Hey! Happy Friday and happy August to you all. This chapter is a little bit shorter than the other two, but not by much maybe like two or three hundred words. Enjoy the chapter and see you at the bottom!

"You're shitting me. You managed to ride naked on one of your halla for how many miles?" Varric asked, pen in hand as he wrote down yet another ridiculous story that Ellana was sharing on their slow trek through the Hinterlands. The four of them were currently stopped for the night. A campfire was lit between them, two tents put up behind Cassandra and Ellana, and some rather large nugs were roasting on the fire.

Ellana and Varric were sharing various stories, trying to see who can make the Seeker laugh the most. They had been attempting this since they entered the Hinterlands five days ago. Varric and Ellana had to very different ways of telling stories, Varric's being completely outlandish tales and Ellana's being hilarious stories that for the most part seemed to be free of embellishments. If she wasn't doomed to die by the mark on her hand she'd have made a fantastic storyteller for her clan.

Though Ellana seemed to winning the game she and Varric had been playing. She had gotten a few smirks out of the woman where Varric seemed to only get sneers from Cassandra.

"Completely true, every word. I swear I still have the bruises from it. Never go skinny-dipping without putting your cloths somewhere that the nugs won't get to. They're vindictive little buggers when they put their minds to it."

Solas heard Cassandra snort from his left. The stories were interesting and if he wasn't so concerned for the state of the world, he might have been more inclined to laugh. They had closed multiple rifts and fought mages, Templars and demons for days on end. It seemed that there was no end to this war. As soon as they finished on group of rebels off, another would appear. It was infuriating.

"So, tell me more about your clan. I've only met a handful of Dalish elves and the one I'm closest to is a blood-mage and while she is very sweet, she's nothing like you, Shadow" Varric said as he pulled out another piece of parchment, obviously wanting more material on the Herald and her life for one of his distasteful novels.

Ellana sighed, her eyes staring at the fire, as it would give her answers of some kind. "Well, to understand my clan is to start at the beginning, to the fall of the People. Clan Lavellan isn't a normal clan. We have a different history, comparatively to other clans, or at least we've retained a slightly different history," she began, pulling at her braid and rolling the tip between two fingers nervously. She dipped a finger into her tunic and pulled out a necklace and began to fidget with that instead. In the dim light it was impossible to make out what the pendant she was wearing looked like, but Solas could feel a faint magic pulse through it.

A charm of some kind?

"My clan, like many of the others formed during the fall of the elven people, when we scattered, torn to pieces by wars of our own making and of those made by men. My clan was made up of escaped slaves, those that had fought to keep their freedom-"

"From Tevinter? I didn't think it was active that far back?" Varric interrupted as he scribbled furiously on the page.

Ellana sighed, her mouth turned into a hard line. "That's because it wasn't Tevinter humans that my clan were trying to escape. It was other elves-" "

"Your own people enslaved each other?"

"You have to remember Varric, the elves used to rule this world. If legends are true, elves were once immortal. I imagine it was like Tevinter, but much worse for those without the power to fight back," Ellana said, her voice near a whisper at the end.

Solas dearly wanted to interject, say something about the past that would put her mind at ease. While she wasn't wrong that the elves of the past had been treated cruelly, the world itself was wide with creatures that she would never get to see outside of the Fade. It was a world of beauty and wonder when the Pantheon wasn't burning it to the ground.

Her grasp on the People's history was impressive, if a little vague, but accurate in an age where everything he had known had just about been forgotten.

"From what history we have kept for hundreds of years, the elves of Arlathan, were just as corrupt as the Imperium. My people, my clan, were descended from those fought against their rulers, who fought against their slave masters. This knowledge is something that has been lost to many clans."

"I'm guessing that rebelling thing didn't work out all that well for them?"

She looked somewhat wistful before replying. "Something like that. Their leader had a plan, to stop the war, but he disappeared, along with most of the world's magic and rulers. Chaos ensued, causing more wars and death. Eventually, the humans realized what was going on and destroyed everything and every elf they could find, anything to ruin the already crumbling empire. Tevinter likes to take credit for it and many elves are more than happy to believe it, not wanting to remember that we were once just as corrupt as those that are still trying to enslave us today."

Solas tried not to flinch at the story. It was as accurate a narration of the events leading up to his disappearance has he had heard from any Dalish elf. It was almost too accurate and once again Solas had to wonder how her clan had preserved the knowledge of the past as well as they had.

