Warden

"Ah - greetings." Solas's voice was carefully neutral. I took in his long chestnut braids, the black tunic in a fabric so fine as to be translucent, embroidered with gold at the cuffs, and his smooth face, and knew that this was another dream in which I wasn't going to be myself.

As expected, my voice spoke without my conscious direction. "Solas." The word was thoughtful, and I wasn't certain whether I was saying it as his name or not, but he looked up at me, his expression schooled to gentle patience. "It isn't all you are, you know."

The observation displeased him, though his voice remained even. "I am quite sensible of that fact. I have left all chance of such purity of purpose in the past," he replied, turning his eyes from me to look at a pair of hose he appeared to be in the process of mending.

"Yes - when you grew beyond your childhood and became a man," I said.

He looked up sharply, eyes wide. "Is that how you see it?"

I held his gaze easily, even aware that what I was saying would upset him - which was a little funny since I didn't even know what we were talking about. "It wasn't your choice, but many are thrust into maturity instead of choosing to step into it, aren't they?"

"It wasn't maturity," Solas snapped, but quickly composed himself, taking a deep breath. "You cannot possibly appreciate what I lost."

"Can't I? I am on the point of taking that step myself."

"As long as she asks it of you," he said darkly.

I tilted my head. "Is that how you see it?" His eyes narrowed. "She didn't - doesn't," I told him abruptly. "She is, in fact, terrified by the idea - but I think it may be time for both of us to grow up, before she becomes so reliant on me that - that I forget who I am instead of growing into it."

He was silent, staring at me in bewildered consternation for so long that I finally reached out to touch his cheek with my fingers.

My hand was nearly as insubstantial as his tunic, and the shock of it woke me with a sharp gasp.

A much older Solas was lying beside me, and the jerk of my body was enough to rouse him slightly. "Vhenan?" he whispered, one arm curling around me protectively.

"Not a nightmare," I reassured him, touching his cheek much as I nearly had in the dream. "Just - surprise. Go back to sleep."

He purred his approval into my neck, and I smiled as I pressed a kiss to the top of his head, hoping he wasn't awake enough to remember this in the morning. It wasn't - I wasn't certain it was a dream I wanted to tell him about, at least not yet, even though I remembered enough details that he might also remember the conversation.

There were just...things about it that were strange. As with the other dream, I had identified with the person whose eyes I looked through, even though she also said things I didn't understand, and apparently knew things I didn't know. But now I wondered whether I was actually looking through my own eyes or those of another. A spirit, perhaps? Had the hand I had seen been insubstantial because it belonged to a spirit, or had it been insubstantial because it had appeared in a dream?

Then there had been Solas. The tunic he had been wearing - I had never seen fabric that fine. Anywhere. On anyone. Not even when Varric had been taking me on a tour of Val Royeaux, trying to interest me in fashion. Not even on Dorian. Not even on Vivienne.

Where had an elf - any elf - gotten his hands on it?

And his face - his face had been younger, smoother, and yet...indistinct, somehow. As though I had been missing some vital part of it, even though I couldn't name what it was, and even though the details had been perfectly clear. He had been missing the scar above his eyebrow. The bridge of his nose had been a different shape - not yet flattened by whatever had broken it whenever it had been broken. And yet the nagging feeling of missing something wouldn't leave me alone.

I lay awake pondering these questions until dawn.

Dawn was when the camp began to wake, and I got up, leaving Solas to sleep a little longer while I pulled on hose and breeches and the quilted jumps I was still relying on for a substantial portion of my protection from the cold. Cassandra had volunteered for the last watch because, I knew, it gave her a chance to do her morning devotions in peace, and so she was already awake, measuring out grain for porridge, when I emerged. I watched, squinting, as she poured boiling water into the pot and placed it near the fire to continue cooking for a while, and then I held out my hand for the kettle. "I'll refill it for tea," I told her. There was a spring near enough camp that even I would have difficulty getting lost, and could easily yell for help if I somehow lost the ability to see the light from the fire. She nodded and handed it off willingly.

