, too. She missed having him around to talk to. Morrigan was great fun, but her humor had a cynical and derisive edge to it all the time. Anders' sense of humor always left her laughing until her side hurt…mostly, anyway. The fact that he was always a pleasure to look at didn't hurt, either. Though in that regard, the Antivan wasn't so bad either…
"It's funny," he mused after a long silence. "I always said I'd love to see the Tower razed to the ground, but now that it just might be done, I don't want it to. Brings a tear to my eye."
Azalia couldn't hold her snort. "I don't suppose you being inside the tower at the moment has anything to do with this uncharacteristic reticence to see this place burn…?"
"You're such a cynic," he teased. "Is this what your new freedom did for you?"
Azalia thought of Loghain, the bastard, and of the legend-loving King Cailan whose body was rotting on the filth covered grounds of Ostagar. "Nah," she sighed. "That's what the Blight did. The freedom after ten years just made me puke on Elena's boots."
Elena sighed blissfully as she sank into the warm bath water that had been drawn from her, the smell of Antivan apples wafting faintly in the air in honor of the coming Harvest Day celebration. Highever was alight and bustling, the servants hurrying to clean the castle for the upcoming ball that night, as well as the festivities to be held in the field and courtyard tomorrow afternoon. She could hear Udia snapping orders, taking charge as she was prone to do, and Damyan running on errands her father had him doing with brief stops just to make Udia wasn't stressing herself needlessly.
After last night's nightmare, she was glad to hear their familiar voices. Fergus had thought she was insane when she awoke in her bed, only to scream when she saw her father. She saw him lying in a pool of his own blood in the kitchen larder, but Elena shook the image from her head. It was all just one horrendously bad dream.
"Almost done, Elena?" Celia called, her smile bright and cheerful as ever when she peaked in twenty minutes later. "I got you the red, crème, and brown gown. It'll go lovely with the scent of the oil." In a quiet, conspiratorial tone she giggled, "I know the arl's ward certainly likes it on you."
"Which one?" she wondered, genuinely confused. An arl was coming to visit today? It6 wasn't unheard of considering, but unexpected. She hadn't realized.
"Arl Eamon of Redcliffe, of course!" Celia huffed, exasperated. "I fear the steam has gone to your head, Elena. His ward, Ser Alistair; the one who always makes eyes at you when they come calling!"
"Alistair…?" she frowned slightly, rubbing her temple. She felt like she was missing something, but her head hurt the more she tried to think. "The templar?"
Now it was Celia who looked at her, confused. "Templar? No…he's head of Arl Eamon's knights! Surely you remember the ceremony? We were all there."
She didn't remember it though. It was strange, considering she didn't forget anything. If anyone could use some memory loss, Fergus always joked, it was her. "I…" Holding her head, she shook it once. "I guess my dream last night bothered me more then I thought."
Concerned, Celia held out the towel for her as she got out of the tub and frowned thoughtfully. "Fen'Harel stalks your dreams," she said ominously, sounding disturbingly like her father. "I can have papae make a charm for you – to ward off his influence, if you like."
Elena just shook her head though. Damyan had enough to do without worrying about her dreams, of all things.
She passed her mother at one point outside, speaking to Lady Landra who smiled and greeted her warmly. With a kiss to her cheek and another none-too-subtle reminder of her desire for more grandchildren while she was young enough to enjoy them, Elena went off to find her father, laughing as a couple of the guards whistled appreciatively as she passed. It earned them some reproachful looks, but Elena was far too used to it. So long as they never got out of hand with it, her father had never seen the harm in letting boys be boys…at least when he wasn't around to see it. She didn't, either, and it did wonders for a girl's confidence to be reminded daily that she was desirable.
That she could also kick their asses if necessary was truly just a bonus.
"There she is!" her father beamed when she entered the main hall, arms held wide open to receive the hug she readily gave him. He was warm and smelled of the same scents – wood smoke and Antivan brandy – that inexplicably made her want to cry. Why would smelling them make me want to cry? Honestly, Elena…
"Milady," Arl Eamon smiled good naturedly, bowing. "You remember Ser Alistair?" He motioned to the knight who was standing stiffly beside him, obviously ill at ease.
Elena stared at his face – a handsome one, no less – and frowned again as she got images of horribly gnarled creatures. Darkspawn? She'd never seen the creatures before, yet she knew that to be them. "Yes," she nodded, her voice faint. "A pleasure."
"Yes," he said, his expression sad. "You need to wake up, Elena."
Her head snapped up. "I beg your pardon?"
Beside her, her father laughed. "What are you talking about, Ser Alistair? She is awake…as are we all."
But he shook his head, firmly. "No, she's not." To her father, he said bluntly, "You aren't her father, either."
"Of course I am," he insisted, sounding annoyed, and looking towards Eamon who was…glaring? That wasn't right. Arl Eamon was as genial as nobles came. He didn't glare. He manipulated and coerced like the rest of them, but he never glared. "Can you not see you are distressing my daughter?"
"Papae," she murmured – staring at Alistair's light brown eyes that kept saying something…silently pleading with her. "You remember your pet name for me?"
Confused, Teyrn Bryce Cousland nodded. "Of course, Princess. What is this about?"
Princess. "Alistair?" She looked at him, her chest tight, and silently plead with him. I can't do it. Please…I can't strike him down.
Three quick strides and a flash of his blade and the fake image of her father fell, his head flying off as the fake Eamon drew a sword on them as well that Alistair took down with a single swing. Highever Castle faded around them after and Elena bit her lip, eyes closing as she tried to rid her mind of the very real feeling of having her parents back with her again. But it was all just a dream…
"I dreamt of my sister," Alistair said to her quietly, a hand on her shoulder comfortingly. "She's remarried and working in Denerim. I've thought of contacting her, but…my dream…I didn't want it to be false. I wanted to believe in it just as much as you did."
