You know every version of this story.
How it began,
the bloody origin that meant
you would never be alone again.
How your voice used to be enough for the both of you.
How you grow together, two soft shoots in a forest
you never asked to belong to.
How it's always the clasped hands against the monsters.
How eventually you'll have to let go.
—Emily Palermo, Sisters & Other Unspoken Mythologies
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The rift tore through the sky and through her mind.
"Demons!"
The word was shouted in a panicked chorus all around her by soldiers and bandits alike. Tephra stumbled, grasping at her head as bodies crashed into hers in their haste to flee. Cassandra grabbed her by the arm and pulled her swiftly from the chaotic fray and towards the wagons. She felt the barrier magic wash over her, tickling at her senses.
"Stay where it's safe," the Seeker commanded, in a tone that brooked no arguments, before turning back to rejoin the fighting.
Her head throbbed with the weight of magic, but it was not the same as before. Before, it had been overwhelming — it had staggered her with the vast weight of the Fade itself bearing down on her. This was different; it felt more controlled, almost manageable.
"Up here, Teph," Varric called down from his perch on the wagon.
She looked up to see the dwarf leaning down over the side of the wagon and reaching for her. She grabbed hold of his hand, and let him haul her up beside him.
"Ass deep in bandits and demons. Must be our lucky day," Varric grumbled, as he reached for Bianca.
Fucking bandits.
At least the demons couldn't help what they'd become; putting them down was a mercy. But the bandits had made a choice to thieve, to maim — to kill.
She had very few qualms when it came to putting bandits down.
Tephra unslung her quiver and propped it where she could quickly retrieve arrows. She readied her bow and nocked an arrow; she let out a slow breath as she searched for a target.
The battlefield had descended into utter chaos.
Soldiers and bandits were fighting the demons — when they weren't fighting each other — and the demons were attacking anything that moved. In one moment, the soldiers and bandits worked together to bring down a terror demon, and then resumed fighting each other in the next, after it fell. Scouts were trying to corral the panicked horses, and the mages struggled to keep the barriers up and holding against the combined onslaught of offensive spells from the shades and bandit mages.
Tephra loosed arrows when she found exactly what she was looking for — an unguarded throat, gaps in their armor, someone stalling long enough for her to put an arrow between their eyes.
Solas was shouting to the mages to hold their positions as several of the terror demons stalked towards the wagons. She couldn't blame them for their fear — her blood ran cold at the sight of them too. She didn't want to think of what could happen if they lost the barriers, though. She let Cassandra and the soldiers handle the bandits, while she shifted her focus to the demons advancing on the mages. She counted nine of them in all — six terror demons, three shades, and—
The dead bandit's body — the mage who'd killed the soldier — gave a violent shudder, and twitched where it lay. Cold horror shivered down her back as she watched as it jerked and contorted as magic writhed and coiled around it and changed it. What rose in the mage's place was unlike anything she'd ever seen before; its eyes burned an unnatural red light.
Varric cursed beside her, and said, "Maker. It's a damned revenant. We've got to bring it down quick."
"Pissing hell," she swore, and began to loose arrows at the demon.
The revenant rose to its feet, and turned its focus on the apostate mages. They'd been positioned in a loose ring around the wagons, with bowmen positioned atop the wagons and assigned to keep any and all threats off them. The demon stalked toward the apostates, trudging through the hail of arrows.
Arrows which had already struck deep in its body splintered and cracked as new ones sank into the demon's flesh. Still, it continued on toward the mages, unfazed by the onslaught.
"My arrows aren't even slowing it down," she huffed in frustration.
"I'm not even sure demons feel pain," Varric remarked, grimly. "That one sure as hell doesn't."
The mages had begun to edge back toward the wagons, which was effectively diminishing the radius of the barriers. Soon, they would be cornered, and forced to flee, which would disrupt the barriers entirely and leave the refugees open to attack.
Shit.
Tephra's heart pounded in her ears.
Time to do something stupid.
She set her bow aside, and unsheathed her dagger. She let out a slow breath as she centered her thoughts. The glamour slipped over her skin as she vaulted over the side of the wagon, to the ground below.
Tephra padded through the battlefield unseen, past the mages and the fighting, and circled around the revenant. It continued its inevitable approach of the wagons, paying no heed to the arrows protruding from its torso — even as Varric and others continued to fire on it.
Without a second thought, she launched herself onto the revenant's back as she dropped the glamour. She couldn't hold onto it and hold onto the demon at the same time.
An arrow clipped her ear and she heard Varric give a cursing shout.
Should have warned him, she thought with dark amusement, as she hooked her arm around the demon's throat. Warmth trickled down the side of her neck, but she hardly felt the pain over the adrenaline coursing through her body. The demon staggered beneath her sudden weight, but righted itself and began to lurch forward. It attempted to shake her from its back with each step, but did not slow its course otherwise.
Its focus was solely on the mages.
Tephra held tight to the demon, and began to stab it at a furious pace, driving the dagger deep into vital organs. Dimly, she wondered if demons even had vital organs. Still, she continued, punching the dagger between the ribs and into the lungs, further to the heart. The revenant reached up to grasp hold of her, dead fingers scrambling for purchase in her hair. She struggled to keep out of its reach as she slashed at its throat. Still the demon staggered forward, no matter the ruin she made of its body.
"Herald!"
Solas's voice cracked like a whip through the din of the chaos.
He had moved to position himself between the revenant and the rest of the mages, and held his staff aloft defensively as he yelled to her, "Move away from it!"
Tephra released her hold and let herself drop back to the ground, hopping back on agile legs to put distance between herself and the creature. Heat blasted across her face and sent her scrambling further back as Solas unleashed a scorching spell that engulfed the demon.
The spell lit up the dark forest grove in a blinding flash; she couldn't help but watch with grim fascination as the revenant continued to struggle forward despite the unwavering blast of fire pouring from Solas's staff. It continued on even as its body blackened and charred, even as it dropped to one knee and then the other, even as it struggled to continue on all fours.
It finally collapsed, and she watched the horrible red light wink out from its eyes.
Tephra shivered despite the heat, staring at the body that had been rendered unrecognizable by the fire. Solas caught her by the arm long enough to arrest her attention, as he reminded her, "There will be more of those, if you do not close the rift."
How could she forget that there would be a rift?
"I'm on it," she assured, as she pulled free and began toward it.
Neither soldiers nor bandits lingered close to the rift, leaving her path open and free of conflict. She could feel the power of it, the same as before, coming off of the rift in waves and pulsing through the mark on her hand. But this time it felt different — less chaotic, more controlled, more in her control. It was as though she could feel the Veil itself, like finding a wall in the dark, unseen but there. And in it, she felt the tear.
Where there had been pain before, now there was simply discomfort — like wearing a glove tailored to fit another's hand. Still, she focused on the mark, focused on the sensation of it opening. It sparked to life, crackling and hissing with magic.
Tephra lifted her marked hand, and reached — the power burst from her in a stream of verdant energy, and began pouring into the rift. It was easier than before the Breach; it didn't feel as overwhelming, or incomprehensible.
Something had changed.
