It's only occurring to me now that I could have saved the first sexual content in this fic for Valentine's Day. Oh well. Not like I pay any particular attention to the date anyway.
Will They Follow?
I sighed in relief as Skyhold's distinctive wards came into view. The two-week journey returning from the coast had been worse than the journey there, as a sudden cold snap had struck the very afternoon we left. We had ended up sharing tents all the way back - Cassandra and I together at the lower elevations, and all four of us crowding together at the higher. There hadn't been a chance for me to spend another night alone with Solas, though I also hadn't particularly needed him - only wanted him. Cassandra's company had been enough, perhaps, to keep my dreams from overwhelming me. I had had a few, but they not only didn't wake me, I no longer had them every night.
We were still an hour from Skyhold's relative warmth, and it was hard to resist the urge to blow into my hands, even though I knew it would only make my fingers colder in the long run. I wasn't certain my fingers or toes had been warm since we left the Storm Coast, though I hadn't been nearly as vocal about it as Bull, who was riding behind me and muttering a chain of invective against the snow even now. Cassandra had stopped riding beside him sometime around midmorning, dropping back ostensibly to act as our rearguard, but really, I thought, just tired of listening to him.
Solas rode beside me. We hadn't spoken for the last several hours, but having him there was a comfort. Ever since our night together, our bond had expanded somewhat, until we shared each other's feelings any time we were close enough to share body heat, and I could sense his presence within a radius slightly beyond the reach of my arm. I felt a little empty when he moved further away, and I assumed the same was true for him, given how much time he spent riding next to me.
Despite the comfort I found in his presence, I was aware there was so much he wasn't telling me. At first I had put it down to my inexperience combined with my current centrality to all this strange Chantry business. But when I had asked him how he had known things about the shivas'lath, he had - if not lied - held back a considerable portion of the truth. Did he think I wouldn't notice, even with the bond connecting us?
It hadn't really bothered me then, I had been too wound up in our flirtation to give it serious thought. But the longer I sat with it, the more it did bother me. Solas had been my friend for longer than I could remember. He had showed me paths through the Fade that no one else knew how to walk. I loved him and we shared a bond unlike any I had ever heard of. I knew he was a good man.
He was just a good man who was also a liar - and not just a liar, but a liar to those whom he loved and respected.
A liar and - I still remembered the way he had spoken of the Dalish, though it hadn't come up between us again. He was a liar and someone who sometimes passed judgment on those who deserved his compassion. And yet he was also quick to help, to heal, and it didn't matter whether the people who needed help and healing were elves or humans or dwarves, mages or common soldiers or farmers.
How could I know someone so well, and simultaneously not know him at all?
The hour to Skyhold dragged by, not hurried along by either my uneasy reflections or my half-frozen extremities, but it did pass. We were hailed from the gates, where soldiers had been stationed, and there were servants waiting to take our gear, and grooms waiting to see to our horses, as soon as we entered the courtyard. Some of the tents had been taken down during our month-long absence, which likely meant that more parts of the keep had been made liveable.
Leliana, Josephine, and Cullen were all waiting a little distance away - I could pick out their auras as well as the shiny satin Josephine somehow always managed to be dressed in - and Cassandra dismounted immediately and went to join them. Likely as not, that meant there was some crisis or other that I needed to be briefed on, so I sighed and slid off my own horse. It was much warmer in the courtyard than the surrounding mountains, and my fingers were already starting to warm a little. Before going to join the Inquisition's leaders to find out what kind of chaos was brewing, I slipped off my mittens and stowed them in a saddlebag, chafing my fingers gently as I looked around for Cassandra.
She was already approaching me. That couldn't be good.
"Walk with me," she said almost casually - and somehow that was worse.
We set off across the courtyard at an amble. "We have new arrivals daily from every settlement in the region. Leliana informs me that Skyhold is becoming a pilgrimage. And if word has reached so many, it will have reached the Elder One."
"Likely," I agreed.
We began mounting a long flight of stairs that led to the upper courtyard and, eventually, the main entrance to the keep. "We have walls and numbers to put up a fight here," Cassandra acknowledged, no doubt leaving out the wards because she couldn't sense them, "but this threat is far beyond the war we anticipated. But we now know what allowed you to stand against Corypheus - what drew him to you."
I looked down at my hand, the Anchor clearly visible beneath the light gloves I wore. "The Anchor, yes."
"Do you think so?" Cassandra asked, pausing at the top of the stairs, her brows quirking in something almost like amusement. "It has power, yes, but it's not why you're still standing here."
I thought it was exactly why I was still standing there - it was the Anchor that had allowed me to manipulate Corypheus's orb, and the Anchor that had destroyed the demons I had encountered in the mining tunnels. Without those two things, I would be dead.
I remembered Solas chiding me for ascribing my own creativity and resourcefulness to luck.
Fine, I amended silently, I would very likely be dead.
Cassandra was continuing, not privy to the arguments being waged in my head. "Your decisions," she told me, leading me around to the next flight, "let us heal the sky. Your determination brought us out of Haven. You are that creature's rival because of what you did. And we know it. All of us."
I paused. "All of us?" I echoed. "Who is all of us?"