We sat in companionable silence as we waited for the water to boil, until she heaved a sigh that seemed as though it was begging to be questioned. "What?" I asked her.

She made a dismissive sound. "Simply reflecting on how many places we have been, and wondering where else this war may take us."

The water began to boil and Cassandra got up, removing the kettle from the heat and adding a packet of tea leaves.

"I think I may side with Varric on 'hopefully not the Deep Roads,'" I told her.

"Don't side with Varric," Hawke's voice said through the rustle of a moving tent flap. "You'll never win any money from him that way." She joined us at the fire, dropping down to sit beside me.

"I'm not especially optimistic regarding my ability to win money from Varric under any circumstances," I told her. "Which is why I don't take many of his bets."

"I hear you taking my name in vain out there," Varric called from his tent.

And so the day began.

It wasn't much past dawn when we broke camp and followed Hawke deeper into the hills. The paths - where there were paths - were narrow, and Solas and Cassandra both hovered somewhat anxiously, trying to help me stay on my feet. I slowed us down, but it still took less than an hour to reach Stroud's cave. Hawke went in first, of course, leading us with apparent confidence through a number of forks, until the ruddy light of a torch or lantern appeared ahead of us, slowly growing to overpower the dim magelights Solas and I had both conjured.

A door opened and the light became stronger. "It's just us," Hawke's voice said, and I squinted, trying to look past her, even knowing it was a fruitless endeavor. To my surprise, though, I caught an aura quite distinct from that of the prosaic non-mage I had expected. It wasn't really like the red templars, but it was more like that than anything else I had seen so far. "I brought the Inquisitor, as promised," Hawke went on, ushering me forward.

I found myself fact-to-face with a pale-skinned, dark-haired man, with eyes only a little bluer than Solas's. He was, I had to admit to myself, strikingly handsome, even with his facial hair, which I usually found a little off-putting on humans. Elves tended to have fairly sparse body hair, and it was the rare elven man who could manage any facial hair at all. Rather than clasping my proffered hand, as I had expected, he bowed over it and brushed his lips across my knuckles.

Did all Grey Wardens have such courtly manners, or just the ones I happened to meet?

And that was when it struck me: I had never seen an aura like Stroud's before, even though I supposedly knew a Warden.

I quickly put the thought away to mull over later.

"My name is Stroud," Hawke's friend said, "and I am at your service, my lady Inquisitor."

"Ma serannas," I replied. "I appreciate your willingness to speak with me - I know the Wardens have troubles of their own. We have been wondering, though: might those troubles have something to do with Corypheus?"

"I fear it is so," Stroud said, turning away and wandering deeper into the cavern. Hawke put her hand under my elbow, and we followed. "When Hawke slew Corypheus, Weisshaupt was happy to put the matter to rest, but an archdemon can survive wounds that seem fatal. I feared Corypheus might possess the same power." He stopped walking, though he remained standing there for a moment, back turned. "My investigation uncovered clues, but no proof," he went on slowly. "Then, not long after, every Warden in Orlais began to hear the Calling."

"I recall that being a bad thing," Hawke said with feigned amusement, "but I somehow don't recall you telling me about all this."

"It was a Grey Warden matter," Stroud told her, his tone apologetic. "I was bound by an oath of secrecy."

"Ir abelas," I said into the tense silence that followed, "but what is 'the Calling'?" It wasn't as though the Dalish had no records of the Wardens, but considering how small our population was compared to any human nation - and some human cities - they didn't receive many conscripts from among my people.

Stroud turned to look at me. "The Calling tells a Warden that the Blight will soon claim him. Starts with dreams. Then come whispers in his head. The Warden says his farewells and goes to the Deep Roads to meet his death in combat."

The entire cavern fell silent but for the drip of water.

"Well...shit," Varric muttered.

"Every Grey Warden in Orlais is hearing that right now?" Hawke asked, appalled. "They think they're dying?"

"Yes," Stroud agreed. "Likely because of Corypheus." He came a few steps closer, his face resolving into actual - if somewhat indistinct - features from the pale blur it had been before. "If the Wardens fall, who will stand against the next Blight? It is our greatest fear."

