Another massive thanks to Elystaa! This chapter just grew and grew under her diligent care and endless support! It has been such a wonderful journey to create alongside such a kind and compassionate person, these miles have been made all the better because of it! Onwards and upwards.
This was definitely her dream. Wasn't it? Yes, she was sure. So why couldn't she remember where she'd left her own damned traps? Chiyo had never been formally trained as a hunter, not in the same way her cousins had been brought up. But a Dalish incapable of catching simple game was not worth the salt they begrudgingly traded with humans for or the cost of the steel needed for the practical blade each carried upon adolescence. Every child was given the skills they would need to subsist both within the clan and on the possible, but rare event they were separated. From earliest youth the elders would spend their free hours ingraining these abilities, leaving the actual practice work to be offered by those near grown and more spry. It was left to the oldest of children, those who'd yet to earn their vallaslin to take the youngsters into the forest and show them the ways of survival.
By the season they would guide as to which herbs and wild grown foods were ready for harvesting, how to collect the various seeds, leaves and barks, what animals were best and most plentiful to catch and how to stay out of trouble when it could be avoided. Even young hands and eyes were sometimes needed to get the clan through the leanest winters. One wrong berry in the stewpot could sicken the entire camp for days or worse. No matter what profession or inclination, nearly all elven children were given the same essential upbringing. But that did not mean Chiyo knew her way around every rock, tree and bush, especially not in the ever-changing and manipulated landscape of the Fade. A true Dalish hunter would have made quick, diligent work of the clever task; a mage could seldom compare.
Poking through another shrub with the end of her wooden staff, the Inquisitor roughly groaned again upon finding the niche devoid of game and any hint of the artless snares she'd left the evening prior. Curbing her annoyance, she scarcely kept her bare toes from colliding with a convenient, minuscule rock that happened to be underfoot. Of course a little pebble to kick would appear when needed, but not anything she intentionally came for.
What a horrendously inane plan to begin with, feeding a spirit, a juvenile idea that was quickly weighing against the worth of her efforts. Though without more advanced training to guide her, the Inquisitor was left scrambling for anything better and unbearably anxious at the mere thought of another failure. Stability of her emotions had to be maintained above all else, and she frequently had to remind herself of such. There was no use for the mounting frustrations that would only serve to turn against all of her goals. With a deep and extendedly held breath, she released the stresses that stemmed from her harrowing reality and continued through the humid, balmy woods. Bright with wide green leaves that filtered the intense summer sun and bursting with vigorous flora of every kind, the forest she'd recalled was the picture of health. It was just the escape she needed, with so many of her former distractions now no longer available to bolster Chiyo to the ever increasing heaviness of the world.
Bit by bit, the more she ventured out and constrained her fears, did Chiyo finally understand the relief that Solas had often found away from the waking world. Here she could begin to take some tiny hold of control, dictating her dreams and managing them in turn. But she was not satisfied to remain in their safe comforts, not when what she needed most lay beyond the sheltered borders forged from experience. There were no charts useful to her cause, many had tried before to map the Fade and lost a good deal of coin in doing it. The Inquisitor needed a companion, one who knew the winding paths that she remained too uncertain to tread unaided.
She was going to find Solas, and she would have help in doing it too.
Back behind a sizable fallen log she finally spotted the edge of a little trap placed the last time she'd entered this idealized reverie. Lifeless in the thin, twisting line a plump hare had been strung up by the neck. Tiny eyes that had once been a gleaming, bottomless black were now gray and dim. Taking up the lengthy, tufted back feet, she lifted the small game and loosened the snare's strangling hold. The creature hadn't struggled or suffered more than a moment; a quick yank had given the rabbit an equally swift end. As she stroked the fine ears, smoothing them down the length of the animal's limp back, Chiyo offered quiet thanks. No change came; it seemed no spirit was fulfilling her quest in ruse, merely a construct of her own dreams. Perhaps the felled prey was simply recalled from the hunts she had partaken of, pieced together from many only vaguely recalled kills.
