A/N: The things that happened in the last two weeks - holy effing balls.

Grandfather gets diagnosed with prostate cancer, the aggressive kind. He starts radiation in two weeks. They started him on hormones immediately to slow the progression.

Grandfather ends up going to the emergency room because his hernia went strangulated. The scar is gnarly, he survived.

Brother and about-to-be sister-in-law are pregnant. Its a boy. Surprise, you're an aunt!

Life comes at you fast, but goddamn, my head is still spinning.

Sound track:

Miike Snow - My Trigger

Blue October - Daylight

Portugal. The Man - Feel it Still

Imagine Dragons - Whatever it Takes

Taylor Swift - Ready For It?

Rag n' Bone Man - Human

Ella Henderson - Ghost

Florence & the Machine - Never Let Me Go

Chapter Five:

I met Cassandra by the front doors of the chantry. She nodded at me and pushed open one door. "Word has been sent, there is no going back now."

"The Inquisition lives again," I said with a punch to the sky with my left hand. Oops, big mistake. "Damn." My arm gave a bone-deep throb in response.

"Does it trouble you?" She asked.

"The mark? No, the pain stopped. My arm, on the other hand, feels like I choked out a qunari berserker in full rage."

She made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a snort. "Varric told me you were inventive with words. I should not have doubted it."

"Oh never doubt him."

"If you say," Cassandra said. "What's important is that your mark is now stable, as is the Breach. You've given us time, and Solas believes that a second attempt might succeed - provided the mark had more power. The same level of power used to open the Breach in the first place. That is not easy to come by."

"And yet, I know for a fact there are ideas already on the table."

"Precisely." She pushed open the door to the room we were in earlier.

Now the table was covered in two heavy looking maps with tiny metal markers off to one side by a pile of loose notes and books. Leliana, Cullen, and Josephine were waiting. "An incredibly bad joke about a templar, a mage, and a rogue just came to mind. But I still remember what Leliana did to me over the last awful joke I told her, so we're not going to go there."

"What did you do?" Josephine asked sounding truly curious.

Leliana gave her a knowing smile. "Josie, you know I do not share trade secrets."

"You know Sister Leliana," Cassandra began where she usually ended in her game script.

"My position here involves a certain degree of…"

"She is our spymaster," Cassandra told me, ripping off the proverbial band-aid.

"Yes." Leliana seemed a little bit put out. "Tactfully put, Cassandra."

"How's schmooples?" I asked, "and where is my favorite nug?"

"Schmooples, unfortunately, passed a year ago. His offspring, Boulette and Schmooples the Second are being cared for at my private residence in Val Royeaux." Leliana told me. "Perhaps, if you visit, I can introduce you."

It made my heart a little sore to know he died. He'd been a snuffler, much like a piglet. He would role his face into your hand and snort like a grumpy dog while resembling a naked bunny. "I'm sure he lived to a ripe old age, fat, happy and loved."

She smiled at me. A genuine smile.

"You've met Commander Cullen, leader of the Inquisition's forces."

"Repeatedly," I nodded at him. "Good to see you again."

"I am pleased you survived. I was told," he seemed to search for a word, "that you'd been lost."

"Technically, yes, but I found my way again."

"This is Lady Josephine Montilyet, our ambassador and chief diplomat."

Josephine inclined her head to me, "I have heard much. I never thought to meet the Elyria from Leliana's tales. Several of the ghost stories I have heard from her she tells me came from you. A pleasure to finally meet you."

"And you Lady Montilyet." I gave her the slightest of bows because, well, she was a lady and I'm a common commoner with an uncommon past. "We should get together and compare notes. I'm sure I have stories about Leliana that would turn her pink with embarrassment."

"Elyria," Leliana admonished at the same time Josephine said, "Consider it a date."

Cassandra made a sound somewhere between frustration and amusement. "I mentioned," she said pulling attention back to the matter at hand, "that you mark needs more power to close the Breach for good."

