Sparkly… Sparkle… "Ha," Celes could not help but stand in amazement at the sight before her. She's so… pretty…
She chased the owl all the way from the entrance of the woods until she realized her companions were no longer with her. "Oh..." Celes slowed her paced slightly before stopping. She looked around to find herself surrounded by giant Betula and Oak trees that reached for the sky. Zevran and Ioren were nowhere to be found. Oops.
"Ioren!" She shouted. "Zevran!" Argh. Celes looked up to find the owl hooting atop the branch of an oak tree, taunting her with the map in its tiny talons. "You're going down, birdy!" She pointed at the owl and threatened it, causing it to take flight again. "Hey, wait!"
Celes gave chase again. It was as though the owl slowed its pace to match hers, or it was deliberately waiting for her. When it finally slowed, it landed on a perch. Except it wasn't a perch. When Celes stopped panting and straightened up, she saw the most beautiful woman she had ever laid eyes upon.
The owl was perched on the slender arm of a fair-skinned lady. She was tall, much taller than Celes, and perhaps even Ioren, and exuded elegance. Her hair shimmered brilliantly in the rays of the sun that peeked through the gaps in the forest ceiling. Her locks had a shallow lavender sheen with hints of powdery blue when it shifted. She donned tattered grey robes that hung loosely on her body, held in place by white bandages that did a good job accentuating her curves. Her hands were bound in bandages up to her elbows and strips of bandage were used to tie up her long hair into a single knotted tail down the side of her shoulder. Even with the tattered clothing, she managed to take on a polished countenance in the middle of the nitid forest.
The woman in white raised her other arm to smooth the owl's ruffled feathers and thanked it. She took the map from its talons and raised her arm where it was perched signaling for it to leave. The owl took flight with a loud flutter, raising a small gust which blew around the fallen leaves. When the bird was gone, the woman turned to face Celes, eye to eye.
"Greetings, Grey Warden." Her voice was gentle and calm, like the tone of a person avoiding strife – a mediator.
Celes gawked at her a little more before saying, "Ah… A pleasure, I'm sure. Who are you? How do you know I am a Grey Warden?"
"All answers in time." Now that she spoke again, her voice seemed somewhat hollow, as though the woman was not quite there. "How odd. Where are your travelling companions?"
Ugh… "It's not my fault they were too slow." Celes sat on a big rock that jutted out in the clearing and clutched her head. It had been hurting more and more, the closer they got to the forest, it seemed. Her nightmares that were supposed to have decreased in frequency had returned as well. She massaged her temples and looked up. Her ears picked up the sound of footsteps and the squishing of trodden leaves.
Celes got up from her rock and cupped her hands around the side of her mouth and yelled, "Ioren! Zevran!"
The woman stood swiftly, and produced a sword hilt from her belt that had no blade. She seemed to draw on an unknown energy source and ran her hand down the hilt and a long silvery-blue blade materialized – the same way healing magic knitted flesh together. The blue steel singed as it cut through the wind and the woman approached her, a grim smile on her face.
Celes backed away slowly, her hands reached for the daggers at her side.
That woman is a lot of trouble.
Tiny blades of splinters flew everywhere as Zevran brought the machete down upon the grey foliage that stood in their path. A good thing Celes had the sense to buy a proper machete for cutting out a path in the forest. He trudged ahead of the grey woods, letting Ioren stumble over himself behind him. However, he did occasionally look back to check on the man. He didn't want to be thought of as heartless.
Zevran thought he was done with casuistry, but there was something about the ex-reverend that nagged on his senses. A subtle breeze blew at Zevran's blond mane, carrying with it a familiar call.
"It's the young miss!" Ioren began to run in the direction of the voice and Zevran shook his head. The man was going to get himself killed, acting so foolishly.
