Aerith strolled through the Fade, her head held high and a trail of flowers blooming behind her, pushing up through the shifting sands.
"And the mirror was definitely elven?" she asked. "Not a Cetra equivalent?"
Hawke shook her head. "It was covered in halla carvings, do you even have those here?"
"What's a halla?"
"It's like a deer."
"What's a deer?"
"Antelope?"
Aerith grinned. "What's a-"
"Oh don't start that," Hawke cut her off with a laugh. She walked with her staff in hand, stabbing it into the sandy earth. Fade islands floated overhead.
They were debriefing Hawke on her trip to the above-plate history museum. They had already decided that most of the conclusions about Ancient Cetran society were very high handed and presumptuous, because it made Aerith feel better and Hawke was always ready to discredit authority figures. That left them with the matter of the magic-portal-mirror.
"It did have a squid motif I didn't recognise though," Hawke said. "So maybe it was a collaborative effort."
Aerith hummed. "The Fade city has some sea creature designs. Were there any squid on the other Cetra exhibits?"
"No, but there were a lot of seashells. They've got some dating issues I think, they said the mirror couldn't possibly be from the Ancient era because the materials wouldn't last that long, not in that state."
"But it's magical."
"Exactly. There's no carbon dating Fade-touched ironbark." Hawke huffed a sigh. "Apparently they've found three other Eluvians around the globe and they just dismissed them as unimportant. Some of the most powerful and complex magic ever invented and they think it's just pretty human decor."
Aerith slowed to a stop. "There are more? Can you get home through one of them? Can... can others get through to Gaia?"
Hawke shook her head. "They're in even worse condition apparently." She stopped a few steps ahead and looked back. "Ettie showed me photos, they've all got spears through their middles. Well. Half spears."
She tried to picture it. It looked ridiculous. How could the glass hold it up? And why only half? "Where's the other half?"
"On the other side of the connecting mirror, I assume. The sharp metal end was bursting out through the glass on the front, but it didn't go through the wooden backing." Hawke snorted a laugh that wasn't terribly amused. "It's the most blatant 'and don't come back!' I've ever seen. They could have just changed the locks."
"Aw." Aerith patted her on the arm and kept walking. The Fade version of the church came into sight, spilling thick ropes of flowers out of every opening. "Maybe you can fix it. Magic it back up again."
"I wish I could, but I'm useless at that kind of thing. I had a friend who rebuilt one from just a shard once, and even with her expert guidance I couldn't do anything. My magic is geared towards high power release, not delicate crafting."
Aerith sent her a commiserating smile. Hawke had been sad lately. It was uncomfortable. "Maybe I can fix one for you, then."
Hawke chuckled. "Sure. Go nuts."
Aerith sniffed and tossed her braid back off her shoulder. "Just watch me."
The sandy ground gave way to cracked concrete and cheeky flowers peeking up between the slabs. She climbed the first step of the church.
"I might just leave you to it," Hawke said, from beyond the concrete.
Aerith let out a gusty breath and looked up at the flower packed church. The door was shut but foliage crawled out through all the gaps around it. The windows held no glass, only bunches of wild lilies in white and yellow and green, pouring through like waterfalls.
"Why do you hate lilies?" she asked. It had become a comfortable and familiar exchange of deflection.
"To spite you."
"I knew it."
"Why do you like them so much?" Hawke asked with a grumble.
"To spite you," Aerith replied. She climbed the last few steps and reached for the door. It was so tall and heavy in her dreams, it would take all her strength to push it open.
"They remind me of my Mother," Hawke said.
Aerith's breath caught in her throat. She looked back.
Hawke was staring at the ground, her jaw locked. The silence stretched on, as Aerith studied her, unsure if she wanted to ask more questions or run away from the broken look haunting the woman's expression.
Hawke refused to meet her eyes and looked out across the dreamscape. Some disturbance of lights trailed away down a nearby slope.
"Want to go meet some baby spirits?" she asked, her voice too bright.
It took her a moment but Aerith plastered on a smile. "Okay."
