AN: This was a hard chapter to get out. But it was needed.
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While going towards the Kocari wilds once more it seemed as if there was a peculiar tension to the group. Leliana fidgeted at times, Alistair was twitchy, Sten was the only calm one with his mind on the coming task and accomplishing it with as little wasted effort as ever. Surana was a mixture of conflicted emotions that left him feeling sick half the time, though he said nothing. On one hand the threat to Morrigan was not something he could leave active. His own emotional entanglement with the beautiful shapeshifter aside the woman was also a friend and loyal companion. Allowing her to be possessed by one she had trusted and was raised by was not something he could abide. To this point Morrigan had not asked for anything, giving her assistance and sharp wit freely in equal measure. The different point of view she had on magic was also exceptionally welcome considering all his experience thus far was only from what the Chantry permitted the circle to teach him or a few snatches of information cautiously dropped from Irvin's private tutoring.
The conflict however, was before Morrigan, before the Blight, he had been friends for over nine years with Saeris and while out of their little group back in Kinloch hold she had been the most obscure and strange she was also the most unpredictable. Saeris had come from the Chasind, had kept to the Tranquil and had odd ways of looking at magic from the start. Though quiet in their group of troublemakers she had also been the most fey and wild in turns, something that had appealed to Surana from the start. When everything in the tower was a never ending sameness day to day with few variations, it was something that even magic could seem dull in their lives. Yet, Saeris had always seemed to charge the very air when she walked into a room. The odd spells she'd cast for light, her habit of later painting her face in a method that reminded all of them that she had been born of a wilder stock. That had seemed exotic paired with her strange features more delicate than any human he'd seen before, and her unusual hair and eye coloring. Surana knew now he'd been more in love with the idea of being with her, of what those differences and chances to live more like in a tale had been by pushing their friendship a little farther. Not that, and it was embarrassing to look back on it, that Saeris had been aware he was trying to make it more serious than just an understanding that so many of their year mates had.
In Morrigan however the exotic was even more present. Her sharp tongue and eyes, her random smiles and girlish behavior at the ways he could surprise her were endearing. There was something to Morrigan that made him want to try and be the Gray Warden he felt was needed, perhaps finally starting to succeed in it. That they were now moving into some strange relationship where Morrigan was adamant that it meant nothing permanent, that they had no claim on each other though was still speaking of it often. Saeris had not wanted more and never brought it up, Surana felt maybe he was not so hopefully blind that perhaps in Morrigan's constant speech on the matter, she felt more than she was letting on. Calling him 'my Warden' had only brought further hope on the matter.
It did not change though that Saeris had long been his friend and while they did not tell each other everything, the now canine shapeshifter was oddly silent on many things as open as she was about others, that the same Flemeth Morrigan had begged them to kill? That was someone dearer to Saeris than he thought perhaps any others were.
No good solution was present. To save a companion whom was beginning to grasp his heart in her hands he would have to devastate a stalwart friend who had strode out of the tower and at his side fearlessly.
No wonder Duncan had seemed so weary often if such difficult choices had been even partially normal for the man.
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Flemeth knew of course. Knew they were coming any day. The fact her little stormbringer had been the one to find a way to warn her never ceased to make the old witch pause in her actions. Hands holding onto the broom she had been using to sweep out the hut, cleaning in preparation for guests that would be indeed most unwelcome, it brought a smile to her face. Solas still was so entirely certain he knew everything, was right in his way, the foolish bookworm that he'd always been at heart was surprisingly terrible about adapting. So that his newest 'spirit' companion was actually something more never even was a remote possibility to his thinking.
Flemeth could admit it was a pity Mythal was not a dreamer herself, while exceptionally powerful not within the Fade had been her specialties. Oh certainly, the Evanarius had all learned skills of that sort but it did not come naturally to any save for Solas.
The grimoire had been adjusted, a few pages carefully removed, in readiness for handing it over or it's theft upon her corpse being left to rot outside. It would make its way to Morrigan then and set more things into motion. Her daughter was a smart woman if blinded a little too much by her hubris and arrogance. Traits she came by no doubt from Flemeth herself.