It was as though the mark had adapted to her, as though it submitted to her will. Or perhaps, the magic had changed her — was changing her. How would she know if it had? She knew nothing of magic, only that it was invasive, that it flooded her senses and crowded out her thoughts, until there was little left but pure instinct.
It was wholly foreign to her; she could no longer discern where she ended, and the magic of the mark began.
Focus.
Tephra took a slow breath, and turned her hand, curling her fingers in the same manner as if she meant to grasp a rope. All she needed was to hook it, and—
One of the bandits barreled past her, and towards the mages — towards Solas, who'd turned his attention back to the wagons, to strengthening the barriers. She didn't have time to shout a warning as the bandit tackled into him, sending them both tumbling to the ground.
Fear locked her breath and stalled her focus, as she watched the two of them grappling on the ground. The bandit was armed with a dagger, which was precariously held at bay mere inches from Solas's throat. He had the bandit by the wrist with both hands as he struggled to wrest the larger man's weapon away.
Do something, you gaping idiot.
The magic pouring from her hand tugged at her, as she stepped away from the rift and toward her companion. They were not far from her, only a matter of meters; it would take only a moment to cross the distance.
She took a step, and then another, straining to hold the connection.
She couldn't do both, and she wasn't about to let him—
An arrow caught the bandit in the shoulder; he slackened against the apostate, losing his grip on the dagger as he fumbled to grasp at the arrow in his shoulder. The weapon tumbled into the grass. It gave Solas just enough of an opening to shove the bandit off of him.
He met her gaze as he wiped blood from his mouth, and smiled. As though hadn't just nearly died As though he was entirely in control of the situation.
That fucking—
"The rift," he called out, reminding her almost casually of where her attention should be.
—insufferable ass.
"Yes, of course!" she shouted back, unable to keep the sarcasm from her tone. "It's not as if I was worried or—"
Solas had only just began to rise from the ground when the bandit rolled back toward him, and sank the dagger into his thigh.
Time staggered as she watched the bandit yank it free, as blood began soaking in the fabric of Solas's leggings. It was coming too quickly for her to think; she gaped at him uselessly. One of the soldiers charged the bandit before he could continue his assault, driving him back with a flurry of blows, but all she could focus on was the boneless stumble of her companion as he sank to the ground.
The rift.
She gripped the magic connecting the mark to the rift, and pulled with a vicious motion, tearing the rift and collapsing it almost carelessly in her panic as she wrenched herself from the connection. A foolish thing to do, surely — she had no idea if such an action would do more harm than good. Still, the rift collapsed inward and sealed itself. She did not watch the action as she launched herself toward the fallen apostate.
The soldier was finishing off the bandit as she came to a skidding halt at Solas's side, and dropped to her knees.
His pant leg was completely saturated with blood. She did not have to see the wound to know that the bandit had struck the artery in his thigh. Color was quickly leaving his face, and he'd gone glassy-eyed and lethargic.
A strange rushing noise seemed to fill her head, as shock settled over her.
She had promised to protect him, just as she had promised to protect her brother, and once again she was met with abject failure.
She had doomed him with her empty, cursed words, she had—
No, she thought, with sudden ferocity. This is not happening again.
With a sharp yank, she tore open the blood-soaked fabric and bared his torn thigh. She dug her fingers down into the wound, feeling for the source of the bleeding. The urgency of the situation left no room for gentleness. Solas's entire body gave a shuddering heave, and he gave a ragged groan of pain. He clutched at her weakly as his eyelids fluttered, as he teetered on the brink of consciousness, nearly passing out from the shock of the pain.
Her fingers seemed to slip uselessly in his flesh, working down through the torn muscles, until finally she grasped hold of the torn artery. With her free hand, she turned Solas's face back towards her.
"Hey — hey, stay with me," she urged, as she held tight to the slippery artery. "I've got you."
The soldier was at her side now, as well as Varric. The dwarf stood over them with his crossbow primed; his focus was entirely on keeping any potential attackers at bay while she tended to their fallen comrade.
The soldier was a bare-faced elf marked as a medic. He acted without hesitation, and tore a long strip of cloth from his cloak. He quickly wound it around Solas's thigh above the wound, and cinched it tightly. Still, she did not release her hold on the artery for fear that the tourniquet wouldn't be enough to staunch the artery.
Take a breath, and think.
She hadn't had time to replenish her supplies, to hunt for the medicinal plants needed for various healing salves and tonics, let alone to make any sort of hemostatic powder. And with the battle raging around them, it wasn't as though she could prep him for sutures.
Cauterization.
It was his best shot — his only shot — but Solas had grown incoherent, and had begun to mutter to himself in Elvhen. The words pricked at her ears, wholly unfamiliar to her, but she could not shake the feeling that that she should have understood it, as though comprehension was right on the edge of her comprehension.
"Solas," Tephra pleaded, as she gently tapped at his cheek in an attempt to stir him out of lethargy. "You need to cauterize the wound to stop the bleeding."
Solas blinked slowly, and his words came thick and slurred as he said, "I woke too weak."
What—?
"Solas, listen to me," she urged. "If I let go of this, you'll die. Quickly. Imminent and permanent death. Do you understand me?"
His eyelids fluttered, and his gaze slipped past her as he teetered on the edge of consciousness.
Panic coursed through her, chased closely by frustration. Tephra gripped his ear with her free hand, and pulled. His attention snapped back to her, as she asserted, "I'm not losing anyone else today, Solas. Do you hear me? I need — I need you to stay with me."
It was either the tug on his ear, or the panic in her voice, that finally cut through his disorientation and secured his attention. Solas gave a slow nod.
Tephra gave him a tight smile, "Magic up your hand, then. I'll do the rest."
She could only hope that it would be enough.
Solas lifted his hand; it shook and trembled with weakness, but his palm sparked alight with cold, blue fire. She released her hold of the artery as she grasped his wrist, before shoving his palm down over the wound. His whole torso seized up as he contorted with pain, mouth agape and breathless. She felt the mark sparking between her palm, against the back of his hand as she held it there. When the magic subsided, his whole body slackened as he passed out.
The medic caught hold of him, and eased him to the ground.
She wiped at the bloody wound, which was still a gaping pit of torn flesh, but was relieved to see that the bleeding had ceased.
Tephra let out a breath she hadn't been aware she'd been holding, and sat back on her heels. She inhaled deeply, and let out a slow, ragged breath.
It was only then, in the sudden silence, that she realized that the fighting was over. She hadn't noticed Cassandra's arrival, until the woman was kneeling beside her and leaning over the apostate, "Is he—"
"Alive," Tephra assured. She turned to the medic, and clasped his arm, "Ma serannas, falon—"
"Kazem, my lady," the elf replied. "He still needs medical care, and to be monitored for infection."
"Yes," she agreed. "And moved."
"Come," the Seeker bid, as she stooped to grasp Solas under the armpits. The medic moved to grasp him by the heels.
Together, they lifted and carried him toward the wagons.
"The supply wagon," Tephra directed, before ducking ahead of them to open the wide, rear doors.
