Oh, Baby
Sareyna spun in a slow circle taking in her surroundings. The light from the full moon filtered down between the leaves dappling the forest floor. The trees seemed to form an arch far above her head and the arch stretched out in front of her as well as behind.
There were no forest noises around her and it put her on her guard. She slowly started moving forward as quietly as she could. She was dismayed and confused. She was not wearing her armor and her weapons were missing as well. Even when she wasn't wearing her armor in the Keep she had carried weapons, even if they were concealed.
Then a more disturbing thought struck her, she had no idea how she had gotten into the forest. She spun around again, a little more quickly this time. "Alistair! Alistair!" Her cries were greeted with silence. "Anders? Nathaniel? Sigrun?" She felt herself becoming more and more anxious as each name was greeted with silence. "Oghren?" Still there was no answer.
She tried to keep herself calm as she continued walking. Part of her screamed out to run, the silence of the forest, her lover and the other wardens told her something was dreadfully wrong. She kept walking and taking slow breaths, to try to force herself to remain calm. She knew losing her head would only make this worse.
She had been walking for what seemed to be hours when she heard a lilting voice from behind her. "Mother." It was a simple statement. She felt her heart hammering in her chest as she slowly turned around.
She gasped at the sight behind her. There was an elf standing on the path, he seemed almost to be illuminated from within. His long golden hair swirled languidly in the air around him. He had pale golden skin and pale blue eyes. He wore a wide golden collar inlaid with gems that draped over his shoulders. He also had gemmed golden bracers on each wrist.
He was bared to the waist and had a well muscled torso. He wore what appeared to be a blue wrap around his waist, it hung down to mid calf. Sareyna studied his face carefully. He had a prominent tattoo on it; it looked like a butterfly or maybe a phoenix, it was a pale blue in color.
The silence stretched out as she studied the elf. She was jolted out of her slow perusal of the elf when he spoke again. "Mother." Again it was a statement.
She tilted her head to the right in query. "I'm sorry ser; I believe you are confusing me for someone else."
"No, I'm sure this will be confusing, but I am Urthemiel, you call me Trelain." He paused for a moment to await her response.
"But, you're an infant." She stated slightly confused.
"My physical body is da'len, but my soul is as I was before I was trapped in the Abyss."
"Ok." She said with a shaky voice. "So, we're in the Fade?" Sareyna wondered how the scenery was all crystal clear instead of blurred at the edges like it normally was when she was in the Fade.
"Yes, I needed to speak with you and as my body is unable, I had to do so here. First, I wanted you to know I do not begrudge you your distance. I am unable to imagine the pain I caused you. I wish to apologize for that which there exists no proper words to apologize with. If I knew of a way to fix what has happened I would." He paused looking stricken. Sareyna was surprised by his earnestness and sincerity.
He shook his head as if clearing away cobwebs before continuing. "I have information that is of vital importance. We are in great danger; I have felt the energy of a very dangerous shemlen nearby. He is treacherous, a liar, and more dangerous than any foe you have ever faced." He stopped short when she started laughing.
"You know how ridiculous that sounds don't you? I mean you were the bloody Archdemon." She felt like she was losing her mind.
"Yes, I remember it all. All the death, all the pain, and all the terror I caused. I was cognizant of every atrocity that I committed. It is something I have to live with until I die or enter Uthenera, quite possibly longer. It is because of who I am, who I was, that I am uniquely qualified to judge how dangerous this man is.
He trapped me in the Abyss along with my brothers and sisters. He is powerful indeed to have been able to trap us. My brothers and sisters and I were the oldest elves not in Uthenera. We knew much and were responsible for teaching those younger than and not as wise as ourselves."
"Wait." She interrupted him. "This is the second time that you have spoken of being trapped in the Abyss. What do you mean?"
He sighed and took a deep breath. "How is it that you do not know? Do the Shemlens not have keepers of lore?"
"We have historians, but we are told that the Old Gods turned people away from the Maker and were imprisoned underground for doing so. We are told that the Old gods were Dragons and contacted mages from the Fade to teach them magic. And it was these human mages that went into the Golden city to try to claim power for themselves and that they corrupted the Black City causing the first Blight and that these magi or magisters were cast down and became the first Darkspawn. I don't understand, you're an elf, not a dragon." She shook her head in confusion. None of this made any sense to her.
"It seems the truth of what happened has been erased, it does not surprise me that the mage would create another story for the Shemlens to believe, but do the elves not know the truth?"
"Much was lost from the elves; they lost most of their lore when they were forced to become slaves." Urthemiel flinched as if slapped.
"I quit watching the world after a while, it was too painful to keep my mind awake while I was trapped so. It sounds as if they suffered greatly, part of me is glad I missed such a thing."
