The most important element in a smithy isn't the metal.

It's not the forge nor the anvil, nor the hammer or tongs.

It isn't the crude pieces of iron, or steel, or copper, waiting to be smelted and shaped and hardened into something useful, or something deadly.

The most important element in a smithy is the water.

Water cooled smoking metal in a sibilant hiss; it prepared the surface of the anvil for striking; it quenched fires and stopped a burn from penetrating the flesh. It was Alistair's custom to ensure that the buckets were filled to the brim even before he fired the forge for the day. If he ever had the inclination to take on an apprentice, the boy would spend half his day drawing up buckets from the well.

Still, Alistair did not mind bringing the water in himself: at least he could be sure that the buckets were filled instead of entrusting them to some pockmarked gangle-limbed adolescent.

The buckets were full and it was a fine day: the windows framed a sky of limpid green. There was no wind to disturb the long grasses below or the cobwebbed cloud above. Deep in the nearby hedgerow, a bird demanded a response from its mate.

Once the water had been checked, Alistair stood back and surveyed his small dominion. The smithy was little more than a lean-to built against their cottage, shingle and piled-up stone; but the forge fired as hot as any castle blacksmith. Despite the humble premises Alistair had no shortage of business - his hammer-arm was renowned across the Bannorn - and a list of commissions was pinned to the wall beside the door.

The first job of the day was a simple one: to knock the dents out of a long-suffering shield. Alistair crossed the smithy in a few strides; the shield had been delivered the previous evening and was propped against the wall. It was broad and dull in hue, a solid bulwark that had taken several death-blows on behalf of its owner. When he turned it to face the fire, the silver griffon seemed to move in the shifting light. It raised a clawed foot and extended a wing; a proud head tilted back.

Alistair felt a strange itch at the back of his mind: a memory struggling to unfurl itself. He looked at the silver griffon and wondered where he had seen it before.

After a moment he turned the shield back so that it faced the wall; inspecting the worn leather strapping. It had come loose at one bracket and would require new pins.

The birds had fallen silent outside; a sign that someone was near. Alistair glanced towards the open space leading into the living quarters of their cottage, but his wife had not yet woken. He could see the wooden foot of their bed, and the red tail of a blanket hanging near the ground.

He was about to shovel a heap of charcoal into the furnace - once the forge was ignited, the fire would burn until sunset - when there came a rap at the window.

Alistair turned at a measured pace. A man who stood at three inches past six feet was not accustomed to being startled. There was a shape in the mottled glass panel: a crude outline of a figure that lacked any discernible features. He waited until the newcomer appeared in the doorway, face obscured by a hood.

Again, Alistair was not unduly alarmed - although the stranger could claim a similar impressive height; he seemed to be all skin and bone beneath the cloak. Alistair had a multitude of weapons - and tools that could be repurposed as such - only a few steps away. Instead of reacting with consternation at the arrival of a masked stranger, he loaded the shovel into the fire. The charcoal made a sound like the rustle of dead leaves as it settled at the empty heart of the hearth.

"How can I help you?"

Alistair turned back to the doorway, pulling on a pair of leather gloves that reached to the elbow. Despite their protection, his forearms were mottled with flecks of heat: a spray of white scars embedded in the flesh like heather.

If Flora was here, he found himself thinking. She wouldn't have left any marks.

Her mending was like art. It was flawless.

Wait, where is she?

"I've a difficult task," said the stranger, and there was a hoarseness to each word: as though they had been scraped hollow out before emerging from the throat. "And I've heard that you're the best man for it."

She's in the cottage, of course. Where else would she be?

Flattery had never worked on Alistair, but he offered a polite half-smile in response.

"I'm sorry, ser," he said, in tones of measured apology. "I've a half-dozen jobs that need to be finished before sundown and I'm not working tonight."

Alistair remembered suddenly why he was busier than usual: his sister and her children were visiting that evening. He had promised his chattering nephew that he would show him how to forge a sword - perhaps he might even shape the excitable boy a blunt iron blade, if Goldanna permitted it.

