She was standing in Solas' room, the one that branched off from his study. But it looked different. There was that strange colorful haze that felt cool against her skin, but through the haze she saw crates and barrels in the room instead of Solas' small bed and dresser. His staff wasn't leaning against the wall where it usually was, and cobwebs adorned each corner of the room.
Talyn spun around, assessing her surroundings.
"Strange, isn't it?" Solas said from behind her.
She jumped and whirled around to see his smiling face. Talyn could feel the power rolling off of him, even from where she was standing. It formed goosebumps on her arms.
"Where are we?" She asked.
He leaned on his staff, and said teasingly, "you told me to show you the Fade. So here we are."
Talyn grinned, excitement making her limbs shaking with energy. "What year is it?"
Solas walked out of the room, and Talyn followed. There was nothing in the study except for furniture covered with thin sheets. It was so strange not to see Solas' unfinished mural on the walls, and his desk that sat in the middle of the room.
"Skyhold has been around since Arlathan." He said to her.
"Arlathan?" The famed capital of Elvhenan. It had been destroyed by the Tevinter Imperium far before Talyn had been born.
She followed Solas through a hallway that led to the main hall, where the sounds of celebration rang in her ears.
The main hall was lit with thousands of tiny lights hanging from the ceiling, as if they had pulled down the very stars to light the room. Vines were growing from the floor, sneaking their way up the walls, their leaves sticking straight out, as if they were carved from stone. Glasses were set on the leaves, while food was served by men and women wearing black uniforms, their hair tied back to reveal pieces of red paper pierced to their pointed ears.
It wasn't the vines or the stars, or the fact that every single person was an elf that made Talyn jump with excitement. It was the fact that hovering above them in the air were people dancing. Some invisible force kept them above the crowd of people, and they jumped and spun around with no fear of falling to the ground.
"Oh, Solas, that is amazing." She breathed.
Then she turned and looked down the end of the hall, where the wolf throne was still sitting. A second one was by his side, and they were both occupied. One was wearing a skin-tight powder blue gown, her blond hair tied into two long braids, and the other had long black hair that fell to his waist in dreads. They were holding hands, and from the way their bodies shook, they were laughing.
But Talyn frowned. It was when she saw the two people sitting on the thrones that she noticed one thing that was off. She couldn't see their faces. They were blank, just like the faces scratched out in that mural Solas had shown her.
"Why can't I see their faces?" She asked Solas.
"You're not skilled in this. The older the memory is, the more likely you'll be missing some details." Solas explained.
Talyn made a small "hmmm" noise in response. She looked back up at the people dancing in the air.
"Can we do that?" She asked.
Solas pulled her to him wordlessly, and they ascended into the air.
Talyn laughed and clung to him, afraid that if she let go she would fall back to the floor. She watched the people below them, wondering what would happen if she swung her leg. Would someone get hit in the head?
"How?" She turned her gaze back to him.
Solas smiled. "In the days where Elvhenan still stood, magic was limitless. Anything was possible."
They danced to the beat of the drums, the primordial music filling Talyn with a primal energy she hadn't felt before. Her body moved of its own accord, as if she had done this dance a thousand times. All around her she could see the faceless elves moving their bodies in the same way, grinding against each other, their limbs tangling in a way that almost looked like sex.
The people threw their heads back and howled, their chorus made her shiver. Solas leaned his head back and howled with them, the beautiful note rising high above the others. Talyn found herself following his lead and letting out a howl of her own. They descended back to the ground, where Talyn found her legs suddenly feeling like weights were tied around her ankles. She was breathing hard, she could feel the sweat on her brow.
"What was that?" Talyn asked in a breathless voice.
"The Dance of Wolves." Solas was beaming, his eyes shining like a star.
He grabbed her hand. "Follow me."
She let him lead her through the people. She nearly screamed when she saw that Solas was literally walking right through them, but then he pulled her outside.
There were more elves in the courtyard, dancing around a blazing fire. It was so tall that it's grey smoke blocked out the very stars, and Talyn could feel it's heat from where they were standing on the steps. There was shapes in the fire, like moving pictures within it's red and orange flames. She could make out a man and a woman.
"Solas, what's in the fire?"
"They're celebrating a wedding."
Solas was dismissive about the fire, but Talyn was hypnotized by the moving man and woman in the flames. She would have stayed to watch it, but Solas was pulling her away from the festivities, away from everyone, and led her to the stables.
Talyn didn't question him, but she was unsure of why he was bringing her to see horses.
