After the silence had stretched for some time, he took a step forward. Lavellan let her hand slide down his back before falling back to her side. He turned to face her and drew a deep breath before he spoke again. "Well, since you're here, and haven't run screaming, shall I introduce my erstwhile relations?"
She tipped her head to the side and studied him. "If you like. I am curious about what you're doing here."
He grinned and gestured expansively. "Just a little reunion with my family. They won't be able to attend in person, of course, but this is almost better. No one fights this way."
His previous cheerful mood was clearly returning, but there was something dark lurking under the surface. She felt like he was watching her reactions more closely than the somewhat odd situation called for.
She gave a small nod, watching him while she tried to figure out where this was going. "Indeed, that is an improvement on most family reunions, I would think."
He laughed, and stepped around the table until he was standing behind the chair with the brown mosaic. "Excellent point. I'll start here then. This is June." He made the projection raise a hand and waggle its fingers at her as she stared in shocked silence.
He was waiting for a response, so she finally managed, "An interesting choice of name. Your parents must have been rather bold."
He walked around the table, and stopped behind the green mosaic chair. "Well, this would be the person to ask. This is Mythal, the so-called mother of the gods, and the best of them - us."
She just gaped at him, believing and disbelieving at the same time.
"I betrayed them, did you know that? That's why you won't find June here, no matter how often you come. Nor any of the rest." Suddenly, his mood shifted again; he looked fierce and ready for a fight.
He rounded the table with quick, angry strides, and barged his way into her personal space, standing barely a breath away. "So I fixed it. I tricked them, and now instead of being alone because I don't care to spend time with fools, I am alone because there are no fools to spend time with."
He spun away from her, stalking toward the table and remaining chairs. With a wave, the elves whose images he created sat still and silent, looking regal, full of power and wisdom.
Even the broken chair now had an image floating above it, and somehow this image was the most impressive of all; a stern male, features pulled into a frown that was still somehow compassionate.
He stalked around the table, glaring at her the entire time, ignoring the images he'd filled the valley with. He waved, and a lightning bolt struck the top of one of the cliffs surrounding the valley. She was the only one who jumped.
"This is how you picture your beloved gods, isn't it? Kind, powerful, wise? You are as foolish as they are. They used their vaunted power not for the good of those who relied upon them, but for their own amusement, their own aggrandizement!"
He gestured angrily at the mosaic on the table's surface, where the colors from each chair swirled together to create a pattern she couldn't name, a meaning she couldn't quite grasp.
"They made this, claimed they understood it, but they didn't. They were meant to work together, but instead each worked for themselves. They were going to destroy it all. Everything! Everything they'd worked for, everything they'd created or nurtured, and not one of them would have cared or missed it if only they could have proven their superiority to the others."
He gestured again, and a lightning bolt struck the ground between them, making her jump again.
"They were so wrapped up in their petty war, and then the best of them was murdered, and they blamed me. ME! And why? Because I had always told them the truth about themselves, not the pretty lies they wanted to hear; the truth about what they were, and what they were doing. Because I refused to become like them."
Another gesture, another lightning bolt. This time, she didn't jump.
"Mythal had asked me to try to find a way to peace before she was killed, so I did. I ended the war! I protected them all from themselves! And what do I get in return? Hatred! So you'll forgive me if I don't offer your beloved gods the respect you think they're due!"
He threw his head back and howled - the sound was sharp and clear as a wolf's cry - as he raised both hands, and called the lightning again. The energy struck all around her, but the center of the storm was focused on the table and remaining chairs. When it stopped and she was able to clear the dancing lights from her vision, she gasped.
Seven of the remaining chairs had been reduced to rubble, leaving only one. The grass was burned away so completely that only the solid stone of the mountain was left. The great table had cracked and split down the middle, the halves toppled outwards to rest on their edges. Only she and Fen remained unchanged, and as she watched, he sank down into the remaining chair and buried his face in his hands.
Lavellan opened her mouth to speak, but found her voice stolen by a new idea that the scene presented to her. She had started to make the connection while Fen ranted, only to be distracted by his pyrotechnics; but now, looking at the eight empty chairs, and Fen sitting in the ninth, it was inevitable.
Oh, dear Creators, she had been talking all this time to Fen'Harel himself.