He had sent multiple agents to attempt to infiltrate Clan Lavellan, but he'd had heard nothing back. He'd have to delve into the fade tonight and speak to his agents.

He wondered who had founded her clan. He had an inkling, but didn't want to make assumptions, he'd made too many of those already. If one of his people had founded her clan, it would mean, more than likely they would have passed away. He wasn't entirely sure how immorality with the original elves from Arlathan worked in this post-veil world. It hurt to even think of some of them as dead.

"But your clan stuck it out?"

"I wouldn't be here if they didn't."

"That still doesn't explain why your clan isn't normal…I mean, your version of history is a bit different from what I've heard before, but-"

"I'm getting to that, Varric. Isn't storytelling about the journey? My clan is strange because we settled down in once place, instead of solely telling stories we write things down. We aren't wondering the Dales in a vain hope the humans will let us have what is rightfully ours, no offence Cassandra."

The Seeker grunted and rolled her eyes. Solas pinched the bridge of his nose. This was part of the problem. There were so many promises broken between humans and elves. Solas almost missed when Ellana started speaking again, she was talking so quietly against the crackling fire. Her voice was enchanting and soft, if she had magic, he imaged she would be making shapes in the fire.

"Our first Keeper was looking for her leader, a general that had commanded many of the armies of freed slaves, but he was nowhere to be found. So, my clan stopped wandering, but we never forgot that our roots were of freedom, so we offer that to any elf that needs our protection. It doesn't always work, but we get many different kinds of people to stay in our clan. We have elves from Tevinter, Val Royeaux, Circles, cities, you name it, at one point or another an elf has been from there. With this mismatched group of elves we tend to stay on a cursed mountainside. It keeps the shems away and keeps us much safer."

Solas could feel a migraine coming on. Ellana could be a direct descendent of one of his generals, who had all been related to different members of the Evanuris. He had given them specific orders on how to handle the people they had freed. To think that one of them would have created a clan that would survive to this day with some accurate culture shook Solas to his core. What else had this clan preserved? Ellana doesn't speak of "the creators" beyond cursing them. Could there be a clan that wasn't just an echo of the past, but have actual substance in this post-veil world?

He would have to find ways to ask her further about this, but right now she was enjoying her small talk with Varric.

"Is the mountain actually cursed?"

She gave him a conspiratorial grin, "if you mean cursed with clever Dalish elves that have been circulating rumors about a curse for hundreds of years, then yes."

Varric smirked, his eyes alight at the story Ellana's clan had spun. "So your clan doesn't travel? Nomadic life not their style?"

Ellana shrugged. "According to the history passed down from the Keepers, there is no reason for us to be traveling, since our purpose is freedom and we have it, so settling down was the best option. That doesn't mean that we don't trade and bring out Dalish wares to neighboring towns. That's mostly what we use our aravels for at this point. As I said earlier, my Clan is a little bit different, but there are other clans like mine scattered throughout Thedas. We all have a similar history, but my clan has the most contact with shems and therefore has the most to lose by this silly war that brought me to the Conclave in the first place."

"So, you were a spy!" Cassandra nearly shouted over the quiet of the fire and Ellana gave her a good-natured grin.

Solas felt like smacking his head into something. Of course she was there to spy, what else would a Dalish elf be doing at the Conclave in the first place? What had the Seeker thought she was doing there after everything was said and done?

"Of course I was a spy, Cassandra, but I wasn't there to blow up your Conclave. I wanted to know what was going to happen between your mages and Templars. You humans always think that you have the final say in what goes on in this world, but there are more moving parts than you have control over."

Solas couldn't agree more.

As you can see I'm diverging from the canon here. I love twisting things and I image that there are clans that have stopped wandering if they find a good enough area where there were no humans to bother them. Also, some clan had to actually preserve something hadn't been awake that long to find all the clans all over Thedas and determine them all inadequate. He tends to assume things.

Anyway, thank you for the kind reviews.

There are going to be more fun times in the Hinterlands coming up. As we all know, the Hinterlands takes forever to finish. I spent too many in-game hours there just trying to finish the side quests, but I digress.

Review if you liked it or have questions. Sometimes I feel like I make something clear in my stories and then I find out I've confused people. =)

Have a great weekend and see you next week!

~Animerocker