It was a solid wooden structure, fairly large and filled to the brim with supplies. Still, there was enough room to get inside and lay him out on an array of bundled furs and leathers. Probably not the most comfortable of beds, but it would have to do.
The medic held Solas upright against himself as Cassandra climbed up beside her. Working together, they eased him into the wagon as the medic followed after. As the Seeker laid him out atop the makeshift bed, several items tumbled free from an interior pocket in Solas's jerkin — a pen, a small inkwell, a scroll case, a rolled up slip of paper.
Tephra bent to retrieve them, before kneeling beside Solas and slipping the items back inside his jerkin. She did not have to open the paper to know it was the drawing she'd given him the other night. That she tucked deepest into his jerkin, hoping to keep it safe for him.
The medic bent over Solas's torso and pressed an ear to his chest, listening to his breathing. "Pulse?"
She ignored the curious swell and tug of emotion between her ribs, as she reached for Solas's wrist. She held it firmly, and felt for a rhythm beneath the heel of his palm. She grimaced when she found it, "A bit weak."
"Pray he has not lost too much blood," Kazem replied. "He may yet live though, if that is the will of the Maker."
Tephra studied the elf with sudden scrutiny; his dark face was unmarked by vallaslin. However, he was marked by scarification — purposeful markings which swept from the corners of his mouth and up across the sharp lines of his cheekbones.
"My clan hails from the Wandering Hills, my lady," he said, taking note of her inspection. If he was bothered by it, he made no show of it as he returned her gaze with a placid stare. "I did not take the bloodwriting when I came of age. We do not keep so strictly to the old ways as some of our people do."
Dalish, from the Anderfels. She had never met one before, but despite her sudden interest in the elf and his origin, now was certainly not the time for investigating it.
"His thigh needs to be properly sutured," she said.
Solas's magic had cauterized the artery efficiently, but the wound was still a yawning pit were the taut skin pulled away from exposed, torn muscle. Deep, but not entirely to the bone. Blood and clear fluid wept from it slowly.
"I'll see to it," Kazem assured, as he busied himself with setting out supplies from his pack.
"Herald, a word," Cassandra said, before retreating out of the wagon to leave the medic to his work.
She didn't want to leave him, but still she looked to the medic and asked, "Have you got him, until I return?"
"Of course," he replied, wholly absorbed with his work.
She found the Seeker waiting for her outside the wagon. The soldiers and scouts had assembled as well — they were bloodied and harried, but most of them seemed accounted for. Still, she asked, "How many dead?"
"Six," the Seeker responded. "Four of ours, and two refugees who were caught outside the barriers."
"They're all ours," she corrected, despite herself. "And the wounded?"
Something shifted and softened in the Seeker's grim gaze, but she did not dwell on it.
"Numerous, my lady," one of the soldiers replied. "But nothing we can't handle."
"The bandits have been driven off. What few remain alive, that is," Cassandra informed. "Still, we should not linger here."
"Agreed. If there is a more direct route that we can take to Haven, I suggest we do," she advised. "For the sake of the wounded, we should return to Haven as quickly as we can."
"We'll cut through the forest, and continue on to Haven by way of the Imperial Highway," the Seeker agreed. "Pray none are foolish enough to try this again, as I will happily send them to the Maker to answer for it."
The woman's cold tone assured Tephra that she meant it.
"And the dead, my lady?" the soldier asked. "Do we leave them?"
"No," Cassandra interjected, vehemently.
The Seeker met her gaze with a tight frown; she recalled her own insistence on burying the apostate and the child, to give them that dignity. It dawned on her that the Seeker was looking to her for support, which sent a complicated mix of emotions coursing through her. She gave the woman a stiff nod.
Cassandra straightened as she turned back to the soldiers, and continued, "We leave none of our own behind. They will be given proper funerals."
The soldiers looked to her.
Tephra frowned, "You heard the Seeker."
"Yes, Herald."
Cassandra turned back to Tephra, "And Solas?"
"I'll stay with him," she replied.
"Someone should," Cassandra agreed. Her attention shifted to Tephra's ear, and her frown softened, "That needs to be stitched. Open wounds breed infection."
Tephra felt gently at the tip of her ear, at the sticky blood around the wound site. "It's just a love tap. I'll thank Varric for it, later."
"Varric?"
"I got in his way," she assured, dispelling the Seeker's sudden anger. "Suture it, then, if you insist."
Cassandra huffed, before removing her pack to rummage for her medical supplies.
Tephra leaned against the wagon, and held her hair aside as Cassandra began to swab the wound and surrounding skin with an antiseptic-soaked cloth. She wouldn't have bothered with more than cleaning the wound herself — scarring did not bother her in the slightest — but she was too tired to argue the Seeker's point.
Still, Cassandra made quick work of it.
"It may yet scar," the Seeker noted, surveying her work with a critical eye. She straightened, and packed away her supplies. "If you need anything — if his condition changes—"
"Of course," Tephra replied. "And if there's another attack, inform me at once."
The Seeker gave her a sharp nod, "At once."
With that, Tephra turned to climb back into the wagon. The medic had finished closing Solas's wound, and was currently applying a poultice.
"This will need to be changed in a few hours," he noted.
"I have my own supplies. You should tend to the others who're wounded," she replied.
Kazem met her gaze, and for a moment she was certain he'd meant to argue against leaving. Instead, he simply nodded, "As you command, Herald."
She had not meant it as a command, but she was too tired to protest.
The medic left without further argument, and closed the wagon doors tightly behind him. The only source of light was a lantern, which hung from the low ceiling, and through the small barred windows in the doors of the wagon. There was little room to navigate, as it had been stuffed nearly full of supplies, but there was space enough around Solas's makeshift bed to settle beside him. She slid her pack off and set it aside, before looking over the medic's work. She carefully lifted the poultice to peek at the wound beneath.
The medic had a good suturing technique. He'd had cut away a good portion of fabric from Solas's pant leg, for ease of access, and he'd cleaned the wound site. The poultice would be sufficient to keep infection at bay, but it would need to be secured. She reapplied the dressing, and then reached for her pack to pull out a roll of linen bandages.
Carefully, she lifted his thigh. The dead weight would make it impossible to apply the bandages, so she positioned herself so that she could prop his leg atop her thigh and began to wind the linen around his leg. The compression would keep the poultice in place, as well as to discourage any further bleeding. When she finished, she touched her palms to his face and neck, then beneath his jerkin — he'd gone clammy, and his body temperature had dropped. It prompted her to seek out blankets among the supplies. She retrieved several heavy woolen ones and laid them over him.
Rummaging through her pack, she retrieved a waterskin. She added a portion of honey and elfroot to it, and gave it a good shake. For all the blood he'd lost, he would need the fluid replacement. She lifted his head, and shifted her arm beneath it to cradle him as she pressed the waterskin to his mouth.
"You must drink," Tephra said softly, pouring the mixture over his lips and into his mouth in a slow trickle.
She recalled the voice in the dark, before she woke in the prison, and a flask held to her mouth as she was bid to drink. She had thought it a dream before, but now she was certain that it must have been him. Varric had let it slip that Solas had watched over her and did what he could in keeping her alive after the Breach, as the mark tried to claim her life.