Her smile was both exasperated and affectionate. "The Inquisition requires a leader: the one who has already been leading it." She took my arm, tugging me up the last few stairs, to where Leliana waited with an enormous - very clearly ceremonial - sword.
"You don't mean this," I said, looking from one to the other. Below us, though it was much too far for me to see clearly, there was a suspicious sort of movement and a congregation of auras that whispered crowd to me. "I've made a few suggestions, yes, but you're the ones who have decided things. Creators, I didn't even find Skyhold, that was Solas - "
"Your suggestions have been both thoughtful and practical. You pulled together and implemented the plan to save the people of Haven. You acted as our commander, leading the assault and staying behind to ensure the mission was completed," Leliana told me. "You brought us the plan for reaching this place, organized our supplies, our scouts, our hunting parties, and made us welcome when we finally arrived."
"You have, in fact, been leading us for months," Cassandra added. "Now is the time to make your position official."
"I'm an elf! A mage!" I argued.
Cassandra gestured, indicating the crowd in the courtyard below. "They'll follow you as they will no one else. They have seen you put their lives before your own, again and again, and in your willingness to sacrifice they see a reflection of Andraste." She lowered her voice. "Which is not to say it must mean the same thing to you, only that you are the only one who can hold all of this together."
My mind raced, but one thing was clear: Corypheus had to be stopped. If this was the only way - if all of the Inquisition's leaders believed it was the only way - how could I refuse?
Did I want to refuse? Deep down, past the disbelief and doubt, past my unease with humans and their Chantry - wasn't this what I had been trained for before I had been stripped of my future? I couldn't return to my clan. Maybe this was where I belonged, and even if I didn't believe in Andraste or her Maker, even if I doubted the power of the Creators, perhaps there was still such a thing as fate.
I reached out slowly, and my hand closed on the hilt of the sword. "Do you remember when I said I didn't know what to do about mages going forward?"
"I do remember," Cassandra agreed.
"I...believe I will need to acquire more-concrete thoughts on that issue."
"I look forward to hearing them - and likely arguing about them," she replied with a small smile - one that was mirrored on Leliana's face.
The sword was heavy in my hand as I lifted it - an impractical thing, especially for a mage. "All right - I will lead us against Corypheus, if that's what it takes. I can be an elf and a mage who stands for all of Thedas. The Inquisition is for all of us - for everyone who has the will to see what is right and not turn away."
Cassandra walked past me, to the edge of the landing. "Have our people been told?" she called out.
"They have," Josephine's voice replied. "And soon, the world."
"Commander, will they follow?" Cassandra cried.
"Inquisition, will you follow?" Cullen demanded of the assembled crowd.
The cheer that went up shook me, and the next, as he asked if they would fight, was louder. The third, in answer to whether we would triumph, was louder still. And when he introduced me as leader, Herald, and Inquisitor, the resulting tumult seemed to shake the mountains themselves.
They really would follow. I thrust the ridiculous sword into the air, not knowing how else to acknowledge the faith they were placing in me, and they went completely wild.
That wasn't the end of it, of course - after the excitement had died down, the leaders - my advisors - and I went to investigate the main hall of Skyhold's keep. So far it had remained untouched as we worked to make the keep functional on a much more basic level, with kitchens, stables, and housing. The hall was in bad shape, debris littering the floor, and even I could see the gaping holes in the ceiling by virtue of their brightness against the otherwise dark roof. But I knew the echoing space had probably once been magnificent, and I hoped it could be again.
We had more questions than answers, and the hall was, for the moment, the best place to get away from everyone else to debate them. We talked through theories for a while, but it came down to one thing: "We need to know more, and someone out there must have the information we seek," I told the lead - my advisors.
"Unless they were to see Corypheus on the field, most will not even believe he exists," Cullen said, his tone somewhere between a grouse and a scoff.
"We do have one advantage," Leliana reminded us. "We know what Corypheus intends to do next. In that strange future you experienced, Empress Celene had been assassinated."
"Imagine the chaos her death would cause," Josephine reflected. "With his army…"
"An army he'll bolster with a massive force of demons," Cullen said grimly. "Or so the future tells us."
"Corypheus could...conquer the entire south of Thedas, god or no god," Josephine added, as though the possibility was only just becoming real to her.
"The Herald - the Inquisitor - is right," Leliana sighed. "We have to know more about what we're dealing with."
"I know someone who can help with that." The new voice made me tense, until I identified it as Varric and saw his blurred form picking its way across the debris-covered floor. "Everyone acting all inspirational, uh...jogged my memory, so I - I sent a message to an old friend. She's crossed paths with Corypheus before, and may know more about what he's doing. She can help."
"I'm always looking for new allies," I told Varric. "How long ago did you send your message? When do you expect her to arrive?"
"A little while ago, and it will be a few weeks yet - she's coming from the Free Marches." He paused uneasily and glanced over his shoulder. "Once she gets here, the two of you should meet privately. Parading around might...cause a fuss. Trust me," he added as he turned away, "it's complicated."
"Oh dear," Leliana breathed, "if Varric has contacted whom I think he has, Cassandra is going to kill him."