When he led her through the doors, her unspoken questions were answered. She let out a shocked, wordless sound at the sight before her.
A massive creature stared her down in the middle of the stable. It had the head of a bird, it's powerful hooked beak opening and closing soundlessly. It's feathers were just as gold as the feline body is was attached to, along with the long, elegant wings it stretched out. It's feet had the paws of a cat and the ivory talons of a hawk. A loud, menacing sound came from the creature. It wasn't the chirp of a bird, but some predatory roar that made the hair on her arms stand up.
"Oh, Creators, he's beautiful." Talyn whispered.
A griffon. This was an actual griffon.
"She, actually. The males aren't as bright of a gold." Solas corrected her.
He was watching her, she could feel his eyes on her. She stepped forward and held her hand out to the gorgeous beast. The griffon didn't notice when she stroked the feathers on her face. Talyn pulled her hand back immediately when the griffon swung its giant head to look behind her.
"Does she see me?"
Solas chuckled. "No, she doesn't. But she might feel you. Animals are more perceptive than people."
She felt his hand on the small of her back. "Would you like to ride her?"
Talyn looked behind her at Solas, her eyes wide with anticipation. "Oh, yes, please let me ride the griffon."
He pulled her to the side of the griffon, where there was already an ebony saddle sitting on her back.
"After you, vhenan."
Talyn climbed into the saddle, and Solas climbed in it behind her.
"What are we waiting for?"
Just then, the man and woman who had been sitting on the thrones came running in, their hands still clasped together. They were laughing in whispers, looking behind them as if they weren't supposed to be in there.
"Hurry, before they find us!" The woman rushed her lover.
"Relax, ma'alas'en. We'll be off the ground before they know we're gone."
Their voices… they were so familiar. It hurt Talyn's head to try to think about where she'd heard them.
Talyn tensed when they climbed into the saddle, yet she felt nothing but a cold wind. The woman went on the saddle first, just as Talyn had done, and the man was behind her. Solas' arms went around her.
"Brace yourself, wife." His voice echoed with the midnight haired man's.
"I think I know how to ride a griffon, husband." Talyn found her own voice echoing the woman's.
With another shrieking roar, the griffon spread her wings and went up into the sky through a hole in the roof. Talyn screamed in delight, and Solas joined her.
The wind stung Talyn's cheeks and blew her hair back from her face. The griffon was moving so fast she felt like her breath was being stolen from her lungs. She held out her arms on either side of her and shouted, "I'm flying!"
She turned and looked back at Solas, then twisted her body so she could reach him-
It felt like Talyn's soul had been slammed back into her body. She bolted upright, pulling the blanket off of her face. She touched her cheeks, half expecting them to be frozen. She was panting, as if she truly had the breath stolen from her lungs. Solas sat up slowly beside her, and he rubbed her back.
"What was that?" She gasped in between breaths.
"The griffon flew away from Skyhold, so the memory was cut off."
"That was insane."
She could still feel the feathers of the griffon in her hands, she could still smell the alcohol and hear the music and feel the heat from that massive bonfire.
"You can see that whenever you fall asleep?"
He laughed. "Yes, whenever I want to."
She laid back down, and so did he. "That's incredible."
He smiled. "I know."
"Show me again."
A week went by with no word from Hawke and Varric. Talyn was getting impatient, and she was second guessing her decision to let Varric handle it without her. She forced herself to keep busy so that she wouldn't worry about the dwarf. When she wasn't handling the affairs of Skyhold, she was with Solas. And if she wasn't with Solas, she was training in the courtyard with the soldiers.
She started helping Cullen train the new recruits. It had been the first time since they got back from Orlais that they had a real conversation, aside from the council meetings. Cullen had approached her and asked if she wanted to assist, since the largest wave of recruits they had ever received had just marched through the gates. Most of them were young men or seasoned soldiers from Orlais, but every single one of them had to be trained how to stand their ground with a red Templar.
Talyn, with her super elvhen abilities, was the closest thing to a red Templar. So, she agreed to teach them.
It was snowing, the large, fluffy snowflakes clung to her armor and was shaken off by her movements. The dummy-slash-recruit in front of her also had snow sticking to him, it flattened down his hair and dripped water into his eyes, forcing him to squint. He wasn't fairing so well in this particular sparring session.
To be fair, Talyn wasn't exactly going easy on him either. Her frustration brought out the light in her tattoos, and she moved faster than the man could think. They had been going at it for twenty minutes now, and all he had been able to do was block her attacks, which was a feat in itself.
Finally, he fell onto the snowy ground and held up his fingers in forfeit.