Of course it would have been him.
And now here she was, sitting over him and doing what she could to keep him alive.
She could have laughed at it all — at how everything seemed to have come full circle — if things hadn't been so dire.
She set the waterskin aside, and gently stroked the length of his throat, as she tried to induce a swallowing reflex. It was an effective technique, and Solas was a far more compliant patient than she'd been. She gently laid his head back down, and settled back against the nearest crate.
Tephra laid her head back against the hard wood, and let out a slow, trembling sigh. Her whole body was vibrating with fatigue and anxiety. They had lost more people — could have lost many more, had events transpired otherwise. And she'd nearly lost him. Nearly, and the threat still lingered as such wounds tended to give slow, lingering deaths.
She resolved to keep vigil for any sign of infection, or a downturn in his condition.
Tephra brought a shaking hand to her face, covering her eyes — who was there to see if she cried? What did it matter to hide her weakness? Still, she covered them, and fought the urge, until it lessened and composure returned.
"I don't know how I'm supposed to do this," she confessed, quietly. "I don't know how to keep them all safe. I need—"
What, exactly?
Him?
Insufferable, and critical, and fascinating — he was unlike anyone she'd ever met before, and she needed him. Just as she needed Varric's cutting wit, and gentle concern. Just as she needed Cassandra, whose hard-won respect — what little she'd earned — bolstered and heartened her in a way that she couldn't begin to put to words. If she was to be this — to be their Herald — she needed them, their ballast, to keep her grounded. To keep her, her.
Tephra hesitated, before placing her palm to his brow. Her fingers cupped the smooth curve of his scalp, and she let her thumb stroke gently at his eyebrow.
"Please, don't die," she entreated, quietly.
Silence settled over her, as the wagon began to rumble and sway. It would take at least another day of hard travel to return to Haven, but that mattered little if he did not survive the night.
Don't think of that.
If he made it through the night, if he had not lost too much blood, then he would live — and she wouldn't have broken her promise to him.
Not yet, at least, she thought, ruefully.
"I'll make a deal with you," she bargained, despite the tangled knot of emotion which settled in her chest. "Don't die, and I'll tell you a story — my story."
She had never breathed a word of any of it to anyone, not even to her clan, but she would give it to him nonetheless, if—
"You can have it," she offered, as though he could hear her. As if words alone could draw him back from the brink of death. "You can have it, if you don't die."
Solas gave no discernible reaction; his breath came slow, but steady.
Tephra settled back against the crate, "I suppose it's only fair, since you've been so generous with yours."
Not of himself, but from his journeys in the Fade. Still, it seemed a fair enough trade.
Tephra gave a faltering sigh, as she fished the moon snail shell out from beneath her armor and clutched it tightly. She leaned her head back against the wood, as she watched him breathe.
Where else could she begin, but where it had all gone wrong?
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.
Something had gone very wrong; of that much, he was certain.
He'd been thrown violently into the dreaming, and even that was wrong. The Fade was muddled and formless, and his awareness and sense of control seemed a distant, unimportant thing.
He could not recall the mechanism of injury, only the sudden loss — the sensation of the ground falling away beneath him. A too-bright sky overhead, even though it had been night. And then everything had shifted away, and he'd woke here.
He did not summon the forest, and yet it cropped up around him, looming darkly. All the color had gone away, and the shadows blurred like watery ink. This forest was not the forest they'd been attacked in, he realized dimly. The vegetation was all wrong for this climate.
He did not know this place; he did not know what had drawn him here, or where to go.
It was the shouting that stirred him from the indolent haze.
He followed the sounds of conflict to a small clearing, which housed a modest campsite. There was a small aravel, and a well-tended fire. An unbridled halla dozed beneath a great oak. There were sleeping rolls and fur blankets, and several books lay open, as though someone had only just begun to read from them. There was no one, and yet he could hear it — panicked shouting, and more distantly battle cries.
Once again, he found himself in a memory not his own.
Beneath the shouting, there was something else — a quiet voice, recounting a story, but the words were indistinct and far away. The scene itself was muddled; some aspects were indistinct and ill-remembered, while other details — such as the books — were in precise detail.
It was memories, overlapping one another, like eddies in choppy water.
The shouting was overlaid by soft, indiscernible voices. Bodies formed, indistinct as wisps, and moved about the camp. Two large, and two small. The apparitions mimed the recalled events — as they ate, as they laughed and talked, until they began to gain more form. The two adults remained hazy, but it was clear that one was male, and the other female. The woman had long black hair, loose and wild, where the man had white, which was neatly braided back from his forehead. Their faces were blank spaces, blurred and formless.
The boy, however — his face was clear. Round and healthy, and familiar. A toddler, once more, as the dream before.
Then—
The girl was laid out on her belly, scribbling on parchment and practicing her handwriting as the man instructed her. Shaggy white hair framed her little face. Tephra, but not — only the form of her self-memory.
Were the two adults her parents? Why were they so poorly shaped?
"I don't remember their faces," she remarked, as if he'd asked her outright. "Just his."
Solas moved to crouch beside her, watching her write. "He's your brother?"
"Yes. He looks like mamae, and I look like papae. I remember that much," she informed.
I shouldn't be here.
Yet something had weakened him immeasurably, that he could neither wake nor shape the Fade around him. He could only remain where he was now, in the dreaming, where he sat slumped against a tree.
Dimly, he recalled the ambush. The rift. The bandit who'd caught him off guard.
He looked down, to see the blood running down his thigh.
Ah, of course.
He was not dead, at least.
They, however — the woman doting over the toddler, bathing him in a wooden bucket, and the man sitting beside her — he could not shake the obvious truth that they were.
Solas rested his elbows on his knees, fidgeting with his fingertips with a hesitance unbefitting his usual scrutinous nature when it came to encountering memories in the Fade.
Were her memories really so different from any others he'd encountered over the long span of his life? Where had this hesitance come from?
"Guilt," she replied.
"You aren't her," he said. "What are you?"
"The echo."
With what little strength he had, he reached with his senses to feel for deception, but found none. Neither spirit, nor demon. She — as the rest — was memory in its rawest form in the Fade. A primordial mechanism, no different than the trees or the campfire that's been shaped into being.
Yet still, how had he come to be here? If this was not an invasion of her dreams, then how had he stumbled onto this memory?
He did not sense the Herald in the dreaming, though he was certain he heard her voice at the edge of all things. Was he too weak to sense her there, if she was dreaming? Or if her dreaming had not summoned this memory, then whose will had?
"I don't know," the girl replied, stifling a yawn. "But it happens soon."
He regarded the apparition with curious frown, "What happens?"
"The bad part."
If he could not disentangle himself from the memory, perhaps he could alter it.
If she was having a nightmare again, perhaps he could spare her.
He imagined the current calm of the scene extending, uninterrupted, until the children fell fast asleep, followed closely by the parents. Nothing terrible, only the peace of sleep.
"That isn't how it happened," the girl informed, matter-of-factly.
He was too weakened to override the dream, and it left him frustratingly at the mercy of whatever terrible things the apparition meant to show him.