"Solas said the same when I spoke with him."

"Which means we must approach the rebel mages for help." Leliana said it as if it were the most logical thing in the world.

Cullen shook his head. "And I still disagree. The Templars could serve just as well."

"We need power, Commander." Cassandra reminded him. "Enough magic poured into that mark-"

"Might destroy us all. Templars could suppress the breach, weaken it so-"

"Pure speculation," Leliana said.

"I was a templar. I know what they're capable of." He reminded her.

"Unfortunately, neither group will even speak to us yet. The Chantry has denounce the Inquisition - and you, specifically." Josephine, using her diplomatic talents, steered the conversation away from argument territory.

I liked her already. Before she spoke up I was about ten seconds from making a remark about them both being pretty. "Of course, because what is easier than pointing the finger at a scapegoat?"

"Some are calling you the 'Herald of Andraste' and that frightens the Chantry."

"Losing power always terrifies the powerful," I noted.

"Chancellor Roderick's doing, no doubt," Cassandra said his name with a decent level of contempt.

"It limits our options." Josephine went on. "Approaching the mages or the templars for help is currently out of the question."

"Though we could recruit outside the two," I said, leaning over and looking at the map of Ferelden on the table. "For now at least, until we have a power base and more than a wish and a hope to stand on."

"What would you suggest?" Cullen asked me, watching me reading the map.

"Leliana and I used to have friends. Unique, talented friends."

"Indeed, we did. As for Zevran, I need him where he is currently. He could be of use later perhaps."

"Mmm, not necessarily him. I mean Shale."

"The golem?" Josephine asked.

"Someone who doesn't sleep doesn't need to eat and can cause a lot of damage quickly. She's not exactly what we need to close the breach, but put in a tough spot, I'd pick her in a fight."

"Then you know about Wynne?" Leliana asked me with a touch of sadness.

"I cried my eyes out." My voice came off just the slightest bit rough. "Do you think you can get Shale here?"

"Josephine may need to obtain the crystals Shale uses, but yes, I do believe she will come."

"Good, what about recruiting from the Dwarves? If this thing reaches into Orlais, then it reaches into the heart of Orzammar. The last thing the Legion of the Dead wants is to rumble with demons on top of darkspawn." I tapped the spot on the map where the Brecilian forest was marked. "And the Dalish, though the clan may have moved on. A couple of elven soldiers if we have them with an offering."

Josephine was already furiously taking notes. "I believe we may be able to obtain Ironbark."

"Okay, that will work." I tapped the area of Amaranthine. "Oghren joined the wardens, but he also reconnected with Felsie. We should send a missive to him at the Warden's Keep and to that bar Felsie worked in. I've never known Oghren to turn down a fight."

Leliana made a sound between laughing and choking. "Or instigate one after too many drinks. We will need to import more alcohol."

"I'll send a letter to Alistair. If he's not too angry with me, he'll come if he can. Other than that, I think that's the end of our friend list."

"A Chantry Cleric by the name of Mother Giselle has asked to speak with you. She is not far, and knows those involved in the Chantry's fear of you better than any of us here. Her assistance could be invaluable." Leliana told me, taking a slight deviation on her script.

"If it's me she wants, then I'll go and speak to her."

"You'll find Mother Giselle tending to the wounded in the Hinterlands, near Redcliffe."

"Look for other opportunities to expand the Inquisition's influence while you're there," Cullen added.

"We need agents to extend our reach beyond this valley, and you're better suited than anyone to recruit them." Josephine was already making notes on her clipboard. Or, rather, the somewhat middle-ages version of a clipboard.

"In the meantime," Cassandra said, "let's think of other options. I won't leave this all to the Herald."

I winced. "Elyria. Let's stop with the Herald thing, okay?"

Cassandra watched me for a moment. "I will call you Elyria if you prefer."

"I do." I leaned on the table with both hands examining the maps. "So explain all of this to me."

