All Fall Down

By: SurreptitiousFox245

Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Age or Elder Scrolls. All rights go to their respective peoples. I just like to play.

Quick Author's Note: I...hate myself a little for this chapter. It felt right, but also rushed and almost cliched. Meh.

I also need to give a shout-out to my awesome mom. There's some instances of broken bones and, since Lys is a healer and I hate my squeamish self for some reason, I decided that I needed to describe it a bit (it's not too graphic, I promise). My mom, being a nurse, helped me with some of the probably very stupid questions I had...like whether or not it would be possible for a broken femur to sever the femoral artery...yeah...I'm a history major for a reason.

Enjoy!


Chapter 15


"We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others, that in the end, we become disguised to ourselves."

- François de La Rochefoucauld


~Thedas – 9:41 Dragon~


Three days. It had been three days since Alan and Sera had left for Haven, and they had been very boring days, indeed. The brush in your hand glided along the flank of the reddish-colored rig you had affectionately taken to calling Saffron, grooming the horse about the only thing you had to do with your time. He huffed and pawed at the ground with a hoof, but the action was mellow and meant to convey contentment, not displeasure.

Initially, you'd chosen Saffron out of the small selection Dennet had offered you because you'd thought him to be a gelding and those tended to be easier to manage, less fiery. It wasn't until he'd attempted to buck you off for a third time in ten minutes and the horsemaster had started to laugh that you began to question it. The look on Dennet's face when he admitted the horse had the abnormality had been nothing short of amused, and yours had been anything but. Still, while you didn't really like working with stallions, or horses in general, you had before and knew how. The rig may have appeared a gelding, but he clearly had stallion tendencies, evidenced by not only his general temperament, but also how he'd blatantly attack Alan's stallion if they got within ten feet of one another. It was only one incident, but you'd studiously kept Saffron away from Crackerjack, Sera's gelding Arrow (a true one, this time), and definitely kept him far from Solas' mare, Theneras.

It had taken the entire trip back to Haven after recruiting Dennet to wrangle Saffron into submission. By some miracle, however, you'd managed it with the help of sugar cubes, a carrot, and what had to have been a bucketful of apples. You'd somehow struck an accord with the lumbering beast, and that was good enough. He could eat Crackerjack for all you cared as long as he wasn't launching you to the ground every three minutes.

Distracted as you were, you must have managed to brush too hard or in some way your horse didn't like, as Saffron decided to give a loud snort and knock his head into your chest. You yelped in a manner quite undignified as you were shoved back a few feet—he had not been gentle. "Oi, watch it! I'll just leave all this dirt on you if you keep it up. Then where will you be?" If horses could raise eyebrows, you were sure yours would have been. The look Saffron had was almost daring.

You glared right back. "I will. Don't tempt me. I can survive if you've got a bit of dust on you; no skin off my back." Suddenly, you were quite glad Solas had wandered away from camp for whatever reason and wasn't there to witness your bought of weird. Scolding a horse—oh how the mighty hath fallen.

Saffron snorted again, doe-brown eyes sharing another incredulous look before he swung his head back around to face forward. His black mane smacked you in the mask as he did so, however, and you sputtered angrily as you waved it away. "Really?" He didn't answer—because of course he didn't—and kept staring ahead, apparently mollified, but you knew better. Had he been not a horse, he'd have been smirking. It was unnerving. Were horses always that intelligent, or did you just pick the strange one?

Glowering, you tossed the bush aside with a huff. "Fine. If you don't like my grooming, then you can suffer. I'm going for a walk." Sticking your nose in the air, you turned on your heel and headed in a southern direction chosen at random. You got maybe twenty paces away, at the base of the hill camp was situated on, before you realized with a start that Saffron was happily clip-clopping along behind you. You whirled around on the horse, hands on your hips and eyes mimicking the narrowness of your mask.

"And just what are you doing?" A sound like a snicker was his response.

You waved your hands in a shooing motion. "No. Go away. I said I'm going on a walk, not we're going on a walk. You're being a right arse—I want nothing to do with you at the moment. Now, shoo!" Two steps and a head-butt landed on your shoulder, milder than the previous one but still staggering.

"Will you quit that? I said no!" A stamped hoof was followed by Saffron moving to stand defiantly beside you.

You growled, "Go away!" The rig's head turned towards you, teeth lashing out to give you a not gentle bite on your arm. Jerking your arm away with a gasp, more of shock than pain, really, you smacked your horse on his flank and flung your hand angrily back towards camp.

"No!" He reared up about a foot in response, actually neighing loudly and wildly shaking his head once his hooves slammed back onto the ground.

It caused you to take a half step back out of surprise. You crossed your arms. "This is not the way to get more apples out of me, you know. Quite counter-productive. You'd be better off doing what I say instead of being a rebellious little brat." There wasn't any response, but you were sure Saffron was continuing to stare you down with whatever ghost of a look was on his face (probably the incredulous one from earlier, if you had to guess). This continued for several minutes, and probably would have gone on longer had the leg bearing most of your weight not twinged in threat of cramping. At that, you finally sighed and threw your hands up.

