Alright Dear Readers,

I owe you an apology. I was frustrated by the small and snide comments that I rushed the end of this story. You all deserved much more. So I want to take that rambling end and flush it out as it should have been. (One or two chapters, more detailed into Solona's transition to a Fade Spirit. Also, Cullen's attitude toward the Chantry changing somewhat).

Dedicated to the fans and Dancinfanz

I own nothing. Rated M.

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Light and darkness. Peace. Yet, it was not so. Not wholly accurate. There were whispers upon murmurs. Some loud like the angry buzzing of bees and wasps. Others were gentle like thw soft caress of a spring breeze that wafted through the trees outside the stain glass windows of the tower...

Tower?

What was this word? Had it once held meaning? A flicker of a memory danced to consciousness, only to fade away again. Emotions were tied to the wisp of remembrance, yet they were too hard to understand. Foreign and unknown, but known all the same. The bits of whatever it was were far to scattered to grasp. The twisted and eternally changing realm around...

It?

Was it and 'it'? Had 'it' once been something else? 'It' could not remember.

'It' moved through the seas and lands that spoke with the tongues of creatures. Some dark and mangled, orbs of blackness that called to 'It'. Those 'It' did not wish to be around. The stymied and stale wicked desires that poured from the darkness were repulsive. Unwanted. 'It' had not wish to be as the dark orbs, the ones that sung through the shifting realm to the ones that did not change.

The ones whose dreams 'It' stumbles into upon occasion. 'It' is searching for... something. That is all 'It' knows. There is still a task unfinished, a duty that drives 'It' through the darkness and brightness of what the unchanging ones call the fade.

'It' enjoys the light orbs, that dance around far away from the darkness. Near the unchanging ones that the lights name 'mortals'. 'It' has a strange feeling of fascination and forgetfulness when 'It' wanders near the mortals.

'It' can hear them. The clunky words and stillness from the mortals. 'It' knows it cannot change them, 'It' has tried many times. To bend and twist the unchanging ones like the sands of the fade. Yet, they do not stack or mold or bend at 'It's will. They, those mortals that the light orbs watch so carefully, are very bright to 'It' in their own way. Little flames that burst to life and die out just as quickly.

The dark ones like them too. The mortals are afraid of the dark, 'It' finds this wise, but also of the light. 'It' does and does not understand. There was a time, 'It' feels, that 'It' felt the same.

When? How long has 'It' been here? Swirling in the mists of the fade, 'It' is left alone mostly. For there is nothing 'It' can give the dark ones. Demons, that is their other title. The mortals call them demons. 'It' shifts and changes when the mortals are afraid. 'It' does not like the hurt. The pain that shouts so loudly to the formless thing 'It' is.

The mortals, they do not mind the light ones. The light ones call themselves 'Spirits'. 'It' likes this name better. There is a power in them that brings a spark of familiar song to 'It's mind. The spark that darts and flickers as 'It' is pulled through the realm.

'It' is called by what the mortals call 'dreams'. Sometimes, there are mortals that can sense and see 'It'. They try to speak to 'It' with their clunky and heavy words. 'It' was curious once, and drew closer to the mortal in the dream. This one, female... how 'It' knows... 'It' does not understand. The word or thought is supplied and 'It' simply uses the knowledge. Knowledge was not bad.

At least, that is what 'It' believes.

The female, mortal, and.. mage. Yes. The ones that can speak with 'It' are called mages. 'It' hurts at the title, something burns like memories but they scatter in the fade. 'It' is not like the dark ones, the demons. 'It' possesses no want nor love of the mortals' stuck and rigid world.

"You?" The mage-mortal questions.

'It' stills, watching the female. There is no spark, not furling of things that 'It' recalls. Nothing. 'It' waivers, at the realization that 'It' had... hoped. For what? 'It' brushes the concern aside.

"Is it you?" The woman asks again, her voice laden thick with emotions.

Feeling each one is nearly overwhelming. The mage is akin to shouting in a small enclosed space. Too loud. So close, this mortal is very, very loud. 'It' stills.

'It' tilts slightly. The strange way 'It' has been shaped is disconcerting. Confining and uncomfortable. As if 'It' fits into a container that is much too small. However, the mortal with her widened eyes and stiff posture looks even more upset than 'It' feels. 'It' does not enjoy the hurt and anger simmering under the false skin of the mage's form. 'It' looks down, noticing the new form. 'It' takes a moment to examine the appendages that now belong to 'It' with stark wonder.

Familiar...

Yet not.

'It' moves now, like solid form through more solid resistance. The fade does not twist and shift the same way, but change is still constant. 'It' is satisfied, though confused at the difference.

"It is you," The mortal says. Liquid leaks from her eyes.

'It' marvels at the liquid. How peculiar. These mortals with their ability to change only certain parts. Tears. Yes. The liquid is tears. 'It' is compelled by them. No. Do not weep. 'It' does not enjoy when mortals weep. Though 'It' has never witnessed it before now.

The scenes play before 'It's consciousness. Mortals, many mortals, and a dark tower. Suffering of such a large scale that the dark ones constantly plague the mages in their sleep. Hazel eyes stare with unshed tears. She hates the other mage before her, the younger one. The one spared the unspeakable acts-

This cannot be bore. Not tolerated. To see the mortal in distress such as this. The gaping wound of despair that wells between them. 'It' senses that the female is hurting because it sees 'It'. 'It' is not like the demons. No harm was ever intended. 'It' wants nothing from the mortal. Yet, the pain does not cease from the mortal. The feelings grow stronger until the mage's song starts playing in the fade around 'It'.

At this rate, the mage will call the dark ones. 'It' must make the hurt stop.

The light ones, Spirits, they make the mortals feel better occasionally. The pain goes away when they...

