"The past is never where you think you left it." -Katherine Anne Porter
Toriana was out recruiting in eastern Ferelden when the summons came. Her hunt for new Grey Wardens to bolster their faltering numbers had borne no recruits - people were unwilling to volunteer for such a harsh life, and Toriana no longer had the heart to force them into it with the Right of Conscription. It seemed cruel to tear people from their homes and families, their lives, no matter the need. She'd grown soft in many ways since the Blight. Though the whispering song of the Old Gods had grown strong in the past couple of weeks, worrying her that either her Calling had come far too early or a new Blight was about to begin, she simply couldn't bring herself to conscript the unwilling. And she wasn't ready to face the prospect of her impending death.
In desperation (and perhaps with the hope of distraction and escape from the current atmosphere of Ferelden) she'd ventured into the Brecilian Forest, looking to find one of the few Dalish clans that didn't threaten to shoot her on sight. She'd hoped to encounter Lanaya's clan, for they were about as close to friendly with the Senior Warden as any Dalish might be with a 'shemlen', having not forgotten how she had brought peace to their people and ended the werewolf curse. In the nine odd years since the Fifth Blight, with her new resources, Toriana had also occasionally left supply drops of food and blankets for the clan to find whenever a particularly harsh winter hit. Often in return she'd get mysterious packages delivered by bewildered travelling merchants who were unsure how they'd come to possess such items - often they were simply passing through wilder country and found them in their wagons with no one to be seen. The packages were always addressed to her by name, with no note or name of the sender, but when she opened them to find Dalish spiced cookies, salty-sweet ram meat, or small ironbark carvings of griffons or dragons, she knew they'd been sent by Lanaya.
It was during her trek through the towering, ancient trees with her faithful mabari, Rabbit, that the messenger somehow found her. Toriana had settled down on the mossy earth with her back against one of the massive tree trunks to eat a leisurely meal of dried meat and bread sprinkled with blueberries and seeds. Or rather, it was as leisurely as she could manage. In moments of quiet and rest like these the song grew louder, and she found it helped to hum wordless tunes or chew especially loudly as she ate. Rabbit sat beside her with his rump heavily pressed against her thigh, his short-cropped ears pricked and alert and his loud panting helping to distract her mind from the call from the Deep. She kept her staff propped across her lap; best to have her defenses ready - while the Dalish clans may be unlikely to harass her, there were still sometimes territorial great bears and malicious spirits, as well as the occasional unlucky emergence of darkspawn.
The baritone rumble of Rabbit's growl alerted her to something approaching. In seconds Toriana had tossed her half-eaten food onto her pack and stood in a half-crouch, staff in her hands and fingers crackling with electricity as her hound stood in front of her with teeth bared.
It was a rather young elf who approached through the shadows cast by the trees, in dark leathers bearing the white griffon of the Order. His darting eyes took in his surroundings while also fixating on the Senior Warden and her dog, his hands up to show he wasn't a threat and his voice tight as he regarded the mabari. "Senior Warden Amell! Warden Alris, I come bearing a summons from Warden-Commander Clarel."
Toriana relaxed and straightened up, the sparks around her hands fizzling away as she perched her staff on the ground in front of her. Rabbit took the unspoken cue smoothly and stopped growling, though he stayed standing alert and staring at the other Warden. Her eyebrows furrowed in surprise and confusion at the elf's words. "Clarel? Why would she be sending me a summons of all things? Have you come all the way from Orlais?"
Alris shifted uncomfortably and rubbed at his forehead, dark eyes weary and shadowed on his face. "Yes, I was sent to bring word, it's... The Calling. We've all-well, all of the Wardens throughout Ferelden, Orlais, and the Free Marches… we've all been hearing it."
Toriana's eyes widened at that and she took a minute to think before she spoke again. She'd been on the road since her Calling began and hadn't heard from any Wardens in the meantime. Could it be true that they were all hearing it now? What did that mean? Was this another Blight, so soon after the last? But no, the last Blight hadn't caused her and Alistair to hear the song like this, so sickly sweet and constantly present. Then what was it?
