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In the beginning, there is snow and darkness.
She wakes in the cold. There is nothing but snow and rocks and wet dirt beneath her fingernails. The blizzard is fierce and the wind bays like a beaten dog through cragged cliffs hidden in the gloom. There is no path, only emptiness.
There is a frozen riverbed. Evergreens frown on either side of the waterway, heavy with snow. She tries to stand, fails, and continues to crawl. She rests under a shelf of stone and listens to the forest, but there is no sound, only snow.
The wind ebbs. The snowfall lessens. Billows of white spray into the air as she trudges. The snow is deep and bites at the skin below her knees. She doesn't notice the cold. In the dark, she looks for tracks. She hopes for halla and prays for birds and watches the shadows for bears. There are no animals here, only her.
The forest is thick. The trees are tall and block out the sky. The snow is light and sparse. It decorates the shriveled tops of gnarled roots and thaws under her boots as she treks. The soil is blighted and black in its wake. Elfroot and winterstalk sprout from the ground. She plucks their leaves to feed herself. They melt between her fingertips. There is no food here, only hunger.
Today, she remembers she has a face. It burns where her vallaslin once was. The snow begins to fall again. It feels like rain and tastes like the Free Marches: sulfur, sweet, and familiar. In the distance, she hears a ram bellow. A flurry of hooves drum against the ground, distant but urgent, like children scurrying home for supper. She opens her mouth and calls out, but she has no voice, only the memory of one.
Lavellan wakes in a clearing. It is warm, and the chalky mist that beetles through the trees is rich with the scent of lavender, pine, and slow-growing moss. As she walks, the glade reveals itself to her. A hare darts through the undergrowth, dust and dirt streaming behind it as it runs. The rivulet that cuts through here is clear, with deep grooves packed with burnished pebbles that gleam like pearls.
Above, there is sky and the comforting glister of stars. There is no moon, but the world is bright. As she ventures onward, the landscape changes. There are less trees and more stones; her footsteps echo with the sound of gravel churning. There are sharp ledges she has to climb.
In the distance, a shape waits for her.
On a high precipice, she sees a wolf. It watches her with brilliant, intelligent eyes. She can feel them. Her phantom vallaslin throbs. Lavellan struggles with her voice. Her cries are pitiful, barely above a whisper, yet the eyes of the forest turn to her. In the foreground, a herd of august rams look up from their grazing to stare. The wolf shudders to his feet, and leaves. She reaches out with both hands and falls from the rocky ledges.
When she returns, there is only snow and darkness.