Slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp-slurp.
"Ahaha! Cao-Cao, stop!"
Slurp, slurp, slurp.
"Down, boy! That tickles!"
Slurp, slurp.
"Chị Hai!" Bình called out. His voice resounded from above the grassy hill. "C'mon, it's time to eat!"
"We're making thịt nướng," Tiên added.
"Coming!" Turning to the happy dog, she gestured for him to follow. "Let's go, boy – they're making grilled meat!"
The fluffy brown Akita barked and ran after her as she sprinted through the grass. The day was just so beautiful, with the sunniest sun you ever saw, the warmest air, the bluest sky, the puffiest clouds – such a perfect day for what would be a perfect picnic. As she ran up the slope of the hill, she could just make out the distant forms of her siblings and Cixi waiting for them at the top. The fragrant aroma of thịt nướng, cooked with what could only be the choicest cuts of pork and the most perfectly balanced of marinades, wafted down to her like a beckoning temptation.
"Careful, Chị Hai, it's going to rain!" Tiên suddenly warned.
"You gotta be kidding me," she yelled back. "I checked the weather and everything!"
But the clouds above her suddenly turned grey and covered the blue sky. Thunder echoed in the heavens. She craned her neck up to catch sight of the first falling raindrops, thick and long as beams of wood. No, wait, they were beams of wood. They tumbled on top of her, crashing onto her body in a tumultuous heap. Every beam represented a painful ache in her back, head, sides, arms, legs. It happened so fast she didn't even have the time to cry out.
Through it all, Cao-Cao somehow managed to jump in her face. SLURP!
Ahnnie gasped and spluttered, coughing back to life as a clump of snow fell onto her face. When some of it trickled in her nostrils, she gave what could only be the biggest and baddest sneeze of her life. It echoed through her ears like the bashing of cymbals and racked wave upon wave of aches through her body.
Unnnghh...she cringed, hugging her sides as pain lanced through a rib bone. While every part of her felt sore, a rib on her right side seemed bad in particular. Her head pounded at the thought of it being fractured. Oh, please, not again...her pinky toe had been officially the very first bone she'd ever broken. She wasn't keen on adding another to that list.
Her eyes opened slowly. The world was as dark as when they had been closed – oh no, I'm blind! But as she rolled onto her back, she was relieved to find her sight very much intact, if not perfect. A gaping hole in the ceiling of splintered wood revealed the grey sky above. Clumps of snow teetered at the edges, threatening to drop on her at any moment. With a shuddering sigh, Ahnnie attempted to sit up.
Her joints creaked and cracked. The damned rib protested sharply. She sucked in a breath and forced herself up until she was truly upright. Beyond the spotlight cast by the hole above, murky darkness swam all around. From what little she could see she gathered that she had fallen into a cave. She looked up again, but a crick in her neck forced her head back down. Still, it seemed like a long way to have fallen. There was no conceivable way up.
Ahnnie brought her left hand before her. The mark was calm and glowed sleepily in the gloom. Perfect, a light source. She waved it around and discovered that the only way to go, if at all, was forward. Her short sword lay several feet away and she stretched herself, torturously, to reach it. Then she composed the stiff legs beneath her into a stumbling, lurching stand.
She hissed as the rib screamed again. Regardless, she started on her shambling way with gritted teeth. It occurred to her as she progressed through the beginnings of a manmade tunnel that this was all pointless – But what is there left to lose? The night's events came back to her in jerky patches until, at last, they wove themselves into a linear tapestry of tragedy. Everything that made her feel adequate for once had already been taken from her; she might as well not let her life be one of them.
The tunnel seemed to stretch on for forever. Some of the stiffness worked itself out, but the aching still resided like an unwelcome guest. Darkness in the meanwhile taunted her with its eerie absence of sound; there was not even the dripping of stalactites to punctuate the air. Unnerving at first, it quickly became dull. Monotony benumbed the edges of her mind.
So it was with shock that she found torchlight glowing around the bend. Faint and dying, but torchlight nonetheless. "Hello?" she croaked, her throat dry. "Anyone there?"
Then her palm vibrated. Damn it, she cursed, there's a rift...but there was no turning back now. The mark – or, she supposed, the 'Anchor' – vibrated with a greater intensity as she started rounding the bend. Having no more need of a light source, she clenched her weapon's hilt in both hands. If she timed it right, she could possibly close the rift before demons came through – if they already weren't through, in the first place.
She came to another cavern lit by torches at the entrance. It seemed to lead three ways but the only way open was the one in the middle, illuminated by another pair of torches; the openings to the left and right were blocked by rubble, and dark. A rift glowed green in the cave center with no supernatural obstructions, free for her to come and close. She hobbled over to it to take her chance.