"Oh, fine. If you get lost, I'm not looking for you."

His look as you took his lead almost came off as smug, practically screaming, 'No, you won't because then you'll be out a mount.'

You stomped onward, muttering under your breath in a mix of common and Altmeri about stupid horses who were too smart for their own damned good, and why in Oblivion did you have to pick them out of a bloody dozen?

Almost as an afterthought, you grumbled an aside to your horse, "Oh, and you're so not getting an apple out of this. Not even a slice." He snorted, affronted. You'd probably still give him a carrot or something, but let him think he was going completely treat-less. Maybe then he'd learn not to be such a stubborn ox of a rig.

And you immediately shook that thought out of your head. Good gods, Saffron was a horse and you were treating him like he was a person. You'd been too long with intelligent company—you were starting to impress a personality on an animal when finally faced with solitude.

You traipsed on for a good twenty minutes, tugging Saffron along whenever he decided a particular sprig of bush or patch of grass looked like a tasty snack, which happened more often than you cared for. The hills rose and fell irregularly, making the terrain that much more difficult since you'd foregone any roads. Your horse didn't seem to be having as much trouble with it as you'd thought, aside from snacking, which did surprise you on some level. The horses bred in Ferelden were rugged, you knew, to withstand how varied the country could be—from Frostbacks to Wilds to Coast. You had to commend Dennet for his skill in breeding the beasts—some of the crags and rocks you were dragging Saffron up would have tripped a Reach horse. And the Reach had been home to some of the worst terrain you'd ever come across.

Still, he was handling the hills remarkably well as he followed your descent down one of the more craggy slopes, albeit at a bit slower pace. Even so, you eyed an area where the hill formed a plateau big enough for the two of you and figured that'd be as good a place to stop as any. Much as you liked hiking as you were (it reminded you of Skyrim and better days), it was tiring.

"Here we are," you mumbled, taking up Saffron's lead again in order to help him down the last bit of slope. He followed as demurely as you'd ever seen him, ears flicking this way and that with every birdcall. You tried to help him drink as best you could from your canteen but probably did more to water the hill than your horse.

Sometime during all of this, the reddish horse started shifting about, nervous for some reason or another. Your brow furrowed as you did a quick listen of your surroundings but found nothing out of the ordinary. It wasn't entirely odd—maybe he didn't like the height now that he was getting a stationary moment to look at it, it wouldn't have been the first time one of your horses did that. When you couldn't calm him, you started getting a little curious, but full-blown worry set in when the proffered sugar cube you'd fished from a pocket got turned down.

"What's wrong now?" you meant to ask, but you only got about half of it out when Saffron suddenly reared up as high on his hind legs as he could go, bellowing loudly. Startled, you could only stumble for balance on the tiny ledge before one of his descending hooves caught you in the back and sent you careening down the rocky hill. A shriek was pulled from you as you bounced and rolled down the stones, momentum too much at that point to do anything more than try to go with the flow to avoid as much of the damage as you could. You vaguely, very, very, very vaguely heard something thud between the rocks amidst your own clamor and the ruckus Saffron was still making before the ground suddenly dropped out from under you.

The fall had to have only been eight, maybe nine feet, but it hit you without warning. You cried out at the brief sensation of weightlessness before being once again slammed into the ground, back right corner of your head cracking on some type of flat stone so hard you felt the world tilt. More of Saffron's braying and skittering hoofbeats down the hill floated to your ears, thought it sounded almost like it was filtering through water and you attributed it to your swimming head.

Something else hit your ears, too. It was shouting, human shouting in a harsh Free Marcher accent, and you froze trying to listen. The word lyrium hit you like the rocks that still dropped around you, the scrape of plate armor chasing hooves following after. Templars. Saffron was being chased by Templars, you realized as the galloping and neighing began to fade with more distance your horse traveled, leading them away from your impromptu hiding place. What you'd heard hitting the rocks as you fell was probably an arrow. How you hadn't been aware of them before was beyond you, but you wondered if your horse's fright had saved your life in your carelessness.

You were partially on your side, and your right arm was twisted under you at an awkward angle you were just then realizing was actually quite painful. Stifling a groan, you let the palm of your other hand rest on the ground, trying to get a sense of where you were.

The first thing your perpetually blurry "vision" saw was a jagged outline of light amidst black above you. What looked to be the tendrils of branches also covered half of the gap. The rest seemed like the rocky walls of a cave, but the floor you were laying on, while cracked and overgrown with some weeds and vines, was very deliberate and obviously not natural. You didn't dare try moving just yet to see what was behind you, but from the way a rock falling into your little prison echoed, there was a tunnel leading away from where you had landed.

It seemed you'd hit the opening to this…whatever it was, cavern, in just the right way so as to fall through it. Of all the million-in-one things for your luck to have picked, it was this? You wanted to smack your head onto the ground again just out of exasperation.