"Forget," 'It' says. The clunky words of mortals pour forth from some part of 'It'. The strange appendages move of their own volition, or 'It's will. Touch. 'It' can touch now. The fact leaves 'It' mystified as 'It' feels the new form. This is...

'It' is glowing. Akin to the light ones. 'It' knows now, 'It' is not 'It'. 'It' is a spirit.

Something forms in the blank space of the Spirit's consciousness. The essence of something forgotten. The eyes of the younger mage... the one in the memory of this mortal. The Spirit felt a sense of familiarity in the image presented. The Spirit decided to keep the form it had been granted. The mortal that had given 'It' substance and a driving force.

So moved, was the Spirit by the sorrow of the mage whose' hurt was already untied from her heart, that the Spirit chose to take the name given to the memory.

Solona.

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The Spirit hears the call, through the fade. The whispers and buzzing were the emotions of mortals that cried out by the thousands in one form or another. The Spirit feels a sense of obligation to the mages. It watches them through the fade as they move. Forever keeping its distance, the Spirit learns and grows. The light it emits drives the dark ones away.

The Spirit knows that it wishes to guard the mortals who twist their songs to interact with the changing realm they call the fade. This is home, and all the Spirit has ever known. Yet, something prods at its consciousness, like a hot poker upon unsuspecting flesh. It needles away at the Spirit in a place where time has not meaning. The Spirit moves through the every changing walls that separate it from one mortal's dreams and the next.

It is on one such endeavor, that it finds a way to help the mages. The ones that it feels compelled to protect. Though it does not fully comprehend as to why. 'Why' does not matter. Not truly.

Other Spirits pass by. 'It' answers to the name they call it.

Compassion.

The word invokes a sense of easing suffering or a kindness toward the mortals. Compassion accepts the title. 'It' moves over the dreams of those that pull it through the fade. The form it has adopted, Compassion keeps. The name of the memory from the first mortal mage, that it holds dear. Compassion, 'It' discovers, is sorely lacking in the mortal realm. The unforgiving attitudes they all hold toward each other for one reason or another are trite at best.

This mortal however, this mortal is louder than others. The wizened woman who sleeps beneath the symbols of flaming swords and heavy perfume. It translates through the woman's dreams when she enters the fade.

Compassion feels a sense of familiarity that the Spirit does not like. This is the one, Compassion knows through some form of wisdom, that must be spoke to. The millions of wounds, hurts, and sufferings of countless mages thundered around the Spirit like a litany of the most forceful nature. The Spirit cannot see the way that its eyes flash as it pulls forth the memories of the old woman.

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"Amell!"

Compassion startled from watching over the old woman. The whispers of feelings that it pushed toward the aching and bitter heart have eased some of the sorrow. The Spirit is highly pleased by the progress. More has been given to the mages. They no longer scream out in the fade as torture victims with long and harsh songs that did not permit Compassion to rest.

The Spirit was pulled quickly, nearly impossibly fast, toward the strange light that called to some part of Compassion. Deeper than the rest, more instinctual to a being that was nearly only consciousness. A bright speck of life energy that felt... oddly... known. The Spirit could not recall as to where it had felt it before, but as it manifested in the dream, Compassion stared.

The mortal is male this time. His heart whispered of a sense of longing that had never been fulfilled. He searched for some part of him that was lost to the Chantry. Compassion had come to know a great deal about the Chantry from the old woman. Whose wrinkled face and hawkish eyes had attempted to peer into the fade though she lacked the affinity for it. Compassion had locked gazes with the woman more than once, repeating events that had left the woman far colder than needed.

The Spirit had helped to heal the hurts and place the seeds of change in the woman's mind.

This boy, however, was a different story. Compassion could sense that he was not a mage. He could not see Spirit, but 'It' knew that mortals could sense 'It'. The effect was nearly instantaneous. The boy's pointless running down the halls of stone and symbols of blazing swords were ceased. The millions of faceless Templars and Chantry initiates that seemed to damn the boy were wiped away.

In the place of the darkness and void, sprang forth a deep longing for... family.

Compassion touched the red hair with the lightest possible caress. Wiping away the crippling feeling of never belonging or being inadequate somehow. As the Spirit eased the boy, the scenes in his dream shifted with the fade. He produced a faceless female in a mage's robes. The hair color shimmered and changed nearly constantly. Blonde, to brown, to red, to black, and even white upon occasion.

The Spirit could sense the longing grow, and a sadness pool in the boy's thoughts.

"Mage Amell," A form said cropping up from the swirling energies of the fade and the boy's subconscious. Compassion noted that it was the same form of the old woman that 'It' had been whispering to. "Your mother was Mage Amell. She belonged to the Circle of Magi."

The faceless female mage form was locked behind bars in the boy's mind. The color of the robes, the boy always imagined as green. The Revered mother-

"What should you care boy? She was a mage," The holy ones sneered when the boy asked to know of his dam. "A Creation mage. Only of use to the injured."

No compassion, the Spirit acknowledged, in crushing the frail hopes of a small mortal. The Spirit sooths the pain as best as it can. Compassion watches as the fade responds to the boy's dream.

"Your Sire, however, is an honorable Templar. If you had to waste the breath to speak, ask of him instead."

The Spirit can sense that the child knew better. They would tell him nothing of either. Yet, the pain blossomed over the term 'was' for his Dam. Compassion can feel the inkling that the faceless mage perished.

A flicker of scatter thoughts moved to the forefront of the Spirit's consciousness. Crimson blood, and the sense of encroaching darkness. A desperate pleading to a God that had forgotten-

Compassion was left staring into the swirling wisps of the fade.

The child had woken, and with him gone, The Spirit moved on. Compassion had healed what hurts it could. 'It' moved back toward the Old woman and was undeterred from helping the mages once more.