Talyn drove her sword into the hard ground, the force of her strength made half of the blade sink into the earth.
"Go on, get some water." She told him.
The man nodded and scrambled to get off of the ground. She watched him limp away, and then she addressed the other recruits that were standing in a line watching her.
"You are not fighting men!" She shouted. "You are fighting demons, and monsters. They do not stop to rest, they do not falter when they are injured. More than likely, it will take more than one of you to take only one of them down."
She started to walk back and forth down the line, her hands behind her back. "That doesn't mean that we are doomed to fail. All it means is that we have to work harder, we have to push ourselves, we have to pay attention." Her last words were directed at one of the younger women who was picking dirt out of her nails with a knife. The woman immediately straightened her posture and looked ahead.
"Giving up is not an option. Slacking off with your training is not an option. We are protecting all of Thedas. If we fall, Thedas will fall. Your families will burn under Corypheus' red armies. They will be tortured, infected with the red disease, and then tossed aside like garbage. Because to Corypheus, that is all we are. Insects to be controlled and used as he pleases. Remember that."
"Yes, Inquisitor." They said to her at the same time.
"Borin, Kingsley." Talyn motioned with her fingers for the two men to step forward.
"Why don't you give them a real demonstration, Inquisitor?" Fenris' deep, gravelly voice came from the very end of the line.
Talyn looked and saw Fenris there with his unsmiling face, yet a challenge was shining in his eyes. He already had his sword unsheathed, the tip of it stabbing into the frozen ground. Like Talyn, he wasn't wearing a cloak.
She grinned. "I thought you were injured, Fenris. Wouldn't Hawke be upset?"
"Are you going to tell on me?" He looked at her, and then at the recruits.
There was a wave of no's that they uttered, and Talyn laughed. She went back to her sword and pulled it from the earth.
"Alright then."
Fenris stepped forward, lifting his long, deadly looking sword.
Her and Fenris circled each other, sizing one another up. Fenris was the first one to attack. Talyn moved out of the way but felt the tip of his sword scrape against the side of her armor. That made her burst with laughter. It taught her not to underestimate him.
She spent the next few minutes testing out his style, how to best beat him. He didn't land another blow on her, and she didn't get a chance to hit him. She dodged his attacks, leaping this way and that with light feet. She tapped the tip of his sword, which made him lunge. She went to parry, and then dipped under his sword to tap the broad, flat side of her blade against his side.
Fenris, one. Talyn, one.
Fenris came after her, driving his sword down on to her over and over, leaving her barely enough time to block it. He was backing her into the wall where the wooden dummies filled with straw were standing. An idea lit up like a fire in her head, and she continued to let him drive her back into the wall where she could be cornered.
The recruits watching started to cheer them on, and more voices were joining in.
When she felt one of the arms of the dummies stab her shoulder she ducked behind it. Fenris' sword came down on the dummy, nearly splitting it in two. She jabbed her sword, which made him leap back, giving her ample space to carry out her idea. Her tattoos lit up as she bent down and gripped the base of the dummy. She tore it out of the earth, black dirt and snow flying in every direction, and with all her might she threw it at Fenris.
She had moved so quickly that Fenris didn't have any time to react. The dummy went zooming right towards him, hitting him square in the chest and throwing him back on the ground a few feet away.
A chorus of shouts started up around them.
"HOLY SHIT!" She heard one of the recruits cry out.
Fenris jumped back to his feet in a split second and came running at her. She did the move again, but this time Fenris was ready for it. He sliced the wooden dummy in half before it hit him.
Talyn held onto one of the other dummies with her free hand. She jumped into the air and did a semi circle to gain the momentum she needed to slam her foot into his chest. It stunned him, but he recovered within seconds and swung his blade.
Talyn blocked it.
"So, what will happen when I win, Inquisitor?" Fenris asked. His face was still set in that grim expression, but his voice and his eyes were smiling.
"When I win, you mean?" Talyn laughed. "You're going to owe me a drink!"
Fenris' markings were shining blue with the lyrium. He wasn't holding back anymore, and neither was Talyn. They locked their blades, and with a quick fluid motion Fenris had punched a spiked, armored hand right into her face.
She stumbled back, temporarily stunned. She ducked and rolled out of the way of his blade, holding onto her nose. Warm liquid was dripping down her lips, and by the stinging pain she felt, it was definitely broken. But at least she wasn't cornered into the wall anymore. Now Fenris was.
There was another chorus of "ooohs" that came from the crowd that just kept growing. It reminded Talyn of when she sparred with Cole, how the whole crowd was taking bets on who would win.