Silence reigned for a few more minutes before you deigned that you were, one, alone in the cave and two, that the Templars and Saffron were long gone from aboveground. With that, you carefully pushed yourself into a sitting position, realizing that not only had your hip and shoulder taken the brunt of the landing, but also that your right arm was probably broken. When a breeze touched your face, you also noticed your hood was torn and mask was missing. Panic gripped you when you looked around frantically, only to find the ironbark nowhere in sight.

It must have fallen off as you were bouncing your merry (painful) way down the hill.

No.

No, no, no, no. Bad. This was very, very, very bad.

Sucking in a deep breath, you pushed the gut reaction down before it could manifest too much. Yes, losing your mask was a bad thing, but you had other problems to wrestle before you worried about that. Like how you were going to get out of here. You eyed the ceiling entrance skeptically. There was no way of knowing how stable the edges really were, even if you could grasp them. Which you couldn't. You were about 5'4", 5'5", and the ceiling, now that you got a good look at it, was closer to ten feet.

Magic wasn't an option, either, not with those Templars so close. They'd feel it in an instant, at least the strangeness of it. Also, you didn't know any levitation spells and didn't like experimenting with your magic.

Your head was also killing you, you winced. Not good for concentration. It was probably a concussion, but like with levitation, you couldn't risk healing it or your arm without alerting the Templars.

So how were you going to get out of here? Forcing your aching body to turn in the other direction, you squinted and noticed that you were right in that there was a tunnel leading off of the chamber you'd fallen into. Except…you squinted more…was that torchlight? You froze for a second time with the realization that you were not, contrary to your initial observation, alone down in the cave.

Well, shit.

At least the lack of anyone running into the chamber when you'd fallen meant that no one appeared to have heard you. And if you were lucky, the tunnel might have a way out. With that, you began to heave yourself to your feet, difficult to do with a broken arm and sore hip, but you managed to get onto your knees, though heavily favoring your right side from the hip. Left foot, push up, right leg down, and—

"Ah!" you yelped before you could stop yourself as searing pain you hadn't noticed before thanks to adrenaline raced up your right thigh and down past your knee. A wet crunch sounded followed by the grinding of bone on bone as you fell back down onto your left knee. Nausea not entirely due to the concussion washed over you from it. Femur. That had been your femur. Probably had a partial fracture from the fall and then weight bearing finished it off, you self-diagnosed, fighting dry-heaves.

Forcing yourself into sitting properly, you choked back a hiss as you straightened your right leg out in front of you. It was already swelling, so you drew a dagger with your left hand and cut the fabric of your pants at your thigh away to avoid constriction. Taking a brief moment of consideration, you bit your right glove off and repeated the action with your sleeve, noting with some relief that the fracture there, ulna if you had to guess, at least wasn't compound.

You let the barest trickle of magic run through you, for diagnostic purposes. It wouldn't be noticed unless someone was looking for it (which you belatedly realized any Templar would be—you just hoped they were too far away to notice by then), but enough for you to realize that neither break was too bad. Your femur was cracked through, but while it was a diagonal break, it could have been much worse. Your ulna had a fragment broken off of it close to the elbow, but it was an easy fix with some magic once you felt comfortable enough to do so.

Your concussion was what worried you. Magic while concussed was never a good idea, and yours wasn't a mild one. As with the breaks, it could have been worse, but it wasn't good. Without it, you'd be okay with risking enough healing to be able to fight. You couldn't walk with your leg like it was, and any fighting would be hindered as it was with your arm. The dizziness from the concussion didn't help anything.

Sitting duck was what you were, and you cursed under your breath, eyeing the tunnel warily. If anyone was down there, which the torchlight indicated…

…but you didn't have your mask…

…your skin was blatantly on display, gold and abnormal…

If they weren't hostile outright, then they very easily could turn hostile by looking at you. It wasn't exactly dark enough to hide your face in the cavern thanks to the sunlight spilling through the ceiling.

A groan passed your lips that sounded more like a pained whimper as you tilted your head back, done with the day and very much just wanting to go back to camp and go to sleep. As you let yourself wallow in self-pity, however, clopping reached your ears from above you. Your eyes snapped open as snorting that could only belong to a horse permeated the quiet before a rock was jarred from the opening on the ceiling. Could it…?

"…Saffron…?" you tried, voice hoarse and a bit slurred from a combination of pain and dizziness. Wincing, you attempted calling out again, a little stronger this time. "Saffron!"

"Who's down there?" a rough voice you didn't recognize called back, and you felt your blood turn to ice. You heard a body dismount from the horse you'd heard, light armor with a sword jingling from a belt and a quiver of arrows. An archer. A Templar.

And another one, heavily armored, followed, five more sets of footsteps also sounding but a little farther away. "Well, looks like you weren't imagining things after all, Brecker."

"You heard that?" the first voice answered back. Free Marcher accent—this was the one that had been speaking when they were chasing Saffron. You clamped your mouth shut against the curses that wanted to spill from it, eyeing the shadows moving around the splotch of light on the ceiling. Any magic at all would be noticed with how close they were. You couldn't even cast an invisibility spell. Or a healing spell. Or any spell.

Shit. "Sitting duck" didn't even begin to cover it. You gripped your dagger a little tighter. It wasn't much, but at least it was something, you thought as another wave of nausea set you awash with dizziness.