Fetching her knife from its keeping on her belt, Chiyo began the swift process of gutting and skinning the modest animal. She prudently split the finely haired belly from groin to sternum, turning out the membrane contained entrails onto the grass to discard. The rich, darkly colored liver, a thumb-sized heart and other offal bits were set aside, far too precious to waste wantonly. With a careful slice she separated the silky pelt from each boney limb and peeled it away from the small body. Next she severed the round head just beneath the base of the skull, keeping the supple neck muscles intact just past where the spine had been broken. The brains and cheeks would have been boiled to a delicious broth were the rabbit real; however there was to be no cooking that night. Raw meat was required, if she knew anything about carnivorous palates.
The coppery smell of blood tinged the damp, warm air, carried off on the low breeze. With the carcass in hand, she perched herself up on the fallen log and waited, slowly trimming the hare into manageable chunks. Chiyo set the slick, soft strips onto the pelt she'd placed hair down against her lap and continued the nervous, gory whittling. With care she kept most of the carnage to her hands and off of her lengthy, belted tunic and the wraps that twisted from ankle to knee.
It wasn't long before a visitor slowly peered out from his hiding place in the densely grown thickets, always observing with tattered ears ever pricked for oncoming danger. Paw over paw, curiosity and hunger encouraged the ragged beast to emerge from the shadows and investigate the dreamer he had regularly stalked for nearly a year. The anxious mage had often been too wary to allow for a direct approach. But now Chiyo was consciously letting her defenses down, remaining still and composed as the scrawny spirit ambled on closer and closer.
A warm breath brushed across the back of her neck and hunched shoulders, sending barely repressed shivers up her rigid spine. Swallowing the lump forming in her throat, Chiyo gingerly picked up the wiggly, slippery liver and cupped it in her unmarked palm. Holding her hand out, low and far to the side, she kept her wide eyes focused on the grass around her clenched toes as a sniffing nose gleaned down the unadorned, extended limb. He focused finally on the presented hand, the Inquisitor froze as the edge of her bloody fingers were nudged, tickled by coarser hairs while the wolf angled his ruined jaw. Slick gums and loose lips slid across her skin while a hungry tongue scooped the fatty morsel with drooling zest. Another slobbery prod to her elbow preceded a famished, faint whimper, having already swallowed the tiny organ.
The heart beating in her tightly clad breast began to calm as they repeated the more often painstakingly slow ritual. It had taken weeks for this fragile trust to form between them and just as long for Chiyo to trust herself. With patience pushed beyond her known limits, the first few attempts at forging what most would call a hazardous relationship at best, had left them both on edge. Night after night, where one would make another attempt to try the other would irrepressibly fail. Carcasses left behind would go untouched, rotting without so much as a bite removed. His stalking approaches, when he risked to encroach at all, often led to panicked lurches straight back into the waking world. Continually, Chiyo would bolt from her bed. Sweat shining on her skin, often unnerving whoever happened to be sleeping nearby.
But this repetitive coaxing was working. It had to. She could not risk spoiling such a rare chance out of instinctual fear.
With upmost calm and deliberate movements, she selected a pared, pink muscle from the portioned pile contained in the turned pelt and repeated the poised offering. The thin creature obliged, patiently awaiting the generous meal, lavishing over each deboned piece that his worn teeth would not have been able to manage elsewise. More than he'd received in a long, long while, a single rabbit went far to sate an often empty stomach. It took the large beast little time to consume every available scrap till all that remained was a delicate heap of a segmented skeleton. With the bulbous end of a tapered thigh bone removed, having been cracked open by nibble fingers, the wolf leisurely gnawed to release the creamy marrow stowed within. He dropped his large head, settling down to rest against the log where the Inquisitor also sat with a canine sigh of contentment.
Chiyo listened as the voracious chewing slowed. She rolled her sticky fingers against the smooth bark, daring only to glance at the dark, bulky skull and bowed shoulders of the beast relaxing at her side. The unfussy meal left the wolf dozily full-bellied, but it seemed that the voiceless company suited him just as well. Lulled and quiet, she was relieved that no red eyes emerged with the rise of her own uncertainty. Instead the creature paid her minimum attention, black lids nearly drooped together left only thin slivers of pale gray marked by lolled pupils.
