1
Lake Calenhad always made Ellyn a tad nervous.
For one, it was cold even in the summer. For two, Ellyn didn't know the first thing about swimming. Swimming in cold water had to be the most daunting thing she could ever imagine. After spending two months as a Grey Warden, she could imagine a lot, and she would still rather fight an ogre all on her own than swim in Lake Calenhad.
Anders once offered to teach her, but she was too shy to do so in her small clothes. Circle robes were long and heavy and not made for movement, so that was out of the question as well. He once told a tall tale of how he swam across the lake to escape, but Ellyn knew better. He probably made an ice floe in the water and pushed across the lake on it like a raft. With a few potent lyrium potions, he could probably Cone of Cold his way all the way across the lake, walking behind it as he dispensed the spells.
Swim across Lake Calenhad? Not likely. Especially not tonight.
The wind had picked up overnight, the waves were high, and the clouds promised rain ahead. She recognized Carroll at the docks as soon as they crested the hill. She was half hoping to see someone she knew well, but Carroll was infamous. Infamous for being a total fool.
"Ooh, our little princess is back!" Ellyn groaned. Now the rest of her companions were looking at her with their eyebrows all up.
"Little princess?" Leliana let out a soft giggle. "Oh I can totally see that."
"Don't encourage him, Leliana." Ellyn kept her stature straight, all business. "I brought reinforcements. Knight Commander Greagoir did send for reinforcements, yes? That would be us."
The templars followed behind her in formation, helmed and anonymous. It was a lie, but Ellyn hoped it was a plausible one. If Greagoir sent for the Right of Annulment, most of the templars were probably sealed in the tower as well; to carry out the Right he would need more templars. Thankfully, Carroll did not argue the point.
She just wished the man would just be quiet as he rowed them across.
"So you didn't know that she was our little princess, huh?" He just went on and on. "She's had special treatment since she was brought to us. She even had her own room while all the other mages slept in the dormitories."
"Well, she is a very special girl. Very pretty too." Leliana was egging him on for more juicy gossip. Ellyn had a sudden, satisfying image of Carroll falling into the bottom of the lake, heavy plate mail and all.
"I know, eh? All the new recruits got all nervous when they see her for the first time. She had her own personal guard, though, so nobody's allowed to talk to her. She had private tutors instead of classes with the other apprentices, and I heard she started food fights in the mess hall more than once and wasn't ever reprimanded."
Sten let out a grunt that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle. Morrigan snickered openly. "Well, that explains a lot."
"But there was this one templar that she was making eyes with -"
"Ser Carroll," this she was not about to allow. "You do understand that a mage and a templar fraternizing is forbidden and that you're making a dangerous … suggestion," Ellyn tried her best to look threatening, which wasn't very, but she hoped the words were enough, "that I was doing such a thing? Would you care to take it up with the Knight Commander?"
"Too late for that," Carroll shrugged nonchalantly, his tone much too casual. "I think Cullen's sealed up with the mages in the tower."
Ellyn felt an urge to leap across the boat and strangle him. She stared down into her lap and a hush fell upon everyone in the boat. Except for Carroll. He blabbered on.
Leliana put one finger in front of her lips and tipped her chin to Carroll for quiet, her eyes suggesting favors if her command obeyed. With her other hand she covered Ellyn's hands, which were balled into fists.
The rest of the ride passed in silence.
2
Cullen knew that Ellyn was an abomination. Ellyn is an abomination. He recited it to himself like a mantra, while visions of her tormented him just out of reach. It was just torture, he knew. He was trained to endure pain, should it came to capture, but not like this. Not like this.
He met her three years ago. Stepping off the little boat that carried passengers between the docks and Kinloch Hold, he spied Ellyn digging elfroot in the herb garden at the foot of the tower. She was wearing blue apprentice robes and sitting in the dirt. When she noticed that he was staring at her, she raised a hand to wipe her brow with a muddy hand, smearing a line onto her forehead. When she smiled, her eyes lit up with a childlike innocence that he had never seen. Just as quickly, she returned to her task as if the moment had not happen at all.
The moment happened for Cullen. He was briefed by the Knight Commander and assigned to a bed in the templars' quarters on the fourth floor. By the time he reached it and put away his things, his cheeks were still flaming red, which looked ridiculous and the colour almost matched that of his hair.
He wondered then, if she wasn't so much smiling at him as laughing at him.