Seven of them. Four in heavy armor. At least one was a ranged fighter. You couldn't take them. You couldn't hide.

"Aye," the second voice said. "There's someone down there, alright."

Brecker snorted. "Someone ought to go down." Your breath caught. No. No one ought to come down. Everyone just needed to stay right where they were topside. Out of your cave.

There was a brief argument that you only half paid attention to as it became apparent that these Templars fully intended to investigate the fissure you were hiding in. As an armored leg was lowered through the crag, you scrambled back into what shadows there were, dagger gripped tight and back firmly pressed to a damp stone wall.

All too soon, there were three armed men lowered into the cave, not having noticed you yet only because their backs were turned. But that would change quickly. One was in light armor with a bow and sword, probably this Brecker person. He had red hair, you noticed absently, and it shone like liquid fire in the sunlight. The other two were glinting monstrosities in heavy plate typical to the Order, helmed and shielded as was the stereotype. Except…was that red on their armor? You squinted, trying to figure out why they'd changed the uniforms. Necessity, perhaps?

Then one of them shuffled to face you, and you were physically taken aback. No, the red wasn't an adornment. It was much, much, much worse. A deformed and diseased face grinned at you from under the helm as it (you weren't going to dignify giving the thing in front of you a gender—that was admitting it was human when it was anything but) noticed you huddled against the wall.

"Ah, found her." The voice was scratchy and distorted, not normal and not right. It sent shivers down your spine that had nothing to do with the coolness of the stone. Lyrium-addled eyes then narrowed, drinking in your appearance. "Hmm. Not sure what she is. Think we found ourselves an abomination, boys." The other two then turned as well, and they also had red lyrium growing out of them and melting to their skin, corrupting them. Brecker seemed a bit better off, though not by much.

Deciding to throw caution to the wind, you unleashed your magic just enough to try mimicking what Solas did to form a barrier, except with your Daedric magic instead of Aedric. It worked well enough for a first try, enough like the wards you were used to casting that it didn't give you too much trouble. Magic slithered across your skin, shimmering and slower than you wanted it to be while still getting the job done.

It threw them for a loop, if nothing else. The Templar who'd noticed you first swore under his breath, eyes wide. You rasped, "Stay back." A pitiful line, but they were derailed enough from your magic not to retaliate.

"Shit, what is it?" the one who hadn't spoken yet asked. Right back at you, ugly, you wanted to scream, but you kept quiet. A spell was already primed in your hand, ready to be cast at a moment's notice. Dim light from the orb lit your face, which might have been what the Templar was referring to. Or it could have been the feel of your magic. Or maybe you were banged up more than you thought you were. You didn't care.

Brecker knocked an arrow. "Dunno. We can find out after we kill it. Zen, get your arses down here!" More armored figures dropped into the cave at that. You swore, only briefly rethinking the spell before you once again decided to throw caution to the wind and cast it anyway.

The summoning orb crackled to life in front of you, materializing a particularly daunting frost atronach. As soon as the daedroth was set on its rampage, you called another spell to your hand, this one restoration, and poured a burst of magicka into your thigh. You were rusty. It'd been a while since you'd had to heal a break of this magnitude on yourself or even use so much magic in general, and it combined with the conjuration spell drained you quicker than you thought it would. The bone wasn't completely healed, but it would hold for now. It would have to, you thought as you hefted yourself to your feet just in time to block a blow from a Templar sword.

Steel scraped against glass and you couldn't throw him off without risking the dagger, which was already creaking dangerously. The atronach had fizzled after taking most of the Templars with him, only the one attacking you and one other were left. Magic lingered in the air, bitter conjuration and burnt restoration, along with the clean smell of a Templar smite, though this one was a little too…ragged. Whether the atronach had fallen due to injury or dispel, you hadn't been paying enough attention to tell. It would have been nice to know if Templar abilities affected your magic.

"Demon summoning witch," the Templar sneered, bearing down more on his sword. "Attacking you on sight was the right call. Think I'll take you alive, though. That magic of yours might interest the Elder One." Your leg was screaming at you and your barrier backfired as you tried to re-cast it, fizzling out as soon as it was in place. Concussion, you remembered. Casting is unpredictable with a concussion.

Unseen, your right hand painfully snaked into a pouch for a throwing knife. If you could angle it just right… In an attempt to keep attention off of what you were doing, you hissed. "Might interest who?" The Templar grinned through rotted teeth, the look positively manic.

"A god, bound to walk the earth. His ascension will mean the coming of a new age."

"Why bother?" you managed. "I mean, the godhood thing sounds pretty sweet, but if he doesn't like the current age, it'll be a new one in fifty-nine years anyway. Granted, dunno what it might be called with the Divine being a pile of ash…"

More weight was added to the sword bearing down on you, and your jaw snapped shut with a click. "Silence! His motives are beyond the scope of your—"

Whatever your captor was going to say melded into a shocked gargle as a small throwing knife slid between the plates of his reddened armor and right between his ribs. Your cry of pain was anticlimactic at the use of your broken arm, but the Knight's slackened grip gave you the opportunity to throw the sword off of you and pitch the Templar towards his startled comrade. It wasn't a killing blow. But it gave you some time.