Solas had been right in his teachings; her troubles came from her own failures as a dreamer. Not from the spirits themselves. They only became what she wanted or imagined them to be, for good or ill. She had expected the terrible beast woven of nightmares and childhood lore to have come up from the shadows at her lowest hour, to have eaten her whole and consume her for the seeping weakness that she could not rid herself of entirely. But the wolf near dozing at her side, resting a scarred, misshapen jaw against the rounded wood acted no more a threat to her than any other figment or illusion. How had this world become so maligned? The human-formed Chantry had bred fear so deeply into Thedas that even the wild elves had become suspicious and less trusting when the truth was so much more. Spirits and their relationship with dreamers wasn't inherently bad, only more complex than widely understood. The only enemy that she had to be concerned of it seemed, the only real danger to be protected from, was herself.
Dangerous, to everyone else too, if the hissed words of a witch held any credit. That had been the labeling granted by Morrigan when everything had gone so terribly wrong that very morning. It wasn't supposed to have spiraled so far out of control, but everything had slipped from the Inquisitor's grasp upon reaching a ruinous altar buried on the edge of the Arbor Wilds. They'd temporarily diverted from their quest to close the overabundance of rifts that now plagued much of the eastern landscape, spanning as far out as their scouts and outposts dared report. A garish, green hole had even formed just outside the gate of the sacred grotto, barring their entrance to the forgotten vestige of a once powerful and renowned elvhen deity.
With a short skirmish and a grimace, the Inquisitor had managed the lesser rift with trifling difficulty. The tears were wide spread, but they also varied. Some discovered were scant more than pinholes peppered across the land. Others stretched in glaring streaks, thin as pulled threads that disrupted the separating weave of the Veil. A notable few had been utterly massive and the first to be dealt with before civilians or passersby could be harmed. Word and any available protections had been swiftly sent to all corners, but that had only likely stemmed the received accounts of loss and destruction to follow. Every day, word reached Skyhold of more and more fissures being found. So many that the map in the War Room was now littered with chips of emerald colored stone; they'd run out of the miniature bronze icons that had been customarily used.
Leaving the others behind, Chiyo and the Witch of the Wilds had entered the peaceful grove and begun their search for the altar they'd traveled far to reach. Tensions between them had still not fully cooled, but with their world once again in overwhelming upheaval they'd managed their biting differences for the few short hours needed to convalesce at the sacred site. The Temple they'd entered a few months prior had been a place of pilgrimage and worship, but this hidden away junction was where the ancient elves had beckoned to their goddess directly. Here they had made their personal pleas heard and prayed for a swift response. Desperate for any help from the one that had frequently been called for protection and vengeance alike, the wayward Dalish mage had nearly shouted in relief upon discovering the fragments of an unrecognizable figure. Instead of an elegant face, worn, wide scales made up the shape of the tilted head. Where arms should have been stretched out only the graceful shoulders of sweeping wings remained.
'You know who I am: The last to drink from your Well of Sorrows. Come to me Mythal. Whatever you are, whoever remains, I invoke your name and your power.' It was there that Morrigan invoked the Great Protector, though they'd both held reserved skepticism until discovering the altar's location. Chiyo's face was now just as unblemished as the sorceress working alongside her and the sacred waters had not allowed her attempted claim. Aided by the whispering voices that had channeled her to the secreted spot, the witch called whatever persisted to present themselves, using her dominion of the Well as her pronounced right of petition. But for a time only the rustling wind answered.
Near turning to depart, a wavering faith wilted once more, Chiyo had been taken aback by the apparition that then emerged from the swirling smoke in the center of the glen before them. Bright gray hair spun into ominous horns, piercing eyes of covetous gold, the smirking old woman was bound from head to toe in dark burgundy leather. Lustrous black plumage spilled from her stately shoulders, yet the Lavellan First did not immediately think bird. Another, much more treacherous flying creature came to mind. One with crushing teeth and life-snuffing breath. The doubting elf had been left temporarily winded, but not out of engulfing veneration as the powerful being sauntered her way across the weedy knoll.
The ears, flat, round and weighted with heavy piercings, immediately set Chiyo's teeth on edge as she evaluated the woman who proclaimed herself to be the remnant of Mythal. Disgust echoed hollowly in her head as she barely listened to the ensuing, spiteful conversation. The fact became rampantly evident that Mythal, Flemeth, the Woman of Many years, whatever name she chose to assume, was just as human as the baffled, sputtering child she claimed to be her own. That Morrigan, drinker of the seized waters, had been birthed and reared by no other than the very same entity whose worship had once been displayed on the Inquisitor's own skin.