She tried to run her fingers through her hair and they caught on the braids intermixed in her disheveled straight hair. She frowned and tugged on one of the braids, an old nervous habit she'd thought broken by now. Clearly not. Alris watched her silently for a few moments before pulling a somewhat crumpled letter from a fold in his armor and holding it out to her. Rabbit let out a low huff and lifted a bit of lip in warning and Alris recoiled a bit, not exactly afraid but definitely wary.
The Senior Warden gently flicked the back of Rabbit's thick head, "That's enough of that, he's fine," she said in a voice that wasn't as stern as the words suggested. The mabari let out a protesting groan but sat docilely nonetheless. She stepped forward and took the letter with a nod of thanks and ripped it open, eyes rapidly skimming the message. Clarel was urgently calling the Wardens to Orlais to decide what to do about this new development. She cursed under her breath. This was bad. In the back of her mind she wondered if Alistair was experiencing the Calling, and if he'd received summons as well despite the fact that he was now King of Ferelden. Being King didn't keep you from dying of the darkspawn taint. But he likely wasn't being summoned, after all he was the King, and he had more important matters to attend to, she was sure.
She shoved that upsetting thought away and looked at Alris. "Do you have more Wardens to track down?"
The fair-haired elf, who couldn't have been more than twenty years old, shook his head. "Everyone that could be accounted for has been. You were the hardest to find."
Toriana allowed herself a self-important smirk at that. Disappearing into the Brecilian Forest did make one hard to track, despite the fact she wasn't trying to hide her passing. She wasn't surprised they'd sent an elf after her, however; humans had the tendency to believe large forests were the domain of the 'wild knife-ears'. It wasn't a sentiment she shared… especially not after a year of traveling with and befriending Morrigan, a human more at home in the wilds than most Dalish elves were.
The mage reached down to grab her food and toss her bag over her shoulders before turning back to Alris, breaking off a piece of her bread and offering it to him. "Well then we'd better get moving then lest we miss what's sure to be an exciting party."
Alris looked surprised and took a moment to recover before taking the offered food and rapidly wolfing it down, wiping the crumbs from his face abashedly. "Yes, ah, thank you. It's been a long journey and I didn't quite ration properly."
Toriana looked him up and down. He certainly looked scrawny even for an elf, like he couldn't spare to lose more than a few pounds, and Grey Wardens didn't exactly have dainty appetites. She adjusted the straps of her pack and handed him the rest of the bread before tossing the strip of the meat to Rabbit - it vanished down the dog's gullet before Alris could even bring his bread up to his mouth.
She gestured with her head and they began walking westward, with Rabbit stubbornly keeping between them. "They told you I wouldn't come along easily, didn't they?" she asked with a raised eyebrow and that same self-important smirk on her face, recalling his surprise at her swift response.
Alris eyed her with a hint of nervousness and finished chewing his last bite. "Ahh… they may have mentioned you might not be keen on, err…" he trailed off awkwardly and was surprised by a sharp laugh from the woman.
"Following orders?" She practically giggled, a strange sound coming from a lean, battle-hardened woman of nearly 30 years of age. "I've been known to disregard orders I find corrupt or downright stupid." She winked at the shocked young man and grinned when Rabbit gave a small approving 'boof'. The Senior Warden sobered up quickly and added, "But this… well. This warrants immediate obedience, if for nothing else then to get more information on what the hell is happening. The Calling in every Warden in southern Thedas?" She shook her head, forehead wrinkled and eyes fixed in the distance. "What does it mean?"
She didn't expect an answer, and Alris didn't try to give her one. They walked in comfortable enough silence, the shared bond of their Order joining them as brother and sister even if they didn't know one another. The trek through the Brecilian Forest wasn't exactly an easy one. The terrain was uneven, with roots and stones and snagging brush everywhere. Toriana was unwilling to damage anything in the forest beyond what they might normally step on - she knew the forest didn't take kindly to those who sowed unnecessary destruction - but damn if she wasn't tempted to simply blast fire along the path in front of them to make it a bit easier. When she'd been traveling with just Rabbit with no destination in mind, merely a somewhat directed wandering, she hadn't minded going slow.
