*****In the previous chapter Astlyr was down and out. Pinned under rubble with what is probably a broken back. But that can't be the end. You know it, I know it, and Astlyr knows it. But what happens to free her from this slow death? Find out now!

PLEASE READ:
Sometimes I write scenes with certain music to accompany them. This is one such case. In this chapter you will see a line of ****** These are to indicate where you should start playing this: watch?v=WIjWaulrLjs
This song has no lyrics, you don't have to worry about that. Some people will read faster or slower than others, so feel free to put the song on repeat to keep the mood.

Of course, you are free to ignore this at your leisure. ;) ~~~~~

Part 40

The Ways of New Gods

She was aware of the voices first. No. Not voices, not precisely. They didn't call to her ears, but tugged at her mind. A dull thrum in her thoughts, some more distinct than others. One voice might break through the wash of its fellows; a sharp yell of pain. It was all pain. Weeping, complaining, screaming. Quiet, subtle hurt and worry from the civilians hidden under Skyhold, to the agony of death from the wounded soldiers in the yard. Yet, somehow, she was able to push them all aside. To concentrate past the pleas.

The next thing she realized was that she was standing. Standing in Skyhold, but not as she had ever done before. Everything was smaller. The soldiers who rushed around her feet only came to her ankles. "What-" she muttered, and her voice was two voices. Male and female. Hers and... "Cole?" But that was wrong. He was here. She was here. One. Together. His thoughts were her thoughts and his words her words. There was not an inch of separation between them. She almost reached up adjust a hat she knew she wasn't wearing. Having been a single entity all her life she had no context for the feeling to being two.

Then something roared, struck at her. That got her attention back to the matter at hand. Elgar'nan. She knew him, that much was certain. He too was smaller, just as everything else was. He came up to her ribcage now. He was staring at her with his single, small eye. His whole frame shook with obvious fury and she could hear his pain too. Guarded, bubbling up from below a fathomless depths. Surging towards the surface like black sludge. Astlyr stepped carefully, looking down at her feet to avoid treading on anyone. The soldiers of both armies had stopped fighting one another to get clear of this new threat, whatever it was. She could hear their fear of her too. For a moment she saw a flash. The voice in her mind told her what she looked like to them.

She was herself, Astlyr, only much much larger. Her feet had transformed into talons, her hands had become more-claw-like, and she had a tail. I massive, rudder-like appendage which she had to struggle to keep from taking out another section of wall. Her horns were larger, like a dragon's, and her eyes yellow and slit pupiled. The people were terrified of her. She flexed her powerful limbs, hearing the gasps of terror and confusion from the everyone below.

Elgar'nan charged. She met his change with her hands, grasping both his tusks. He pushed her back, almost smashing into a section of wall. Her tail swung to balance her and several soldiers went flying. She could only hope they weren't hers.

She telepoted away. Without a thought, or considering how to perform this action. She merely blinked herself clear of her fortress home. She stood in the snowy valley beyond the bridge, near where the enemy siege engines and a few remaining scraps of the elven army stood. Wisps of cool smoke dissipated around her.

She might have been confused, but the Cole part of her kept her kept her on track. She'd always been able to teleport at will. Of course she had. "Elgar'nan!" she roared, her voice shook the mountains. "Face me!" Whatever had happened to her, whatever she was, she knew what she must do. Her people needed her to defeat the foe. To win the day as the biggest and the strongest once again. Only this time she was even bigger and stronger than she had ever been.

Something swooped in on her right. Mythal. She could feel the god's pain, just as Cole had always described. Like shaking off cobwebs. Like a mystery held close to the heart. It didn't even feel new to her. It was as though she had been sensing it her entire life. Her life, when she had been both a ghost in a spire and a child with horns. Both tortured by templars and raised to be strong. This combination of memories, of histories, made her feel a surge of warm strength rush through her. She also felt Mythal's confusion and rage. The goddess might not have known exactly what had happened, but she rightly perceived Astlyr as a threat.

Mythal gave an enraged cry, coming in to blast Astlyr with flame and attack with her claws. As the dragon swooped low Astlyr reached out, little noticing the fire that bathed her. She snagged the dragon's wing in her claws she used the goddess' momentum against her to smashed her, bodily and hard, into the side of the mountain.

The dragon thrashed for a moment then transformed, becoming a small, limp figure in the snow. Astlyr looked down at the still form. Still in the body she knew and recognized. A bald elf with blue eyes that no longer shone with clever mirth, but ambition and hate. Astlyr did not hesitate. Why would she? This was not Solas. The elf who lived by that name had died years before. She knew without doubt who she faced now as she flexed her deadly claws and brought them down, transfixing the goddess. She heard the cry of pain in both her ears and her mind. Then the rasp of death as Mythal's latest body breathed its last.

