I'm sorry for the delay getting this chapter together. Life isn't exactly cooperating with me right now but I'm doing my best.

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Where in the void did Cole disappear to? Why haven't Elgar'nan tried to help? And will Anuira survive at all?

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Enjoy!

~.o.O.o.~

Credits for any tevene goes to katiebour at deviantart and the dragonage wikia.

Credits for any elvish goes to FenXshiral and whom ever is responsible for the LingoJam elven DAI translator. I'm sorry if I abuse the language. Bare with me, I'm trying

Chapter 35

~.o.O.o.~

Everywhere he looked he saw huge pillars of crystal weaving their way through the branches of enormous trees. Ever upwards they went, towards small "islands" in the clouds. The crystals had different hues and colors, different shapes and sizes and seemed more alive than the elf's moving around in the awe-inspiring landscape.
Cole found himself being ignored by the passers-by – or more correctly, he was invisible to them – and he wondered where he had ended up. Cole remembered being pulled, his entire being seeming to dissolve as he felt himself pulled further away from the world where Anuira lay dying in the arms of the Tevinter mage, desperately trying to save her life.

He had felt something as he touched his dying friend's forehead. A reluctance but it had been a simultaneous pull and push. A resisting, beckoning force that he had not been able to wrap his head around before he found himself slung into what later proved to be this weird, beautiful city.
Cole walked around the peculiar but beautiful city, listening, wondering and slowly forgetting why he was there, who he was looking for and why it was important for him to get back to where he came from.
He found himself in front of a huge hexagonal, silver fountain, depicting a lovely elven woman conjuring water from the ground and letting it fall into the fountain.

"You should not be here…" A deep voice suddenly rumbled sternly from behind as Cole stood admiring the intricate design of the well.
Cole jumped at the sound and spun to face whomever owned the voice. The sight that greeted him had him fidgeting and he was unable to look the elf in the eyes. Seldom had Cole seen someone so regal and the piercing gaze scrutinizing him had him squirming uncomfortably where he stood with his back against the fountain.

"Tell me spirit, how did you find this place?" the blackhaired elf with the tanned skin said as he adjusted a piece of his copper-colored chest armor.

"I… I wanted to help… I tried to. There was a pull… but then a push." Cole said hesitantly, daring to steal a glance at this elfs regal features.

"And who pulled at you?"

"Sadness… Shadows… Something more… but less…" Cole said truthfully, not fully knowing the answer to the question himself.

~.o.O.o.~

Dorian didn't know who to kill first, Cullen or Sebastian, but - seeing as how Cullen had so ungraciously disappeared - Dorian was strongly leaning towards Sebastian.
Cullen had, for some reason unknown to everyone, left and was nowhere to be found. Idrillas had sent a message to Skyhold letting them know Cullen was missing and to notify Starkhaven if the man appeared. Preferably with intricate details as to why the idiot had left in the first place.
Sebastian was just… Well… Sebastian. Saying all the wrong things, on all the wrong occasions.
He was a chantry-lackey through and through and due to this, he also had – according to Dorian and Idrillas at least – a rather skewed view of how the world should work. Chaste marriages, mages behind bars, templar rule under chantry supervision and so on. All in the name of the Maker of course.

Idrillas being a Dalish and Dorian a Tevinter magister, didn't exactly share the previous brother's view's and was, pretty much, on the verge of snapping his neck.
The only reason they were still in Starkhaven was so Anuira's wounds could be properly tended to by the one healer both Idrillas and Dorian trusted. Namely Merrill. And since Anuira still hadn't woken up, going anywhere was unthinkable.

Merrill had taken up healing at the insistence of Hawke, right after the cataclysmic events in Kirkwall a couple of years back. Both had seen more than their share of crazy and wanted to make a difference in another way than destruction. Hawke already knew what little he could learn about healing magic, but Merrill had the potential to become a brilliant spirit healer. And she had, with the guidance of the several Dalish tribes wandering the wilderness of the Free Marches and close by regions.

Dorian trusted Merrill mostly on gut feeling and the fact that Varric trusted the elf with his life and Idrillas trusted her because she was Dalish.

