Part Two: Dagna
This time, it's fire that parts them. She stands on the burning ramparts of Adamant Fortress, and the courtyard below is a yawning gulf of flame. She sees the man's tall outline rather than the wolf's, flickering through the smoke and ash. The screams and wails of a keep under siege press in all around her.
It might be a dream, but the heat is still terrible, and the smoke still burns her lungs as she tries to approach. She can barely see him at all; he wavers at the edge of her blurred vision, a specter that might not even be real.
Yet somehow, she knows it isn't a demon. She knows him too well to be fooled by such things. Burning pitch crashes from the sky and explodes between them, but she steps into the flames regardless. She ignores the agony, forcing her blistering feet to move; in dreams, she can keep walking even when her skin burns away and her bones turn to ash.
"Please, ma sa'lath," she calls to him over the crash of ballistae and the roar of armies. "You know it doesn't have to be this way!"
The moment the words are out of her mouth, the fortress empties. The sky grows still. The din quiets. The fires that separated them dim into nothingness, and he is gone, leaving her alone in the hollow shell of Adamant.
Clariel woke in a tangle of smothering blankets. She tried to throw them off with her left hand, and only succeeded in banging her arm against the rough stone wall. The sharp jolt of pain brought her to her senses as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. The dying embers of the forge. The lyrium blue glow peeking through the cracks of Dagna's toolbox. She tangled her fingers in her hair, taking deep gulps of the cool air in the Undercroft.
She couldn't tell herself it was just a dream; her dreams had been more than that for a while now. She wrapped her trembling arm around her knees, hugging them to her chest. The ache that always flared up when she saw him stubbornly refused to ebb away. She could feel his presence in the Fade, as clearly as if he were standing beside her. And without the Anchor, she no longer had any defenses of her own in the Fade, nor any means to seek him out.
A light flared from the doorway, and Dagna's silhouette appeared on the steps with a lamp in one hand, and something else balanced in the other. Clariel couldn't make out her expression, but Dagna hurried to her side, helping her pull away the sheets.
"You ok?" she whispered. "I went upstairs for a midnight snack."
"I'm-"
She tried to say "fine," but the word stuck in her throat. Dagna quickly set down a plate of dinner rolls and turned up the lamp, enough for them to see each other. Clariel heard the distinct gurgle of water being poured into a glass.
"Here. Drink the lot."
"Thanks." She took two huge gulps, and the pounding in her chest eased. "Where's the hand?"
"I was adding some upgrades after you went to sleep. It's over there." Dagna pointed toward Master Harritt's old workbench.
"Oh no. You didn't. Tell me you didn't."
"Sera is full of great ideas," said Dagna with a grin. "But a giant middle finger isn't one of them."
Clariel's laugh came out more like a cough. She pushed herself out of bed and picked up Dagna's lamp. Her hand was still trembling, sending a waver through the bright orange flame. Dagna looked from her to the workbench, her expression unusually serious.
"I'm all for burning the midnight oil, Lavellan. But...look, even I can tell you're not ok."
She didn't reply, heading for the workbench instead. The lamplight danced over a gleaming silverite hand, delicately etched with a pattern of bird wings. It lay in the middle of the table, detached from its shoulder harness. Clariel picked it up with her good hand, felt the warm hum of magic as the metal responded to her touch. She turned it over, palm up, and saw Dagna's upgrade-a circle of lightning embedded in the palm. It was quiescent for now, but she recognized it as a weapon of last resort. Dagna had been trying to get it to work for over a week now.
"Hey." Dagna tugged the hand out of her grasp. "Don't activate it-it might fry you too."
Clariel sat down heavily and dropped her head into her hand.
"I don't know what to say, Dagna," she whispered, and now she had to fight back the tightness in her throat. "I don't even know where to begin. So...I work. At least here-" She had to stop and take a steadying breath. "At least here, I decide what happens to me."
Dagna didn't say anything for a long moment. Then she picked up the shoulder harness and attached a different prosthetic. This one was plain, utilitarian, a pair of veridium hooks with places to insert her modified artificer's tools.
"Scoot over and buckle up," said Dagna, handing over the harness. She lit two of the large tapers against the wall and picked up her own tools. "Are we still on for the grappling hook?" Her big, dark eyes gleamed with ill-contained excitement.
Again, Clariel couldn't help but smile. Her arcanist's enthusiasm was nothing short of infectious.
"Definitely." She slipped the harness over her left arm and strapped it into place. This too was enchanted; as the leather wrapped around bare skin, the runes Dagna had so painstakingly etched came to life. It felt less like a device, and more like a living thing in its own right, complete with its own faint pulse as its magic waxed and waned. Clariel gingerly flexed her upper arm, and the hooks came together with a soft click. She opened them again and picked up the half-finished stock for her hand crossbow; the hooks closed around the wood like a vice, which she locked into position with a screw underneath.
It was slow, bitter work. Refining the stock would have been second nature before, but now she had to relearn every impulse. How to rotate the stock, how to hold herself so her left shoulder didn't tire, how to keep the knife from slipping with seven mismatched fingers instead of ten. She fought the temptation to glance over at Dagna as the arcanist set a furious pace. In time, she had to keep telling herself. In time.
The sky was starting to turn pink when the door slammed open and a loud voice declared, "Are you still fiddling with that thing? Why are my two favorite people both daft loonies?"
"Hi, Sera," said Clariel without turning around. She carefully released the crossbow stock and began putting away her tools. "If you need your 'widdle,' I won't keep her for much longer."
Dagna giggled. "It sounds so much sillier coming out of your mouth." She had jumped up from the bench to greet Sera.
"Everything sounds daft when she says it all fancy-pants," scoffed Sera. "At least come to breakfast. The cook's complaining about having less work. Imagine."
Clariel winced, her back still turned so Sera and Dagna wouldn't see. She didn't like eating in the great hall any more, with its furniture mostly gone and only one lonely table. Leaving behind the burden of the Inquisitor had been a huge relief. But seeing all the people emptying out of Skyhold...
"Are you brooding again? Do I have to hit you?"
Casting about for a way to shut Sera up, Clariel's gaze fell on her beautiful lyrium-reinforced longbow, which was hanging from the wall above the forge. She hadn't touched it since emerging from the eluvian. Before she could think twice about it, her feet had carried her across the Undercroft. She picked up the bow and wordlessly held it out to Sera.
Sure enough, Sera stopped and goggled at her, mouth wide open before she closed it with a snap and shook her head. "Oh no. Not me. I'm not fancy enough for the bloody Herald's bow."
"You know I hate that title," said Clariel. "And don't be ridiculous. I'm never going to use it again, and I don't want it to go to waste."
"That's not what I-"
"Listen, Sera. Take it or I'll hit you."
Sera let out a loud snort and snatched the bow from her hands. "Now that's more like it." As Sera's fingers closed over the hilt, the bright blue lines flared to life. Clariel remembered the hum under her hands, the way her arrows almost seemed to leap into flight. She glanced at Dagna, who was regarding her with a very odd expression.
"It's ok," she mouthed to Dagna when Sera was occupied firing practice arrows into the waterfall. And in that moment, watching her friend practically dance on the spot with glee, it really was.
A/N: The basic principles of Clariel's arm and harness come from real-life myoelectric prosthetics, which use electrodes to detect muscle movement and control the prosthesis. I just had Dagna substitute magic for electrodes. I wanted to give her something that's advanced for Thedas, but still plausible given the magic and technology potential of the setting.
(I admit the crossbow might be a bit of a stretch, but come on. Crossbow arm!)