A low rumble met Chiyo's growing agitations, quaking up a roaming hand that had crept away while she'd been lost in reminiscing thought. She did not recall seeking out the silent spirit or summoning the courage to risk touching him. With fingers loosely tangled in the matted hair that lay against the beast's neck, the reciprocated agitation reminded her swiftly that disagreeable sentiments were not best expressed in the Fade. Bravely smoothing the rough coat, the Inquisitor was not dissuaded as she began to gently pick at the snared hairs. Pulling apart the tangles and relieving several hidden painfully buried burs, the wolf resumed the prior peace and submitted for the time being to the amenable handling.
Soothed by the repetitive and gentle action, the fidgety mage felt more at ease appeasing a monster whose common being had made multiple appearances as a figure in tales of warning, villainy and treachery than she had in the presence of the most revered name among the Dalish. If that cunning woman was anything like what the elvhen gods had been during more a golden era, she wanted nothing further to do with any of them.
And she'd dared to make that sentiment blatantly known before the draconic crone.
Ingrate. Like mother like daughter. Chiyo had been aptly named by the scowling woman upon being called out for her misleading personage. The Inquisitor could not contain the gurgling resentment and disappointment at these latest turns of events. It was all so wrong and deceiving, to have ever believed in such ridiculous lies as what she'd been fed as a child. This was not her goddess, in any shape or fashion. Mythal could not have abandoned the elves who still cried out to her for help, she could not have picked Morrigan to be worthy, she could not be human!
The white haired matriarch had been quick to cut her down, reprimanding the enflamed elf with a retelling of how the splinter of the fallen goddess had clawed and crawled her way through the eons until finding another soul, seeking much the same vengeance upon the world to bind with. Becoming unified, the fragment of Mythal's shattered essence was as much a part of Flemeth as was her own beating heart. They were one in the same and had been for centuries, harboring the same memories and experiences. There was no division between the carried soul and her own. It was a hard truth to swallow, as Morrigan had regrettably assured, the voices of the Well claimed no falseness had been pronounced. Yet still the horrified Herald had adamantly refused to accept what was being presented before her dubious eyes.
However, the unraveling aggressions that soon followed had actually been the only moment in their brief encounter that had seemed to garner Chiyo any semblance of respect. Upon taking temporary control of her daughter, now forever bound to her mother's will, Morrigan had been commanded with the ease of a child's toy to repress the sneering Herald if she would not hold her incredulous tongue. But it hadn't worked.
Combating the forces with her own extended hand, the small Dalish mage had held her own, neutralizing the constrictive magic with the same unsettling power that had arisen after the rejection at the Well. Caught in a magical deadlock, the fragmented goddess had released her manipulative control with a coarse chuckle and a wave of her menacing, sharply pointed fingers.
Curiously entertained, Flemeth had offered up the only aid she was willing to give before departing from the mages who had sought her out. She had more than enough knowledge to help them in their quest against Corypheus, however her plans were not exclusively beneficial to the Inquisition. The corrupted dragon would have to be swiftly dealt with were they to stand any chance at stopping the madman responsible for the state of Thedas. She needed the blighted Magister dealt with, but by her lack of concern it seemed the havoc wreaked upon the world was little more than a trifling inconvenience to her plots. Mythal had her own reckoning after all to conduct, yet the means and the time were not quite within her grasp. The crone had little choice but to offer up the solution.
"You'd think I would have recognized a god when I saw one…" She sighed to the wolf who had lifted his chin, sanctioning her busy fingers to work at a terrible spot that had tangled to the side of his shaggy throat. The thick, dark outer guard hairs came loose cleanly enough, but several wads of scruffy undercoating floated away across the grass or caught against the bark of the felled log. A small sore had formed around a large thistle and had incrusted the insulating fur quite badly, but with cautious fingers Chiyo managed to free him of the irritant.