After that night in the woods outside of Haven, he'd known of the grief she carried within her. He had not wanted to ask; he had not wanted to look too closely. The implications of her emotions, the depths of such, were a threat to the path he walked. They would only bring detours, or worse — diversions.
And, yet—
I would have asked her. I should have.
If he had, perhaps then this wouldn't feel like a theft of her privacy.
He still could, but it wouldn't mean the same. Even if she never knew of his having prior knowledge, he would still feel guilty for having learned it this way. He wasn't sure why that even mattered to him, only that it felt like a breach of trust — hard-won, and so vigilantly guarded. Trust he'd been so carefully attempting to build with her. Trust he would certainly lose, had she known of his breach into her most personal memories.
"Then show me, if you must," Solas relented. There was no fighting it in his condition.
The scene shifted.
The boy was fast asleep. The girl was stretched out beside him, gazing up at the stars with sleepy, dark eyes. The woman was beside her, pointing out constellations and recounting the tales associated with them.
The man stiffened, suddenly, before lurching to his feet. "Emma lath, the wards," he called to his wife, urgently.
Without a word, the woman rose swiftly and gathered her weapons — a bow, a full quiver. She shouldered them, and then reached for a short sword. "How many?"
The girl was on her feet now, trying and failing to hide her fear as she looked between her parents with wide, dark eyes.
"Too many," the man despaired, as he rushed to them from where he'd been poring over his books.
"Fucking bandits," the woman cursed. "I will buy you time, so that you can take them—"
"It won't be enough," he stated, with a finality that brooked no further argument. He gathered up a bundle of cloth, as he called to his daughter, "Come, my little arrow. It is time to go."
She came to him, trembling. As he wound the cloth around her torso, she asked, "Are you coming too? And mum?"
"Yes, but you must go first," the man replied, and Solas could hear in his voice that the man had truly believed it.
When he finished, the man lifted the sleeping toddler and secured him in the sling, knotting it securely. He moved to the Halla, which had stirred from its sleep and risen. He quickly re-saddled the beast, before lifting the girl up atop it as she clutched her brother to her chest. The woman quickly secured small satchels to the saddle — no doubt supplies for the children.
War cries poured in from the darkness.
The woman turned on her heel, and drove the sword into the dirt at her feet before readying her bow. "They're on us!"
The woman loosed arrows at an unbelievable pace — he could see where Tephra had learned it. Arrows shot through the campsite in response. The halla stamped its hooves, but stood its ground.
"Papae, I'm scared," she said, clutching the reins with one hand, and reaching down to him with the other.
"Do not be afraid — she will take you to safety," he assured. The weight of understanding, of finality, settled over the man's tone as he said, "Live well, my daughter." He took her small hand and kissed her fingertips. "Protect your brother, and live."
With that, he struck the beast on the flank and sent it darting off into the forest.
He felt himself pulled along with it at a disorienting speed, as the small clearing faded away. He did not see their deaths, which meant she hadn't, either.
A small mercy.
The Fade was a rushing, shifting dark blur. It went on endlessly, with nothing but the pounding of the halla's hooves as it ran — until it ceased.
A different forest, now. Older, and deeper.
How far had the halla taken the children from their parents?
"I think it was trying to take us home," the girl's voice offered, from the darkness. "We rode for many days. I wanted to go back, but the halla would not listen."
He saw them, then. The beast was settled against a tree, and the children were curled up together at its side, sleeping.
"She tried to, at least."
Of course the horror would not have ended there. Not in this terrible, blighted world. Not that this horror was terribly different from the horrors of the world before this one, it was only that he could not bear to see more. Whole, or not, he could not abide the suffering of children anymore than she could.
"I do not wish to see more," he pleaded.
His objections were an exercise in futility.
"Alas, so long as the music plays, we dance," the child replied. The voice had shifted, momentarily, and sounded more like a spirit than the child from memory. "So long as she is telling, we must show it."
Who is telling it?
The halla staggered to its feet, suddenly. The movement sent the children rolling, waking them from their slumber. The little boy began to fuss, but quieted at the sight of the shambling horror as it approached. The girl scooped up her brother and scrambled back into the rotted hollow of the tree.
Anxiety clutched raggedly at his chest as his fear for her grew, but he quickly banished it. She does not die here, he reassured himself. She is not dead. And he'd seen the boy older than this — he did not die here, either.
Still, he found himself placing himself between the children, and the massive arachnid which lumbered toward the halla, as though that would change anything at all.
The beast stamped at the ground in warning, as it lowered its head to display its antlers threateningly.
The spider was not deterred. It chittered and hissed, slashing at the air with its forelimbs in response. When it moved to skirt around the beast, toward the children, the halla moved into its path and blocked them from its advance. It shook its head, swiping at the spider to drive it back. When the arachnid attempted to lunge past, the halla sent it scrambling backwards with a vicious kick. The halla forced it back further still, with sweeping strikes from its antlers that the creature narrowly avoided.
The arachnid gave up its attempts to reach the easy prey, and turned its focus on the halla. It lunged for the beast, throwing itself upon the halla's back. The beast bellowed, as it thrashed and bucked in an attempt to throw the arachnid off of itself. The spider scrabbled for purchase as it lost its grip, and tumbled to the ground. Its claws tore deep trenches through the halla's flank. The beast bucked and arched, stabbing deep into the arachnid's belly as they scrambled apart.
The two creatures circled one another warily, both bleeding profusely. Then, the arachnid went into a frenzy of blows as it skittered around the halla, stabbing the beast with it's long claws wherever it could before darting back from each sweeping strike of the halla's antlers.
"Stop it! You're killing her!" the girl wailed from the hollow in the tree.
Her despair tore through him, and Solas could not account for the trembling of his hands.
The arachnid lunged again, feinting and dodging around the halla's kicks. It leapt back onto the beast's back, and went for the jugular. Its mandibles sunk deep, and Tephra's wailing scream tore through the dream as the halla's legs buckled from beneath.
The small girl's voice was a shrill torrent of anger, of fear, of despair, as she shouted, "Get up! Get up, and fight!"
Straining, the halla found its legs again and slowly pushed itself up. It bucked and thrashed, but could not free itself from the spider's grasp, so it threw itself to the ground and rolled until the spider released its hold. As both creatures struggled to rise, the halla gave a sudden jerk of its head. Its antlers stabbed deep into the arachnid's skull, piercing through the chitin and into its brain. The creature slackened and sank to the ground, twitching and jerking in the throes of death.
The halla pulled itself free, ichor and gore dripping from its antlers. It rose on shaking legs, and limped back to where the children remained hidden in the tree. Blood soaked the entirety of its neck and breast, and ran freely down its forelocks, stark red against the white of its fur. The boy watched from the hollow as his sister climbed out, and approached the dying halla.
Her whole body shuddered with sobs as she held her hands out to meet the halla's bowing head, wrapping her arms around it as the beast pressed the long line of its face against her torso. The halla's knees gave out, and it sank to the ground, dragging the girl with it. On her knees, she continued to hug the beast, as it shuddered and its breaths became rapid.
"Please, don't die," the girl begged, quietly.
