The sky grew dark. And the ground began to tremble as if in mortal dread.

The crowd before the gates, both Tevinter and faithful, fell silent.

The heavens wept, and yet no rain could extinguish the flame

Which was now a funeral pyre. Wind swept across the city

Like a terrible hand in rage. And the Tevinters who witnessed this

Said: Teuly, the Gods are angered.

You have destroyed the world to save a misbegotten child.

Veldrin turned the phrase over and over in her mind; it was the first thing that Leliana had said to her. Also, the last, for though she'd not departed from Minrathous, the Nightingale had spoken not a word further, to Veldrin, or Cassandra, or anyone else. She'd left the Pavus mansion, and disappeared to someplace unknown in the bowels of the unassailable city.

Perhaps, Veldrin considered, with awkward, cool distance, she will kill herself.

It did not really matter, though; one glance at Leliana had been enough for Veldrin to know that she had come though on her silent promise – she had, indeed, found the one thing the Nightingale loved, and destroyed it, taking no pleasure in doing so. Whether Leliana could survive her loss or not, it was solely her problem; Veldrin's business with her was utterly concluded – she suspected the reciprocal was not true, but…

That hardly mattered, either.

What can she possibly do to me now? Veldrin wondered. Kill me?

She humourlessly chuckled to herself.

It was far too late for that. If immortality somehow implied a lack of fear of dying, Veldrin had become immortal, because she was, in many ways, already dead; she'd died two weeks before, on Seheron – it was just odd that her heart kept beating, her body kept moving and everyone else still spoke to her as if she'd still been alive.

Despite the fact that their actions on Seheron had added one more nightmare to a world already besieged, Minrathous had hailed them as heroes upon their return, which was perhaps, not strange, given that they truly had given the Imperium its long awaited restoration – or at least partially so, and those who still grieved or hungered for the parts that would forever remain lost were either powerless or too wise to speak up. Both, maybe.

The other side of immortality, Vel considered, glancing to the side at the renewed heraldic of House Pavus – she'd have to put the finishing touches on it, before her official swearing in as Magistra, on the next day - was actually discovering how much one had left to do after one's soul was dead. What had it been that Solas had said, upon what she now thought of as her first death of many?

Let the pain sharpen your will to a blade's edge…

She hadn't been able to do it then, because it had not been Corypheus to cause her pain; with Solas, now, it came remarkably easy: she suffered because of him, and for him at the same time, and the crisp pain made her vision surprisingly crisp and clear, in turn. She had not wanted that clarity. Her pact with Imshael had been that he could have her body, once his revenge on Solas was complete, and Solas was dead. If it had ever come to completion, her consciousness, her will, her dreams, her loves and hatreds would scatter in the vastness of the demon, and her soul would be as dead as it was now.

Veldrin wondered if anyone would have noticed that. Dorian might have.

No, she corrected, feeling the love that she bore her husband, her brother, and match and half soul who'd accidentally been born to a different race, as searing pain, he would have.

And then, he would have killed her body, as he would have killed any other abomination; he would have been angry, he would have been aggrieved, he would have drunk himself into a stupor for a month or a year, but then he would have recovered, understood her sacrifice, and remembered her, and then moved on. Perhaps, he would even have re-learned to be happy – because, if there was one person in the world who deserved that, it was him. Because he was, she thought…Dorian.

'Alright, Amata,' he'd said, a week and a day after their return to Minrathous; he'd pulled the curtains aside, and she'd all but screamed at the merry sunlight, because it was three in the afternoon, and it was still too early, she was hung over in a godly manner, and she'd not been able to touch him or even look him in the eyes for the duration of her stupor. Someone, she'd then thought, had invented drunken stupors for a…

'…fucking reason,' she'd growled.

'Clearly not aesthetic ones, Vel, you look like a mummy in the process of being rehydrated. Not flattering.'

'You're doing this because you hate me,' she'd plaintively uttered.

'No, I am doing this because you've made no progress on our new house emblem, and, being the one endowed with taste and creativity in what regards the visual arts, I did feel a moral compulsion to do so. The problem I am having is that I don't know how many antlers a halla actually has, so I'm not sure what I should tell the artist. He's growing very, very impatient.'

She'd stood up in bed, then, though the room kept spinning, because, before that moment, she thought that she had killed him too, with the Old Gods' return. If there was anyone who hated the Ancient Imperium, it was Dorian, and she'd unwittingly caused him to restore it…She found she still could not face him.