Chiyo did not know what to expect of her open inquiring, certainly not a reply. At least, it seemed, this spirit wasn't of the mind to give any. Other spectral entities she'd encountered before had answered her or Solas' questions with recognizable, intelligent speech. Some would mimic events linked to the visited dreams. Actors on an endless stage, the emotions that had enraptured them most were amplified and embodied till the reality of the event was eroded beyond all historical recognition. The absent mage who had first gotten her to wander in dreams that were not her own had accompanied her to nearby visions of both turmoil and accomplishment. She'd watched shining kings take to their lofted thrones, enveloped in hope for the unknowable future only to be darkened by entire villages succumbing to the Blight, lost souls festering in the ceaseless gloom of horrific disease. Wars had flared and seceded in lightning fast pulses as enemies repeatedly clashed, their sieges bursting across the Fade in dazzling displays of violence and bloodshed, interrupted by lulls of sterling peace and brotherly camaraderie.
While exploring the Dales together they'd stumbled across a rare gem, a memory imprinted by the noble elves that had once flourished for a brief age. Proud and strong and cohesive, Chiyo had been astonished by the image of her people before they'd been forcibly removed from the pledged domain. They had begun to rebuild, constructing lasting vestiges that would later be claimed by the same people who drove the survivors out from their burning homes. For a time the elves had settled and rejoiced; their lost language blossomed and such songs came forth as she'd never known, but stirred deep in her heart.
With such priceless images granted to her, curiosity had begun to win over what had once been unshakeable foreboding. There had been times when she had left Solas' preoccupied side, speaking to more verbose and rare spirits, to wander off a ways without his steadfast supervision. A few evenings had fallen when the expert mage was behind Chiyo in sleep, leaving her plenty of time to try the Fade unaccompanied, leaving from the more well beaten paths and entering the unknown by a few cautious steps. But she always kept the road or whatever tether she'd depended on in view. Time and training with the unusual apostate had instilled the beginnings of confidence, and just enough knowledge to know not when to try her luck.
Turning on her seat, she straddled the log and faced the lazing wolf. Her marked hand joined the first as an idle hum lingered on the back of her tongue, the words lost but the tune vaguely remembered. Perhaps this wild wanderer could show her more unimaginably precious memories, but for the time being she was content to remain at peace and enjoy her own meaningless song. The Inquisitor would have to find a way to ask for what she sought more effectively before she chanced leaving the safety of her own dreams. But soon the night would come when she would enter the true unknown and begin her search. And hopefully, she would not be venturing out unguided and alone.
Lifting the extended, slightly sweaty limb of the snoring rogue, Chiyo wormed her way off of the sleeping bag she was tangled in. In the heavy heat of the deep south they'd all stripped to their smalls to survive the muggy nights. In unembellished, sleeveless shifts and plainly crafted bottoms, the mage had felt exposed enough to sleep soundly through the night without her bedding clinging to her skin. But the much more buxom blonde, who had the tendency to stretch out across multiple beds, had no concerns with whatever happened to spill out of the overly loose and shortly cropped shirt she'd donned for the evening. Near accustomed now to waking up to a pair of freckled breasts threatening a full display, Chiyo was undaunted by the tricky clamber needed to escape the splayed arms and legs that had crossed over her while sleeping.
With a care normally reserved for pilfering a dragon egg out from under a sleeping mother's nose, the Inquisitor slipped her own pillow into the clutching rogue's grasp. Ginger fingers pulled up a thin sheet, giving her snuffling friend at least a modicum of basic decency. Not that the nudity was anything new or shocking, nursing babes at the bosom and bathing a common sight among the Dalish, the privacy of more military camps was little improved from her former nomadic life. Chiyo would attempt to spare Sera some unneeded exposure out of respect alone.
Hopping into a pair of breeches that had been hung across the support rail of their tent to air out, Chiyo slipped through the untied flaps and left Sera to continue her sleep-in undisturbed. There was just no getting the younger woman out of bed before she was damned ready, not if you didn't wish to be cursed at or left sore for trying. After the last bee-jar debacle, no one had dared since disturb the slumbering red Jenny, at least not until they were already well at the door of whatever shelter they shared. There simply had not been enough spindleweed in the entirety of the Hinterlands to soothe all of the red, raised bumps that had covered the Inquisitor and her unfortunate companions the morning after Iron Bull had made that dreaded mistake.
Greeted by the cooler, fresh morning air, the welcoming scent of breakfast passed through her stretching nostrils. A kettle was just beginning to bubble on its stand above the revived embers and the savory smell of starches wafted from the simple iron crock tucked amid the hot coals. Her stomach rumbled at the thought of the tubers cooking inside, shredded and salted or even thickened with seasoned slivers of meat. The bottom of the pan would be a contested favorite as everyone tried to get a scoop of the crusted, golden layer hidden under the rest of the mouthwatering mash.