It took the rest of the day, but I got through some of what I remembered were cut scenes. Individual talks with Cullen and Josephine. The sun was setting when I finished my conversation Lysette.

"It's good to have you," I said, uncertain if I should shake her hand for following the Inquisition.

"It is good to be here." She told me and inclined her head. "Herald."

Yeah, that really was getting old quick. Okay, who next? I looked around the area, trying to decide between going back to see Leliana, the warrior beating the ever living shit out of a practice dummy or the blacksmith.

Tomorrow we'd be leaving for the Hinterlands. Travel there would be two and a half days on horseback, we were expected to spend nearly the week there and then two and a half days back. The report from Scout Harding was not encouraging, and I was completely and fully aware we were going to be walking into a massive and destructive firefight.

Blacksmith it was.

Harritt saw me coming. He put down a box. "I expected you'd be by. I'm Harritt, and everyone knows who you are." He looked me up and down, "How's the new gear fit?"

"Warmest I've ever had the privilege of owning." I stretched my arms out for him to see. "I suppose someone took my measurements while I was sleeping?"

He motioned to the loose spot at my waist, and the slight slack in my legs. "You're not too tall. Compact, muscular. Lady Cassandra and Leliana are similar height, weight. I guessed." He went to a wooden crate. "Stock armor and blades are good against bandits, but we're not fighting bandits. My gear will see you through demons, apostates and," he lifted out a pair of boots, dark brown leather, sturdy looking heels with the Inquisition symbol stitched into both sides on each, "whatever this world throws at you." He brought them back looking quite proud of himself. "Usually it takes a weeks time to make a proper pair, but these seemed to come together on their own." He held them out to me. "For you, Herald."

I took them carefully, feeling the soft, yet thick leather, and the tight gold and white stitching with the tips of my fingers. "Custom boots, Harritt, be careful, a girl could get used to that kind of treatment."

A faint blush crept up his neck and down his balding head, meshing with the dark reddish-brown of his beard and mustache. "If you need custom work, something special, you bring the materials to us, we'll make it happen."

"I'll keep it in mind." While he continued with his script, talking about the designs, rare materials and something fancy, I sat down and exchanged my boots from back in the other reality for these. The same soft fur, not faux like what was in my other boots, lined the inside. They fit perfectly.

"Here," he said, indicating the armor table. "I've a new schematic for mail armor that just might suit you."

I stood, tucking my old boots under my arm. "Already?"

"Something simple, to keep you safe lady Herald."

"Elyria," I corrected, "If you're going to guess the size of my hips and bits that accurately, I think you can call me by my name." This time he went fully red and averted his eyes. "Relax Harritt, you were saying?"

"Ah…" he still couldn't seem to look at me, "just, eh, em, just take a look it on the table there and we can talk. You'll need materials. We should have what you want just outside."

And that, ladies, gentlemen and all those without specification, is how I designed my first set of custom armor and weapons.

An hour later, after going over the details of a new set of short swords and a variety of dagger schematics, I walked away from the armory with a little pep in my step. My new weapons wouldn't be available before we left, but they would be ready when I got back from the Hinterlands. The mail armor would take a bit longer. Hopefully, I'd have everything before we went to Val Royeaux. I specified material to make myself look like a picture of onyx and ivory with gold stitching and complemented by dark blue blue accents.

I was going to rock that shit.

Harritt got exact measurements this time, I made sure of it. His wife took them in their cabin because, apparently, she needed me down to small clothes for accuracy. She went about it all business-like while I tried to keep warm.

It was damn cold up here in the mountains.

I saw Cassandra, sweat-soaked and wiping her face with a rag heading for the doorway into the town. "Cassandra," I called, jogging the handful of feet over to meet her. "You look like you had a decent workout."

She let out a small huff of a laugh. "If you call destroying a practice dummy a workout, then yes."

"Hey, you're sweating and you don't look pissed off. I'd say it worked one way or another."

She looked thoughtful for a moment then nodded, "Perhaps."