'Halla have two antlers, seven branches each,' she'd mechanically muttered, collapsing back and turning about to hide her face in the pillow, in vain hopes of shutting out the light of day and smothering herself. 'One set of seven for the Forgotten Ones and one set of seven for the…'

'…Evanuris,' Dorian had nodded. 'Alright, I was off by two branches, no true disaster. The artist will be mad, but he does luscious mad, thus…'

'Why are you doing this to me, Dorian?' she'd whimpered.

'Because I think our new house crest should have something Dalish on it,' he'd said. 'Please don't puke in bed. I'm also doing this to you,' he added, in a colder tone, 'because I stood in for you at our triumph, and I did not think much of Solas being dragged through the streets in chains, so I am now collecting my petty vengeance.'

'Your vengeance is not petty, Amatus,' Veldrin had said, forcing herself up, the light in him, the light of the window behind him… 'I've lied to you about so many things, and I have made you breathe life into your nightmare…'

Dorian had gazed at her though narrowed eyes, then unexpectedly pulled her close and kissed her cold and clammy forehead.

'They are not giving up Arlathan,' he'd whispered in her ear; it had taken a century to register, and then another century for her to articulate the two syllables needed for 'who' – which was a pointless syllable onto itself, she knew exactly who - and 'why'. The why she did not get.

A millennium, then, for her to clasp the duvet in her fingers. In precise timing, Dorian's hands covered hers.

'I know what they are,' he whispered, 'and, given that, they must know where Solas has put all of the elvhen,' the Magister had gently clarified. 'It's obvious to me that they do - and they will not tell the Magisterium where that is. Abelas,' he followed, rubbing her palms with his thumbs, 'was bright enough to see that Solas was losing, so he…'

She had breathed in air and life, into a body that hosted a dead soul.

'…so he killed off their access to wherever it is, via the Eluvians,' she had said, suddenly sobered. 'So, unless someone, Anuris1 or Daren'thal2, or Solas gives an actual point on the map…'

'…human armies will search and search in forbidding jungles, dying to mosquitoes in their thousands, precisely when no human nation had thousands of men to waste.'

That, she had registered in a second.

No human nation would come for Arlathan because no human nation could afford to. Yet.

'They are not what we imagined, Vel,' Dorian had gently said, making the cause of his return to a lighter mood clear. 'Whatever we have awakened here, it's not the Ancient Imperium. Quite to the contrary, I think.'

'Cassius must be livid,' she had said, cracking a smile. 'Does he understand what they are? I mean…'

'That they are actually Elvhen?' Dorian had chuckled. 'No, I don't think he does, yet – Radonis knows it, Cassandra knows it, you and I know it…But they are treating that knowledge wisely, else I believe Cassius' senatorial fraction would throw themselves off a bridge, like lemmings. Not that it would not be entertaining, or much of a loss.'

The man's smile had faded to a thoughtful expression. 'I think that they are also beyond their revenge on the Elvhen people as a whole.'

She'd nodded, lowering her glance. 'They have Solas. They have no need for vengeance…'

'On all others, yes…' he had nodded, in turn. 'How do you know their names?'

'I didn't, before the Forbidden One,' she'd yielded. 'He knew their names, and told them to me, because, I think, naming them by their past names – their mortal names - would cause us all to dance. We should just call them Lusacan.' She had decisively said, and Dorian had nodded. 'Razikale.'

'Contemplation and Mystery,' Dorian had agreed. 'Let them be known as that – between the two of us, we can keep a secret. We have kept many before, we'll keep this one. They already call you Lady Patience in the streets, you know – and,' he'd added, before she could throw up, in earnest, 'it is three in the afternoon, and you have slept enough. The people, your people need you, and I think you have a fighting chance; don't be like Solas and take a three millennia long nap.'

She placed Solas' medallion on the windowsill before her, and contemplated it; it was old and dull, and now crisscrossed by the edge of a knife that had been not allowed to pierce it. There was a soft knock on the door – Veldrin looked towards the unfinished emblem of House Pavus, and told the person knocking to fuck off, in just those words.

Morrigan ignored her less than friendly greeting, proceeding to enter and Veldrin sighed from the bottom of her heart.

'I thought you would have already evaporated to parts unknown, Morrigan,' Veldrin said.