Somewhere beyond the dreaming, he heard those words echoed by Tephra — a quiet plea which pierced through the Fade.
She held the beast until well after it died, crying quietly into its fur. When she drew away, her coat and the carrying cloth were soaked in the halla's blood. Her face was ashen and pale, but she quickly collected herself.
"Ea revas, ma falon," she said quietly, as she stood. "May you run forever free in the great Beyond."
She kept her composure as busied herself with sorting through the packs and satchels affixed to the halla's saddle. They were too numerous for her to carry all herself, and she was clearly aware that lingering was unsafe, as the corpse would soon draw the attention predators.
Reverent, and sharp.
How could one so young be so — this?
"I'm eight," the apparition replied, with all of the indignance befitting one of such terribly short years. For a moment, he could see that flash of her in the apparition's face, but it was quickly gone again.
When she finished consolidating supplies into a single pack, which was neither too large nor too heavy for her to carry, she slipped the pack onto her back. She returned to the tree, and held out her hands to the toddler, "Come, little bird. We have to go."
The boy climbed out of the hollow and into the arms of his sister. She secured him in the sling, and smoothed his dark hair with bloody hands, "We have to find somewhere safe to be, until they come back to find us. I'm going to keep you safe until then."
With one last look at her beloved companion, she began to walk. In her small hand, a bone dagger.
He could do nothing else, but follow.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Tephra kept vigil long into the night, straining to not succumb to sleep. She checked his breathing and pulse each time he grew too still despite the rumbling of the wagon. She'd left him long enough to retrieve her bow and quiver, and kept it at her side in anticipation of further bandit attacks.
The caravan did not stop to make camp; they rode through the night at her behest, switching off wagon drivers when they grew too tired. The refugees slept in the other wagons, huddled together. The soldiers slept in shifts, except for Cassandra, who remained awake with her through the night. The Seeker did not chide her for her sleeplessness, as she had before, and thankfully left her in peace to keep watch over Solas.
She had not meant to fall asleep — had not realized she had — until the jolt of the wagon brought her head snapping up.
Her pulse was pounding in her ears as her heart beat furiously in her chest, as the fear and alarm flooded through her. Remnants of a dream clung to the edges of her mind; the dying halla, the long walk, the wych elm, the ruins, and then the sea where her brother had—
Stop.
Tephra rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her palms, as she took a slow, steadying breath. She was accustomed to the repeated variations of her nightmares, their predictable paths, but typically it was of one memory or another. Not this — not such thorough probings through the sum of her childhood. Her nightmares tended to focus on singular events, singular traumas — not all of them at once.
Perhaps telling the stories to him, speaking them aloud, had summoned them from the depths of her memories — ripped old wounds afresh, so that they followed her into her exhausted sleep.
Her attention shifted first to Solas, who was still sleeping soundly beside her, then to the occupant she had not noticed.
Varric had cleared a space for himself and sat settled atop a heap of blankets, with a large book in his lap. He'd brought extra lanterns with him, which sat atop the crate beside him. He was writing, always writing — she liked that about him — and had not noticed she'd woken. She watched him for a time, scribbling away furiously as though his hand could not keep pace with his thoughts.
He didn't know that she loved to write, too. She would have to confess that one day, when he inevitably caught her at it. It was not easy for her to give of herself, to offer her secrets up, so she swallowed the confession, and simply asked, "Is it a good story?"
Varric did not look up as he finished chasing whatever thought attempted to escape him, and said, "Not sure yet. It's still working itself out." When he finished, he set the pen inside the book to mark his place as he shut it. He met her gaze with tired eyes, and asked, "How's your head?"
She gave a quiet laugh, and fiddled at the stitches in her ear, "I've had worse."
It was then that she noticed the bandages wrapped around his head, covering his forehead. There was dried blood at his temple. A sudden fury sparked in the pit of her gut, and she hoped whoever had hurt him — bandit or demon — was dead.
She motioned at his head, "And yours?"
Varric gave a gravelly laugh, as he parroted, "I've had worse."
Tephra arched her back, shifting her legs and stretching them out. She felt far too stiff to have simply nodded off. "How long have I been sleeping?"
Varric cleared his throat, and averted his gaze as he admitted, "Most of the day."
She nearly toppled over, as she echoed, "Day?" She gaped at the dwarf, "Why did no one—"
The dwarf was laughing again, waving a hand dismissively. "Relax, kid. The medics have been in and out a few times, even Cassandra. They had it handled. Our elf here's gonna be fine, if a little worse for wear."
Tephra slumped back against the crate, as the sudden relief quickly deflated her outrage. She gave a long, slow exhale, and rested her head back against the wood. Thank—
Who?
Whoever's listening.
"You should do more of that, kid," he advised. "We're not far off from Haven now. Take a breath, and rest. You need it."
Tephra drew her knees back up to her chest, and folded her arms atop them. "I don't like resting anymore, not since—" Well, he knew. "Since the Breach, my mind never shuts off when things get too still. I start thinking about all the bad shit. The mistakes. Old wounds."
Rambling, again. And she didn't even have alcohol to blame for it this time.
"We all make them, Teph. Learn from them, but don't dwell."
"You say it as though it's easy," she huffed.
All of the dead lingered at the edges of her peripheral, patient in their haunting. She couldn't forget them, even if she tried.
The dwarf gave a grim smile, before producing a flask from his coat pocket. He reached across the sleeping apostate to hand it to her. "Drinking helps with that."
"True, but I'm not certain I can spend the entirety of my time — all this Herald shit — smashed," Tephra laughed.
"Says who?" the dwarf retorted, with a crooked grin.
She twisted off the cap, and took a long swig. It was neither ale, nor wine, but a good proper whiskey. She winced at the burn, and shot the dwarf a mock-accusatory look, "You've been holding out on me."
"Supplies are low," he laughed. "I'm more generous when I'm not giving up my personal supply."
She drank from the flask until she'd emptied it, and was grateful for the swift inebriation afforded by her empty stomach.
He gave her a curious look, before he asked, "What's on your mind? Besides our friend here, of course."
She did not have to think of the dead to summon them.
"That templar," she mused.
"You'll have to be more specific," the dwarf chuckled. "We're up to our eyeballs in them these days."
"After the fire," Tephra specified.
She had purposely avoided thinking of it, until just now. She wasn't sure what brought him to mind, but now all she could see was his bloodied face, as he gasped for air and drowned in his own blood, eyes wide and—
Green.
Bright, and deep, like her brothers. She wasn't sure why that mattered, only that it did, and the sudden weight of it crushed the breath out of her.
"I didn't have to kill him," she admitted, more to herself than to Varric. She gave a breathless, joyless laugh, "He was already captured. He wasn't going anywhere. Wasn't a threat. He was—"
The sound of his wet gasps were forever burned into her mind.
"—so young."
Little more than an overgrown youth, drawn into a conflict he likely barely understood.
And she'd killed him, all the same.
She could not keep the shaking out of her voice as she continued, "And the others — the soldiers, the scouts. I told them to protect the children. That one the mage killed—"
What the fuck was his name? She was angry that it already had slipped from her mind.
"Bjorn," the dwarf offered, in a subdued tone.