These moments would occur again and again. He was stationed in the apprentice quarters' hallway, and each time she walked by him she seemed to cast her glance his way. He would follow her with his eyes until she was out of sight, and she always knew it was him - even when he had a helm on.
His knew that it was wrong; mages and templars were not forbidden to marry, but never with one another. Especially not when templars were well aware that every mage was a breath from being a monster.
However hard he tried, he could not imagine Ellyn that way. Other mages were rumoured to be promiscuous and all sorts of terrible things, never Ellyn. Other mages were not like Ellyn. She was special, pure and beautiful, a little princess. Sometimes he imagined her to be his princess.
Then came the night when she was attacked and Anders dragged him from his post to 'rescue' her. There it was - she was an abomination, the proof that he needed to see these past three years, and he knew that his duty required him to run her through, but he could not. The great sword was strapped on his back and he couldn't think of reaching for it. So instead he ran away.
The sound of his own boots on the stones sounded like laughter echoing through the halls. By the time he roused the Knight Commander and the First Enchanter, babbling on how Ellyn had turned into an abomination, they returned only to find Ellyn covered in blood, sobbing. Cullen never heard a sound so heartbreaking as that of her crying.
Don't you wish you could have been her hero instead?
What would you give to go back and be the one to save her instead of that Anders?
What would you give to be just a man, her just a woman, meeting in Denerim and starting a family?
What would you give...
Ellyn's arms wound around him and she was whispering in his ear, smelling of fresh earth and herbs, her hair draping across him and her breath tickling his skin, and he knew that this could never be and so he screamed, "be gone!" And he was left alone again in his cage.
When she left the tower, he thought that he could forget her. He could not miss something he never possessed.
These demons were giving him bits and pieces of her, memories of her twisted so that he could have her. They showed her how she loved him, then they took her away over and over again.
While the silence lasted, he wondered when he last ate, and last he took his lyrium. The lack of lyrium was jumbling his memories, demons or not. He was nearly certain that he wanted everything to just … end.
3
Cleansing aura. Heroic aura. Ellyn prepared herself as she ascended the steps of Kinloch Hold. She wanted to recite the chant, say Maker give me strength, but even that wasn't going to help her.
Alistair had never seen Ellyn so terrified. He spent the past two months watching her. He knew every one of her little poses for each of her little moods, and she carried herself now like she was going to a battle that involved multiple ogres and high dragons. He saw her looking left and right, and her eyes going desperate, fright settling in, then a dead calm that she always put on just before everything fell to pieces and they get rushed.
"Where is Ser Clara?" Her voice came out in a near screech.
"She is in the tower." Ser Greagoir was cold, and strict usually, but now he looked as if he was almost sorry he sealed the doors. Almost. "I see that you received Alistair's message."
"I'm going in." She marched ahead, giving only the briefest of glances to Alistair.
"I have called for the Right of Annulment," Greagoir stepped back and blocked her way. "The doors are sealed. No one is going in, and no one is coming out until reinforcements arrives and we carry out the annulment."
"You can't mean that every one of them have turned into abominations! What about the templars that are still in there?"
"We do what we must, Warden." Greagoir squared his jaw, determined.
"What will it take for you to not kill everyone inside the tower?" Those are my words do not use my words against me. "Just tell me what I have to do!"
"Fine. But you do know that this is a suicide mission. The tower is overrun by demons. If you go in, I will seal the doors behind you and unless all the mages are dead or the First Enchanter is brought to the door, they will not be opened again." Greagoir sounded tired and exasperated. "If the First Enchanter declare the tower safe, then I will recall the Right of Annulment. Otherwise..." He left the rest unsaid.
"I will bring back the First Enchanter." Ellyn turned to the templars she brought with her. "You heard what he said. We'll go in there and find the First Enchanter. You don't have to come with me."
The templars nodded their assent, and one of them, helmed and nameless, stepped forward. "We knew the risks when we left Redcliffe with you, Warden."
Ellyn turned to her companions. "It's best if you don't all come with me...in case I don't come back. Alistair, you stay here. I'll take Fleur and Leliana."
"What? No!" Alistair felt blood creeping all the way up to his head. "You're going to take the dog instead of me?"
"Alistair, be reasonable. There are only two of us, and Ferelden needs at least one Warden to stop the Blight."
"Then we will both go in, and both come back." Alistair stood in front of the seals, blocking her way. "I know how you fight and I know how best to protect you. Besides, I'm in the way! You can't go in there without me."
Ellyn was tempted to cast a glyph on the floor and bounce him out of her way, but thought better. Templar. "This isn't your fight."