'I shall, in but a moment,' Morrigan replied, sitting without invitation. 'I have a few now rather obsolete Grey Wardens to visit. They won't enjoy it, I can promise you that, Veldrin.'

'You call me Lavellan,' Veldrin neutrally noted. 'You always call me Lavellan.'

'I call people what they think they should be called; if Dorian was here I'd call him Dorian, too, for he is no longer Pavus. I call you Veldrin because you are no longer Lavellan – you've both left your respective tribes and become people...In any event,' the witch picked up, 'I've come to say my farewells. I did not extend greetings on the way in, so I did not wish you to think that I truly have no manners.'

'Acknowledged,' the elf said.

'I have also come to thank you,' the witch added, with true warmth in her voice.

'For destroying the world?' Veldrin humourlessly laughed.

'For saving my son.' Morrigan sternly corrected. 'And, even if there was destruction to speak of here, 'twas not you who caused it. Remember that, Veldrin,' she added, with odd kindness.

The elf tiredly leaned on the windowsill. 'If there were destruction to speak of…' she sadly echoed. 'The veil is half removed; from Rivain to the Dales, the world is drowning in chaos and madness.'

Morrigan shrugged. 'That shall pass. There have been entire ages before the veil.'

'Not for mankind,' Veldrin whispered, and Morrigan shrugged once more, in pointed indifference.

'Those meant to survive will.' the witch said. 'Some of those not meant to survive will, too, because you gave them the chance to do so.'

The elf lowered her glance and shook her head. 'One could almost think you are pleased.'

'Indeed, displeased I would not call myself,' Morrigan thoughtfully uttered. 'You are too good and forgiving a person, Veldrin; Mythal's vallaslin truthfully does not suit you – you should have listened to your Keeper and taken the writing of Sylaise.'

'In southern Thaedas,' she followed, 'there are wide spread old wives' tales of how to free a child of magic; in some places, the Chantry condones them, openly. Do you know how they say that can be done?' Morrigan queried, her voice suddenly hard. 'The child is to be put to sleep via a tincture of felandaris, then held under water until their breath is almost gone… and well, if their breath is more than almost gone, then they are surely and permanently free of magic's curse, are they not?'

Veldrin shuddered, but Morrigan followed her account. 'Babes do not manifest magic; think of the manner of a human being who does that to their own six-year-old child. If such a person had been brought before you while on the Inquisition's throne you sat, what would you have done?'

The elf needed not answer; her gritted teeth were telling enough, and the witch shrugged once more. 'So, why pity them now? Mankind has gone for far too long without reaping what they sowed – they've hounded, imprisoned, tortured and destroyed all that they did not understand. What Solas has half done is only half of what they deserve, and not a tear I'll shed.'

'You are Mythal's daughter,' Veldrin neutrally said.

Morrigan stood. 'Her creature, perhaps. 'Tis good for all manners of vermin that you are not. Farewell, Restorer of Truths,' she said, with a kind smile. 'I shall not forget what you have done for me and my Kieran. If ever you should need me…'

She let the words drift, and headed for the door – Veldrin found herself wistfully looking on her trail.

'Morrigan,' she whispered, in such a low tone that, even to her own ears, it sounded as if she had not wished the witch to hear her. She nonetheless did, and turned.

'So soon?' she quipped; Veldrin ignored her irony.

'How long does it take…' she began asking, her courage drained in mid-sentence. Morrigan frowned. 'How long does it take for one of them to die? To naturally…'

'I am truly sorry,' Morrigan said, both her kindness and her sorrow heartfelt. 'Even without their powers…'

'Years?' Veldrin pressed. 'Decades?'

'Centuries,' Morrigan softly made reply. 'Ar abelas, da'len,' she said; Vel nodded, and let her depart in silence. There was nothing else to be said, and no tears came even after the door quietly closed behind the dark-haired woman.

Vel briefly closed her eyes – when she reopened them, she did not look to Solas' medallion, but to the still unfinished design of the house crest, then sighed, and once more thought that Dorian must have hated her, just a tad.

She had not wished to make a fuss with the bloody thing, but both Dorian and Mae had been adamant that given that she was the first Elvhen Magister in Tevinter history, a fuss was positively required; Vel had then pointed that it was unfair for Dorian to alter his ancient House's insignia – perhaps, she'd said, she should have just made her own.

Mae had smirked. 'No, honey, that won't do at all,' she'd said, arching both eyebrows as if Vel had said the most ridiculous thing in the world. 'You need to stay under the Pavus banner, so that when Dorian dies, you have two seats.'