There was another though, carefully wrapped in seeming tales of nonsense but each very cautiously chosen with Solas's help. He'd been intrigued when Flemeth mentioned there was a potential fade walker child among the human wild ones and given her bits of advice if she was so insistent to pass it on. Hopefully, in time, the Twiceblooded girl would figure them out. A story book to guide her. It was not lost arts and careful instruction much as Flemeth had given to her daughters over the centuries. Morrigan would take that burden, as she would bear the one she stepped out the hut to ensure came to pass.
Once more the old witch resumed cleaning up her home. The trap door well hidden now with a spell as well as mundane means, no doubt her too loyal hound would return and mourn even knowing Flemeth would live on. It was touching, endlessly so, to think that once more one loved her for her not whom she had been or needing such information. What remained of Mythal lurking in the fringes of her ancient and withered heart, slowly consuming the soul to claw the way out of the abyss her ancient kindred -save for solas- had damned her too. That brittle and withered heart softened at the edges by the bright devotion, one to a person beneath the titles and power.
So it had been in the earliest of days. The ones that to Mythal were more resplendent than any crystal spires floating and chiming in the air that came centuries later for it was when the Evanarius could still trust that those who chose to follow them did so for whom they were, out of love, devotion, friendship and common goals. Not later when it was fear and awe, worship for ideals borne in their mind and over stretched myths turning former mages and leaders into generals, to kings, to 'gods'.
It helped, endlessly that Saeris had handed over such information to her as the approximate time of the executioners arrival. While this was no strange game for Flemeth, indeed many a times she had perished and her soul would move on, slowly supporting and growing Mythal's at the cost of her own, her daughter's yet they would become part of something so much more. This time however, one of her daughter's was too far for possession and in the midst of some very tricky if distasteful tasks. Morrigan with her own 'job' could not be viable, not now. Not when in courting one or both of the Gray Warden's for her own mission to come to fruition where any alteration in her personality would be noted. There was another option of course, and it would only eat up more of her and make her more Mythal once more, just a touch more in the flotsam of her cobbled soul from all those she had been but with Flemeth still at the head until she'd become enough to let Mythal step forth once more. Though with Solas now in the schemes..
Yet, though Flemeth had shared much with her old friend she kept secret how she would survive even from him. By now there was a ship docking in Kirkwall, an unwilling player in her game still carrying a small piece of her to the Dalish eventually. At any point the ritual to 'ease into slumber' the Dalish now used for their perished ones could summon back one of the Evanarius who had carefully crafted it for their own use in case they fell into slumber or death. A fail safe, one of the reasons they had been considered Gods, always returning.
She didn't choose to utilize the Dalish often, wishing for them to keep thinking of her as Ashabellanar rather than to connect the dots. Unlike Solas who had sneered at whatever fragments of history he had pulled up regarding the Dalish when around the locations he explored in the Fade, Flemeth did not despair of the shades that were now The People. Indeed with all they had gone through they bent a knee too quickly, angered and forgot all too soon. They were wrong and stubborn yet they also adapted well enough and thrived and for the time that the world remained as destroyed as it was Flemeth would not fault them for doing their best.
They had been abandoned and betrayed in many ways by those who they had looked to for guidance, in a potent truth the Evanarius had crippled them by allowing that reliance. So smug in their everlasting power for so many millennia that they couldn't see their own corruption.
There were always a few bright souls, a few flickering embers that helped her look beyond her own vengeance at the long and chaotic plans awaiting. So many millennia in the process, only to be hastened now with Solas's help. He should awaken in a few years but before then he was able to wander much more usefully whilst still in sleep. Questioning the spirits he had always yearned to be more like than not.
Thinking on bright souls though made Flemeth chuckle. For there was also her daughter. For a human she had a very bright heart and mind, and indeed the stubborn pride that ran so deep and cracked in her betrayed the whisper of elven magic Flemeth had worked so hard to teach Morrigan. Never enough for her dark haired girl, no, but once exposed, for all her body was never going to properly be able to utilize it, it had still changed the woman.
And then there was Saeris.
Really, one day Solas would learn about his Twiceblooded friend and Flemeth looked forward to cackling at him, the scrap of Mythal within her breast resonating at the idea. Yes. The Stormbringer would grow into her skin, into her powers, and with any luck be ready to harness her destiny at the crucial point if all went well.
That cheerful thought helped her move to outside her hut when the cawing of raven's and various swamp birds came through the open window to warn her of coming visitors.
It seemed once more, it was time for the dance Flemeth knew too well.