"This wasn't part of our original plan. I had thought a walk of the grounds would be sufficient."
Chiyo stopped on the gritty stair when the light behind her failed to follow her down into the mausoleum buried at the heart of the cemetery.
"Are you not coming?" She turned to the photographer standing just within the egress. One hand supported the lantern raised near level with his eye; the other however, grasped the knee of the flanking statue of a robed priest. Carved from slick green serpentstone brought to life where the light penetrated the more transparent edges, the matching set of guardians that made up the entrance had been worn smooth by the passing of years.
His chest rose with a deep breath and whistled out through his lips. She watched him fidget curiously with the lamp's lid as he took a half-stride back. "I am. A moment for my bearings, if you don't mind."
"You're not scared, are you?" She couldn't stop the small smirk of delight twinging in her cheeks. "Is it the dark, or the spiders, or the corpses?"
"Wrong on all counts." Solas took a tentative step down, forcing the slump in his shoulders to straighten. "The construction here simply does not allow for any ease in movement, an advantage to your stature, but not to mine."
"Tight spaces, really?" The teasing joy lessened as her head cocked to one side. He was a curious person indeed, an explorer cut from much the same cloth as she. For all his travels, there should be nothing left in this world that would make him even remotely cautious.
"I have my reasons." His tone unexpectedly sharp, even to himself. He curtailed whatever hesitations had first afflicted him and proceeded down the steps. "And they are not up for discussion, that is, if you'd like to continue our venture."
Chiyo watched the lines of his face tighten as Solas passed her on the stairs, rigid and closed off from questioning. Solemnity restored, she managed the scrape of shame that came with having just teased a near stranger. Somehow, she'd forgotten that small detail. About a connection only three days forged.
Her bottom lip remained firmly caught between the hard press of her teeth until they reached the first landing, the guilt only grew as they trod in utter silence. From there the path was split in half a dozen directions, each archway inscribed not with words but by symbols of the major households at the time. Silver snakes with twisted bodies, dragons curled in amber knots, black suns with ruby cores, crowns made of cobalt lazurite. The materials were just as striking as the imagery itself. Perhaps there was an honor amongst thieves. If these minor works had been left in an elvhen tomb they'd be long since pillaged.
Solas lifted his beacon towards each, pausing but briefly as they made their turn about the enclosure. In her experience, random choice paid off nearly as much as guided selection, but perhaps his experiences in Tevinter would lead them to something more profitable. Chiyo's own instinct considered the hall crested over with a fan of bent swords, her partner's choice not yet made apparent.
His knuckles were near white around the lantern's handle. Chiyo paused by an empty urn, desiccated flower stems and crumbled leaves littered its basin. All nearly aged to ashes. She'd not continue without some form of a peace offering for making light of what could only be an old wound. When all else failed, there was always honesty.
"Drowning." Even the word could not cross her tongue without an extra breath being stolen to replace it. "I won't swim in water if I can't see the bottom, and even then I'd rather not."
He stared, oil lamp still held high. Why did he have to look at her so? Blue eyes fixed to her person in such a way she believed he could see right through all the shields and facades to the parts of her life she'd rather not expose unless compelled under duress.
Go on, spill your guts out. Tell him about the time you attacked a little boy because he pulled on your ear, or how you cried at every Satinalia festival until you were twelve because the masks gave you the willies. I bet he'd love to hear about the time you got caught with Vahari defacing Chantry property and were forced into doing community service by old gran Lavellan.
After an eternity of scrutiny he finally released her, the harsher edges about his face softened as Solas lowered the lantern. "I'll keep that in mind." With nothing more to say, he walked through the next open channel.
Not exactly a thank you, but she'd take it as an accepted apology.
She followed, taking care not to drag her heels on the delicate mosaic of tile underfoot, many loose with age. Solas had picked the iconography snakes for whatever reason or fancy left undeclared, but it would be as good a place as any to start. Here they stood a chance to link evidence to historical fact, that was, if the spirits chose to share information that could be researched. Names, dates, events, Tevinter was ripe with its own documented antiquity, only Nevarrans could claim rivalry in extensive knowledge on personal history and bloodlines.
Styles in internment had changed over the centuries, but at the height of fashion it had been almost unthinkable to place ones disassembled, dehydrated remains further than a few inches from the rest of the lineage —better still if the family crypt was within close proximity to an even more affluent one.