His arrow pierced the hurlock's chest before the priest even knew it was upon him. Terrible habit of his - cheating darkspawn out of victims. He had enough time to yell out a warning before he was dodging a mace that came from behind him. As he lacerated the creature through the folds of its armor, he noted figures appearing on his right and Ioren taking on another shorter darkspawn that was readying to flank him on the left. He dodged a blow meant to decapitate him and did exactly that to his opponent and hurried to the aid of the priest. Ioren pulled out the plated knuckles that had since spawned spikes at the end, and was crushing the armor of his adversary. Zevran joined him and together they managed to wear down the massive darkspawn before it suddenly collapsed before them.
Zevran whipped his head around to find Celes standing beside a woman whose arm was rapidly healing and whom Ioren was gawking at. She was a sight in the forest, an ethereal-like woman in white blending into the grayish surroundings perfectly. She held a bloodied silvery blue sword; its blade suddenly dissipated, leaving the hilt, which she then attached to the belt by her waist. Nothing much surprised him anymore. But it was strange that darkspawn would be present in the Arlathan Forest.
His eyes searched her appearance warily, while she turned and started to walk in the opposite direction. Ioren dashed after her yelling, "Wait!" and Zevran was beside Celes in a heartbeat. "So, I see you have found an arcane warrior."
Celes gave him a rushed explanation, and turned to the darkspawn corpses on the ground and asked, "What manner of darkspawn are these?" She nudged one of them with her foot and turned it over to examine its front. Among the bodies, there were an array of genlocks and shrieks. But the one Celes was prodding were one of the two darkspawn which stood out; better-armored then the rest, they were putrid creatures that festered in their underground dens for decades before ever seeing combat.
"Ancient darkspawn, I assume. Seems to be a genlock, though I could be wrong. I have only ever seen one before, in the Deep Trenches." Zevran ran his eyes over the dead darkspawn. There was something different about it, but he could not place it. Perhaps it was a new variation of some sort. After all, they used to encounter new types of darkspawn every other day in the past. "We should go after Ioren." Zevran raised his brow a notch and cocked his head towards the trees where Ioren and the woman disappeared. Celes looked up briefly from where she was crouching over the darkspawn body and nodded. She quickly shifted through the scattered bodies, picking up any items of use and they made their way through the ashen trees of the forest.
"Valeria… Sounds Antivan." Zevran remarked.
"Valeria Skye. I am not Antivan, though I was indeed born there." The woman in white – Valeria – said, while smoothing out her robes. How does that work? Born in Antiva but not Antivan.
Celes looked at the woman who claimed to be Andraste's descendant and was wondering whether or not to believe her when something soft landed on her nose. "Oh," Celes dusted off a powdery substance from her face when more started to fall. "Ash?" She rubbed the grey ashes between her fingers as the ash-fall stopped as soon as it began. When she looked up from her fingers, she saw Valeria staring straight at her.
"Eh… Yes?" All this staring was becoming uncomfortable. Valeria stood and walked over to the rock where Celes was sitting and stopped so close to her it was just strange. "Valeria…"
"What did they say?" Valeria stooped and with her bandaged hands, swept across the ground to catch the particles of ashes at the tip of her fingers. She looked from the ashes to Celes expectantly.
"What are you talking about?" Celes was puzzled by her question, her origins, her mannerism… Her everything. She's crazier than Ioren. She looked behind Valeria at Zevran who shrugged a 'you-deal-with-it' and Ioren who was shooting adoring looks at Valeria. She shook her head and looked back at a staid Valeria.
"The spirits. What did they say?" She moved closer until her face was just inches away from Celes'.
"Personal space, Valeria." Celes slid backwards on her rock and said, "I really have absolutely no idea what you are going on about."
"You really do not know…" Valeria's eyes widened slightly and she withdrew. Standing straight, she turned and started muttering to herself for a bit. Celes took the time to get back up and ask, "Zevran, is the weather in the northern parts normally this strange?" The people, too.
"I'm not sure what you are referring to," he turned to her, away from the doe-eyed priest.
"The maelstroms, high tides, rain, ash-falls… The whole lot." Celes waved a hand in the air expressing her point.