She let Hawke lead her away from the church and down through the sandy pathways. The lights danced in the distance, like whirling magical glow bugs in colours she couldn't quite pin down.
She took a step and suddenly she was in the street market. Their produce stall was packed with stock and there were so many customers, barking questions at her. She couldn't focus on any of them, she just knew she was falling behind, she had to move faster.
"Surely you can't fill all these orders?" a voice asked on the other side of the stall, calling from somewhere in the crowd.
"Oh, yes, I can!" she called back, bagging some cabbages.
"But how?"
"I'll… I'll take orders and deliver them later," she replied. "I'll hire more help." She put the cabbages down and swept off to weigh some carrots.
"What about competition?" The speaker emerged from the hubbub, it was just a child, standing on their toes to see over the top of the counter.
"My food's better," Aerith replied. "I can do more variety. I could… I could make a hothouse. I could get into hydroponics!"
"What if you can't keep up with demand?" They looked at her with greedy, curious eyes. A crafty slum kid, she figured.
"Demand drives up prices. We'll adapt. Just watch us," she said, handing them an apple with a little wink. Wait. When did she grow apples? She looked around. What was going on?
Hawke was leaning against the back of the stall, watching the exchange with an indulgent smile.
"Who are you, kid?" Hawke asked.
They smiled, bright and curious. One of their front teeth was missing.
"I'm… Innovation," they said, tasting it, embracing it. They nodded, satisfied with their claim. Then they turned and ran off, disappearing into the crowd.
Aerith watched them go with a frown. Strange kid.
"You're being careless," a cold voice said.
Aerith stiffened. She spun around and there he was: black suit, long black hair, and tilak on his forehead. How did he get so close without her noticing?
"That's my problem, Tseng," she said, squaring her shoulders.
He looked down his nose at her. She hated it when he did that.
"If you're neglecting your safety, then it's my problem."
She pursed her lips. "I'm not. I'm allowed to be here."
"It's more freedom than you can be trusted with."
"That's not up to you." Her fingers brushed against the wood of her staff on her back.
"Who is it up to, Aerith?" he asked, his voice low.
Her grip on the weapon tightened.
"What can we do for you, sir?" Hawke suddenly butted in between them, emptying a bucket of green beans all over the counter. He stepped with a frown as the vegetables fell and rolled over his shoes.
He fixed her with a stern look. "Close down your stall."
Aerith opened her mouth to object.
"Alright," Hawke said. "Sorry, everyone, we're closed."
"What! What are you doing, Hawke?" Aerith hissed.
Tseng's stern expression stalled oddly. She wasn't going to let him get away with this.
Hawke shrugged. "Not making any trouble."
She shook her head. "We can't just let Tseng push us around, we've worked too hard for this-"
"Where are we?"
"We're in the market!"
"What colour is the sky from the market?" Hawke asked. She raised a pointed eyebrow.
"Green, of course!" Aerith said, stamping her foot in frustration. Her mind registered what she'd just said. "Wait." She looked up. Fade islands drifted slowly through the green overhead.
Her shoulders sank. "You're not Tseng at all, are you?" No wonder he didn't look right. And Tseng would never just start threatening her in public, it was ridiculous.
"What are you?" she asked.
"This," said Hawke, "is Rebellion."
Aerith frowned at him. "Tseng's not rebellious."
"But he provokes it in you. It has nothing to do with the Turk himself."
The illusion started to wobble and then it wasn't really Tseng anymore, it was just a generic figure in a suit. It looked at Hawke, and the suit turned into a jacket with feathered shoulders. His hair turned blond. There were dark marks under his eyes and a staff on his back.
"Don't you care, Hawke?" he asked, sounding as haggard and exhausted as he looked.
Hawke crossed her arms and said nothing.
The spirit wavered, and then gave up and wandered off.
"Who was that?" Aerith asked. Another Mage?
"Rebellion." Hawke's voice was hard.
Aerith raised an eyebrow at her but got nothing in reply. "Is it always like this?"
"They're usually more subtle." Hawke slumped down onto a chair. "These spirits are still young and clumsy."
"So it's going to get worse."