Or not. You screeched when the heft of a shield was bashed into your back. The second Templar had recovered from his shock quicker than you'd anticipated. You dropped like a rock from the blow, dagger flying wide as you landed on your front and barely managed to roll out of the way as a blade glanced off of the stone where your head had just been.

Reaching awkwardly with your left hand for your second dagger, you didn't get a chance to draw it before the sword was at your throat, pressing into the torn fabric and ripping it even more. Behind your attacker stood the first knight, eyes ablaze as he gripped the knife you'd struck him with at his side. The blade was dripping with blood that was redder than it should have been. You looked at it, transfixed with equal amounts of fascination and horror. Were they ingesting red lyrium? Or was it corrupting them that thoroughly?

Defiant, you called the last of your magika to the surface and flung it out before either Templar could react to stop it. The icy spike, a spell you'd always had trouble with, for once flew true and impaled the warrior with the blade at your throat straight through his unarmored face. He fell with a resounding crash.

Bellowing came from the first Templar. There was nothing you could do aside from watch as he drew the hand holding your knife back, preparing to throw it, when he was…suddenly encased in ice thanks to a burst of familiar, oppressive magic, fabric of which being entirely too foreign for comfort so long as your own still hung loose in the air.

Despite this, you didn't give pause to think about it, instead harnessing the opportunity by quickly scooping up the fallen Templar's sword and giving as good a one armed strike to the frozen knight as you could. It thankfully was enough to shatter him into hundreds of bloody, frosty chunks. You winced. Somehow that was gorier than the spike to the face.

The sound of a staff tip being set to the ground caused you to turn, wary of if this newcomer would be friend or foe, though you were rather sure it was the former. You were a dead woman if it were the latter.

"…Lethallan…?" soft spoken though the word was, there was no mistaking it. Dread bubbled and you were sure you paled several shades.

"Solas." Swallowing down the rising lump of terror in your throat, you relaxed your stance and allowed yourself to cradle your screaming arm to your chest. "How did you find me?"

He tried walking a few steps towards you, but you countered by taking as many back. He seemed to get the message and remained where he was. "I was making my way back to camp when I came across your horse. He was frenzied and eventually led me here."

You were shocked. "Saffron? He led you here?"

"You have a rather intelligent horse, it would seem. Keen on protecting his mistress, too." He jerked his chin at your arm. "Are you injured?"

Furrowing your brow, you nodded. Why was he not saying anything? You could only imagine what he was seeing—beyond the otherworldly skin color, sharp features, and blind eyes the filmy pigment of mint, you were sure you were bruised and swollen something fierce, clothing ripped and what armor you wore little more than scuffed leather. Your hair, a few shades paler than your skin, had fallen out of the short tail you liked to keep it in, hanging around your chin in something attempting to be waves but not with enough length to do so properly, absolutely disheveled and probably bloody. Why he wasn't just attacking you, assuming abomination…

"My arm's broken," you said slowly. "I broke my thigh falling, but it's…better. Concussion."

"Better?" You could hear the risen eyebrow in his voice and wanted to take back the words you'd spoken. "You mean you healed it?"

You stiffened, the reaction automatic. "No."

Solas' disbelief was palpable. "Do not lie to me, da'len. Those bodies were all killed by ice, by magic, not blades." Ouch. "Little child"? Solas could pull off patronizing like it was nobody's business.

Deflating with a sigh, your good hand ran its way through your hair. "Yes. I healed it. Mostly. I think it's still bruised." He motioned towards it casually. Why wasn't he attacking you?

"I can look at it, if you wish."

Blinking at him owlishly, the option was considered thoroughly before you remembered the burning sensation his healing magic had caused when he'd helped Alan after stabilizing the Breach. You quickly shook your head. "No. I…don't think it would work."

Now he was curious. "What makes you say that?"

"Because," you shifted awkwardly. "Thedosian magic… You felt me casting, yes? When I hit that last Templar?"

"I did."

"How'd it feel to you? My magic?"

Realization seemed to dawn on the elf. "Oppressive. I had difficulty with my own spell in such close proximity…I see."

"You're…," you paused, unsure, but you pushed through your thought anyway, "less upset than I thought you'd be…"

The staff casually switched hands. "Something was off about you from the start, lethallan. This just explains it."

"Don't call me that," you moaned as you meandered back over to the stone wall, sidestepping bodies, and sunk to the ground. "I'm not elven, at least not like you seem to think."

"What are you, then?" he asked, entirely too calm for the situation and you realized then that he was trying not to spook you. Now the only question was if he was doing so for your sake or his?

You shook your spinning head and leaned it against the wall. "Does it even matter? I'm the only one left, far as I know."

"As far as you know," parroted the mage, and you sent him a sharp look. "That does not mean there can't be others, and the information is good to have." He proceeded to tentatively kneel next to you and, with your permission, began inspecting your broken arm.