Now, however, the pace felt torturous, and they threw themselves into their travel with single-mindedness, keeping conversation down to just pointing out hazards to look out for. They were still at least three day's walk from the edge of the forest, as far as she could tell, when they stopped to camp for the night. The tall trees cast shadows on the forest floor even during the daytime; at night, the darkness was nearly impenetrable. Toriana's staff - a naturally twisted and knotted length of ancient oak with a large piece of polished stormheart entwined in the wood at the end - glowed with a blue-white light so they didn't require torches, but the way was getting treacherous and it would be dangerous to continue if they couldn't see potential enemies coming.
After setting up their small, simple tents and starting a small fire, Toriana, Rabbit, and Alris sat eating more salted ram meat, this time with a dried apple apiece and a few hard cracker rations that didn't go down very well but kept the stomach feeling more full. Again the elf gobbled his food down as if he half expected it to disappear, and Toriana again looked him up and down. He wasn't frail, merely a bit scrawny and possessing of elves' natural litheness. Definitely young, barely out of adolescence she'd think. No vallaslin, so it was safe to assume he wasn't Dalish. He had daggers strapped to his back, and shoulder-length blonde hair pulled back in a careless tie.
Curiosity got the better of her, and the two of them were going to be travelling together for some time, so she finally broke the silence and said, "Tell me about yourself, Alris. Where are you from? How did you come to join the Wardens?"
Alris shifted uncomfortably, but the Senior Warden had shown him nothing but courtesy and even unwarranted kindness in sharing her food, so he merely swallowed once and spoke, staring up at the shadows above them. "I lived in the alienage in Denerim. Dad and sister died in the purge Rendon Howe led, mom was taken by the Tevinter slavers that came after. Was caught stealing about half a year back and the shems-humans," he corrected hastily, eyes darting to her face and his body clearly tensing. To what, run?
Toriana waved an uncaring hand, "Yes yes, I'm a shem, I'm well aware, do go on."
The young man didn't seem to know what to make of that, but he was emboldened by her reaction and continued. "The humans locked me up, and when I got sick of the cell and escaped they decided I wasn't worth the trouble. I would've been run through with a sword or hung from the nearest rafter if Warden Gautier hadn't been there and conscripted me."
Toriana nodded. It wasn't an uncommon story, being saved from execution by a well-timed Grey Warden invoking the Right of Conscription. She couldn't care less that he'd been a thief - after all, she'd been conscripted after she helped a blood mage try to escape the Circle Tower. She hadn't known he was a blood mage at the time, sure, but it didn't discount the fact that she still did it. And living in the Denerim alienage… well, she'd have turned to thievery too, most likely. Her memories of the place were not recent - she avoided Denerim as much as she could - but those she did have haunted her.
"I'm sorry about your family. Howe was a monster of a man." Her voice was low and solemn and when Alris pulled his eyes down from the treetops to look at her he found only sadness in her gaze.
"Yeah…" the elf cleared his throat uncomfortably and looked down at the fire. "Was you who killed him though, wasn't it?" he asked, though it wasn't really a question. "And you killed the Vints who were killing us."
Toriana let out a short, humorless laugh. "Few deaths gave me greater pleasure than theirs, I assure you." It was the truth. In those moments all those years ago - tracking down Caladrius and ending his life, and slaughtering Howe like a pig - it hadn't been the thought of finding dirt on Loghain that spurred her anger, her flaming rage that threatened to call a demon to her across the Veil. It had been the thought of the little elven children screaming and trying to hide as Howe's men mercilessly cut them down. It had been the thought of the men, tortured to the brink of insanity, imprisoned in Howe's dungeons. It had been the thought of the elves cowering in small cages, begging to be saved, as Caladrius coldly tried to bargain to use their blood for power.
Those thoughts had made the killing of Caladrius and Howe sweet with vengeance. Those same thoughts also kept her awake some nights, even after ten years had passed.
The dark subject of their conversation didn't lend well to continued banter, and so with little else said the two of them doused the fire and retreated to their tents, with Rabbit's keen ears and nose plenty defense against any potential dangers. As she lay in the darkness Toriana couldn't block out the song, a sick and twisted melody that sounded more enticing and beautiful the more she listened. Eventually she fell asleep, but when she did her dreams were dark and full of memories she wished she could leave behind.