The night had begun to settle in, the sky turning a shade of purple-black, and the first of the stars began to sparkle in the sky. I looked up and the city kid in me stared in awe.

"Elyria?" Cassandra said my name with uncertainty, pulling my attention away from the heavens.

"What? Sorry. What did I miss?"

One corner of her mouth went upward, almost as if she were fighting a smile. "It occurs to me that I don't actually know much about you. Besides the stories that Varric has shared."

"Oh, just a girl in the world," I said waving it off.

"One that stares at the sky as if she has never seen it before."

"Got me there," I said. The torch lighters were passing us, lighting up the growing night, keeping the darkness at bay. "I lived in a big city all my life, so for a very, very long time I thought that the stars I saw there were the only ones. I learned as I got older that was wrong though I never went anywhere I could see them. Thedas is the first place I ever saw the sky properly." I looked up again, appreciating the way the heavens blanketed the world with pinpoints of light. "When I went home, I didn't realize how much I'd miss the simple act of looking up."

"But you did."

"You wouldn't believe how much." We were heading up the stairs toward the chantry, obviously where she was staying. "They're right when they say you can't go home again."

"It is never the same when you do." Cassandra agreed.

"Enough about me, what about you? "

She looked at me and, yes, she had about an inch or two of height but not enough to officially count as looking down. "Me? Whatever for?"

"We're probably in on being the Inquisition for the long haul. Maybe the next several months, maybe the next few years. Who wants a complete stranger watching their back?"

Cassandra seemed to think about it for several moments. No doubt mulling over how much to tell me or if she even should. She let out a long sighed after a moment, "As you wish." We'd reached the chantry by that point. "But first I must change." She looked down at her sweat soaked shirt and heavy vest. "I am, as they say, sweating like a pig."

"Alright. Meet you at the tavern in a bit?"

"Yes," she nodded, turned and pushed open one of the doors.

I decided to take another trip past the Alchemist's hut and Solas' place. May as well check to see if Emma had come through yet. The night was still early, the torches and fires keeping the worst of the cold at bay. I was going to go past Adan's hut then thought better of it. I needed to go out to that hut, may as well do it tonight.

I knocked on the door and, after a bit of grumbling and a grumpy, "One moment." Adan opened the door. We went through the usual chat of him observing for himself that I was alive and me thanking him for helping to keep me that way. I asked about helping him out, he asked me to check the old hut out by the Inquisition forces practice area. I thanked him again and left.

Then I checked the area between his cabin and Solas' cabin again.

No Emma.

"What would warrant a sigh that deep?" Solas' voice came from the front door to the cabin.

I turned a bit to see him. "I was expecting a friend to have made it through. I don't think she did."

"Many were lost in the battle and the destruction of the Conclave." He told me, almost sounding sorry about it. Good. He should have felt bad. A cold blast of wind decided to disturb our chat, smacking me in the face with the reality that night in the mountains, despite the deceptive warmth coming from the fires, was effing freezing.

"Come in," Solas said, opening the door and motioning to me. "It is far too cold to stand outside and speak."

Will you walk into my parlour, said a Spider to a Fly; 'Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy. I took his invitation, "Thank you. I'll have to leave in a little bit though. I'm meeting Cassandra for evening meal."

"Not a problem," he told me and closed the door. "Might I offer you a drink perhaps?"

"I'm good right now, but thank you Solas." He gave me a brief smile. "How did you get a cabin of your own? I've been meaning to ask."

"I was told it was recompense for helping you recover from the mark. Seeker Cassandra can be fair-minded."

"I noticed."

He sat down and took up a cup on the table beside it then sipped, made a face, and put the cup down. "I detest tea, but I'm afraid the mulled cider and wine at the tavern are not quite appealing."

"Whatever keeps you warm on a cold night." I looked around at the walls, noting dark spots where paintings or wall hangings might have once been. "This was someone's before yours, wasn't it?"