"Try not to let them get under your skin." She tipped her head back. She was starting to turn translucent, probably waking up. "They're not all bad, and they can teach you more about magic than I ever could. Just don't trust them. Give them nothing."
"Good morning, Hawke."
"Morning, Aerith," she said with a smile before disappearing entirely.
Aerith looked around. The street market looked a lot less convincing now that she looked at it clearly, it was just ramshackle stalls and umbrellas arranged in a nonsensical order. There was nobody else there, but it somehow felt crowded. She wandered through the winding street and out the other side. It didn't fade away or lose cohesion. Had the spirits built it purposefully to trick her? Spirits were like Fade shapers, Somniari like the Cetra had been, they could permanently and intentionally reshape the terrain.
Aerith herself wasn't very good at it. Hawke hadn't been able to teach her much beyond practical tricks anyone could do. Aerith had been trying to replace the shifting sands outside of her house with a nice path of cobblestones she had seen in a housing magazine. Try as she might all she could get was cracked concrete and snapped rusting girders, inevitably swallowed back up by the sands.
The sand swept across her feet as she left the market behind.
She concentrated on arriving at her destination, walked for a stretch, then she looked up and there it was: the soaring towers and floating bridges of pearl. She smiled at it. It always made her feel calmer.
She climbed a bridge up to one of the higher islands, where a beautiful tower shaped like a spiked sea cone twisted gracefully into the air.
Movement half behind one of the tower's ridges caught her eye, ghostly white flickering in a breeze. Another spirit?
She approached quietly, they weren't going to take her by surprise this time. She rounded a corner, and the rest of the spirit came into view, a black coat under a curtain of white hair.
The spirit was wearing General Sephiroth's face. What kind of spirit would do that? Combat? Victory? Great hair?
The spirit raised an arm and a metal suspension bridge rose up from the island, soared high in the air, and planted itself on a distant island, one occupied by a much smaller seashell tower.
Aerith clapped a hand over her mouth. He made it look so easy! The slender poles of the bridge shone in the light of the city, chrome and slate grey. There was a beauty to the simplicity of the design, for all that it was ridiculously out of place.
"Are you going to come out, little spirit?" he called. He looked over his shoulder straight at her. "Or are you going to keep cowering in the shadows?"
She straightened her back. "I'm not cowering."
"Spying?"
"Watching," she corrected. "I want to learn how to build too."
"Hn." The spirit turned back to study its handiwork. It flicked its arm again and the bridge evaporated. It clenched a fist and a new bridge sprung up, soaring higher, thinner, and with more supports and cables. It planted itself further inland on the opposing island, smashing through the cetra tower.
Aerith gasped. "What are you doing?"
"I'm building bridges," he replied, calm and unmoved by her outburst.
"Why?" she demanded. It was probably a spirit of destroying things that belonged to someone else. That justified the face perfectly.
"I thought you wanted to learn."
"Not how to knock down millennia old wonders and replace them with tacky suspension bridges!"
He looked at her blankly. The spirit wasn't very good at emoting.
"It's a tied arch bridge," he finally said. He shrugged a moment later. "It's just a dream. A simulation. This isn't real."
"Of course, it's real." She crossed her arms. "You're here and you're real, aren't you?"
"Deeply flawed logic."
"Those buildings are as real as you are," she said, pointing angrily.
He narrowed his eyes. "Prove it."
She opened her mouth, ready to start justifying herself. Hawke said not to give the spirits anything. She snapped her mouth shut. What did it actually want from her? What was the point of this little play it had set up? She didn't know.
She narrowed her eyes at him. "It's a shame you're not clever enough to build bridges without disturbing what's already there."
He raised an eyebrow at her blatant manipulation attempt.
"It's not even a very good bridge," she said lightly.
He looked out at the gap between the islands. He raised his arm against and up rose another bridge, taller and more magnificent. This one she was pretty sure actually was a suspension bridge. It landed on the opposite island without disturbing any buildings.
"Let me see you do better," he said.
She pursed her lips. She didn't know how. Didn't have the first clue how to drag steel and corded metal out of the earth. She tilted her head and studied the new bridge, its slender cables hanging with perfect balance, relying on gravity to pull everything into place.