"If it's your fight, it's mine." He locked his gaze to hers, unrelenting.
Greagoir opened the sealed doors behind him, and Alistair led the way in. The doors closed with a loud bang behind them. "Wow, that really hit home the finality of it all."
Ellyn let out a long sigh. This wasn't how she wanted to come home. She expected things to deteriorate the moment she left, but two months? The hallways were littered with bodies - templars, mages, abominations, ashes of shades. This was much worse than she thought it could be. "Leliana, have you ever fought an abomination? Alistair?"
"Are they anything like darkspawn?" Leliana unslung her bow and readied an arrow.
"If darkspawn are bigger, uglier, uses magic, and summons shades, then sure." Ellyn answered by readying her staff and adding heroic offence to the list of auras surrounding them. "I saw one when I was a kid and I still get nightmares about it."
"Lovely." Alistair took up guard in front of Ellyn, and she took two steps and took the post in front of him.
"Not today. You'll have to let me. I can sense demons like you can sense darkspawn."
"So … anything else I should know?" Alistair had his one-eyebrow-up inquisitive face on. "I was trained as a templar, but I've never fought an abomination either."
"If you see one of these," Ellyn pointed to a dead abomination on the floor, "kill it. If you see demons or shades - which are both pretty obvious - kill it. If you see a mage casting a spell at you, drain his mana. He could just be defending himself. If a mage is slashing his wrists, kill him. Templars may also attack us here if they were made thralls. Be on the lookout."
"Slashing his wrists?" Now it was Leliana with the inquisitive face. "What do you mean? Killing himself?"
"Blood magic," Ellyn explained. "If you don't stop a blood mage right away, he could have us all killing each other. So if we see blood mages, we don't ask questions." With six templars following, Ellyn was not about to take a single misstep. Everything had to be done by the book. She could feel their nervousness turn to assent behind her. They agreed. Of course they agreed - it was pure Chantry propaganda.
One blood mage might be able to control one thrall at a time, but their dangers came in the form of their blood wound spell which boiled the blood in your veins, but only when within range. Most templars never allowed themselves to get that close to one. An arrow killed them just as easily as valiant swordplay.
Ellyn extended her aura outward, picking out all the signs of life around her. Children. She motioned to the rest of the party to stand down, then stepped forward into the hall. There were the little apprentices, and something familiar and spiritual.
"Ellyn?" It was Wynne, one of the senior enchanters. There was something louder, brighter mingling with her voice. Faith? "What are you doing here?"
Ellyn was about to ask her about the spiritual presence before remembering the templars behind her. If her suspicions were right - that Wynne was just as possessed as she was, if not more so - they would cut her down just as quickly. "I'm here to see First Enchanter Irving."
Wynne glanced at the templars. Her staff was gripped as if she was ready to fight them if she must, "are they here for the Right of Annulment then?"
"No. They came with me from Redcliffe. I thought I might need them to deal with the abominations. Alistair's note mentioned them and I came here as quickly as I can."
"Did Greagoir send for the Right of Annulment?"
"He did. He let me in here on condition that I find the First Enchanter. If I find him, he'll recall the Right." Ellyn spared a quick look at the door to the cellar. The seals were still up. Good. "I'm guessing Uldred came back and summoned a pride demon."
Wynne was taken aback. "Well, Uldred is here. He was attempting to convince Irving that the Grey Wardens betrayed King Cailan and we should ally with Loghain. I don't know anything about a pride demon."
"I sensed it in Ostagar. There was a pride demon hovering around Uldred, just waiting to get through." Ellyn tapped the side of her head. "Why he thought he could control something as powerful as pride, I have no idea."
"And you didn't say anything?" Alistair leaned in and asked. The accusing tone was unmistakable.
"So he could summon it right there in front of King Cailan and kill us all before the templars get there? No. Besides, he might have died in the battle later." She was counting on that. "We don't have time for this right now. I..."
"Alistair, this is her family." Leliana placed one hand on Ellyn's back and stepped up next to her. "Now is not the time."
"Right. Look. I'm sorry. That was … stupid." Alistair reached out and took Ellyn's hand in his. Her head snapped up in surprise. "Listen. I'm your side, okay? You've been trying to save my family, I'll try my best to help you save yours."
4
It was a very large hall.