There was a thunderous roar of rage. Elgar'nan was charging away from Skyhold towards her. Astlyr smiled, narrowing her eyes. A power such as she had never felt surged through her body. Her left hand was alive with Fade magic. She had no idea how the anchor would work with her current form, but it didn't matter. She met the charging god head on. Once again she grappled him, turning his charge away and sending to smashing to the snow. He skidded, tearing up turf and crashing into one of his own siege engines. Astlyr was only then aware that magic and arrows were being fired at her by those of Elgar'nan's forces who had remained outside the fortress. She could hear their fear too. Yet they also ached with an ageless desire to serve this god-king, this Elgar'nan. Did he hold them in a magical sway, or had they truly ached for old masters for so long that when they finally had one again they fell easily back into their worshipful place, just as Fen had predicted?

She focused her attention on the god before her. Let the elves try to harm her. Their arrows and magic were tiny stings to her. Many of the soldiers wisely fled. Her hands prickled and she looked down at them. Twin daggers, long, curved and deadly, had appeared. They felt natural in her grip, as though they had always been. Fade magic sizzled down each weapon and she smiled a dull, hollow smile.

Elgar'nan rallied and charged her again. Fade magic rippled over his own body. The veil was torn open behind him in an ugly scar. Astlyr sealed this as easily as she might brush away a fly. He would not force any spirits to come to his aid. This time she met Elgar'nan with her fists and blades, smashing his head down to earth with a deadly blow. He ground into the snow and stone, scrambling to stand, bleeding thickly over the white and disturbed earth. His jaw hung at an awkward angle now. His single eye was bloodshot. She thought he might turn. Transform into his smaller shape and try to flee her. Instead he snarled words garbled by his mangled jaw, though he spoke more with magic than his strange lips. She felt the static of it.

"YOU. You dare to do this? You are all of you beneath me! A heathen race! An abomination! Your people have no right to walk our world! I am a god, you dull creature! You are unworthy!"

"But I am worthy," she felt the Cole part of her flare. Those memories of fear and pain as true as if she had lived them. As though she had felt a templar's blow, known the cold and loss of abandonment. And then there was a rush of the deepest of understandings. Of knowing his...her...both of their places in the world. "These are the new ways, Elgar'nan. This is the new world. Whatever you were before, you can never be that again."

"I WILL have my vengeance!" his voice was a ragged wound, raw and bloody. The sound of an animal backed into a corner. The rattle of death ignored. He charged her again. "I will make you pay!"

She met his charge once more. Her body alive with strength as she had never felt in either of the lifetimes which now dwelt inside her. Better than blood rage. Stronger than adrenaline. He slashed her side and she barely felt the pain. His tusk left a gash on her thigh and it only intensified her anger. She did as her new instincts bid her. She went where the daggers needed to be, as though they belonged buried in the flesh of the god-beast. The fighting skill of two warriors was in her limbs. This god was old and tired, she was freshly minted. She was fast, faster than she had ever been. Yet her muscles were strong, rippling with ageless power. She could feel the Fade feeding her like a mother.

Again and again she drove the daggers home as naturally as if she was born to it. She wrapped locked arms around Elgar'nan's neck as he flailed. Fade magic erupted in useless bursts around them as he struggled against her strength. She twisted to have just the right angle, then dragged one of her new blades across his throat. His hide was thick, she had to plunge the weapon deep and Fade magic roiled from him like his blood. It blinded her momentarily, but she gamely held on, driving the dagger deeper. He went limp in her arms. Transforming into an elf once again, he fell to the snow. His pain surged for only a moment before death took him and his voice quieted and went still.

Astlyr exhaled, her new limbs shaking with wild energy. Only now did she take a moment to pause, as she stood staring down at the small body in the snow before her. She raised her left hand, the mark still there, aglow with an eager Fade-light. The twin daggers gone once more. Gone like smoke. She turned to look at Skyhold. Her Skyhold. Both parts of her, both her own longing and Cole's, were drawn to that fortress. Home for them both. She saw it through the eyes of a freshly declared Inquisitor, uncertain, eager to avoid the whole situation. She saw it with the eyes of a strange, 'spooky' boy, hoping to find a place of acceptance at long last.

