.10 A prolonged struggle

Never had existence been an exertion.

If one would ever be conscious enough to experience death, this must have been it.

The smell of stale earth engulfed Elissa's nostrils, caking her lungs with the same dark liquid that glued her eyelids together. She could feel how her body sank down, yet the smell made her wonder whether she wasn't buried to rot.

The only thing that was certain, was that she just descended deeper.

This must be it.

But the moment passed. Eventually.

The situation didn't change; the suspense simply deteriorated over time, clearing her senses as far as the engulfing blackness allowed: Without anything to see there was simply more to hear.

Voices tolled through her head accompanied by an unfamiliar melody, like the words to a foreign ballad. A chorus of every whisper, every sentence she had ever heard. Elissa struggled to open her eyes, to see if someone was actually speaking to her, or whether she was haunted by another unpleasant dream. But her eyes remained stuck.

"Elissa?"

Only once had she been blind like this before, in the battle of her life and that of the century, and that she had survived.

She would be able to survive this nightmare, as well.

"Elissa, wake up!"

The words were spoken to her again and again, and Elissa wondered whether it was an echo of her mind or the voice of her love speaking into her ear. Finally she mustered the courage to answer, fought to answer, but the tarry liquid spilled into her mouth without mercy.

She tried to spit it out but instead she choked, yet she couldn't hear the sound of her own coughing. She only felt the heaving of her insides, rejecting the dark chill with painful fervor.

Then, a sudden freshness brushed across her cheek, accompanied by a familiar tune. Like a breeze, a reminder of a life that had once been.

The dew that used to stick to her skirts as she ran from Nan, when she wanted her to take a bath.

The drizzle that had covered her face as she looked over her shoulder and watched Highever burn.

The first snow that fell in the mountains after she reached the two-man camp, before entering the Deep Roads.

Was that where she was, far below the Frostback Mountains? Had her time come, because the taint ceased to spare her any longer? Was it the darkspawn's song luring her into these unknown depts?

"Elissa, wake up."

The voice had persisted, but only now Elissa understood it's urgency.

She tore her eyelids apart with all her might, and to her surprise she found that she had finally succeeded. While her eyes blinked against the brightness around her, her body registered in relief that she was free from the soot that had occupied her before. Was it gone, or had she imagined it? She tried lift her hand to feel her face for reassurance, but it seemed impossible.

"Finally, you are awake."

Upon seeing Zevran's face hover over hers, Elissa realized her situation couldn't be grave. She tried to open her lips to speak, to finally hear the sound of her own voice again, but it was impossible. The panic must have been written on her face, because Zevran quickly made a soothing gesture, an effort she hadn't seen from him before.

"You will be alright. You have assassinated the master, or should I say mistress of the Crows successfully. Unfortunately we found out too late you had been wounded by one of the guards, typically with a poisoned weapon."

Zevran looked away at this point, his eyes uncharacteristically hard. "The wound is not deep but it was sufficient to paralyze and nearly kill you, like the venom intended. Forgive me, I should have warned you."

His eyes remained distant as he continued: "The Crows rely on different sorts of poison and they always make use of one or the other, without exception."

He eventually looked back down at her, and his eyes had regained their usual charm. "You were very lucky."

The tenderness in his look warmed Elissa. He briefly stroked her hair with a smile around his lips. Then he stood up to carry off a bowl of water and a cloth he must have used previously to dab her face. He emptied it in a corner of the wooden shack that sheltered them from the spring rains.

"To make a long story short; when we found out you were poisoned it was only a matter of recognizing which venom they had used and collecting the right herbs for the antidote. Further healing will be a matter of time. The paralysis will wear off eventually, and relies greatly on sleep."

The elf returned with his pack, and before he kneeled down he covered Elissa in his own travelling blanket. When the worry didn't disappear from her tired gaze, he reluctantly added:

"You might wonder where Alistair is. To him befell the task to lose the carriage and with that, shake off any followers we might have acquired."

He focused on putting the thread he held through a needle and lifted up a shirt Elissa recognized as his own. He started to mend the sleeve that was torn during one of their recent travels, but before he got lost in his work he noticed that the worried look in Elissa's eyes hadn't disappeared.

"He will be back soon." He stated curtly. He then eventually sighed, and elaborated his answer in a more comforting tone. "You know he can hold his own, my dear Warden. You have to concentrate on your recovery now, and get used to the idea we might be alone for a little while longer. Sleep."

His last statement wasn't a command but more of a nudge down the right path. First Elissa hesitated to close her eyes, afraid of venturing into the dark again by herself. But after some time Zevran gently lifted up her hand and rested it on his knee. He smiled at her understandingly before he took up sowing again, humming a somehow familiar tune.

Elissa decided to find reassurance in her companion and let her worries fare, welcoming a now dreamless sleep.