"You're gonna pay for that, Fenris!" Her voice sounded strange from the broken nose. She got back on her feet and ran towards him.
But Fenris wasn't holding up his sword. He was just standing there, slightly bent over, his hand on his belly. Talyn stopped, concern washing over her now. He did tell her that he had been injured, and that was why Hawke wanted him to stay behind.
"Fenris, are you alright?" She asked.
Fenris stood upright, a smirk on his face and the tip of his sword pointed lightly touching Talyn's throat.
She grinned. "Cheater."
"You still owe me a drink." He coughed.
He did look pale, and there was a fine sheen of sweat on his face, but Talyn couldn't tell if that was from their sparring or if he was actually hurt.
"You really don't look good, Fenris."
"There is a chance that my stitches were ripped."
As if to prove his theory, Talyn noticed blood dripping from underneath his armor onto the snow.
"DeLuca, take over." She barked a command to one of the veteran soldiers standing by. She put an arm around Fenris and pulled one of his over her shoulder.
"Let's get you to a healer."
"No mages." Fenris ordered.
Talyn frowned. "What?"
"I don't want a mage to heal me!" His voice was almost a growl.
"Okay, okay. No mages. Just don't die on me, I kind of need you and Hawke to save the world."
So Talyn brought him to one of the non-magic healers in the infirmary and laid him down on a cot. The healer offered to fix her nose, but she refused. She would rather have Solas do it for her.
And that is exactly what she did.
"So, Fenris broke your nose?" Solas held his hand over her face, and a warm light emitted from his palm. Talyn winced at the cracking pain of her nose realigning with her face, but then the pain slowly faded away.
"If it's any consolation, his stitches ripped open. He looked in a lot worse shape than me."
"I still want to cause him pain." He said darkly.
She put her hands on his cheeks and brought his face to hers for a kiss.
"Don't." She said when it was over. "He was just helping me train the recruits. We got a little too into it."
"A little too into it?" He quoted with a raised eyebrow.
Talyn rolled her eyes and smacked his shoulder. "For Mythal's sake, Solas, you know what I meant."
She hopped off his desk. "It was actually nice, having someone beat me at dueling for once. Although he did cheat, the sneaky bastard. He knew I'd stop if he was hurt."
"I thought he was hurt." Solas countered.
"Oh, he was. But at first he was faking it, for the most part."
Solas disappeared into another room for a moment.
Talyn bit her lip, her brow furrowing in concern. "There was something that bothered me, though. I was going to bring him to one of Fiona's mages, but he refused. He said he didn't want a mage to heal him."
He came back into the room with a cloth, which he used magic to wet. Solas gently started to wipe the dried blood on her face and neck from her injury.
"Fenris was a slave to a Magister of Tevinter. It doesn't surprise me that he wants nothing to do with us."
Tevinter. The one place where no one wanted to be. Mages ruled, and they enslaved poor people stolen for far away lands to build their monuments and serve them until the day they died. It sounded like a nightmare plucked straight from the Fade.
"You would never do that, would you? Use your magic to enslave others?" She stared up into his stormy eyes.
His face turned to stone, but the intensity of his emotions shone through his eyes. Talyn was beginning to learn how to read him when he got like that.
He growled, and responded, "never."
Talyn's belly tied itself into knots, and warmth pooled between her legs. There was something so seductive about that growl Solas had, it sounded so deadly, like he came from another world. One where the beasts ruled. She had never questioned why Solas did that, but she knew that it wasn't normal, and he only ever did it around her.
She wasn't exactly normal either. Another thing that made them perfect for each other.
Talyn was about to pull Solas down to her for a long, much needed kiss, which would then lead to them tearing each other's clothes off, but then the door to his study flew open.
"Inquisitor, Varric and Hawke have returned with a man named Stroud! They said it was urgent. They're waiting in the main hall."
Damn it! Talyn despised being the one in charge. She breathed in through her nose and slowly exhaled.
"I'm on my way."
I am on a roll! Three - four chapters in like what, two days? LMFAO, I hope they're good and I'm not just going through one of my obsessive word vomit phases. Because if I'm going through one of those, it might be a while until I figure out I gotta do some editing lolol.
Shout out to LuniaWolfe for all the comments! They make me so happy! I hope my Fenris and Hawke are living up to your expectations, lol.
Everyone else, comment! Tell me anything! Tell me the sky is green, I don't care lmfao. Comments keep me motivated to keep going!
Your Highly Obsessive Entertainer,
C.J.