Zevran bent forward and answered, "It rains often in Antiva, you see. So that is not so abnormal. However, the maelstrom you encountered… The locals nicknamed it the Baldur's Eye. It appeared a few days before I found you wandering the square, I believe. Never before was there a maelstrom around Rialto Bay, so it had the locals rather wound up, you could say. It also disrupted the fishing community so it would be difficult to go unnoticed. Ash-fall, on the other hand- "
A soft voice came out of nowhere. "Please, be silent." Valeria interjected and they fell into an awkward silence, all the while waiting for her permission to speak. It was better to be cooperative in such situations when faced with strange woman claiming to be related to the Maker's Chosen. Celes brushed some ash off her dark hair. There were a few more moments of Valeria staring into space in silence until she spoke. When she did, she said, "They say you can do it. Unite the relics. And so you shall aid me."
"They? They who? What relics?"
"The spirits. They say you are capable. So will you join me?" Valeria answered in her ever so calm and hollow tone.
"Help her!" Ioren urged Celes straightaway.
Celes ignored him. "Tell me more about these relics you speak of."
"The Holy Relics of the Ath'tirian."
"The Athrian?"
"Ath'tirian. Merely a name for the Three. The Maker, the Creators and the First Paragon." Celes struggled to keep the questions at bay while Valeria explained. "First, there was the Feud. The Feud of the Gods. The Ath'tirian were at peace once. Before the Maker's children desecrated the Creators' work and rejected the Children of the Stone. It was then that the Forsaken Gods sought to usurp heaven and tainted it with their darkness. It was then the dream-walkers despaired, for they saw. They saw the Golden City corrupted. That is when the first of the darkspawn appeared. Shortly after, the Maker's Chosen, my antecedent, the 'prophet' Andraste, rose to power. The Chantry calls her the Maker's bride. This is a lie. Even though she was a messenger of the Maker, she later discovered the treachery among the Gods and secretly crafted the Relics in hopes of reuniting the feuding Ath'tirian. When the Maker discovered her betrayal, He turned His children against her and thus Andraste was sacrificed. At the same time, the Chantry was formed and the Maker was revered; denouncing all other religion. The Maker triumphed and the relics were then scattered without a trace, until now. We, the blood descendants of Andraste, have tried to spread this story in hopes of finding the holy artefacts. But the Chantry cried heresy and one by one my predecessors were executed…"
So many questions… And Valeria kind of lost her somewhere in the middle, but Celes put aside the questions momentarily and for lack of better responses, said, "I'm sorry."
"Don't be," replied she, "Help me avenge them by exposing the truth about the Chantry. That the Maker is not their only God, that they can no longer maintain this false dominance and repression against others. Please."
Celes hesitated a moment and looked to her companions. Ioren was crying – sappy old man – so she turned to Zevran. "What do you think?"
Zevran looked a little surprised that she asked for his opinion; as though it was something he was unaccustomed to. He tilted his head a little and folded his arms across his chest, then turned to Valeria and said, "Why should we aid you on this presumably dangerous, life-threatening quest?"
Valeria might have pondered the question for a fragment of a second before turning to Celes and saying, "You bear the taint."
"What? What kind of a reason is that?" Celes asked in disbelief.
"It seems darkspawn tend to converge where the relics are held. I know not the reason why, but it surely is something worth investigating to you. Am I not correct?"
Zevran commented, "Seemingly new forms of darkspawn, too."
Celes sighed and hung her head. She thought back to what Alistair said about her post and allegiance to the crown instead of the Grey Wardens. She really couldn't care less. Sod the consequences. I'll do what I think is right. Converging darkspawn would mean lives in danger, and she saw what darkspawn did to the countryside and to the people. There were scores to settle, and this would do just fine.
"Very well."
"Really?" Zevran stared at her. Ioren looked as though he was about to jump in joy at her agreement, smiling like an idiot. He was glancing quickly between her and Valeria, unsure of who to pore over with his gaze.
"Oh, don't look so surprised. It's not as though you did not expect me to agree in the first place." She waved Zevran off and looked to Valeria. "What now, then?"
Valeria let slip a thin smile, and said, "Now we follow the dreams."