The stranger paused in the doorway before making a response, the greenish sunlight bending around his silhouette. He then took a measured step inside, and Alistair noticed that his cloak was sopping wet. The faint sound of water trickling onto tile accompanied his entrance; he left puddles in his wake. There was a strong odour of salt.

"Is it raining outside?" Alistair asked easily, noting the location of his smith's hammer. "Thought it was going to be a fine day."

"It hasn't rained for a long time," replied the stranger, reaching inside his cloak.

Alistair tensed but only a flat, square wooden box emerged from the damp folds of fabric.

"I was hoping you'd repair this for me."

The words came from beneath the hood and their timbre was oddly familiar. Alistair recognised the wryness and melancholic edge: it mirrored his own manner of speaking. His eyes moved from the box, to the stranger's hooded face. He could glimpse the edge of a jaw, chiselled in a broad plane. The flesh clinging to it was sagging and bloodless; it did not look healthy.

"What's in the box?" he asked quietly, willing his wife to stay asleep.

The chin lifted and the light from the hearth slid briefly within the hood; illuminating the white purity of bone. Gloved fingers released the clasp and lifted the lid of the case, opening it fully. Inside rested a bronze diadem: peaked at intervals and engraved with Alamarri runes. There was no cushion to protect it from its crude wooden housing: a crack in the metal nearly split the headpiece in two.

Alistair looked at the crown for a long moment, unblinking. The world seemed to hang motionless around him: the air still and the birds silent.

"I don't want this," he said eventually, then amended: "I don't want to repair this. I've enough work to be getting on with today."

The stranger's hood fell back to reveal the head of a drowned man: scraps of flesh clung to a skull that sat lopsided atop the neck. The softer parts of his face had been scavenged and one side of his jawbone hung loose.

"You must set aside other work," said the stranger, not unkindly. "This is more important."

The smooth curve of bronze was hypnotic: flawless in construction, it snared the light like a mirror. Alistair found himself admiring the craftsmanship: it was no ornate Orlesian tiara, snarled up with curlicues and excess flourishes. The jewelsmith had created a piece that was captivating in its stark simplicity.

After a moment, he caught himself with a sharp inhalation: what was he doing?

"I have to go to my wife," he said numbly and without thinking, turning towards the open doorway that led to the living quarters.

He immediately regretted this disclosure: why had he revealed the existence of his sweet girl to this ill-intentioned guest? The skeleton did not react, but lifted a harrowed finger; eyeless sockets staring.

Alistair felt the press of metal on his brow.

"My wife is through there," he repeated; although his feet felt fixed to the ground as though soldered to the earth. "I have to go to her."

A figure appeared in the doorway, of medium build and yet clad in armour of such intricacy and bulk that they appeared twice the size. It had the form of a man of at least sixty years, the hawkish features dessicated by age. A prominent nose jutted from sallow cheeks, and angry eyes glowered beneath an array of bristling brows. The hair fell like a length of faded rope down the back.

Alistair's jaw dropped.

"You're not my wife," he said, astonished. "Are… are you?"

The figure in the doorway shot him a glare of open derision. Their armour was carved with artisanal skill: wreaths of laurel intertwined with a host of tall towers. The pattern moved beneath the eye like a painter's trick: melting and reforming in a constant maelstrom.

"You have no wife. Nor have you a forge. This is merely conjuration of your mind. Begone!"

Alistair flinched, but the man's sharp instruction was directed over his shoulder: at the skeletal figure amidst its folds of fabric. The figure evaporated in a gloaming haze of mist; the cloak and gloves disintegrating into scraps that were blown from the smithy by a sudden swirl of wind. It had not vanished of its own volition, but vaporised from existence by the bark of the new arrival.

"What," said Alistair, helplessly. "What in the fel is going on?"

Despite his superior height and build, he felt as though a palm was pressing him back into the wall. The armour-clad man had a presence that dominated the confines of the smithy: as though they were some potent, magnetic type of energy.