"Bjorn, yes. He—"
"Enough, Teph," Varric interjected. "That's not a road you need to go down. Shit happens, and we rarely have a say in it. He saved that kid because he wanted to save him."
"Because I told them—"
"Because he wanted to."
Tephra lapsed into a bruised silence, nursing her grief.
She could, perhaps eventually, get over the shock of her first revenge killing. She had killed before, yes — but it had always been to protect her clan. She had never carried out an act of vengeance before, but she supposed it was only matter of time in this terrible world; only a matter of time before the last vestiges of whatever amounted to innocence in her were stripped from her. Whatever remained of the child she'd been before tragedy took root in her life.
People killed each other every day for less — that was a truth she learned early. At least she had done so to avenge the deaths of the innocent.
That, she could at least attempt to justify.
But the soldier? Her order, her responsibility — his death was on her.
"Look, I saw how it went down," Varric said, breaking the silence which had settled between them. "He made a choice. He could've dropped the kid and saved his own ass, but he didn't. Maybe you inspired him to do that, or maybe he had it in him all along. We don't always get to choose how our story ends, but he did."
When she still said nothing, he continued, "People do bad shit, and other people die. That never ends, Teph. As much as it pains me to admit it, Chuckles here is right: You can't save them all. And it's shit that they put you in the position to think you have to. Save what you can, and hold onto it. Don't let the dead take you with them."
She held her tongue a long moment, before she snarked, "Is all that shit in your book, or did you just pull it out of your ass?"
Varric gave a sharp laugh, before replying, "Nah, I'd rather quote you. What was it you said to Solas? Right before you got him to fix himself."
Tephra flushed, as she tried and failed to suppress an embarrassed smile, "I believe I said, "Magic up your hand, I'll do the rest"?"
To his credit, the dwarf attempted to keep his cool and suppress his amusement. It lasted all of five seconds, until she snorted — and then they both were laughing.
"Yeah, that shit's going in my book."
Tephra lifted a brow. "Are you writing about—"
"Shh, let me concentrate before I forget anything."
.
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.
.
.
.
Long after the bear, after countless days of walking — the passage of time was impossible to gauge in the Fade, but he supposed it had to be days, perhaps even weeks of travel — the girl stumbled upon ruins deep in the forest.
Her path had brought her down out of the forested mountain, deep into a much older forest. From the size alone, he could tell that many of the towering giants — redwoods and sequoias, pines and firs — were hundreds, if not thousands, of years old. It was a dense, old-growth forest, with a thick flush of bright green moss carpeting much of the forest floor.
It was there that she found a refuge, of sorts.
He knew the stone pylons on sight — towering stone structures, which were intricately carved with her draconic visage. But the girl did not know what they were meant to herald, and stared up at them with naked awe. She would have felt the old magics resonating across her skin as she passed through, but she wouldn't have known what it was. To her, it would have been nothing more than odd cold chill shivering through her on a warm day.
But through the magic, the sentinels would have known at once that the temple grounds had been breached. As he followed after her, it was plain to see that little of the surface temple remained, beyond a few crumbling walls and alcoves. Yet he was certain that much of it remained intact below, along with those who waited — sleeping through the centuries as he had — and those who'd remained awake to watch over them.
The sentinels would have been alerted to their presence.
Yet, as he watched her memories — as she found a sturdy stone alcove to camp in, one of the deeper ones which still had a roof to it — he did not see a trace of the sentinels. He wasn't surprised; they rarely made their presence known to outsiders unless intervention was necessary.
Had they ever made their presence known to the children?
"No one ever came for us," the girl responded, where she laid curled by small campfire, with the boy tucked against her chest.
Curled together, mirroring the exact position she still slept in, all these years later, as though she still held tight to the ghost of his memory.
All he could think of was the many other Elvhen children he'd seen from uthenera, who'd shivered into the nights, lost and lingering in despair. Severed, made mortal, made less with each following generation. With no one to guide them, with nothing but the stories handed down to the them. Stories, which fractured further with each generation.
"We didn't have anyone to teach us any different," the girl intoned. "All I had was what I could remember, so I taught him what little I knew."
The correlation was not lost on him. And for all of his anger, his despair, his estrangement from the Dalish, from all of the modern elves — he could not blame them for what they had become. They had become such because of him, and that was the true source of his own grief. He looked on them — on her — and all he could see was his own mistakes staring back at him.
He wanted this to be done with — to be over.
It is too much.
When his thoughts were met with silence, he realized something had shifted; the apparition no longer responded to his thoughts. The dream — the Fade itself — grew sharper, coming into startling focus.
It wasn't that his strength had returned, only that suddenly and at once, he felt Tephra's presence there. And with it, the entire scene shifted with a force that left him reeling, as he found himself staggering ankle-deep in the surf of the Waking Sea.
The boy was older now — eight or nine years of age, if he had to guess — wading in the water as he hunted the shallows for shellfish. A handsome-faced youth, skinny as a reed but healthy, hopping along in the water like a sea bird hunting for prey. A rough-hewn net slung over his shoulder hung heavy with mussels and clams.
Solas turned to find Tephra sitting in the sand and working to repair a fishing net. It was clearly made by her hand — crude, but efficient work. The sun was low on the horizon, indicating either dawn or dusk. It was difficult to tell the difference, in the dreaming.
She was here now, perhaps he could—
"Tephra," he beckoned, and reached with what strength he could to make himself known — to make himself present in her dream.
His stomach leapt into his throat when she looked up and frowned, but she simply looked past him. The moment passed, and she turned her focus back to the net in her lap.
Solas sighed, resigned. His injury must have taxed his body greatly, and there was no knowing how long it would take for him to wake again. Until then, he could only wait, and watch what the Fade brought to him.
At least this scene was calm; perhaps he'd seen the worst of it already.
The boy came bounding in from the surf.
Where Tephra had grown to be startlingly still and wary, the boy was all wild energy and enthusiasm. He tossed his fishing net into the sand beside her, which was only partially filled. He crouched before her, hands cupped together and held out to her in offering, grinning ear to ear.
Despite the differences in their coloration, he favored her greatly — especially when he smiled.
Tephra looked up from her work, clearly impatient. She blew a stray strand of hair from where it hung in her face, and asked, "What have you found now? Another starfish? We can't eat those."
"No, but they're pretty," he argued. "And it's not a starfish."
Tephra relented, and put the net down in her lap. The boy opened his hands to reveal a moon snail shell. It was a deep shade of blueish-grey, with a veins of nacre running through its swirl.
He recognized it as the same one she carried still, often tucked away beneath her armor.
"These we can eat," she noted. "But its empty. What am I supposed to do with it?"
"It's pretty," he insisted. "All the other ones are the same, but this one is pretty. Do you like it? You could make a necklace."
"Can I eat a necklace?"
The boy's enthusiasm deflated, as she was clearly not impressed with his gift. He pressed it into her palm, and then grinned, "Then hold it for me. I'll find a better one for you. Then we'll both have necklaces."