"Not Zevran's, I hope." Celes stole a quick glance at the smirking elf at the mention of dreams and found Valeria, again, staring straight at her with that 'no fooling around' expression she wore so well. "Not mine, either!" Celes backed into a tree, away from Valeria. "I don't get good dreams."
"You don't hear them…" Valeria started spouting that nonsense about spirits and dreams and connections to this and that, all of which made no sense at all to Celes. 'Why me?' is now my favourite question.
"All right, I give in. We'll do what you want." If only to stop your talking.
With that, Valeria extracted all she could about Celes' recent dreams and said, "We will follow the darkspawn trail."
Ioren exclaimed, "Fantastic!" which somehow showed he was not concentrating on what was being said, but more on the mysterious woman who in his mind was the only way he could get his son back.
Zevran laughed and said, "Fun."
"Right…" I'm travelling with a bunch of crazies. "Let's go, then. We'll backtrack to where the darkspawn appeared and look for signs of others."
The forest was massive. But surely enough, they found scores of darkspawn scattered throughout the place. Ioren mapped out what he could of the forest, including various sites they found. Such as the one where many trees clumped together that they looked like they were bound together by ropes. Valeria said that the elves who died in Arlathan grew into trees that now form the Arlathan forest. Celes wasn't sure if she believed that.
When they seemed to near the middle of the forest, Valeria asked, "What do you know of the fall of Arlathan?"
"Only that the elves believed they were forsaken by their Gods and that was when the Tevinter Imperium striked. Not much." Celes was looking warily at the trees after they were attacked by a few of the thinner graying charred-looking ones. Zevran called them Sylvans, but she didn't care, as long as they could be killed like any other creature.
"That is… an incomplete account of the fall of Arlathan." Valeria commented on Celes' lack of knowledge regarding Arlathan's history.
Zevran chipped in, "The Dalish keepers guard their lore closely. I believe it has some relation to the fall of the Elven Pantheon."
It was always interesting to hear more about elven history, and Celes did not have much of a chance to learn, living in a human city, so she listened closely when Valeria began her history lesson.
"I assume you would not be as ignorant as not to know of the quickening – the reason the elves lost their immortality." No one spoke up, so she continued, "The elves believed us humans were the source of their quickening and retreated deep into their homes in the forest. They believed this would appease the spirits and allow them to reclaim their long lives. However, the magisters of the Tevinter Imperium saw this as a sign of hostility, or the elves would claim that they were merely seeking to expand their borders, and invaded Arlathan. They turned the knowledge learned from the elven dreamwalkers against them. However, your elven companion is also partially correct. It seemed nearly impossible for the once ageless elves to lose to an army whose weapon originated from their own. The elves believe that they were forsaken by their gods, the Creators, when the Tevinter Imperium invaded."
As she finished the last sentence, they approached a line of dead trees that seemed blown to the ground, for they were laying flat. Celes looked at them with naked curiosity and saw that what lay before them was a circular grove, collapsed statues filled the clearing that was surrounded by trees that seemed to have collapsed outwards from it.
"How ominous," Celes said, looking at the condition of the fallen trees. They moved toward the center where most of the statues lay dormant, covered in dead leaves that did not rot.
"This looks like an area of worship." Ioren touched one of the fallen statues and all of a sudden, the ground opened up beneath them. And they fell.
"Ow…"
It was dark. And Celes had landed on something that was poking into her ribs.
"I could use some help here, if you are not too busy." Zevran's voice came from somewhere in front of her, and his voice echoed through the hollow space around them.
"Coming," she replied.
"Wait." Celes halted. "Come, but be careful. Don't fall in." Celes' eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness as she inched closer to where his voice came from and grabbed at the darkness. Suddenly, she felt a hand grab hers and pull hard, causing her to instinctively pull away. But when she did, whatever was on the other end fell forward and collapsed on top of her.
She felt a pair of hands on her breasts and yelped, scrambling away.
"You're rather strong, for a young lady."
"You!" Celes picked up the nearest object and threw it at the direction of the voice.
"Hey! Hey, no need to throw things." Zevran came up to her and held her hand still. "These skulls can leave pretty nasty bruises. Wouldn't want that to happen now, would we?"
