Forgive the profound delay. I've been trying to figure this one out - the Flemeth dilemma. If you have not finished Inquisition... and don't want the ending ruined, please stop here.
She was a dragon, in flight... or was she dreaming?
She could not recall leaving the Wastes... or even her bed. What, or who was doing this? The First? Saris? She followed along this path, certain it was not a friend who led her - if it was a dream - but hopeful, that if it was, her new gifts extended into the fade.
Haven - or so she thought - but, what were they doing
It was night, so she hoped to keep the honor guard and garrison from seeing her and panicking over her dragon form.
Yet, what she saw as she glanced down at what to her was too great a blaze for the garrison astonished and sickened her. She landed on the opposite bank of the lake, hidden by the tall trees, and watched as men and women who looked to be torn open, shambled about aimlessly, catching and killing the odd animal with an animal's frenzied hunger; using their hands and teeth instead of their weapons.
She decided to test her luck, and see if her gifts would keep her safe; and perhapse, give these poor , sick people a cure... or the peace ever lasting. She crossed the frozen surface of the lake as she was.. naked.
They glanced at her, briefly, before continuing on in their aimless search for death.
She strode among them, they gazing at her curiously from time to time, none motioned to harm her. She almost cried at their dispair. Once, her mother would have called it weakness... but no longer. Who could do this?
"She who did this is herself a shell... only she is not aware of it." the words came from above her, from a ledge on a watchtower, a slender elven mage, head covered by a hood. "Though she breathes, she is like them... a living corpse... only less vibrant, and she without a soul to trap within it's decemated shell." he lifted his hood to expose his bald head. His eyes gazed about sadly at times, angered, and even indifferent at others - different perspectives on the same issue expressed in one face.
"Who?," Lilith asked.
"Saris," he said directly, "I saw her once, in a dream of a Tevinter magister... very old, very weak fool. She was more alive back then... a short twenty years past. She crawled out of the wilds of Orlea, right into his bed... for protection. Now, she's a carrier of another masters will, and has no idea it is killing her. The one who she serves is old, talented, and worse... immortal."
Lilith looked up directly at him.
"She is little more than a glove upon a hand that is expanding inside it. Her body is not strong enough to wield this power, and it is killing her deliberatly, and slowly. However, if it is who I think it is... she may never die."
"The First," she all but whispered, "I thought him freed."
"Not without his powers he won't be... or so legend says. If it is him. That would fit though. He would need someone to carry it beyond the cofines of his prison. the wards about it would keep him within... powerless. He needs to build his power back up through another; one who will do so by using it willingly. However, his power would kill her too - Unless he has a concubine."
"And if he does?"
"Then he can keep building his power through Saris till it is fully restored. The concubine surrenders her womb willingly to him, becoming a surrogate body to his soul. She gains power over life - both giving and taking, and this ability grants him another sorce of power to feed Saris; keep her alive to do his will. Even if she is little more than a shell of a woman. Unless Saris returns to him, and gives him back his power, she will continue to wield it... unkillable, but less than human."
"So... the only way to stop her, is to kill the Concubine?," Lilith asked.
"OR give him back his power; then the concubine can take control of him... by enslaving his soul."
"According to legend," she finished for him.
"According to legend. The gifts he gives her are hers to keep, she is changed forever, but can only attain immortality by keeping his soul for herself. However, if he has his power... he cannot be killed as long asa she lives, and vice-verse."
There was something off, she looked once more to the man, but he was gone.
Then, another voice, an old woman's, whispering, "So like me," the voice sighed, "and your mother. Awaken girl. Don't bother with Haven, it is lost. But make haste to the Hinterlands... GO NOW!"
She arose with a start. She had heard the woman's voice before in her dreams, as a child, as a young woman... she knew it, very well - Flemeth. But why was she concrned with the fates of mortals? It mattered not for all that mattered was that she - Lilith - did. she rose from the bed. Trap of the old witch, or the fool who though to bluff an immortal blood mage into servitude, she was not about to let an opportunity to show off go unfulfilled, an if Saris, or Granny, or the Maker were there to see... all the better.
Oh, and saving the day was always a good reason to get up in the morning.