And then she was falling. Not with her body, but in her mind. In fact, she had no idea what her body was doing, and she didn't care. She was floating in a world of blackness.

She was in her original form now. No tail or talons in evidence. She was clad in simple, green garments; the ones she usually wore during her Fade walks. The darkness around her was warm, even comforting somehow. She felt no earth beneath her feet, nor walls around her. She no longer heard the calling of hundreds of pained voices. Her thoughts were her own and it was almost too quiet. She searched her mind and could find no memories of dark spire corridors, or of a kind mage helping her. Of blood on pale hands and stained knives. Cole's memories had left her, her thoughts were truly hers alone.

"Astlyr?"

"Cole?" she turned around. She didn't know how she did it, but she brought herself about to face the boy. He was dressed as he often was in the Fade. White shirt, simple brown breeches, his feet bare. His face was youthful and healthy. His eyes alight and bright as twin stars. "What...what happened? Were we...?" Astlyr stammered.

"We were a god," the boy answered her, drifting closer to her in the blackness. He too moved easily and reached out a slender hand. She twined her fingers with his, feeling their unusual warmth. He looked up at her, smiling a smile that stayed rather than flitting across his face like a memory.

"We were a god?" She wasn't certain how she was meant to respond to that information. Clearly they had come together to become something. Something extremely powerful which had faced down Mythal and Elgar'nan. Should she had felt more surprised? For some reason this notion was making too much sense. He was her Companion and there had been Fade magic everywhere. Why wouldn't they? Why couldn't they become something greater, as Fen'Harel and the other gods had?

"I unlocked your memory," Cole said, still smiling up at her. "When we joined together I was able to remember, to make us remember."

Astlyr shook her head. "I can't believe I forgot a Fade walk like that. Following Fen and Dirthamen into that memory to see how the gods were created. And we did the same thing they did?"

"Yes. I think so," Cole seemed so nonchalant about it. As though this was the natural next step in their lives. "I found you as you were dying. I didn't try to join with you... but I did. I slipped in sideways like falling, and then we were something else. Something big."

Astlyr glanced around again, still seeing nothing but the darkness in which they hovered. "Where are we now?"

"I don't know," Cole too peered at their surroundings. "Something...inner. A place like the Fade, but not the Fade. A place that's made of the mind and doesn't belong, but right now we belong in it."

"Can we get out?"

"Yes. Can't you feel it? We need to make a choice, and then we can go back to our friends."

"A choice?" Astlyr felt an odd tugging in her chest. The thrum of Fade magic through her veins, or perhaps something else. Something deeper still. She understood, even as she had asked. "To remain a god, or to return to what we were? Separate and become two again?"

"Yes," Cole tilted his chin, his eyes meeting hers without hesitation. It was odd to hold his gaze for so long. She was used to quick, fleeting moments of contact with her dearest friend.

"I...wow... I'm not sure I can make that decision," Astlyr rubbed the back of her neck. "Would we be like Fen? Do you think? And the others? Able to take on a larger form, but retain a smaller one when we wanted?"

"I think so. Our change was different. The elves had foci to channel the Fade magic. We had the anchor," Cole nodded towards Astlyr's left hand. She raised it slowly. The mark was still there on her bare palm. Pale green etched against brown skin, as it had always been. Cole reached up and delicately touched the mark with his fingertips. Little sparks followed the motion then faded as he withdrew his hand.

"The anchor helped us change? I suppose it makes sense," she said, turning her hand a bit, feeling the mark tickle with wakefulness, even in this strange place. "So we could be gods? Is that what you want, Cole?"

"It's not what you want," the boy answered, still smiling, still looking at her face as though trying to memorize it. As though he had never truly seen it before.

"I don't?" She raised an eyebrow. "I don't even know what I want, how can you be so certain?"

"You want to live the life you were born to," Cole answered, his long fingers gently squeezing the hand he held. "You want to grow old. To experience all the parts of life. To die one day."

"I suppose I have never thought about it before," she admitted, "Probably because an ordinary life and death were all I could ever have. Now...I could live forever."

"And you don't want it," the boy said again, his tone calm, gentle. Stating fact in the way he always did. Without strong emotion to sway his words. "You would see your friends grow old and die and you would live on, powerful and revered, but never truly happy. I could never let you be unhappy like that, Astlyr. I could never let us."

"We could do so much good, Cole. Think of all the people we could help if we were a god," Astlyr pointed out. "I can't let you be unhappy either, and you know that. I saw your past when we were joined. Your 'life' thus far. It's all fear and pain, Cole. You're afraid so much." Were those tears threatening in her eyes? A salty droplet fell free and instead of sliding down her cheek, it drifted away into the blackness like a tiny jewel.