From there the way branched further still into a network of catacombs, each wall pierced with a honeycomb of niches and placarded top to bottom with family crests, name plates and ages, some centuries old from eras long since passed. More impressive still were the painted lines Chiyo found her finger gently tracing, a myriad of colors linking births and marriages—though some were found to be severed with a harsh black stroke.
How far back could she recount her own lineage? Five, maybe six generations before the tales became hazy and then eroded completely altogether. Earlier than that, little existed beyond unanchored names on dockets of sale, tax records, property insurance… And even those were rare.
The deeper they traveled, the lower the ceiling hung and the closer the walls had been carved as more and more space became required to house the dead in their tidy cubbies with deviations from the original track cropping up wherever the rock could be hewn away. Such grandiose effort and craftsmanship, the excavators must have been relieved when the trend changed and familial plots became the norm. Culture here had shifted much since slaves had gained their freedom, gutted workforces left people scrambling to fill gaps with numbers too low to maintain the old ways as they were.
How many elves had been forced to dig up the skeletons of their forebears and make room for their human masters deep within the earth? How many cried as the trees were chopped down from the tops of ancestral mounds and burned, or did none remain who remembered what they stood for in the first place? Just another old forest being cleared, just a few skulls left by savages, rebels, beings who'd also once been at the seat of power, likely having rooted up the bones of those who'd come before them.
Progress. Time waited for no one and certainly gave none special treatment.
Solas stayed close enough to be accused of hovering, even as she lingered, delved deep into her own thoughts. His breath hitched every time she wandered more than a few feet away. So much for being the brave, unshakeable man he put on the airs to be. Maybe in the brightness of day he would be unbothered, but now, inside of stifling walls and the small bubble of light, his veneer was beginning to crack.
Who could blame him though? Even her own nerves felt exposed, sensitive to every sound of their own movements against the stone and flicker from their lone flame.
In a narrow alcove he set down the light in its bowl of glass and extended the wick least it burn too short while they worked. The eyes of an elf were sharp even in low light, but useless as any in pure darkness.
"Shall we begin a session here?" He placed his arms behind his hips, palm to wrist.
"Certainly, did you have anything to ask?" Chiyo looked away from the decorated wall, having just stumbled upon a complicated web of the inter-breeding of close cousins, a practice since made rather taboo.
"The experiment was your idea, I am content to observe and record events as they happen." Solas glanced at the camera dangling from his neck. "That is, if you'll stand to be in a few more pictures."
"After," Chiyo readied her recorder as she sunk to her haunches. "I don't want any accidental feedback if we can avoid it."
Again she turned on the device, the battery level well over half full. Chiyo cleared her throat before giving the date. "Nineteenth of Justinian, Carastes, exact time is unknown but assumed near midnight. I am joined tonight by my… associate, Solas, in an investigation seeking evidence to the presence of specters. Is there anyone else here who'd like to make themselves known?"
She took a long pause, counting the seconds to provide an adequate time for a response. Chiyo hoped that it was excitement making her heart pound against the anterior of her ribs. She had no time for fear or any of its pesky relatives to bother her now.
"What year is it? Can you tell me when you died?" Again, she remained silent and still.
"Are there any elves with us? Humans?" And on it went, a chain of questions pursuing knowledge from the beyond. Only when she'd finally run out of inquiries did she turn off and rewind the recorder with hopes that one of their nets had snagged something. She held it to her ear, shielding her eyes as Solas snapped a few quick shots.
She'd already played twice through an hour's worth of feedback from up above, but no voice came through that even her fine ear could hear as she blundered around in the dark. Solas' pictures were useless until they returned to his lab with the chance they contained something at all.
For minutes, Chiyo heard nothing but her own voice, each empty gap held its fair share of disappointment. She shouldn't have set her hopes up, how many unremarkable years had she been exploring with the little tool and recognized anything of the sort?
"Maybe we should try another spot…" Chiyo mumbled with her chin in her hand as her questions repeated without remark. She let the tape run through, her thumb poised to turn the whole unit off again.
And then, just before she pressed the button, a bolt of energy ran down her spine from skull to tailbone even before her mind registered any noise. Echoless and faint, what sounded very much like a muffled laugh hissed its way through the tiny speaker.
"That was—" To her horror, Chiyo watched as the blue energy that powered her favorite tool decreased with each blink while it rested in her palm. She'd never witnessed such a rapid decline, dropping the unit down to almost nothing within a few unnerving seconds. "Shit!"