Celes growled and pulled her hand away. "What happened to you? Where are the others?"
Zevran exhaled and said, "I don't know if you've noticed, my dear Celes, but you saved me from falling into a pit of who-knows-what. And knowing ruins, I would rather not have fallen in. As for the others, it seems Ioren passed out and Valeria might have wandered off somewhere. She is rather mysterious, no?"
"Tell me about it. Wait… Shouldn't there be sunlight, if we fell from the surface? It was about late afternoon when we got to the site." Celes looked up in attempt to see the ceiling but only saw a wide spread of black and black.
"The ground might have closed back up," Zevran suggested.
"We need to find another way out, then." Celes said, as they heard a soft groaning coming from the opposite side of the room. "Ioren?"
"I think so." Zevran stood and Celes followed.
Suddenly, a light came on at the far end of the room where there was a small hallway leading out. Celes looked and saw Valeria coming towards them. "You could have lit up the room earlier, you know." She received no reply as Valeria confirmed she was living and uninjured and started walking to Ioren.
Celes looked around the geometrical nightmare of a room. It seemed to be round on one end and jutted out in a few places on the other. The ceiling was a mess of roots and dirt that fell little by little with each step taken, and the metal edges of the walls were corroded and rusty. She looked at where she landed and shuddered when she found a skull and some bones scattered around it. Did I land on a skeleton?
In the center of the room was a semi-large pit that looked deep from where she was standing. As she neared it, she found upward-facing spikes lacing the bottom of the pit with the odd bone and skull wedged in between them. Zevran popped up beside her, and chirped, "Looks like this is what you saved me from, my dear. You have my thanks."
"You're welcome." Celes acknowledged him as Valeria spoke up.
"Miss Celes."
Oh dear, now she calls me miss. "Err… Yes?"
"I've found an antechamber that leads to a room filled with altars. We should head there once the priest is ready."
"Right." Valeria headed off to the next room to, Celes guessed, light the rest of the torches. Celes turned to Zevran and whispered conspiratorially, "Is it just me, or does it seem like Valeria only talks to…" She pointed at her chest, meaning herself.
"Yes, Miss Celes. I am 'the elf' and Ioren is 'the priest', it seems." He smiled cheerily.
"Hm." Celes grunted and turned to Ioren. The man was up already, it seemed, after some help from Miss Skye. He was feeling around the inside of his pack, presumably to check if all his precious belongings were there. When he was satisfied, he looked up and jolted at the sight of Celes standing over him like a hawk eyeing its prey. "Hello. Shall we go?" Celes held out a hand, which he took, and pulled him up.
"Yes, lets." He brushed the dirt off his clothing and followed Celes and Zevran down the hallway to where the mage stood waiting for them. They made their way down the winding corridor lined with torches lit by embers, and finally arrived in a small room.
"This must be the antechamber you spoke of." Celes directed the comment at Valeria, who nodded and walked to the double doors beside the pillars. There were engravings around the edge of each side which were faded and marred after millennia of neglect. There was a small section of the handles which looked like gold, which must have been scratched off by Valeria when she came to investigate. She placed a hand on the handle and shortly after, released her hold. "Fen'Harel, the Dread Wolf. Betrayer…" She turned to face Celes.
"Who?" Celes' brows knitted together in confusion.
"The Creators did not forsake the elves. They were betrayed and sealed away by one of their own."
A/N: "Hey! Why did it take so long for you to update?" I can explain. Lol. I've been pretty much packing up and moving back to Australia for the new study term and I'm in my 2nd week now, which explains a lot. Plus, this being my 2nd year, I'll have a lot more studies to do. Gah!
I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. I know I've twisted around the Chantry's ideologies, but this is part of this story's plot. So… Yea. Leave me a review letting me know what you think. Do you like it? Do you hate it? Are you like, "WHY DID YOU CHANGE SO MUCH?"~ If anyone is interested, I rant about stuff like this on my blog after each chapter is uploaded.
Yea. Val is an airhead. XD sorta.