"I have a feeling you'd be fully aware if there were more of us. We don't normally cohabitate very well." Grumbling under your breath, you gave a defeated sigh. "The correct term is 'Altmer', though 'High Elf' was a common translation. Yes, they all look like me, too. Well, mostly. We're usually a bit taller."

A sharp twist caught you off guard, and you yelped. Chipped bone slid back into place with a grinding click, and what little magika had managed to sluggishly regenerate itself automatically trickled through to begin mending the damage. In the dankness of the cavern, you were sure the slight honey-colored glow from the latent, unconscious spell made the angles of your faces all the more dramatic as you glared at Solas through a pained wince.

"Was that really necessary?" He gave a fluid shrug in response as he continued prodding at your arm from wrist to elbow, either trying to check for more injuries or inspect your restoration magic. Probably both.

"Had I not, then the bone would have failed to heal properly on its own." Your eyebrow twitched, but you kept your mouth shut. If Solas didn't want to give a straight answer, then you weren't going to get one. Blasted elf just wanted to see what my magic would do, I'll bet—this was a bad idea. As soon as the thought passed, you scoffed. You hadn't really been given much choice on this one, you'd concede.

Solas motioned his thin hands to your eyes as he ran spindly fingers along your skull to check the damage there. "Are all of your people blind?" The wince had nothing to do with him hitting a sore patch of scalp and more involved slit noses and overgrown patches where irises should have been.

"No," you muttered. "I'm not…entirely blind, though. It's a complicated situation—let's just leave it there."

"You cannot heal it?"

You tried to shake your head, but a firm glower and equally firm hold on your head to remind you of your concussion kept you still. "Not with anything I've tried, no. Regardless, it's been eleven years. I'm used to it, and if I haven't found anything by now then maybe I'm just not meant to."

He hummed. The elf obviously had questions, but your desire not to elaborate on your blindness was one he apparently was willing to respect. You breathed a sigh of relief, not exactly having felt up to explaining Nirn and a Godhead who probably belonged in a sanitarium with someone who undoubtedly felt like you belonged in a sanitarium. "Where are you from?"

You wilted. Fuck you, Solas, the little voice of despair in the back of your head screamed.

"Not…," you floundered for a valid response, something not too much of a lie but also not too much of the truth. Jaw hinged and unhinged gracelessly as your mind worked a mile a minute. "Not Thedas?" As soon as the words left your mouth, you flinched and darted your blurry gaze to look anywhere but the elf. Too much, too much—abort! Backtrack! Open mouth, insert foot! If only you could.

The look he gave you—oh the look he gave you—was sharp. You probably could have sheared diamonds with it had you the means and desire. As for your own eyes, they were firmly fixed somewhere over his shoulder, and there was no doubt that this failed to escape his notice. Solas lowered his hands from where they had been gently prodding your skull, gaze on you the entire time.

"Is that so?"

He was quiet. Fuck, he was quiet, and quiet Solas was either smug or curious or angry or a dangerous mix of all three. You didn't even want to think of what was probably spinning through his clever little mind right then. Maybe he was thinking you meant the Fade? No, that was dismissed rather quickly. The man knew the Fade and its denizens like the back of his hand; there was no way in Oblivion he would have missed it if you were, and you knew that he was fully aware of it. So the only plausible explanation remaining as to the question of where that he could possibly land on would be the truth—another world somehow—and that meant that Solas was probably trying to come up with theories on how you'd gotten to Thedas, not where you were from.

"Yes, it…" The pained expression that flitted across your face didn't really have to be faked. "Nirn is…gone. I woke up here in Fereldan, actually. Can we not…? Please?"

The elf's expression softened considerably, something akin to either sympathy or pity seeming to stick for a moment. It took you aback briefly. You had expected reluctant acquiescence, not…empathy. Made you wonder just what experience of his he could possibly relate so strongly, so painfully to your world being gone and dead and buried. "I—ir abelas, lethallan. How long ago was this?"

You shook your head. "Nothing correlates. I've already looked, but it was eleven years ago, at the onset of the Blight. I woke disoriented, and the Dalish clan I've mentioned found me. Luckily, they didn't shoot on sight and instead took me northward with them. Without them, I'd likely be dead."

Solas only said dryly, "It appears to correlate with the loss of your sight, if I recall correctly." He was avoiding any mention to do with the Dalish again, you thought with no small level of amusement. It was either avoid or unabashedly insult with him—there was no happy medium.

"My vision I believe to be more of a side effect, if nothing else." You glanced around the cavern pointedly. "Much as I absolutely adore this subtle interrogation, do you think we could find some way out of here first? I doubt it's a good idea to leave camp unattended for this long." A moment passed where your words sunk in, but once they did, Solas was chuckling and moving to stand. Offering a hand, the elf pulled you to your feet without jostling your mostly mended arm.

"Of course. My apologies; it seems I forgot myself. You are right, however. Do you have any ideas on how to leave?" Haphazardly, you gestured towards the tunnel. He didn't mention if he'd noticed the torchlight before, but he still studied the clear path with consideration etched onto his face. An ear twitched, and his stance shifted a couple of times before he nodded warily.