The Fade was a perspective trick, Hawke had once told her.
She smiled, drew her staff, and twirled it in the air dramatically.
Sephiroth scoffed.
Plants burst out of the side of the bridge's platform, growing horizontally. She concentrated her command and a row of tall stems reached out. Sunflowers bloomed, their beautiful golden faces all looking sideways.
The bridge groaned and swayed. The cables pulled sideways, away from the sunflowers.
Sephiroth threw out his hand, reinforcing the struts, but the sunflowers were acting as a sideways gravity well and throwing the physics of the structure into chaos. He reached out with both arms and caught it, twisting the whole bridge around the focal point. The bridge stayed standing, but it looked like a mangled nightmare of a roller-coaster.
He dropped his hands and looked at her with his brow pulled down.
Aerith laughed. Now that was a bridge that belonged in the Fade.
"What did you do? How did that work?"
He stepped cautiously out on the flat surface. It held his weight and he stalked around the loop. She bit her lip and skipped along after him, refusing to be bothered about floating upside down a moment later. You had to believe you were in control, or you wouldn't be.
He stared at the guilty flowers, still happily blooming off to the side.
"What did you do?" he asked again.
"Sunflowers always point up," she replied. "The flowers say that your bridge is sideways."
He frowned at her. "No, they don't. They point to the nearest light source. The city in this case."
"Oh." They did, didn't they? Which meant the gravity well wouldn't work.
The mangled bridge fell out from under them.
Aerith woke up with the jerk. She burst out laughing a moment later.
Genesis threw a trio of fireballs. Sephiroth spun and deflected every one of them.
"Dreams of the morrow hath the shattered soul," Genesis declared, raising his sword again.
Sephiroth stalked towards him, through the craggy cliffs of the VR room's rendition of the Midgar wastes.
Genesis leapt forward and they traded blows. Dust rose up as they danced around each other. Lightning cracked through the dry air and flaming comets fell from the sky. Tremors crawled up his arms with every parry. Sephiroth was fighting harder than normal today.
Genesis leapt back, letting a rocky outcrop take a blow for him. The rock collapsed. It was unreliable terrain that against any other opponent would have played to Genesis' light footed advantage. It was completely wasted on Sephiroth.
He called on the fire runes along his sword. Sephiroth descended.
After what was not nearly enough time, Sephiroth held Masamune to Genesis' throat.
Genesis scowled. "Fine. You win." He slapped the blade away.
Sephiroth stepped back. His expression had been thoughtful for the last five minutes of the fight.
"What is it?" Genesis asked, vexed that apparently fighting him didn't even demand the man's full attention.
"Do you... know a woman who wears a single clawed gauntlet and carries a bladed staff?" Sephiroth asked.
Genesis froze. How did Sephiroth know Hawke? What did he want with her? The first thing Hawke ever asked of him was to tell nobody about her. She had asked for his secrecy before she asked for a way home.
"No. I don't know anyone by that description."
Sephiroth gave him a hard look.
"Why?" Genesis asked, refusing to feel bad for the deception. Hawke was his secret.
Sephiroth banished his sword and looked away.
"Where did you see this woman?" Genesis pressed.
"I didn't."
He sheathed his own sword and crossed his arms. "You're being very mysterious."
"So are you," Sephiroth replied, his tone suspiciously neutral.
"I'm always mysterious," Genesis said. He narrowed his eyes. "Whereas you have been acting oddly ever since the reactor meltdown."
Sephiroth's shoulders tensed. "I don't know about that."
"Neither of us knows anything, apparently."
Sephiroth did not reply. Genesis shook his head, this was pointless.
"I have a special delivery of dumb apples arriving soon," he said, steering the conversation to safer waters. He offered a smile. "You never did try them, did you?"
"No." Sephiroth stalked away, giving barely a wave of goodbye, and left the VR room.
Genesis stood alone in the sudden silence after the door thudded closed.
Hawke dreamed.