Despite her current impassivity, he had seen how she'd treasured it. How many times had he watched her hand stray to her sternum, seeking the very same shell? In the quiet moments, when she thought herself unobserved? Seeking familiarity, seeking comfort, seeking—
"It is rather pretty," she conceded, before tugging him by the ear and planting a kiss on his cheek. "But we need more food, not pretty things. It's nearly winter now, and we're still not ready."
"You always worry," the boy huffed, as he stood.
"One of us must," she shot back, as she slipped the shell into the traveling pack beside her in the sand. "Now leave me alone so I can fix this. I can't fish without a net."
"One day you're gonna burst from all your worrying," the boy teased. He puffed up his cheeks, and then squashed them with his hands as he blew a raspberry at her.
She swiped at him as he danced back out of her reach, hopping on agile feet. She laughed, and threw a handful of sand after him as he returned to the water. She called after him, "You're a rotten little bird!"
"I'm gonna be taller than you," he shot back. "Then you can't call me that anymore!"
Tephra shook her head with an amused huff, before going back to work.
Solas sat in the sand beside her.
This memory was softer than all the rest. The waning sun seemed to suffuse everything with a gentle warmth. And watching them, he could not help but feel a sense of admiration for their resilience.
Despite being torn from their parents and lost to their clan at such tender ages, despite the staggering odds that had been against them, they had survived. And not just simply that, but in whatever small, ragged way, they were thriving — and they were happy.
He could not sense how much time passed as he watched her work, as she began to hum to herself a repetitive and tuneless song, as her fingers picked through the webbing of fabrics to fix knots and tie new ones. The boy was a fish in the water — diving and disappearing for spans of time as he hunted the shallows. Every now and again, Tephra turned her gaze to the water, to make sure he resurfaced, which he always did, until—
Some time had staggered past since the last time the boy resurfaced.
It was then that Solas realized that she hadn't been humming a tuneless song, but that she had been wordlessly counting to herself. And it was between each repetition that she looked up to confirm that the boy had resurfaced.
Tephra was on her feet before he could react. She sucked in a deep breath, and bellowed, "Tern!"
She waited all of two heartbeats before she raced into the water after him.
A sick, sinking weight settled in the pit of his stomach, as he remembered the first time he'd trespassed into her dreams. He recalled the screaming he'd heard, just before the end. And with grim clarity, he knew that it belonged to this memory.
With great reluctance, he followed her into the water.
He did not need to swim as she did in the memory, and simply walked along the seafloor beneath her as she struggled in the dark waters. He could see no better than her, though, as the Fade reflected only what she remembered. Still, he could make out her form as she searched desperately, diving again and again, searching further and further from the shore in a desperate bid to find her brother.
Each time she broke the surface of the water, coughing and fighting for air, he could see the weight of her despair setting in, alongside inevitable fatigue. She dove once more, turning and searching with desperate hands, searching the dark waters for any trace of him, reaching—
He saw the boy only when her hand brushed him, like a flash of light in the dark. She panicked, and struggled to grab hold of him as he slipped further from her. Tephra got her arms around him and began to kick furiously, propelling them toward the surface.
For a brief, startling moment, Solas could feel the burning — in her lungs, in her legs as she fought the current which threatened to drag her down with him. He could feel her desperation, clawing raggedly in her chest, and then the sudden sickening drop as the sea dragged her down further.
He remembered the abject terror in her face, all those weeks before, when the templars had tortured her in the chantry cell. Sputtering, desperately trying to draw air in her lungs. And her eyes, when they had locked on his—
With grim clarity, he understood now why she had been so terrified. Especially now, as he watched her struggle in the water.
No matter how hard she kicked against the riptide, she could not break free, and if she did not let go she would surely follow him to his death.
Watching her struggle, he could not help but think how brave she'd been, and how foolish — as she held onto him until the very last moment. Until base instinct overrode emotion, and she let go.
He felt the boy slip from her grasp, and vanish into the dark depths.
The burning need for air drove her back up to the surface, and he felt the loss as she felt it; it sent him reeling towards the shore. He could sense her struggling still, trying to recover what little strength she could for one more futile attempt. She had not given up, but soon her body would force her to.
He staggered out of the water and sank to his knees in the sand, bereft and mourning — for her.
It was long after the sun sank beyond the horizon when Tephra finally dragged herself out of the sea and collapsed on the shore. The ragged screams and sobs which tore themselves from her lungs mirrored what he'd heard in passing before, but this — this was far worse than any echo.
It clawed and tore through every fiber of his spirit.
He had anticipated that the boy had died, had seen its impact on her and the depth of her grief — but seeing it put into brutal context was something he would have never have wanted, let alone asked of her to relive.
And of all that they'd survived together — two children lost to the world with only each other — to be taken like this.
By sheer happenstance.
By an errant riptide.
Solas had seen her with a dagger, with her bow. Despite whatever her mother had taught her as a girl, her true skill had been honed in the deepest of the wilds. She likely faced more in her early youth than most Dalish twice her age, and with that skill she had kept them safe. They had survived far longer than most lost children ever could be expected to.
But the sea?
How could she fight the sea?
She could not hear him, yet still he said, "I am truly sorry for all that you've lost. You did everything you could."
Her ragged sobs tore at him, and propelled him to crawl to where she'd collapsed in the sand. She held her face in her hands, and lay there curled in on herself.
He reached to lay his hand on her head, to offer whatever futile comfort he could, but just as he'd been violently thrown into the dreaming, he felt himself snatched back into the waking world.
There was nothing but a rushing sense of disorientation, at first.
But then the light was too bright, and voices clamored around him, sharp and intrusive to his ears. His heart raced at an improbable speed. There was an odd pressure that held him down, held him still, and he realized that he'd been strapped to a makeshift stretcher. He was being carried somewhere, and in the blur of his vision as his head lolled from one side to the other, he could make out familiar landmarks — Haven.
How long had he been unconscious?
Then, suddenly, clarity.
"He's awake," noted a voice which he did not know.
The movement stopped, and the faces and shapes around him were a disorienting haze, but then suddenly she was was there.
Tephra elbowed a space between two soldiers and leaned over him, and he felt a stab tear through his heart as he watched the naked look of relief wash over her face — emotion she neither fought to suppress, nor bothered to hide, and it was entirely for him.
Again, sudden startling clarity as he realized that she cared whether he lived, or died — that it mattered to her.
He mattered to her.
She reached to grasp his forearm — nothing more than simple gesture of reassurance — but it was so much more than she could begin to understand.
It was her, a Walker Of The Lonely Path, reaching out to him — He Who Hunted Alone. It was a Dalish elf reaching across centuries of estrangement and poisonous mythology and taking hold of the Dread Wolf without fear, or hesitation.
And for it, something ancient and knotted inside of him sundered.
An exhausted, strained smile pulled at her face, as she asked, "Still with us?"
It took every shred of what little strength he had to rasp, "Yes. With you."
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Author's Note: I shifted tenses in the Fade memory/dream scenes, to kind of give it a different feel from the rest of the chapter, which hopefully worked, and did not end up jarring.
If you're enjoying this at all, please let me know, especially if you think I may be bungling Solas, or fudging any lore details too terribly. Or just generally flailing. I'm happy with any and all input.