Sareyna nodded to him in acknowledgement and he started his tale. "Shemlens had only recently come to Thedas when I was trapped. We had met mages from a place called the Tevinter Imperium. They knew magic but it was small things, spells that even our da'len could manage.
We had become friends for a time, even living alongside one another. But when we learned that having children with the Shemlen resulted in the children resembling the Shemlen we started to think we should not mix. We are a highly adaptive people, this time instead of allowing us to propagate; it assured we could be wiped away. If no new da'len were born, then once we entered Uthenera there would be none to care for us and no reason to awaken.
Many were not convinced we should distance ourselves from the Shemlen. While we were debating the decision, our people started dying for the first time. Many Elvhen were very scared and became more fervent in their demands for separation. Others still clung to the hope that we could co-exist.
I felt very strongly that we try to co-exist. I felt that we could help the shemlen. They were so violent and so young. I thought that we could co-exist if we could only teach them peaceful ways. They were as da'len to us. We should have helped them, not try to separate ourselves. We couldn't just pretend they didn't exist.
But others wanted us to separate from them completely. Saying that if we did not we would die out. We understood their concerns, but as the wiser race we should have tried to make it work. We fought bitterly for a long time. Arguments raged on for years, it was a new thing for us to feel such passion, another effect of the quickening we supposed.
A mage from the Tevinter Imperium came to us, his name was Renault. He asked us to teach him our ways and magic, wanting help for his newborn nation. Deception was a foreign concept to us; we had never experienced it before. So we gladly taught him, hoping the Tevinters would be able to use our gifts to bring them peace and abundance.
He came to us one day to break bread. There was suddenly a loud rumble and the ground shook and split beneath our feet. All of Arlathan was swallowed up into the earth. There were screams as elves were crushed in the rock. I turned myself into dragon form as it could withstand much more damage than I could normally.
Eventually the screaming died down and I felt the life around me reduced to a weak flicker. I was concerned when I felt my brothers and sisters so far away from me. I did not know how we had been separated. I struggled for years to try to free myself to no avail. I know not how he trapped us, he was merely a shemlen. "
Sareyna sat on the ground, she was confused. "So all the mythology we have about the Old Gods is about elves?" Urthemiel opened his mind to speak when she had a thought and interrupted. "Wait, the ones that wanted to live separate from the humans, was that Elgar'nan, Mythal and those guys?"
Urthemiel's eyes grew wide. "How is it that you know them? Are they still walking among the Elvhen?"
Sareyna shook her head. "No, they are the Elven Gods. The lore says Fen'Harel sealed them into the heavens and sealed the forgotten ones into the abyss."
"We were all tricked into the Abyss together. We did not know anyone called Fen'Harel; however the word means trickster in our language. Perhaps that is what our people came to call Renault. We have no word in our language for deceiver, this would be the closest.
This shemlen sealed my siblings and I in the abyss and sealed our other Hahrens into the heavens." He shook his head sadly.
"How can this man possibly be Renault? Humans are not immortal." Sareyna asked, confused.
"I can only guess that he learned even more magics from somewhere. His energy is a bit different, it tastes of corruption. I am very familiar with corruption, I can feel it in you and those who surround you, but it is barely there. The corruption is strong within him. But it is he, I swear. And he is dangerous, he created the Darkspawn." Urthemiel was distressed and the light that came from within him flickered across his skin.
Sareyna's head snapped up in surprise. "He created the Darkspawn? We are told it was The Maker who created them. That the Tevinter mages invaded the Golden City and were turned into Darkspawn as a punishment for corrupting the Golden City and turning it into the Black City."
"No, Renault made the Darkspawn. I watched him, feeling him as long as I could stand it after I was entombed. The demons in the fade had taught him magic as well. He helped them posses other mages in exchange for their knowledge. He had taken over a city called Rutilus Urbs that belonged to his fellow shemlen in the Tevinter Imperium. When they tried to depose him he turned them into Darkspawn as a punishment and had the ground swallow them up as well. He did something wrong and the whole city became sick with a plague and all died.
I do not know what happened to him from there. I could no longer watch with no ability to stop him or to help the peoples of Thedas. I had thought perhaps he had died with the others, but he is here. He is underground, but near. You must take all precautions against him, use any means necessary." He let out a weary sigh. What she did from here was up her. He was mortal and Da'len in the physical world, there was nothing he could do for her.
"Is there anything you could tell us or teach us that might help, some ancient elven magic or something?" Her face showed her concern at his words of warning.
"Let me think on it, to see if there is something I might do to help." He started to become more transparent.
"What is going on?" She asked, concern etching her face.
"I am leaving you to your rest. I need to rest as well. This was very draining for me." He slowly faded away and Sareyna awoke. She pulled Alistair's arm tighter around her wondering if any of it had been real before she slipped into an undisturbed sleep in another part of the Fade.