Genesis' mansion stretched out around her, rolling hills studded with apple trees, and golden afternoon sunlight. She was in an upstairs room with a bar and a balcony, a warm breeze blew in through the doors, smelling of sun baked grass and fresh fruit.
Everything about the atmosphere said these were the relaxed final hours of a mid-day party: indulgent, safe, and well sated. Empty wine glasses and a well picked over cheese spread covered the low tables. The muffled notes of a lute played in another room.
Hawke stood in full armour and stared down the bar. All she wanted was an Ostwick stout. It didn't have to be a good one. She would have settled for a Starkhaven malt ale even, but the Fade was being a nuisance. No matter which bottle she picked up or which glass she poured it into she got nothing but Antivan white wine.
She was wrestling with the atmosphere and losing. She'd been nonsensically opening bottles for possibly hours, and yet she felt like she'd just come in from a stroll through a vineyard at the height of summer. No, not a vineyard.
"Did you grow up on an orchard?" she called out, shoulders slumping. Fine. She'd given in.
Genesis looked up from where he sat on the porch, sunning himself on a deck chair.
"Look under the bar," he said.
She reached beneath the counter and pulled out a tall bottle with a swirling cursive label. 'Golden Hills Banora White Apple Cider' it read.
"My family vintage," Genesis said.
"I've seen this in specialty shops." It was appallingly expensive. She snatched up a couple of highball glasses and joined him on the porch. She popped the cork and poured out two glasses of Antivan white wine. She sighed.
It was nice wine at least.
"Is the real stuff good?" she asked, taking a sip of the imposter.
"It's exquisite, naturally." Genesis accepted his now stemmed wine glass without complaint. "It's my recipe."
"Is it?"
He blinked then looked suspiciously at the empty glasses around him. "This is making my lips loose. I never talk about that."
Hawke shook her head. "You can't get drunk here, it's the house. It feels so safe and comfortable, it's hard to be reserved." She picked up the bottle again and examined the label. It had some purple prose describing the tasting notes and a little map of the Mideel peninsula on the back with a dot to represent Banora.
"You made this?"
He sighed and tipped his head back in the sun. "I was fourteen and I wanted to try my hand at it. The majority of the apples are turned into cider and I'd seen the mulch disappear into the giant tanks all my life. I stole a tub and all the necessary ingredients, and meticulously copied the farm hands ...with a few select alterations."
She leaned her back against the railing "What did you change?"
"Trade secret." He winked. "I submitted the end result to a local competition and won first place."
She raised an eyebrow. "With your first attempt?"
"There were a few false starts, perfecting the process," he said with a dismissive hand wave and she snorted.
He looked into the golden depths of his glass. "My parents were so proud of the result they began to make and sell it themselves. It's outsold the original product every year since."
"That's remarkable."
"Yes," he drawled and raised the imposter's glass to his lips. "I peaked early as far as my parents are concerned."
Hawke nodded slowly. That explained the mess of the mansion, stark Midgar architecture cutting off the old countryside decor, apple trees invading just about every room. There was a splendid one growing just behind the bar. The details of when Shinra had gotten to him, when they had infected him with Blight and turned him into a SOLDIER were still hazy. Was he the spoiled son of landed gentry or tortured slave of an empire?
"Your parents. I thought that Shinra…" She let it hang.
"Bred me like a racehorse?" he replied archly. "Yes, and with unsuccessful results, hence my being handed off to someone out of the way." He stood and joined her at the railing. He leaned his elbows forward on it and looked down upon his domain. "I had always known I was adopted. I simply never thought to ask if they were paid to take me."
She watched him in silence.
He scowled, shook his head, and turned his back to it all.
"Tell me about your world," he asked with a pleading note. "We've spoken a great deal of the Cetra, what of the other side of the equation?"
She tipped her head back and looked to the vast green sky. The black undersides of distant islands floated by.
"Long ago, when the world was young," she said, lifting her hand like a great actress on a stage before thousands. "When the Great Dragons still flew, before the Fade was held back by the veil, and the Titans fell into slumber beneath the earth, Thedas... was ruled by elves."