Cole reached with his free hand and wiped another tear away, "I am afraid, but you make me not. Being joined with you was the most...peaceful I have ever felt. I saw how you see me, how you watch over me. I never understood that because all I can hear is the pain and the sadness, but I felt your happiness. Your memories of laughter. When you're afraid, you fight. I know you'll fight for me You're my Companion and you watch over me. Standing strong, holding me together and I cannot fall. I cannot break because you have all my pieces in your heart."

"Dammit, Cole," Astlyr wiped another tear and sniffled, "Do you see what you're doing to me?"

"You're crying, but you're not sad," he said, tilting his head. "I've seen this before. When a baby is born, or when two people love one another very much. Happy tears."

"Yes well, I love you, Cole. I want you to be happy and feel safe. If becoming a god is the way..."

"We could be the mightiest Inquisitor Thedas has ever seen and ever would see," Cole agreed, a solemnity had come over his face, "but then the people would be foolish. They would begin to worship us just like they did to Mythal and the others. I don't want that, and you don't. That cannot be our future."

"So we'll split apart? Do you think we could ever become this again? This god-thing?"

Cole seemed to ponder for a moment, his face impassive. "I...don't know," he finally admitted.

"Are you certain, Cole, that this is what you want?" She pressed one more time, feeling his fingers beginning to slip from hers. If felt as though a part of her was being torn away. Every fiber of her seemed to cry out to hold on to him. She almost yelped aloud.

"This is what we want," he answered, still smiling. He moved towards her quickly, pressing his forehead to hers and she knew that the same warmth filled them both.

"Cole, I need you to know. To understand. You helped. You did so well. The world is better because you're in it. Don't forget."

"I won't"

And then they both pushed away, letting their hands slip apart.

She was in the air, hovering, it seemed, several yards above the snowy earth. Below her she saw the bodies of Elgar'nan, and those of his soldiers that had had the misfortune of remaining too close to their fight. For a moment she panicked as she took in this alarming view from the air. She spread her arms as though to slow her decent, only to realize that she was not tumbling headlong to earth, but rather falling gently, like a feather on breeze.

She twisted in the air, seeing that Cole was beside her. His hat was firmly back in place on his head, his face once again pale and somber with sunken cheeks and sorrowful eyes. Yet, as the pair of them fell slowly to earth, borne by unseen magics, he looked at her and his eyes glinted with a flash of green.

A chunk of Astlyr's hair had come free of its bun and fell over her shoulder, blown by the icy wind that lashed at them. Though still silver, it was streaked with blonde.

She felt no pain, could see no wounds on herself, or Cole. He met her gaze with his baleful stare and she smiled warmly at him. Silently thanking him for his choice, and his sacrifice for her happiness. He smiled back, quickly, briefly, but beautifully.

And then she and Cole were deposited in the snow, as gently as petals on a breeze.

***** Well, what did you think? Show of hands, how many of you played the music? How many of you got all emotional? I sure did while I was writing it!

You all have my loyal beta and loving hubby to thank for this chapter. When the story was first starting out he was helping me brain storm. I told him about my idea for how the gods came about, and also what I wanted to do with Astlyr and Cole's relationship. He took the (now seemingly natural leap) to have her become a god too! Thanks Adam! Love ya!

How many of your guessed this is where we were going? Did any of you guess it before the previous chapter? If you did, you get a cookie! An invisible internet cookie.

The hubby was a little worried about Astlyr's battle with Elgar'nan and Myathl being too easy. This was actually intentional on my part. This was Astlyr's hulk vs Loki from Avengers scene (did anyone catch the Easter egg of a few of Loki's lines in there?). So she was supposed to just kick his ass. I hope everyone found it satisfying and not anticlimactic. (PUNY GOD!)

There are only a few chapters to go! I am hopeful I'll have everything out before the last DLC for Inquisition comes out and we (maybe) find out what Bioware actually had in mind for Solas/Fen'Harel. I hope that, whatever they decide, you will hold this version fondly in your hearts! I won't even be able to play the DLC because I play on Xbox 360 :(

I did hope that I would have chapters out more frequently until the end, but I forgot that my beta (the hubby) can only manage reading and editing about one chapter per week. I'll still hope for more, but we might not make it.

Thanks again for reading! Without you this story is just me going on a really long rant. ;)

Next: 9/10/15

Keep up to date right here: pages/Emily-Luebke-Author/283743888311991