According to Merrill, Anuira was mostly fine, physically – though she had lost the baby no one but Dorian knew she was even carrying. And if it was due to the trauma to Anuiras midsection or the mysterious fact that she now seemed like a living vessel of lyrium, was unclear. They wouldn't know what had happen for sure until the elf woke up and for some reason Merrill could hardly sense Anuira at all. It was as if her body was filled to the brim and empty at the same time.

It had been almost five days since Merrill had closed all the wounds but still Anuira remained unconscious and even Elgar'nan was closed off. Both Dorian and Idrillas were losing hope but neither Hawke, Merrill, Dorian nor Idrillas was willing to take any chances by bringing in other mages so they kept the circumstances quiet. The last thing Anuira needed after all she had gone through, was becoming subject for persecution and or experiments due to the fact that she was something no one had probably ever seen.

Dorian was also antsy about the fact that Cole had mysteriously disappeared. Again.

"Would you sit down already? You are going to pace a hole in the good prince's floor if you continue on like that…" Dorian said, looking up from his book where he sat in a chair next to Anuira's bed.

"She should've woken up days ago!" Idrillas exploded, throwing his hands up in sheer frustration.

"And where is this spirit you mentioned?! Cole? Shouldn't he be back by now? I have a really bad feeling about this…" the elf continued heatedly, fidgeting with the window curtain where he was standing for the moment.

"And you think either of them will magically pop back into existence because you are wearing a hole in the stone floor of Starkhaven castle?" Dorian said tiredly, looking back at his book, leaning his head on his fingers.

"How can you be so calm?!" Idrillas growled loudly, looking – or rather glaring – at the mage.

"Looks can be rather deceiving my dear elf." Dorian replied matter-of-factly, meeting the white-haired elf's deep blue glare with his own grey stare.

"I've been through worse, as I'm sure you know and Anuira is rather stubborn. She will pull through this, just give her time, and if by any chance she needs my assistance, I'll make sure I'm right here!" Dorian said with conviction before settling back to read his book.

"Well that's… I just…" Idrillas started, looking like he was about to explode but then he visibly deflated in defeat.

"I'll just go get some food…" the young elf continued glumly, casting a last glare at the mage.

Dorian might be one of the most gorgeous things Idrillas had seen walking around Thedas, but he had a knack for walking all over the elf's nerves, driving him up the walls. He could never be sure if the mage meant what he said or if he was pulling Idrillas leg and it was tiring, annoying and utterly infuriating. Idrillas couldn't fathom what Anuira saw in the snarky, know-it-all Tevinter mage but had sworn to tolerate him until she was awake and matters could at least be discussed.

~.o.O.o.~

"For the moment I'm trapped here." Elgar'nan said simply in reply to the spirits question as to why he simply did not leave to help search for Anuira.

"Trapped? Yes. That's why I started to forget. Yes! Like the fade... but, different." Cole rambled, making Elgar'nan raise an eyebrow at the spirit now crouching on the rim of a huge hexagonal fountain.

"Speak clearly spirit. Do you know where we are?" He demanded.

"Yes! And no... It's the fade, but it's not… Locked… inside her, grieving, dark, hopeless. Empty but not alone." Cole still rambled, rocking back and forth as he chewed his thumb and staring at nothing in particular.

"Are you trying to tell me she has created another dimension, like the fade, inside herself? But that's impossible! It would kill her!"

"Yes... never ending, ever growing, pushing… Pulling her apart..." Cole answered, locking eyes with Elgar'nan as he finally stilled and focused on the moment.

"You can link with her?" Elgar'nan said surprised, more a statement than an actual question.

"Yes." Cole deadpanned.

"How?"

"I don't know." Cole said looking down at his feet, fidgeting with a pebble there.

"Can you get to her? You have the ability to cross between planes, you can reach her. Help her?" Elgar'nan wondered, growing more and more anxious by the minute. He didn't know why, how or even when he had started to care for the quirky elf who had been gracious enough to help him in his predicament, but now he found the fact of her dying to be unacceptable.
He was also more than curious about what in the void had happened to make the tiny mortal being strong enough to pull of making a dimensional pocket. Not to mention she drained him almost completely of his power and energy before exiling him here.

"Veil is weak... Full of holes. Easy to slip through." Cole said glumly, not looking up from his fiddlings with the little pebble.

"Whereas this, is not." Elgar'nan filled in, rubbing his forehead with one hand, sighing.