Near the simmering fire sat Dorian, leaning against the roughly hewn table with his chiseled head caught in his hand. Several creased sheets of paper lay spread out before him, but he held one in particular up for a closer inspection, seemingly lost in the words scrawled across the travel-battered page. The Tevinter mage ran his thumb repeatedly over the small waxy seal that clung to the letter's edge and he began to chuckle as he read on.
"Good news, I take it?" Chiyo yawned as she leaned over his shoulder, perfunctorily searching the table for any additional messages directed towards the Herald.
"Just an update from Bull. Things are going splendidly around the Storm Coast. The Chargers have quite the knack for thrashing darkspawn and demons alike. They spotted a dragon a few days ago, but miraculously he managed to refrain from slaughtering it on sight. He must be having the time of his life up there…" Dorian answered as he set the correspondence down, but his eyes continued to loiter over the brief, personal memo scrawled on the end that left him visibly brightened with joy. The thick, artfully curled hairs of his moustache failed to hide the wide smile that spread across his shapely lips.
Not since returning from the Adamant fortress had either been kept so far and so long apart from the other. A few scant weeks here and there had made for lovely, private homecoming celebrations. However it had been clear as they'd parted on the dividing passes stemming from the Frostback mountains, to head towards their opposite goals, that this departure held just as little certainty as the fate of Thedas itself. It was not often that one witnessed a mage so flustered as he was lifted off his feet by a massive Qunari, turning back around to steal a last kiss before their companies parted ways. "Maker how I miss that man…"
"If there had been a better way…" She began to apologize as she disentangled a few stray white hairs that had woven their way into the small rings set in her ears. There had been so little time to formulate any better plans or assembly. The Iron Bull and his Chargers were too invaluable, and notable expensive, to waste during such trying times as they were. They'd been quickly assigned to return to the north where they could best handle the turmoil of the rifts opening there and the foul creatures who were also emerging amid the rising chaos. Cassandra and Blackwall had marched towards the west with the troops they'd recently reconnected with in the Arbor Wilds. Vivienne had been given command of several of the mages that had assisted the Inquisition with the Breach, pooling their knowledge and efforts together with the strange Trainer requisitioned anew to find a way at managing all the additional, terrifying tears. Varric and Cole had taken up important roles as well, now under the leadership of their Spymaster. Their combined stealthy skills and practiced social invisibility were just what was needed to try to find out more behind what had caused the latest upset. All suspected Corypheus or any of his following, yet nothing had been seen of the accursed Magister since he'd been forced into a new body after failing to take the Well of Sorrows.
The Inquisition was splintered and spread thin, but they all hoped to make quick work of the distressing dilemma at hand before the divided weakness was made apparent to their enemies. The risk however had to be taken, they had asserted and claimed responsibility, now it was up to them to reclaim control.
"I would not have separated you if given a kinder choice."
Dorian inclined back, tilting up his head to catch the slip of sorrow that clouded her eyes and dulled her pale cheeks of their usual healthy glow. It hurt his heart to see her so bruised still. Her life had become little more than difficult travel, fighting demons and exhaustive sleep, spending more of her unoccupied hours in the Fade than she'd ever done before. Spring had arrived and no word from Solas had come to the Keep or any of their scattered stations. Each week passed as they endlessly moved about the countryside and Dorian had watched their Herald grow less and less hopeful with every empty handed messenger to make it to their wayside camps. Another had appeared with the dawn along with a refresh of supplies for their journey northwards again, but he'd seen to the delivery himself, anticipating his own more likely received missives.
"You did get a letter from Skyhold… Josephine's seal, I can almost smell her perfume." He held the narrow sheet up between two fingers, fetched from a small stack on the edge of the weather-stained table.
The dark haired mage nearly beamed as she rested her arms about his strapping shoulders, leaning into him for a moment as she eyed the singularly folded sheet that bore the Ambassador's usual, lovely penmanship. But her voice met his ear too heartbroken, though he'd done his best to plaster the fragments back together with what friendship and understanding he could offer. "It won't have what I want."
