.10.

Confidante, unknowing

.x.

Evelyn,

There was a time, years ago, when I glimpsed you seated at a desk in the chantry at Haven, writing in a small book. I'd asked you what you were writing and you told me it was the account of the day. You told me you always recorded events that you thought were important. When I inquired why, your reply was that memories changed over time, but words written did not. In the future, you wanted to be able to read over what you had written and remember it all as it truly had happened, instead of how your altered memories may present it.

I thought often on your response. I've known, better than almost anyone, how time can change perceptions and recollections. I watched as, throughout your endeavors as Inquisitor, you dutifully and often passionately scribed the accounts of our trials. I know that not everything you wrote revolved around the Inquisition; you told me as much, revealing that the small book you carried with you always was also your diary, where you wrote your innermost thoughts, your dreams, your fears, your aspirations. It seemed to help quiet your anxieties and your doubts. Eventually, beset by my own unexpected demons, I decided to try your methods. I began to write as you did, words that I could never say aloud, words better read than heard.

As time progressed, as I grew to know you better, I found myself besieged by revelations I never thought to have. I grew to adulthood in a world where the human lifespan was a mere flicker of a candle 's flame compared to the eternal blaze of Ehlven lives. To my kind, your people were always scurrying, always tinkering, striving to do the most in lives that, to us, seemed tragically short. After reawakening, in that span of time before the Breach came to be, I found that the world had changed so drastically in so many ways that I knew only true and utter despair. The elves were now mortal and populated Thedas as specters, piteous semblances of what they once were. I was to blame for this. I had broken my people. I had been responsible for their fall from the greatest civilization ever known into a race that dwelt in relative obscurity. The Dalish had tried with misguided attempts and intentions to immortalize their ancestry but had ultimately failed. Of the ancient Ehlven, only ghosts remained.

I will admit to being prejudiced toward your people when we first met. I was still clinging to the world I had left behind — the world I had destroyed. I was not willing to see that humans had risen to such lofty heights while the elves had been subjugated or partitioned away or driven to lead a nomadic life. I was not willing to believe that a human, any human, would be capable of changing my way of thinking.

And then I met you.

Understand that at first I felt no guilt knowing you had been the recipient of the Anchor Corypheus had intended to bestow upon himself. My original plan had been denied, but a chance for its success still existed in you. Once Corypheus was dealt with I would return my full attention to my efforts to remove the Veil from the world, and originally I believed that nothing would inhibit my focus. But you — you, a human woman, thrown unwittingly and unwillingly into turmoil greater than Thedas had ever known — you challenged my beliefs. Through word and action you made me question myself, question my choices, and even question my intentions. I had always assumed the greatest danger to my plans would be the actual task of tearing apart the Veil. I had not anticipated that the greatest danger would be you.

You were not perfect and at first all I saw were your flaws, as I did in every human. You were mortal and thus inherently frail. You were minor nobility, born into privilege while all around you the elves of this world suffered. You were too cautious, always considering every angle with painstaking attention before going to action. You were too quiet, letting others talk over you instead of using your own voice — a voice that, as Inquisitor, had the very real power to shape the world. You were too often frightened, afraid of failing, afraid of offending, afraid too of succeeding, for what vague fate awaited you once Corypheus was gone?

Time passed. And slowly, reluctantly, I began to view you as something beyond just human. You were intelligent, with a hunger for knowledge as insatiable of my own. You were considerate, showing a greater empathy than I had ever expected. There was a bravery in you as well, which you constantly denied to yourself, which you will deny even now. But you were brave, Evelyn, to do what you did day after day, saddled with a magic you did not understand or want, a magic that would eventually kill you.

My magic.

In the dream we shared of Haven, you kissed me. I pushed you from me and watched as humiliation and hurt filled your eyes. In truth, it was all I could do not to pull you back to me. That night I realized that what I felt for you was not mere fondness — no, it had become something more than that, something substantial… something unwanted. In the future I had planned, there was no room for emotional attachment — romance would be a peril I could not chance. I had to focus on what mattered most to me: the restoration of the Ehlven to what they had once been.

It hurt me to hurt you. You did not understand then and you will not understand now what I have felt, what I have known. You will never know the guilt of being the one that doomed your own people, to know that you and you alone were responsible for an act tantamount to genocide. I had stripped immortality from the Ehlven. I had laid waste to their world. I was alone, the last of my kind, and I missed my people, my world so much that it was an agony greater than any I have ever known. It was as constant and familiar to me as breathing. It still is.

These are not excuses for what I have done. I will make none for those choices. We are what we are, and I am a man of my people. For a very long time, I existed only to see them restored. And now…

And now you are here, in Era 'Adahlen. You are again real to me, a physical being instead of the memory I have harbored for so long. For years I have written my innermost thoughts and hopes. I have written them to you, Evelyn. You had your diary; I have letters, letters I could not show you, letters you will never see. Like you, I wanted to retain the memories of all that had happened, but more importantly I wanted to ensure that my recollections of you, all of them, were recorded as clearly and thoroughly as possible. I came to care for you during your time as Inquisitor, though I knew all along that to pursue those feelings would be folly for us both. When the time came I would leave the Inquisition in order to advance my plans, and in doing so I would leave you. In writing the letters I would ensure that in some fashion, I would have you with me always.

I cannot adequately explain all that I have come to regret in my lifetime. There are too many things. Among those I regret most are the ways I have used you. You have changed so much. You are another woman, a different woman, filled with sorrow and fury, shackled by shame. You were never one for easy laughter and ready smiles, but you were capable of happiness back then. When I found you again, I feared that that was no longer true. Your true self was shrouded from view, hidden away so deeply that I wondered if she could ever truly be found again. In recent weeks I have seen hints that lead me to believe that there is still hope, and that is why it pains me so much that I must act now, like this, in order to ensure that my people — and yours — remain safe.

Ir abelas, vhenan. Forgive me for what I must do.

.x.