The figure that had the form of a man turned to look at him, and this time they appeared to be only in their mid-thirties. The face was ascetic but not yet scraped thin with age; the twisted rope of hair was steeped in the rich blackness of Antivan ink. Unchanged were the disdainful stare and the scowl.

"You are in the Fade."

A hand coated in liquidous metal waved and the walls of the smithy blew away like dust; the cottage collapsing in on itself as though it were made from sheets of parchment. Alistair found himself standing in a bleak and alien landscape of rocks and sky. Ruined towers soared above chasms of endless darkness; half-built bridges with impossible engineering reared overhead. The horizon was in constant motion: like an Orlesian shadow theatre that shifted its scene with each turn of the wheel. The distant outline of an abandoned city was replaced by a series of cascading waterfalls, which then solidified into a cliff face riddled with caverns. Distance appeared to be an ever changing illusion. The sunless sky was a turmoil of green and black: it bathed the strange landscape below in an equally unnatural hue. The atmosphere was charged with static as though a thunderstorm was near.

Alistair heard a string of half-intelligible curse words, barely coherent and infused with a blend of incredulity, disbelief and alarm. Eventually, he realised that they were emerging from his own throat.

The armoured figure - who once again appeared riven with age - shot him a look of pure exasperation.

"You visit the Fade each time you dream, though you do not remember it. Shall I make it more palatable for you?"

Once again, the gauntlet moved through the lyrium-spiced air. Within the blink of an eye, the world around Alistair changed once more. Now he was standing within an inner courtyard of Redcliffe Castle: each detail replicated as far as he could remember. What he could not retrieve from memory - the placement of windows , the emblems on the banners - faded into a colourless blur. The cobbles underfoot swam like a receding tide; the sky overhead kept its sour green hue.

"I need you useful," snapped the figure; who seemed to gain and or lose decades dependent on the angle it was viewed. "Will this suffice?"

Alistair looked at the man: weighed down by the size and ornamental splendour of the armour. It seemed the type of man who belonged atop a warhorse, at the head of a mighty host.

"You're Flora's general," he said suddenly, coherent now that the surroundings were a fraction more familiar. "One of her spirits. She told me about you."

The general's imperious nostrils curdled at the description: 'Flora's spirit'. Still, it gave a brief, confirming tilt of the head.

"How - how did this even happen? Wait."

A memory had risen unprompted in Alistair's mind: a corridor that appeared more a battlefield than part of a domestic dwelling. A mage, eyes white and staring against a bloodied face, staggered out from a side chamber. Instead of a staff, he drew a dagger and, without hesitation, opened up his own cheek to the bone.

"We were trying to reach the First Enchanter," Alistair said, slowly. "We climbed the Tower. There were no more survivors, just maleficar. No - there was one survivor, a half-mad Templar."

The general looked bored; as though it had already heard Alistair's story a dozen times. Perhaps it had: time did not run linear in tbe Fade.

"There were of us," Alistair continued, watching a six-legged mouse scamper along the cobbles. "Flora, me, the witch and - some old woman we met lower down. A senior instructor. We reached the top floor, and- "

Here, his memory failed him. He could remember arriving at the top floor of the Tower, breathless and sweaty. He had glanced over his shoulder to see Flora hovering at his back. She was as white as a winding sheet, the pupils huge within the cool grey irises. Alistair could feel the adrenaline juddering from her in waves, and yet not a single blow or travelling spell had struck home. He wished fervently that she had been able to stay on the ground floor with the wounded, but she had been cursed with a shield of exceptional potency. Without Flora's barrier, they would not have been able to ascend above the third floor.

When he scraped at the recesses of his mind Alistair could just recall a pair of doors, and fingers of a strange and unnatural light sliding beneath them. He could not remember what had lain beyond those doors, only that it was terrible.

A solid lump of dread took up residence in Alistair's belly. He looked around at the four unassuming walls of the courtyard, and then at the spirit that stood beside him. The laurel engraved on its breastplate moved as though it were alive.

"Where is she?" he asked, head swivelling once again as if Flora might emerge from one of the floating barrels.

The general's lip curled.

"Falling victim to her own misplaced sentimentality," it retorted, wrinkled and imperious as some aged emperor.