Yet she felt so hopeless.
So miserable.
What's the point? she despaired. It's not like closing this rift's going to make a difference. Sealing the Breach was the biggest thing I ever did in my life, but it all came undone in a few hours. Now I'm stuck in some underground cave, aching everywhere with no hope of survival...I couldn't even save the people I cared about.
The thought provoked a pang in her chest. Every breath came out labored, and not just because a rib was in pain. She lowered her short sword and looked at it sorrowfully, tracing the length of its blade from crossguard to sharp tip.
I should just...end it all.
Warm tears streaked down her face as she shut her eyes tight. The sword's aim was now inverted, set to strike the sunburst eye in the middle of her armor. The only thing she regretted was being unable to say goodbye to everyone else.
The clatter of a light object on the cavern floor was what stayed her hand.
Ahnnie's eyes opened and accosted the noise's source as it rolled to a stop at her boot. It was a small pinecone, caked heavily with snow. She froze for several moments trying to figure out where it might've come from, when she heard wind whistling directly ahead of her. Her head perked up. It was the exit; the middle opening in the cavern was the way out.
As she made the connection, a cloaked demon coagulated from the darkness and flew at her, screeching with the grief of a thousand mourners. Yelling in surprise, Ahnnie swung her sword to ward it off. The sword scored a hit, but the demon was unfazed. Bleeding black smoke, it hissed as it sank back into the shadows. She made to apprehend it but stopped before she could so much as take a step.
What am I doing? she thought again, chest growing heavy. I'll never be able to kill that thing. Not with the condition I'm in. I'm screwed.
And yet, something felt odd. Whether it was because she had been nothing but grim determination earlier, or the realization of an exit had stimulated her, this sudden despair seemed out of place even in someone like her. Now why would that be?
I tried to kill myself, she thought, horrified. I never tried to do that before, even at my lowest point. Realization struck her again. It's not me...it's the demon!
She whipped the Anchor out at the rift just as the demon renewed its keening. It sprang from the shadows and began physically attacking her in lieu of influencing her emotions, but as the rift grew weaker, so did it. Having no way to completely fend it off, Ahnnie simply accepted the blows in place or parried one-handed to the best of her abilities. When the rift finally closed and the demon, gone, she was left shivering from the slash marks it had made in her armor. Though no blood had been shed, the icy traces of the demon's essence penetrated to the very skin.
She sheathed the short sword to free up an arm for a self hug. But before she could totter for the exit, she paused, looking back down at the pinecone. Coincidence or not, the sight of it had saved her. She was rarely one to believe in superstitions, but this time around...she picked it up and hugged it tight.
The world outside was a massive blur of swirling snow. It was like stepping into a painting composed of nothing but violent white streaks against a gray backdrop. She bent her head in the wind, teeth chattering, and picked her careful way down the wooden ramp at the mouth of the cave.
Once she reached the bottom, she glimpsed a glowing speck of orange peeping through the whiteness. Ahnnie trudged for it, discerning its shape a moment later as that of a burning upturned wagon. She ran-waded the last few steps and crashed beside it, warming her face near the dying flames. Her left hand, kept ungloved, started stinging. She brought it to the fire as closely as possible and tucked the right hand's glove over it once it was warm. Then she heaved herself painfully back onto her feet. The wagon, though abandoned, had been pointed in one way: forward. If she guessed correctly, that was the way that would take her to safety.
Thus she struggled, alternating the glove between hands as she fought for admittance through the snowy gusts. It was so frustratingly slow, like fighting through thick syrup. Whenever the wind increased in ferocity, she stopped and shivered with more violence. It eventually became too much for her to move the glove from hand to hand and she stuck both beneath her armpits instead. The pinecone rested all the while between her breasts, a brown and spiny crown atop the sunburst eye.
Eventually she stopped shivering. A dark mass of land became visible at this point and the blizzard began to clear, but somewhere along the way her body had ceased reacting to the chill. That did not mean she was oblivious to the cold; the stings on her skin simply became more commonplace. It wouldn't have surprised her if cold was all she had really ever felt and warmth was but a farce invented by her mind. Then stumbling became frequent as her eyelids grew heavier. It did not help that the wolves were howling such soothing songs into the air; if she listened closely, they were almost opera sopranos.
The land mass morphed into a rocky hill which she practically clambered up on all fours. The pinecone had disappeared, dropped in one of the many stumbles. Whatever; she'd forgotten about it long ago. As she came close to the ridge, she spotted a cooking tripod erected over a grey pile of ash. Someone was hungry. Maybe they had thịt nướng. She staggered over to it and fell on her knees so she could dip her head to observe the ashes. Tiny orange specks still glowed in the dust."Emmmbers? Reeecent?" she slurred.