'Well, now,' Dorian had muttered. 'You do not have to put it quite that abruptly.'

'How else would I put it?' Mae had shrugged.

'Everything can be phrased nicely – like say,' the man had testily replied, 'when Dorian resigns his seat in Magisterium to become Archon, you'll have two seats. When Mae dies, you'll have three,' he'd huffed, crossing his arms over his chest.

'Meh,' Vel had sighed. 'And who would I fill them with? Gladius and his posse of drooling lackeys?'

'Maker forbid,' Dorian had shuddered, and neither woman cared to correct his miswording. 'They'd vote with Cassius even if the sky came crushing down and Razikale was sleeping with them all.'

'That is a sexist and unwarranted remark!' Maevaris had all but shrieked.

'Even if I was sleeping with all of them,' Dorian had sighed, theatrically rolling his eyes. 'It was a metaphor. You both know them, they will not budge; they must be suffering from some sort of mental ailment that future healers will find a name for3. Also, Vel, I see what you're doing and you're not getting out of it – if I let you design your own crest, you'll just do the Dalish flags you had hanging all over Skyhold.'

'What was wrong with my banners?' Vel had muttered; her husband had regaled her with the same look he always did when he thought she had just said something positively preposterous.

'Garish brown-green on a grey background? You need ask?' he had said.

'Too Elvhen, too fast, sweetness,' Mae had added, making the point that Dorian was desperately trying to avoid; he'd furiously frowned, to let Mae know that she had just re-inserted gloom into an already difficult conversation he was attempting to keep light.

She loved him for it. But Maevaris was right; Vel had bitten her lower lip, and said as much, out loud.

'I am not an ankle biting upstart,' the elf had said, in a voice even she found alien. 'I am a Pavus who happens to be an elf.'

Dorian had bitten his lower lip too, but nodded.

'Anything more than that, doll, and you will lose at least half of what we have gained,' Maevaris had nodded, in her turn. 'We have Radonis, we have the…the dragons,' she'd struggled to say, 'but we also have an entire continent who now has better reason than ever to fear and hate elves, not to mention a comprehensively broken veil we still need to somehow address. You are,' the Magistra had followed, caressing Vel's shoulder, 'the one who has lost most in this ordeal; I've hated and feared every minute of it, but I came out triumphant in some sense. The Lucerni have gained forty seats already, and I am negotiating for a further twenty six. You are entitled to not align with the Lucerni, of course; independent seats exist…'

'Mae,' Vel had said, shaking her head – for an eerie moment, it had looked as if Maevaris feared Veldrin would not align with her, and that had caused a pang of pain in a numbed heart. 'Of course I am Lucerni. You went to hell and back for me…'

'…because, in some strange way, I trusted you to be really good at what you professed you are good at, which is killing Gods. You need to trust me now,' Maevaris had said, kindly but implacably. 'I am extremely good at this. We will gain more if we walk slowly than if we dash forth, now – if you get your own crest, if we leap…'

'…we may find that we land on nothing,' Veldrin had nodded.

'Personal power is not enough in politics, doll. Especially not in Tevinter, no matter how you've rocked its foundations. Have faith in me, Vel. You are,' Mae had said, sternly, 'the better mage, without doubt. But, both I and Dorian are better humans and Vints than you are, especially since you're neither. A human or a…'

'Vint,' Vel had said, dryly.

'It sounds better coming from me than it will sound when Cassius' side of the Senate stands to heckle you.'

'They would not dare,' Dorian had snarled.

'If she is under the Pavus banner, they'll be even less daring,' Mae had said.

And thus, it had come to this: her vetting of the Pavus House crest - and there was, if she was sincere with herself, nothing she could fault.

It came on a charcoal back background, with the stylised, cracked marble and ivy beset initial of House Pavus on the foreground. The halla horns were embroidered in spider web, thin, silken threads, plainly visible but not blatantly preeminent, behind it. The two ascending dragons, on the other hand, were done in striking silver thread, tails and necks together, bodies elegantly embracing the edges of the crest…the only thing missing was a credo, and while she knew all too well that her husband had hoped she would spend the day buried in the library, trying to find the fitting words, and not thinking…not thinking of…

Solas.