He admitted, "I suppose it as good an option as any. Probably better than trying to exit the way we came in." Something sparkled like humor behind his eyes, and it was a welcome change from sharp questions.

"Yes," you scoffed. "Much as I don't want to, I agree. There're probably people that way, though. I can't promise they'll be friendly to me." Sending him a pointed look, you gestured loosely to your face. "I lost my mask on the way down."

Solas shrugged as if it was of little consequence, and briefly considering how calculating he could be, you supposed it was to whatever plan he was concocting in his mind. "You're adept at staying hidden when you wish it, and we can always search for it later once we're out of here. It may be abandoned, we don't know." The placation was blatant and caused you to purse your lips, but irritation was only mild and you appreciated the gesture for what it was. You…weren't in the soundest state, pained as that admittance made you. With your mask, you'd become lax in schooling your features to the indifference most associated with Altmer. If the anxiety hadn't shown, you'd be amazed.

With little time wasted, the two of you cautiously crept towards the mouth of the tunnel. A gesture to show that you were going to remain behind the mage was thankfully all the notice Solas needed, and you hugged the natural curve of the rock in order to take advantage of the shadows the crevasses tended to throw. You made sure to keep several feet back, letting him act as a signal. There was enough magika seeping back into your reserves for an invisibility spell, since you didn't have a potion, but it was only enough for one. No chances could be taken—casting and then hoping you were recharged enough for a second one when the first fizzled out was not an option you were comfortable enough taking.

And you wanted to keep some secrets close to you, you thought with a sour look to the back of the elf's head. He'd managed to weasel too many of them loose in too short a time span for comfort.

When Solas suddenly pulled up short, you were ready, having vaguely heard the footsteps of a patrol and seen the hazy shifting of light being thrown about the hall. A hand snatching the mage's shoulder stopped him from darting into the room headlong as he'd been preparing to do. Narrow steel blue eyes watched you curiously as you signaled for him to remain quiet and readied your spell. He was entranced with a scholar's fascination that amused you to no end as the invisibility consumed you in a wash of Daedric magic that you weren't afraid or ashamed of using for the first time in eleven years.

That thought actually hit you like a solid punch to the gut, but you shoved it aside to process later. Dwelling on it would get you killed; compartmentalizing would save you to fight another day if you were indeed walking and kicking your way into a hornet's nest.

Slipping past Solas and around the corner, you emerged into another cavern. This one was larger than the first, and you immediately took note of the smattering of bedrolls across the floor. You counted maybe six in all, all but one occupied to account for the pacing guard on the far end who was honestly doing his post a disservice.

It was strange, though. There were no tents, no fires aside from a few lanterns for some dim lighting as this particular chamber lacked a convenient hole in the ceiling, no infrastructure to the camp or any rhyme and reason to its layout. A table was shoved into a back corner with something large and mildly ostentatious atop it, but you couldn't make out the specifics.

A single guard, though, was telling. It meant that this group, whomever they were, though themselves tucked sufficiently away to not be stumbled upon (joke was on them, you supposed). Asleep during the day meant that they were active at night—spies? Recon? Were they mages, hiding from the active Templar patrols? And if so, how had they—

You realized the triggered rune a fraction of a second too late. Green fog spiraled up off of the floor after a loud, ominous cracking sound to twine though your legs and around your hips. Muscle spasms caught you for a moment, but you didn't have too long to worry about the familiar sulfur-and-green-apples smell and elastic feel of paralysis magic before Solas had casted a quick dispel. His magic as always felt jarring. Instead of the gentle prying you knew you should have experienced, your magika felt like a sharp razor had scraped away your skin in ribbons. It got rid of the paralysis (and your invisibility, but the noise of a triggered rune had given you away regardless), though you felt like you should have been bleeding. A lot.

The actual fight against the occupants of the cave was more of a blur. The guard had yelled something and others followed suit in flinging knives, arrows, and swords at yours and Solas' faces, but they went down surprisingly easy. And interestingly enough, none of them had been mages, begging the question of just what the rune had been doing there. Leftover from another occupant, maybe? One that these newcomers had exploited?

You pulled your single dagger (the other one had been forgotten in the first chamber) out of the chest cavity of the last body. It dropped without much care, but you didn't pay attention to it, face contorted in a scowl equal parts confusion and irritation. "What…the fuck?"

"Eloquent," quipped Solas sarcastically. You quickly copied him in beginning to rummage through the corpses for anything useful in identifying the…robed…whomever-s. They wore grey and orange getups that you couldn't place. It was eerie, though, because like your normal attire, not a patch of skin was visible on them.

You shook your head when you found nothing in the pockets you'd stuffed your hands into. "Appropriate, though. Did you see any of them casting spells? What was that rune doing there?"

"I did not," replied your companion with no small measure of frown in his voice. "However something did feel—" He suddenly and abruptly stopped talking. There was a beat of silence where you pulled your hands back from where they had been moving to search for more pockets, but before you could pronounce any clear question, you heard the elf stumble to his feet and back a few steps.