The discovery encouraged her to keep going. The crest of the hill was walled on both sides by giant cliff faces, so there was no questioning any forks or bends. When she made it to the top, the welcome glow of campfires greeted her from the little valley below.
Ahnnie fell onto her bottom. I think this is far enough, she wheezed. This is as good a spot as any. Her mouth widened in a large, lazy yawn. I'll walk down there in the morning...
"There, it's her!" a voice suddenly shouted. She made note of it, but only barely as she laid herself onto the snow.
"Thank the Maker!" another exalted.
Her eyes had already closed by the time a strong pair of arms hefted her slackened body to her feet. She slurred out in protest, but they dragged her on regardless. Something about dying easier in sleep when half-frozen. "You'll be able to sleep once you're warmed, I promise you." She was then led down into the valley of flickering campfires, arguing along the way with her guides. Little did she know that her words were about as coherent as a drunkard's.
When they came to the camp's edge, someone tossed a heavy cloak over her. "Your ladyship, you'll be all right," a gentle voice soothed, and thin arms led her away to a cot beneath an erected canopy. Even then, she still wasn't allowed to sleep! "Let me warm your hands first." The glove was taken off of whatever hand it had been on and her fingers brought over to a bowl where they pierced a liquid skin of warmth. Despite efforts to jerk away, her tormentor held a firm grasp over her wrist.
Ahnnie sighed and resigned herself to this fate of forced insomnia. An eternity later, the cold was chased from her limbs and she was finally allowed to lay her head down.
"What would you have me tell them? This isn't what we asked them to do!"
"We cannot simply ignore this; we must find a way!"
"And who put you in charge? We need a consensus, or we have nothing!"
Oh, please, not another argument...Ahnnie groaned and shut a hand over an ear. Geez, the way Cassandra and Cullen are going at it, you would think they're getting a divorce.
"Are divorces always so loud?" someone close by murmured.
"Usually," Ahnnie replied, grumpily.
Leliana and Josephine's voices joined in a little later, pushing for infrastructure and arguing semantics. Goodness gracious, was it so difficult for them to respect the peace of someone trying to go back to sleep? It seemed only a second ago that she was lulled into blissful darkness before they so rudely interrupted it. She tried to reclaim that bliss but managed to capture it for a little while before it slipped out of her grasp again and again.
"They've been arguing for hours. You dreamt of them as your parents...but I don't think you remember."
She groaned. "Really? That's..."
"...so stupid. It still hurts, though."
The freak? How does this guy know what I'm going to say? Ahnnie hoped it was going to be the beginning of another dream. But then her nose itched. Wrinkling it, she felt her breath stalling in her throat until she expelled, through her nostrils, one forceful achoo. "Aagh!" she moaned. The fire it spread through her ribs sent her eyes flying wide as pain throttled her back to full awareness, much to her chagrin.
"It's cracked," Cole murmured. "Nala said so. She couldn't slow herself, kind of like you. Only now you're twisting in place, trying to quench the burns. They're everywhere."
Ahnnie panted as she traced his voice to his untidy frame sitting at the end of her cot. He turned to look at her the moment her eyes touched him. Licking her chapped lips, she asked, "How long was I asleep for this time?"
"Long enough for the moon to dip down there."
Ahnnie tried to look at where he pointed, but a section of the canopy blocked it from view. So quite some time, she guessed. In total, though – had it been days, like when she first recovered in Haven? Or is it still the same night as the attack? "Has the sun ever come up?" she inquired in simpler terms.
"Not yet," Cole replied. "But it will soon, I think."
"I see." She paused, remembering the man who'd saved them all. "Is Chancellor..."
"He's gone."
"Oh."
"He went silently," Cole said. "It wasn't easy, though. He walked through the grating in his side and didn't stop until everyone came here. He sat and waited as the camp was being made; then the soldiers from the trebuchets returned, along with the curly mage and the big qunari, and then the cold lady and the angry elf, and the bearded–"
"Dorian, Iron Bull, Vivienne, Sera, and you were going to talk about Blackwall," Ahnnie interrupted him.
"Yes, them. But when you were not with them, there was lots of yelling. They"– he pointed at the Big Four –"were very loud." And they still were. "The Chancellor was worried. He laid down to die, but before he left, he said a prayer for you. The Seeker lady and big Commander found you much later." Cole sighed. "Shame I couldn't help him with that one last pain in time."
Ahnnie lay still for a while beneath her cloak. Her eyes started burning and her vision grew watery. If what Cole told her was true, Chancellor Roderick had died long before she got here. Her thoughts raced back to the ice tunnels. There was no telling how long she'd laid unconscious in there; no telling whether Haven had reached this camp by the time she got up. No telling, either, if the pinecone rolled to her feet at a precise moment so painfully coincidental, it would be a miracle if true.