"So they do something desperate," Hawke sighed, "which is, of course, what Corypheus wants."

"I suppose the first question is whether this Calling is real or some sort of mimicry," I mused. If the Wardens were being tricked, that was a very different thing from Corypheus pulling the strings of the Blight to kill all of them.

"I cannot say," Stroud replied. "Even as a senior Warden, I had heard only the vaguest whispers of Corypheus. The Wardens believe that this Calling is real, and they will act accordingly. That is all we know for certain."

"You said all the Wardens are hearing it - that includes you?" And what of a Warden named Blackwall, I wondered, but put it aside again. There were things about the Wardens I clearly didn't know, and there might be a perfectly good reason Blackwall's aura was different from Stroud's. It might have to do with how long they had been Wardens, for instance.

Stroud answered my stated question as I wrestled my unstated ones into submission: "Sadly, yes. It lurks like a wolf in the shadows around a campfire." He took a shuddering breath. "The creature that makes this music has never known the love of the Maker, but...at times, I almost understand it."

I took a breath of my own. "People who are dying often don't think clearly - and perhaps all the more so if they believe there are tasks they must accomplish before the end. Wardens have considerable power and very little oversight. This could go...badly."

"We are the only ones who can slay the archdemons," Stroud reminded us. "Without us, the next Blight will consume the world."

"If some other solution were not found," Solas couldn't seem to help adding. After his questions the night before, it made me wonder if he had some other solution in mind. He was hiding something, as usual, but this time it seemed especially senseless.

"Warden-Commander Clarel is seeking an alternate solution," Stroud said. "She spoke of a blood magic ritual to prevent future Blights before we all perished." He ran an uneasy hand through his hair. "When I protested the plan as madness, my own comrades turned on me."

"Blood magic," Hawke said in an undertone. "That never turns out well."

Stroud turned away again, taking a few steps towards something that was either a table or a very oddly shaped outcropping of rock. "Grey Wardens are gathering here, in the Western Approach," he told us, and Hawke moved to his side to look at what I presumed was probably a map. "It is an ancient Tevinter ritual tower. There is little I can do on my own, but with your aid, Inquisitor, we might have a chance of stopping whatever insanity Clarel plans."

Was there even another option? Corypheus had destroyed Haven and nearly killed me with the aid of the red templars. What would he do if he added the Wardens to his army? "You will have the Inquisition's support," I promised him. "How long until they have gathered enough Wardens to proceed?"

"Given the state of the roads at this time of year, it may be late spring before they are ready, but it could be as little as three months, depending upon how desperate Clarel grows," he answered.

"It sounds like we need eyes in the Western Approach, then," Hawke said. "Stroud and I should go ahead - "

"Along with some of my scouts," I told them. "I'll send a raven to Leliana and they can meet you on the road north of Skyhold. That way you'll have enough people to establish a forward camp. I'll follow as quickly as I can, though with how many things there are to take care of - "

"I doubt Clarel's advisor will arrive much before the ritual is ready," Stroud reassured me. "He is rumored to be from Tevinter. If you want to catch him for questioning, it may be useful to intercept him, if it can be managed."

"Probably one of the Venatori," Hawke said, exasperated. "Because of course it is."

"Then...I suppose this is where we part ways for a while," I said to Hawke. "Unless you left something back at Caer Bronach."

"Some clothes and letters - little else," she replied dismissively. "Send them with Harding and the scouts."

"All right," I agreed, taking a deep breath. "Keep me updated, and I'll see you again in a few months."

She returned to my side and clasped my arm. "Maker willing. Take care of yourself, Inquisitor - and Varric, too, if he'll let you."

I ushered Solas and Cassandra from the cavern, leaving Varric to say his own goodbyes. "Well," I sighed, "we have a lake to drain and a rift to close."

I did miss writing about Hawke back when I was writing all of this. She always made me a bit nervous because her character is purposely a bit undefined, but "maximum snark with a questionable sense of humor" was a fun setting. I have a thing for people with questionable senses of humor. Probably says something about mine.