"It felt so…real," she whispered. Emotions roiled beneath her skin, though she grasped on – tightly – to the anger mostly. Anger was good. She could use that. The sadness could be dealt with later, once everything else was dealt with.
"The Fade is like that, or so the mage said," he shrugged. "I mean, he would know, right? We've got a path cleared. Now all we have to do is kill the Sloth demon and we should wake up, according to him."
"Let's get out of here then." Rubbing her arms, Elena held tightly to that anger, wrapping it around her like a cloak. That demon is as good as dead, damn it. "I have the desire to kick some sloth ass."
"Well, it's a sloth demon, right?" Alistair mused out loud, following her. "Maybe he'll just surrender since it's too troublesome to fight. You think? No? Oh well…"
Uldred was no laughing matter.
Lyna grimaced as she was backhanded and smashed head first into the stone walls, pain blossoming all over. The abominations had been dealt with, leaving only Uldred, and the remaining mages were being protected by the Litany of Adralla that Elena kept saying ritually as she fought with her dual blades, the templar right beside her and shielding her from the bulk of the spiky-looking abomination's hits. Farther back, the mages kept them all in fighting shape – a fact punctuated as she felt the throbbing pain ebb away and a shot of energy run through her veins like fire. Grabbing her blades that had fallen, Lyna ran right back into the fray, all the while musing how, once this thing was dead, she was going to dive head first into that damn lake.
She felt disgusting.
Filth was clinging to her bared skin and for once she seriously considered changing to a different armor…her Dalish armor was fine for the forests, but any more of this trudging through muck stuff and she was going to scratch her skin right off. Even the unpleasant feeling left behind after just talking to that Antivan flat-ear was preferable to this!
Speaking of the Antivan…he flickered in and out of sight, becoming visible only when he was striking at the abomination who just wouldn't die. Lyna aimed viciously for his abdomen, her sword tasting skin, and jumped out of range before he could hit her again. He was all but impervious to magic, but he was weak in melee combat. It was the Antivan who'd actually noticed it first, and she was inexplicably annoyed that she hadn't noticed sooner. Uldred was slow to counter up close, though if he did hit you it was enough to give you a concussion.
There. It was miniscule, but he opened himself up as he turned to try and knock the brains (what he had, anyway) out of the Antivan. Lyna dove for it, sword and dagger poised, and sunk them both into his spiky neck, ripping the blades out on either side and cutting him off mid-roar as he fell forward, her knee pressed into his back as she went with him, his head held on by only a tiny flap of flesh once he hit the floor.
Silence fell upon them except for the heavy breathing of those in the chamber. Shrugging, Lyna dislodged her weapons with a yank and a foot on his back, cleaning them off on what remained of his human robes that had been shredded when he turned from grouchy shemlen to spiky abomination. She'd clean them better later.
"Irving! Thank the Maker…" The older mage, Wynne, rushed over to help the old guy who was groaning and trying to stand with only partial success once the Antivan untied him.
"Ugh…" He leaned heavily on her, one hand to his back as he hobbled slightly. "I'm getting too old for this," he droned with a bit of dry humor that made Elena chuckle from her spot where the tall mage was healing her. The other mage who'd been tied up with him immediately went to heal the templar, though she did notice his eyes flicker her way briefly. Between the two of them, however, the not-so-silly shemlen was worse off and thus more in need of treatment then her.
"We must get back to Gregoir…let him know the Tower is secured again," Wynne was saying, their heads instinctively tilted together as they spoke.
"Yes…I imagine we have little time to spare." The old mage groaned again, shaking his head as she helped him down the first of the steps. "Hn…who ever had the bright idea of making this a tower…?"
"We'll catch up," Elena told her when she glanced her way, motioning to Alistair and herself. "Go with them…just in case there are any we missed."
There weren't, as it was, and they eventually managed to make it back down to the first floor uneventfully. The red-haired mage and the few they'd left there cried out in relief when they saw the old enchanter, his gait normal once again as he was able to at least walk without assistance by then.
"Many more are in the Circle store rooms with Senior Enchanter Leorah," he told them. "Go let them know it is safe again."
The mages rushed off, dispersing, and the Orlesian bard clapped her hands in delight when she saw them round the corner. The witch just looked at the old man and shook her head, moving aside while the bard knocked on the doors and told the crotchety templar behind them that the First Enchanter was here.
To say the gray haired templar looked shocked was an understatement. "Maker's breath, it is good to see you again, Irving."
"Oh, I'm sure we'll be at each other's throats again in no time and you'll be saying differently, Gregoir…" he chuckled, as if conversing with an old friend. For all she knew, they were. "The tower is under control again."
"And the Wardens…?"
"We're here!" Elena piped up, limping in with a little help from the tall mage. Alistair – that was the templar's name, wasn't it? – hobbled right behind her, helped by the other mage from the top floor. "Those who remain are…indentifying the remains."
In a few tersely barked orders, the templars milling around the main hall ran out to do the same, and the Knight-Commander shook his head as if he couldn't believe it was all actually over.
"Now that it's over," Elena said in what Lyna thought of as her 'shemlen noble' voice, taking the treaty Alistair wordless handed her with a grin on his face. "There's this problem in Redcliffe and the matter of aid against the Blight we need to discuss…"
A/N: I feel bad for doing that to them. I love Anders. I don't think I can say that enough. Heh. Next up we go back to Redcliffe!
As always, feedback is appreciated and encouraged. No, really, please? I'm a glutton for such things. =)