Soft lute music wafted in on the breeze and made her words sound wistful and easy to accept, as opposed to impossible knowledge she couldn't possibly have. Genesis' shoulders relaxed in spite of himself.
"Go on," he said with a soft smile.
"Pretend the rest of it is just as whimsical," she replied. "The elves built floating cities and mighty spires of crystal, and all kinds of fanciful self-aggrandising monuments, but no highways connecting them. Instead they had-"
"-the magic mirrors," he finished, embracing her distraction wholeheartedly.
She nodded. "The Eluvian network, a series of portals linking everything together, all over Thedas."
"How do they work?"
"In direct violation of one of the most foundational laws of magic there is," she said, laughing. "You can't teleport."
He raised an eyebrow. "Then the laws are wrong."
"They generally are."
"This species of law-breaking, teleporting, immortals was governed by a family of generals, turned kings, turned self-proclaimed gods. They called themselves the Evanuris, and they waged war against the Cetra. According to Shiva," she finished, undercutting herself just to be safe.
The Fade felt defiantly cheery, the sun too bright and the air too warm. She leaned into it, before her own trepidation swallowed her. They were on a relaxing picnic on a Sunday afternoon and there was nothing to worry about.
"Curious." Genesis leaned back on his hands, and refused to give her the suspicious look she deserved. "Is there no memory of the Ancients on Thedas? Was the war fought purely on Gaian soil?"
"If they fought across Thedas, then they've been forgotten," she replied. "Oh. Ha. The Forgotten Ones. Merrill must be smacking her forehead somewhere." She left the balcony and went back inside. "The Evanuris fought against a rival group literally called the Forgotten Ones. No one knows who they were or where they came from, or anything really. But we're all quite certain that they were the guilty party."
Genesis chuckled, following her in. "Naturally. The dreaded Other."
"Foreign and therefore inherently evil." She settled on a bar stool. He took up his station on the other side, beneath the apple tree.
"How do they say the war ended?" he asked, leaning forward on his elbows, glossy red hair falling forward to make shadows play on his face. His leather coat had disappeared somewhere leaving him in a sleeveless SOLDIER shirt. "Assuming these Forgotten Ones are in fact the Cetra?"
"They say the trickster god locked the rulers of both sides away in the void but that's…" She twitched. "...Not reliable intel."
"Is any of it reliable?"
"Probably not."
He looked closer to how she had imagined the trickster wolf than the disappointing bald reality. She breathed out a very slow and careful breath. Maybe if she focused on the light dusting of freckles over his biceps she wouldn't spiral over the invasion her mind had suffered.
"In time, the Evanuris turned on each other, the Empire came crumbling down and its secrets were forgotten," she said, her voice light. "The humans moved in, enslaved the remaining elvhen population, and built a new empire from the ruins of the last, before crumbling away in turn. Which brings us to the modern era, where the continent is a fractured mess of warring kingdoms and city states, with the last of the elves either living in ghettos in human cities or in nomadic clans in the wilderness, trying to recapture the knowledge of their glorious forebears."
"Pride is lost, wings stripped," he said, forlorn and sympathetic. "There are no dreams, no honour remains."
"I'm not convinced there ever was much honour." The Dalish clans would have no interest in a human soldier's pity.
He stood up again. "Tell me about this pantheon of generals. Who dared invade my planet?"
She snorted. "Gonna tell them off?"
"I shall hold them in scathing contempt."
"There were nine of them, and I'm sure they would repent of all their sins if they knew of your censure." She steeled herself and plunged in. "First: Mythal, motherhood and justice. Then her husband, Elgar'nan, fatherhood and vengeance, who leads the pantheon because Mythal said he could."
"No wonder the Cetra turned on Shiva," he said. "She was an advisor to the leader of an enemy state."
Hawke shrugged. "Then you've got all your classics: the crafter, the farmer, the hunter, the hearth keeper, the rebel, so on and so on."
"Was there a patron of war?"
She smiled, sharp and probably a little mad. "They were all patrons of war."
The music played on, calm and lazy. The perpetual golden hour stretched on unending, and Genesis poured them another glass.