"Indeed. They did not return, much as your friend."

Emma wasn't dead, though I didn't tell him that. More than likely she was just stuck. Now, how did I start the Ostagar conversation? Asking about the fade?

"You study the fade, don't you, Solas?"

His eye lit up, just like that, though he hid it behind another sip of tea. "This world, or its memory, is reflected in the fade. Dream in ancient ruins, you may see a city lost to history. Some of my fondest memories were found in crumbling cities long picked dry by treasure seekers." He sipped again, and again with that face. I kind of felt bad for him.

"The best are the battlefields." He set the cup down, leaned back in his chair, his voice taking on almost a storyteller like substance. "Spirits press so tightly on the veil that you can slip across with but a thought."

And you could feel them watching you. I nodded at him, "I've been places like that. Ostagar, months after the battle."

Solas' eyes did that thing again, practically lighting up with interest. "I dreamt at Ostagar. I witnessed the brutality of the darkspawn, and the valor of the Ferelden warriors. I saw Alistair and the Hero of Ferelden light the signal fire and Loghain's infamous betrayal of Cailan's forces."

"I was with Alistair and Aedan Cousland at the time," I said, letting it sink in for him. "We went back to bury the king."

He leaned forward in the chair. "Your hair was blonde then, was it not?"

"You saw us?"

"Of course. I have seen Leliana in battle, she is quite formidable. And you, I thought your fighting style seemed familiar." He chuckled and sat back, looking very much like he was incredibly satisfied about something. "A hero from the blight, now the chosen of Andraste."

Rolling my eyes I said. "When in doubt, people make shit up. I'm not even Andrasten."

"Nor I," he told me, "and yet the myths and legends have their basis in reality."

"History becomes legend," I misquoted, "legend becomes myth."

He tipped the cup at me, "Precisely."

I watched him take another sip and make a face again. "Would you like to meet him?"

"Whom?" Solas asked, placing a now empty cup on the table.

"Alistair Theirin."

Solas went still. Not so much stopped moving as his movements slowed to complete and utter stillness. It was a bit unnerving to see him like that. It served to remind me that he was not technically mortal, even if he was passing as one. "Meet him?"

"That's what I said."

He seemed to take a moment, but his eyes were bright with interest. "If it were possible, yes, I would enjoy that."

"Good. I was planning to write him and let him know I'm here."

"Would he come here, knowing what happened?"

"Does a bear shit in the woods?"

He laughed. A short, modest laugh, but a laugh all the same. "Indeed." He nodded to something behind me. I turned a bit in my seat to see Cassandra passing the second window. "I see Seeker Cassandra is on her way to the tavern now. Perhaps you should meet with her?"

I got up. "Bright and early tomorrow?"

"I look forward to it."

I snorted, "Liar. No one looks forward to spending nearly two weeks with Varric."

"Did you not travel with him at great length in Kirkwall?"

"I did." I opened the front door, looking back at him standing there by the fire. "That's how I know you're lying."

Unknown to me, Varric's letter, the one he wrote while I was sleeping off what the mark did to me, was in the hands of a courier. Said courier had been paid handsomely to deliver a letter to one Alistair Theirin. Vaguely the courier wondered if perhaps there was some relation to the long-gone King Cailan but the thoughts dismissed themselves like the morning fog burning up on the road ahead of him.

He would reach Harper's Ford within the day, and, if he found the recipient of the letter before nightfall he was promised another gold coin on top of the three he had been paid already. The courier hadn't slept more than a night's sleep the last few days and had exchanged nearly five horses for fresh ones. Another gold coin and he would have more money than he'd ever seen in his life.

While I was chatting away with Solas back in Haven, the courier reached the small inn in the heart of Amaranthine. He was told to look for a man with ruddy brown hair, possibly sitting with a white-haired, tattooed elf. The courier, tired from nearly a five-day ride, walked into the inn fully expecting to have to ask around.