The great table were laden with food and ale. There was a suckling pig with an apple in its mouth, roast goose, platters of potatoes and vegetables. Torches lined the halls and the hearth in the center of the room - with yet another animal roasting on it, boar maybe? - heated up the entire room. This was the Anderfels, one of the great halls in Weisshaupt Fortress.
There were so many of them. The Grey Wardens. "Three cheers to the Warden who ended the blight!"
"To Alistair!" And they all raised their mugs to him, shouting his name. Duncan flashed him a great big smile at the head of the table and Alistair downed his ale, feeling the warmth trickling outwards.
The men were trying to out drink this one bald Grey Warden in the room with a red beard, whose name he could not remember. He was in Ostagar though. It looked familiar.
Ostagar. This place looked eerily like Ostagar. The jutting columns and the broken arches, the Tower of Ishal in the distance. Hmm. Where was that girl he met in Ostagar? The one with the staff?
She was beautiful. Breathtaking. She probably didn't want to hang out with all these men. He wanted to ask Duncan about her, but had a sinking feeling that Duncan shouldn't be here, while Ellyn should be, and a flash of a thought that maybe Duncan was dead.
Maybe they were all dead and this was the void. Were there parties and ale in the void?
He should really get up and look for - Ellyn. That was it. Her name was Ellyn, and she was sweet and nice and she laughed at his jokes. She wouldn't belong in a fortress like this with all these drunken men, so she probably ran off. Maybe she was lost. Maybe he should look for her.
"Where are you going, Alistair?" Duncan called across the table when he pushed away to get up. Everyone else was looking at him too. Weird. Alistair thought they were all drunk and some of them were already half asleep on the table. Guess not.
"I'm going to go look for Ellyn. She's probably lost."
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about her. She's perfectly capable." Duncan set his mug on the table and gestured to the wardens. "This is your celebration, Alistair. You should stay. You're the one who killed the Archdemon yourself."
Did he? What did an archdemon look like? How did he kill it? Alistair couldn't recall. He really should find Ellyn. "If I killed the Archdemon, I would have done it with her help, so I really should find her..." He began to walk away and the Grey Wardens were looking different, bursting at the seams with a dark, red glow. Duncan had his weapon out and walked slowly, purposefully toward him.
5
"Ellyn! Breakfast is ready!"
No. She hated mornings ever so much.
"Ellyn!"
Sunlight leaked through the edges of the shutters, hitting her eyes. Ellyn flinched a little. Five more minutes ...
"Wake up, sleepyhead!" The covers were pulled away from her in a flash. Argh. Cold. She rubbed at her eyes and yawned, and she remembered her arms longer in her dreams. She was grown up. When she swung her legs over the side of the bed, they didn't reach the floor.
Anders was peering at her, folding the blankets. She remembered him older in her dreams, too. "Mom made breakfast. Come on." He took her hand, half dragging her to the living room as she tried hard to keep her eyes open, stumbling. There was the smell of warm milk and fried eggs, a hint of cinnamon with apples, perhaps on porridge.
Ellyn slid onto a stool in front of the dining table, which was no more than a plank of wood on some nailed together slats. All the furniture were rough and wooden, unpolished. She turned her sleepy eyes to the woman by the stove, who was humming to herself, and wondered briefly where her armour was.
Why would mother be wearing armour? The thought slipped away like water through her fingers. Breakfast. It was so lovely here, but unfamiliar. Strange.
"Good morning, sweetheart." A bowl was slipped in front of her, with milk porridge, apples and shavings of cinnamon. The smell was intoxicating and sweet. "Your brother's going to teach you how to swim today, so I've made some extra food for your picnic. Don't forget to take it before you go."
Ellyn brushed her hand across the table and felt the grains of the wood beneath her hand. It was smooth. It looked rough and unpolished but it was smooth. Ah. She wanted to stay, to have a family who loved her and never, ever grow up and kill things and be covered in blood.
This was the self she left behind. Please, just five more minutes …
"These are not my memories. I never had a mother or lived in a cottage, or have a real brother who wanted to teach me how to swim." Ellyn spoke, apparently to her hands on the table. "Anders told me about these things. I don't even know what a rough table feels like. You're not my mother. You're a templar. You can't be my mother. You told me so."
She pushed with her mind, staggering them both. The cottage disappeared and there was nothing, nothing left except the pale white milky skies and light green grass of the Fade. She was bigger now, nearly eighteen in her mage robes. Alone
Ellyn felt her legs wobble beneath her and then she was looking up into that false sky, grieving for the family she lost that she never truly had. Better to have loved and lost, some said.
It was a lovely dream.