"Were they truly gods or did they simply fancy themselves so?" he asked, thoughtfully focusing on his pour. In his hands the cider bottle turned into a rich red wine.
"Who am I to say? Magic is a function of belief, and they lived in a magic drenched world, worshiped by an entire empire."
He tilted his head. "Is that enough to claim divinity?"
"It was enough to make them absurdly powerful. I'm no theologian, make of that what you will."
He paused and looked at her with curiosity. It shifted into suspicion.
"Before Shiva confirmed it, did you believe in them?" he asked gently. "Is this your faith?"
She shook her head. "I'm Andrastian, more or less. The Maker, the Chantry, Chant of Light, that whole thing." And only slightly ex-communicated, she thought snidely. She picked at the varnish of the bar top. It was high quality and refused to be picked at. Damn.
There was a pause that stretched for far too long.
"You are very familiar with the elven gods," he said, at long last.
"They did exist," she replied, focusing on the grain of the wood. Aged chestnut if she had to guess, very nice. She preferred kauri wood. "The ruins of their civilisation are everywhere. And I'm old friends with people who worship them still."
He raised a polite eyebrow, holding his glass up and his expression still deep in the realms of suspicion. "Oh, yes?"
"And I met Mythal a couple of times," she said, as light as she could. Her mind hitched around what she had just said.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Well, I met what's left of her. Who she's become." The breeze was light and reassuring, the alcohol cool on the palate, and her mouth entirely bypassing its filter. "She calls herself Flemeth these days. She picked up a human body somewhere."
His eyes narrowed. "Are you just making all this up?"
"I wish I was." She was stuck in the immovable, friendly atmosphere, the smooth treacherous music and wrong golden light.
He drew back and looked down at her.
"Did she tell you all this? Is that how you know about them?"
She shook her head. "She never told me anything."
"But you met her? A goddess?"
"Not anymore," she forced out, stilted and rough. "She's a haggard swamp witch now, who turns into a dragon. Or a dragon who turns into a swamp witch. It's unclear." The Fade told her sense she was safe, but she was in full armour for a reason. Nothing was safe. "She saved my life… So I owed her. Then I saved her life and we were even."
"How do you know it was truly Mythal?"
She held her breath. She put her hands flat on the bar. The words stuck in her throat. He narrowed his eyes, the lute struck an off chord and she felt something inside of her was going to snap if she didn't force it out. If she couldn't have a witness.
"I got here by falling through a broken Eluvian," she whispered. "But I got stuck in… the in-between." She shook her head, refusing to remember that terrible place. "I didn't know Flemeth was Mythal, before that. I didn't know a lot of things."
A hand covered her own. She looked up to see Genesis' impossibly blue eyes staring at her with deep concern. She didn't deserve it, when had she ever stepped in a pit she hadn't dug herself? Wasn't he suspicious of her?
"What happened to you?"
"There's a void, beyond the Fade, beyond anything. I can't explain. I don't even remember it very well, it's all a mess." The lute trailed, no longer playing music, just wandering discordant notes. She wanted to panic. She wanted to snap and run away, to wake up and vomit. She could not.
"How did you escape?" he asked. He stayed in the centre of her vision and she couldn't look away.
"Someone... pushed me." Her voice lowered. "And now I have someone else's memories."
Realisation dawned in his eyes, and it was terrible.
"Memories from thousands of years ago," he said, his back straightening in understanding. "What else do you remember?"
She shook her head. "I can't. This isn't secure territory, if I remember more here, the Fade will start to reshape around it, and then there will be no escape."
He stared her down, then finally withdrew. She heaved a sigh, feeling like she'd been released from something.
"Infinite in mystery," he said, like a decree, "Is the gift of the goddess."
Maker, she felt like she was bleeding.
She mustered a jagged smile. "Flemeth doesn't give gifts. She buys debts."
"She wasn't a kind goddess?"
All she could do was laugh, thin and strained.
What a lovely world she had landed in, where the gods could be kind.
A/N: Thank you for reading! Reviews and concrit are all welcome, and make it easier for me to tell what parts of the story you guys are interested in.
Next Time: Apostasy and Liles