"Maybe it is," Cole murmured, reading through her sorrow.
In another part of the camp, the yelling of the Seeker and advisors was more of a constant background buzzing; dim enough to bear, but frustrating to put up with. Mother Giselle turned in their direction, aware of the discomfort it caused her aching patients. Still, she kept herself composed, wiping the sweaty brows of the sick and injured and offering them Andrastian comforts to soothe their pain.
In several hours it would be morning. If the Inquisition decided to move from the valley there would be no choice but to follow, regardless of anyone's physical condition. There would be lost lives, claimed by the Frostback snow; or more likely time, which often stole life even in places of safety. The very people Mother Giselle tended to now might not be with her the next day. But rather than despairing, she rejoiced in the fact. Those lucky souls would be freed from suffering in the arms of the Maker; there could be no greater fate than that.
Letting out a little breath, she sang, "Shadows fall, and hope has fled. Steel your heart; the dawn will come. The night is long, and the path is dark. Look to the sky, for one day soon – the dawn will come."
"The shepherd's lost, and his home his far.
Keep to the stars; the dawn will come.
The night is long, and the path is dark.
Look to the sky, for one day soon–
The dawn will come.
Bare your blade..."
Music echoed through the mountains that night.
When the dawn came, Ahnnie was brought to tell her story to the powers that be. They consisted of the Big Four, Madame Vivienne, Blackwall, Varric, and Solas. The last three weren't official authority figures, but they wanted to hear what she had to say firsthand and no one objected to their presence.
"Then the Elder One came," she was telling them, "and his dragon blocked my way, and...well, he had this bad guy monologue and pretty much revealed to me that his name is Corypheus, and that the Breach was his doing. He tried to take my mark away – he called it 'the Anchor' – using this strange orb..."
That part seemed enough to unsettle everyone for the rest of the day. The remainder of the story they didn't even have to guess at, but it was interesting to learn from Madame Vivienne that the demon in the caves was a despair demon. Thus adjourned, the Big Four kept to themselves, dismissing anyone else who came near unless it was absolutely necessary.
As Ahnnie was thinking of sneaking in another nap, a gentle hand squeezed her shoulder. She turned around to find the familiar smooth head of Solas behind her. "A word, da'len?"
"Yes, hahren?" she asked.
He led her away from the camp to stand on the height of a bluff overlooking an even steeper valley. Ahnnie walked up beside him, her steps halting uneasily at intervals. He noticed and gave her a little smile. "I hope I'm not inconveniencing you?"
Ahnnie shook her head and smiled back. "No, not at all."
"Are you feeling better?"
"Much better," she affirmed.
"That is good to hear." Solas paused, keen eyes on the rosy horizon. "What you told us, da'len, of your encounter...the orb Corypheus carried, the power he used against you; it is elven."
She blinked. "What? Really?"
"Corypheus used the orb to open the Breach," he went on. "Unlocking it must have caused the explosion that destroyed the Conclave. I do not yet know how Corypheus survived..." He turned his gaze from the sky back to her. "Nor am I certain how people will react when they learn of the orb's origin."
And of course, the plot thickens. Ahnnie tilted her head at Solas, brows furrowed in confusion. "How do you know all that?" she asked.
"They were foci, used to channel ancient magicks. I have seen such things in the Fade, old memories of older magic. Corypheus may think it Tevinter; his empire's magic was built on the bones of my people. Knowing or not, he risks our alliance. I cannot allow it."
She nodded slowly as she digested the information. "Yeah," she said at last. "I can see how the elves will become an easy target." And it won't be pretty.
"History would agree," Solas nodded back. "But there are steps we can take to prevent such a distraction." He paced about the snow, his hands interlocked behind him. "By attacking the Inquisition, Corypheus has changed it, changed you. Scout to the north; there awaits a place for a force to hold it. It is a place where the Inquisition can build...grow..."
Ahnnie watched him as he moved. "Is it far from here?"
"Traveling through the mountains with limited mounts and supplies, followed by a host of people who will mostly be on foot, not counting the sick and injured?" The hedge mage stopped pacing and turned back around squarely to face her. "It may very well take us a month."
Her face blanched at the enormity of his proposal. She knew, however, that if they stayed too long in one place Corypheus and his army might catch up to them again. Hastily built camps could not sustain them forever. As desperate as it sounded, the Big Four would jump at the chance; maybe even get them moving straightaway. If that's the case, they had better know of it before they make plans to break camp. So she asked Solas, "What place is it?"
His eyes glimmered in the fresh morning light as he breathed the name with a stirring conviction – "Skyhold."