In this, at long last Dorian had failed; her soul might have been dead, but her mind was not, and she was not yet blind – at least not while seeing herself through the eyes of others. She once more turned to the window, and passed her fingers over the scratched bone, wondering, not for the first time, if she should have refused the Magisterial seat – she saw herself through the eyes of her Keeper: Clan Lavellan had not been hostile to humans, but they had still been murdered for lands that had lawfully belonged to them, even as the entire continent worshipped her as the Herald of Andraste.

All of that power, and she had not even been able to save her own family; what was a Magisterial seat, one in hundreds, compared to that?

She saw herself through the ghostly eyes of the Emerald Knights – they too had had power, of sorts, but the human promises at Halam'shiral4 had not saved the elves of the Dales from the Exalted Marches, simply because the humans had wanted to take their word back…Of how little political representation had served the Elvhen, even when it had been granted or earned…

And then, only then, her fingers gripping Solas' medallion so tightly that its sharp edges cut into her palm, she thought of his Arlathan, of the hopes of all those who'd have trusted him, of all the hopes she had crushed…But at least, there, she did not have to wonder too much – she knew what they would see, because it was what Abelas saw, and what Solas would – the same thing he'd seen when they had elevated Briala: an elf who'd risen to a seat by stepping on the bones of her kin, and bought it with the blood of their very last God.

She fiercely gritted her teeth.

'No,' Veldrin growled to herself, which such anger that any other hearing her might have frozen in fright. 'No.'

This train of thought was why the Dalish had been hiding under their aravels for centuries, why city elves had been burying themselves in their alienages – and, her thoughts hissed, where had their non-engagement with humans led them? Certainly nowhere, nowhere…They'd only become weaker and poorer and fewer; oh yes, in Orlais they thought that Briala was fucking the woman who had purged three alienages in one night, but they did not see that it was Briala who stood between them and more purges. They did not know, or did not care to acknowledge that painful Tevinter wisdom of the fact that the one who was not at the table was most definitely on the menu, and Elvhen across the continent had been on the menu for generations because they had refused to sit at the table with those who'd betrayed them.

Honourable, indeed – the Dalish congratulated themselves on their moral high ground at each Arlathaven. They should have been counting themselves instead, and see how each year, their numbers decreased by a few dozens, and how many clan names disappeared every decade…

Too proud of ourselves and the void, false history of our past to realise that we are taking ourselves into extinction, even without the humans' gleeful assistance…Why could you, of all people not see that, vhenan…she thought, her mind going to a place she dearly wished not to visit.

Time, Veldrin thought, only ever flowed onward, and not even the Elvhen could reverse that rule. Not even the Gods themselves could, for the more one fixated on an enemy's flaws, the more oblivious one became to one's own – and this, this held truth for countries and empires, for elvhen and humans, for snake and spider and butterfly alike.

And, Veldrin thought, I'd rather live as the traitor who saved the people, than as the hero who destroyed them. Again.

She once more lay the medallion on the windowsill, and turned around, neither thinking, nor feeling; she pulled the little chord that summoned someone nice. A frightened human maid rapped on her door – she struggled to smile.

'Summon Magister Pavus,' Veldrin therefore dryly ordered. There was no point in saying 'please' or putting kindness in her voice; she was the master now, not a grasping ankle biter. She was a Pavus who happened to be an elf.

'What shall I tell the master the lady wishes to see him for?' the woman stuttered; Veldrin distantly wondered whether the slave's terror was caused by the fact that she'd grown horns since last she'd seen herself in the mirror.

'Tell him I've picked our words.' Veldrin said; the slave nodded in desperate fright, and sought to make herself scarce as fast as she possibly could. She was not fast enough.

'And it is Magistra Pavus,' Veldrin curtly said. 'Remember that, Shem.'

Her spoken Tevene might not have been great, but she read it and wrote it extremely well. Above all, she understood it very well in writing.

Quibus amor Dei est, iuvenes moriuntur.

The ones who the Gods love die young.

Only, they didn't – they lived, long minutes and hours and days, fighting questions in mid-sleep and nightmares while awake, they outlived pain and loss and they lived long, long, long…

They lived centuries.

Quibus amor Dei est, nunc moriuntur-5 were far more fitting words.

Those beloved to the Gods never die.

Though, Veldrin thought, they might well wish they did.

1 Lusacan

2 Razikale

3 Stockholm Syndrome :P

4 Literally, Place of the Promise

5 The ones whom the gods love never die.

Life goes on.

Thank you for reading.

Cheers, Abstract and IvI