"What can I do to ease this burden? I would offer you a kiss but you seemed to have preferred far less hair." He asked, having already tendered her every ounce of information and detail of what had passed between himself and Solas. The interest in blood rituals, the unspeakable troubles found inside of terrible dreams, all of the growing concern he'd gleaned from the worried apostate of the magics that were beyond even his expert control. Dorian had laid out every scrap of knowledge gained, all the notes and texts that had been safe enough to keep from the fire were given up for her discretion. Months of work had yielded little and had given Chiyo even fewer answers. He was so worried that she would hate him for the secrecy and withholding, after she'd been so honest and immediately on his side when his father had tried to draw him back home. The Inquisitor had supported all of his decisions in the matter. She'd even called him brave for standing up to the man that had tried to change him, and he'd repaid her rare friendship with a reserved tongue that could have spared her so much pain.
He puckered his mouth in a short-lived dally, but she gave him no reply, only the added slump of her weight. He returned his gaze to the fragrant letter. When her chin found the top of the groomed crown of his head he broke the red, wax seal with a twist of his little finger. Dorian unfolded the sheet and cleared his throat before giving the note a brief reading, his brow furrowing shortly after Josie's particularly crisp foreword.
"There was a young dwarf in Skyhold who was rather desperate to speak to you. She was found bumbling around the Herald's Rest and asking everyone when you'd next return." The Tevinter defector explained as he continued to read in her stead.
"I am not going back to Skyhold just to bless the ashes of another deceased Andrastian parent." Chiyo muttered, removing herself from the other mage and ambling towards the whistling teapot before the delicate, earthy leaves inside over-boiled and soured the potent brew.
Rotating on the short bench Dorian continued. "This one claims to have been hired on by Sutherland's crew."
With a hooked stick, the Inquisitor lifted the shrieking kettle and set it on the grass. From a small crate she fetched two humbly crafted wooden mugs, filled them to the brim and placed them on the table as she waited for the beverage to cool enough to be consumed without taking the flesh off her tongue and the roof of her mouth. "Sutherland is currently investigating the area surrounding Wycome at my personal request. They are not officially part of the Inquisition. She reports to him then, not me."
Hoisting the opened letter again in her direction Dorian began to shake his head. His warm hazel eyes turned sharp with seriousness as he countered the overcast Herald. "And he's been imprisoned."
"By who?" Chiyo snatched it from his hand and brought it to her own scouring eyes. A thick, dark brow immediately knotted at Josephine's much too brief retelling of what the informant had been willing to divulge.
"Duke Antoine." Said the charming mage with feigned disinterest, who promptly began to restack the documents he'd been reading that morning, folding them neatly into a tidy pile on his knee. He knew exactly what that name meant to the elf at his side and doubted that a rift the size of lake Calenhad could keep her from destroying the man who was rumored, though yet to be substantiated, responsible for the annihilation of her entire clan. She'd only been waiting for the evidence and the chance to question him herself, with or without the Inquisition's backing. Not that she trusted them any more with the handling of the elves.
Her Advisors had failed her miserably in that regard, when she'd given her word and her trust to their cause and capability only have it fall to unrepairable ruin. Since that terrible meeting where they'd had to inform her of the death of all her loved ones, she'd taken management over the distant investigation. With her own coin, Chiyo had funded the extensive journey required to send a mercenary group across the sea and into foreign lands once they'd proven their competence.
"Write to Bull." Chiyo requested, still hurriedly reading as she made her way back to the tent to wake the woman who had yet to get out of bed. "Ask him to meet us there."
Though Chiyo had never once considered herself to be anything resembling a 'nug-sucking whore' or wished to have her eyes popped out of her skull with the blunt end of an arrow, Sera certainly and loudly proclaimed the title and punishment to be suitable. Insults earned by no more than a gently shaking grasp on her shoulder, the rogue growled her drowsy disgorge of profanities without reserve.
"Don't you want to consult back with Josephine or the others?" Dorian raised a brow, picking up his tea as the terrible curses began to spew from the wide tent. "Leliana has offered you the use of her best infiltrators; certainly she could send them ahead to thwart trouble. There is no backup across the sea for us."
"No," answered Chiyo, barely avoiding a thrown boot as she scurried away from the parted flaps. "I'm doing this my way, not as the Inquisitor but as a Lavellen. Send one to Varric too. I will have my own spies."