"Solas?"

"Get away from them." Solas' tenor was grave. You were obeying before you even fully registered the words simply by his tone alone. "Now."

You did so, though slower than he had. "What? Why? What's going on?"

"The reason they're covered so well. They are Blighted." Heart, have you met Stomach? Well, become better acquainted. And Blood? Head down away from Face and Head, will you? Ankles are lonely and a trifle cold. With dread. And terror.

"Shit," you cursed, barely catching yourself before running your hands through your messy hair and proceeding to hold the limbs awkwardly away from your person. "First those Templars with the lyrium, and now this? Are you…?"

He reassured almost too quickly, but he wasn't lying. "Fine, I've not been injured nor was I too close to them. You?"

"It's hard to say. I think I'm okay, but…," you winced, gesturing to a few scrapes along your exposed skin. There were no obvious signs of blood not your own, but if there was even the slightest possibility some could have gotten on you…

It wasn't impossible or even improbable.

Something intangible prodded up against you. Though your first reaction was to jump and shy away, you recognized the intrusion as Solas after a few beats and forced yourself to relax the instinct to fight off the Aedric magic. It was clearly diagnostic despite its weighty discomfort, and you couldn't blame him for using magic unlike with your concussion. Blight was much more dangerous and the certainty could…well, maybe not save your life, but at least make its remainder a little more comfortable.

A few moments and several passes of magic later, he slumped a little with a heavy sigh. "I cannot find any signs of infection or sickness, but I am regrettably limited on knowledge of the effects. Especially given your…unique circumstances." Unique circumstances being polite parlance for neither him nor you having the slightest idea of how your physiology would react to an invasive disease purely Thedosian in nature. It spawned another train of absent thought, though, and you tried to remember if you'd ever been sick since coming here…

"I'll let you know if anything changes. It's the best we can do, I think," you shrugged, hoping that if you acted nonchalant about it, you could convince your heart to migrate back to your chest cavity from where it had decided to sink down around your kneecaps. There had been that stomach flu eight years ago, so you could get sick, you recalled as you returned to looting bodies despite some mild protests from Solas that you shouldn't be anywhere near them as each consecutive one showed heavy signs of infection. You refuted, citing that since you were already at risk for having contracted the stupid thing, then it was better you do it than him, who was in the clear. Still can't eat sausages or eggs to this day, come to think of it.

You suddenly let out a groan of pure, unadulterated exasperation when tied around the neck of the dead, infected woman whose robes you riffling through was an orange stained pendant in the shape of a dragon. "Well, would you look at this? I think we found Alexius' 'monks'." Ripping the leather free, you tossed it to Solas. He caught it deftly and shifted his hold on it to one of pure disgust laced with caution. The look he sent you felt far from pleasant.

"So it would seem." Sneering, he let the amulet drop to the ground. "I thought they were supposed to be in Redcliffe?"

You nodded. "I also thought they were supposed to be mages. And three times as many."

Solas' frown of confusion was a sour note hanging in the air only because it mimicked your own. "Reinforcements, perhaps? Or could they have been guarding a refuge?"

"Six reinforcements are barely anything for a village Redcliffe's size. Ambush? No. It's too difficult to get in and out of here. It's impractical. Could be a hideout…but why no mages?" You chewed on your bottom lip before solidly shaking your head.

Your companion gestured with his staff back the way you had come, through the carnage of spilled, tainted blood. "I believe we should alert the Inquisition. At the least, there should be a quarantine—this is far too close to the Crossroads for comfort." Absently, you nodded and stood up to brush imaginary dirt from your legs. Neither of you spoke as you meandered into the first chamber and tried to figure out a way to climb up to a hole in a ceiling five or so feet above your heads. The only topics to fill the air were chilling and weighty.

And, honestly, that turned it into silence that you didn't want to break.


Final Words: See what I meant by cliched? I actually had this whole chapter planned out and outlined like I do the entire rest of the story, but I started writing and went off topic and actually liked this result better than what I had planned. I always wanted Solas to figure Lys out first (though I did have a healthy debate on whether it should be him or Iron Bull-Solas won out in the end since in my headcanon, Trevelyan doesn't bring Bull on quests much early on which wouldn't give them much time to interact). Solas "figuring" Lys out this early and in this manner was never the plan. I'm gonna roll with it, though. It fits with what I have planned.

Also, Saffron is adorkable. I tried to subtly explain what a rig is for those of you who don't know. It's essentially a male horse whose testicles didn't drop and one or both still remain inside the horse's body. They appear to be geldings, but have stallion-like tendencies. From what I read (and I'm no expert, so please correct me if I'm wrong), it's difficult even with modern veterinary practices and technology to find and remove a rig's testicles in order to properly neuter them. Thedas is medieval, and though magic is a wonderful thing, I don't think it practical for it to be used as a cure-all. And I also like to think Dennet is a bit of a prankster and kept rigs specifically for the purposes of punking people looking for geldings xD

I'm tired. Don't judge me.

Well, hope you liked it!

~SurreptitiousFox