Alistair's mouth opened and closed: he had no idea what meaning he was meant to extract from such an oblique statement.

"She has wilfully imprisoned herself in a tent with an effigy of your dead commander."

A maelstrom of emotion passed through the young man; rocking him like a small boat on a cruel tide. Still, he thrust down the less important parts into his belly - to mingle with the dread - until only the steely bite of fear remained.

"Then she's in danger," he said, the words curdling in his throat. "I have to help her."

"She has to help herself," r etorted Flora's general, tight-lipped with fury. "But your presence may quicken her understanding."

Alistair reached down for his sword, and withdrew only a child's tin blade: the end rounded and blunt. He stared and then swore, dropping the toy to the cobbles. The general let out a snort, amused at the notion of a traditional weapon in such alien circumstances.

"How do I get to her?"

Alistair expected the words to emerge as a plea but they came out as a demand.

Flora's spirit arched an eyebrow now free from grey hairs; the lips tautening.

"They lie yonder."

The finger rose towards the highest tower in Redcliffe Castle, which arced above the others with a lofty prominence that its tangible counterpart could never aspire to. Alistair gazed up at the tower, stomach curdling with dismay. He was sure that Eamon's keep did not possess so many stairs.

"Can't you - can't you just transport us up there?"

"We could." The stern expression added years to even the younger counterpart of Flora's general. "But your mind would be shattered. Do you wish to wake a madman?"

He briefly considered it - anything to reach her - and then shook his head, despondent.

"And we cannot intervene directly with our feckless progeny. She has so little brains as it is: we would not scramble them further. She must be made to see sense."

Alistair nodded, distracted and not really listening. He had just noticed that the portcullis at the base of the tower had been replaced by a door more sized for a child than for a grown man. He stared at it for a despairing moment - he fucking hated the Fade! - and then set out across the courtyard.

The general did not walk beside him, but appeared at the edge of the small door. Alistair looked over his shoulder - the armoured figure still stood at the centre of the courtyard - and then back at the door. His suspicions were confirmed: the spirit seemed to reside in both places simultaneously.

"How can you do that?!" he demanded, fighting back the terrible thought of his sister-warden in demonic clutches. "Be in two places at once."

The general looked at him with eyes that glittered like the furthest reaches of the night sky.

"But we are in neither."

Alistair contemplated this for a heartbeat, and then set it aside. He reached out to grasp the handle of the door; half-expecting it to turn into an eel between his fingers. To his intense relief, it remained inanimate. The young man took a deep breath, reminding himself that he had been in the Fade before - it was where all minds journeyed during sleep, save for dreamless dwarves - and so this was not entirely unfamiliar terrain. He did not dwell on the fact that this was the first time he had experienced consciousness on the far side of the Veil.

Before he made the door yield, Alistair turned to look at Flora's general. The spirit of Valour was staring off into the distance with a vague boredom that, oddly, reminded Alistair of his missing sister-warden.

"Flora's not stupid," he said, defensive. "She might not be clever, but… but I've watched her squeeze a man's heart with her bare hand and make it beat again."

The general eyed him, mildly curious. Alistair felt the world sway around him; the ground beneath his feet shuddering. At first he thought it another infernal trick of the Fade, then realised that he had been struck by a wave of longing so potent that it had made him dizzy. He wanted Flora at his side as she had been when they were climbing the Tower; close enough that he could reach back a hand and touch her.

"Then go to her," said the general, impatient.

Alistair reached for the door handle with renewed determination.


AN: Haha how obvious is it that I know fuck all about blacksmithing? I did spend 0.3 seconds googling medieval smithing but it looked so mystifying that I gave up lol.

Anyway, in keeping with my own interpretation of the Fade sequence, now we have Alistair's experience. I changed it from the game's version because that's what I do, haha. Plus I despise Goldanna and Blizz retconned her being Alistair's sister anyway :P Or at least her importance is vastly diminished.

I also liked introducing Flora's general as a more tangible character, considering the fact that they've been 'speaking' in the story as long as any main character.