She yanked the battery from its chamber and rustled in her bag for a new cartridge. With a click, the device was reassembled, charged in full. And then it happened again. Baffled, she watched as the power drained away to nothing but the lowest glow. "What is going on here?"
Her confusion switched to agitation with the next flash of light, the malfunction not what she wished to have immortalized. But the next battery she tried was already dead, as was the one that followed. In less than a minute she'd gone from fully prepared to useless with nothing gained but a phantom's distant mockery.
"What a piece of junk, I paid way too much gold to… Ugh! Well, that's the end of that." With less care than she should have given the expensive apparatuses, Chiyo packed her supplies into her satchel and swung the leather strap onto her shoulder. Taking up the lantern, she'd at least try to make herself somewhat handy. "I'm sorry, how much film do you have left?"
"A roll, give or take a few slides." Disappointment tinged Solas' words; it seemed another had their hopes equally raised. Once more, he took charge, leading the way with an eye through his lens.
Out of the niche they turned the corner to reenter the main pathway, Chiyo's attentions returned to the walls stuffed with categorized bones. One had been broken, the ceramic plate fractured. Peering inside revealed a pair of empty black sockets staring straight back upon the disturber of their eternal rest, as well as a the glint of a few shiny baubles.
"You'd think there'd be more grave robbing here." Chiyo whispered through a sudden shiver as the hairs on her neck rose with an icy chill. "How much gold must be—"
They both froze to the spot.
An aura of muted grey-blue crossed between the gap just yards before them. An arm, a leg, the profile of a face, no more than a glimmer in a sunless world that darkened again just as quickly.
The scream strangled in her throat escaped only when a heavy heel stepped backwards onto her toes as Solas staggered. His camera slipped and the flash went off, blinding them both with fright. Chiyo heard the sound of breaking glass, the floor became slick beneath their feet as they both stumbled.
In the gloom of it all, Solas bolted. At least, that's what he attempted. Unable to see, and with nowhere to run but back to the outlet they'd just been in, Chiyo trailed him with only her memory and ears as guides.
"Wait! Come back!"
She would have tripped over him had the raspy gasps racing from his lungs not alerted her to his position on the ground. "We're trapped. We'll never get out!"
The oil on her boots made her drop to the floor exceedingly precarious, having already to navigate another shaking set of limbs in the dark. Chiyo all but crawled to his side as she watched over her shoulder for any sign of that thing.
"You're ok, we'll figure this out."
The promise slipped through the clenching dread of her own distress, yet she pushed it aside for someone in far more trouble, who needed her more than she had reason to be afraid.
"I can't, I can't do this!" She felt for his hands and found them drenched with panicked sweat, clenched to his sides with rigid convulsions. With all her might she pulled one away and held it tightly within her own. He needed to calm down, and soon, breathing with such speed would only lead to fainting. Then they really would be in deep shit.
"Slow down," Chiyo wrested free his other hand and held the palm firmly to the flat plane of her chest. In his wrist she felt a speed of pulse unlike any other, ready to combust. "Let me help you…"
Solas wheezed as his whole body trembled with unrelenting violence. "I can't!"
The phrase seemed stuck on repeat.
"Like this. Try it." She took a deep inhale and held it for a count before releasing a long, slow exhale. When the first didn't work, she tried again, encouraged as he fought to match the pace she set. His arms, stiff and strong with anxious quakes, pulled Chiyo close. The wet heat of his brow met her cheek. Each crashing breath broke against her neck, but bit by bit, she deemed them to slow.
"Forgive me," She took another breath. Her hand pressed his hard to the damp fabric of her shirt. "I should have listened when you said you weren't comfortable."
"I am a coward." Broken words still held their conviction, and edges sharp enough to wound. Her heart ached for a man she barely knew, but in that moment she would have sworn to have known him her entire life. Same cloth indeed, down to the very thread.
"That's not true, and I won't believe it for a second." Chiyo continued to breathe with regularity, it was the only thing she could do. If anything, she could be a distraction; all nightmares had to pass eventually. "What if I told you I was a delinquent in my youth?"
"You?" He croaked with fatigue as his body continued to shake in fading rhythms. "Impossible."
"I defaced a Chantry."
He laughed, or close to it, and she knew it wasn't sweat that dripped onto her neck and shoulder by the way his jaw juddered.
It was a start. But coward or not, bravery didn't matter much without a perceivable way out of this mess.