He didn't expect to see the two of them sitting at a table, eating what he could only assume was a mid-day meal. The man, whom he assumed was Alistair Theirin, sported a reddish beard with speckles of gray hairs, and a look of sheer exhaustion. The elf, indeed white-haired and tattooed with the oddest markings the courier had ever seen, looked just as tired, if not more so.

"Sir," the courier took the five steps between the door and the table, "I have a letter."

"Is he speaking to you, or me?" Alistair asked Fenris.

"You," Fenris replied popping a slightly wrinkled grape in his mouth. "Humans do not address elves as 'sir.'"

Alistair scowled briefly, "They don't address bastards as sir either." He felt like sticking his tongue out at his friend but refrained. It would result in bickering that would continue until they were back on the road to Orzammar. He motioned to the courier, a boy around eighteen or so, maybe a bit older, possibly a bit younger.

Oh to be that young and naive again.

"For me?" He asked the boy.

"Are you Alistair Theirin?"

Alistair winced. He didn't use his family name. Only a handful of people did, and none of them had contacted him in months. He took it, breaking the seal and flipping open the top. Scrawled on the inside of the letter flap Varric's handwriting plain as day said:

Pay the boy a sovereign.

With a grunt, Alistair reached into his coin purse and pulled out one gold coin, gave it to the boy and said, "Thank you."

The boy gripped the coin like it might try to jump out of his hands. "Thank you, sir." Then he took off.

Fenris gave him a pointed look.

"Fine, but if he knew I was a bastard, he wouldn't call me sir."

Fenris made a hmph sound at him and went back to his meal.

"It's from Varric," Alistair said as he pulled the folded page out of the envelope.

"What does the dwarf want?" Fenris asked after swallowing a mouthful of porridge. It wasn't quite the way he preferred it, with cinnamon and a dollop of sweet cream, but it was better than hard tack again.

Alistair reread the first sentence twice before the words actually came together and made sense. He then sat staring at the words on the page unable to see the rest because of the very first line. Though he knew it was his imagination, he thought, for just a moment, that his pack felt a bit heavier.

Heavier by the weight of two short swords to be exact.

"I," his voice caught on an emotion stuck in his throat. Alistair coughed, clearing it, and said, "I think we should go to Haven."

Fenris, equally curious and confused, stopped eating. "What? Why?"

Alistair folded over the letter twice before tucking it into the pocket of his shirt. If he told Fenris, the elf might have gone back into the dark, depression he'd been in when it happened. Instead, Alistair went with, "Because there is trouble. That green tinge to the sky is coming from there. Someone destroyed the conclave. There's a huge rift in the sky letting all manner of demons and monstrosities through."

"We knew about the conclave and rift days ago," Fenris replied. He studied his friend for several moments. "There's something else you're not telling me."

Alistair, fully aware that he was, and until the day he died, would probably always be a bad liar. "Varric said the help would be welcome."

Fenris, knowing full well that Alistair still wasn't telling him everything, chalked it up to what was going on inside Alistair's head. "What about the calling?"

Alistair's gaze hardened as he listened to something only he could hear. "I'll deal with it."

"Are you certain?"

"No. I do know that it is much too early for me to hear the calling. I should be much older. In my fifties at least. Every warden I knew, that I had ever met, told me the same thing. Thirty years. The earliest I had ever heard of was a man who was nearly fifty when he became a warden and then heard the calling by the time he was nearing ." He hit the table once with his fist in frustration and anger. "That was still years longer than it has been for me. Maker's breath, I wish I kept contact with those wardens Hawke met. I would like to know that I am not the only one."

A rude remark about Anders reared up in Fenris' mind. He left it go unsaid. No use. The abomination was dead and gone, even if the war he started raged on. "Then we are not going to Orzammar."

"You won't get to bury me in the deep roads any time soon."

"I wasn't looking forward to it."

"Nor was I." Alistair looked down at his meal. "Haven is at least a week and a half if we're on foot. That's if it isn't snowing." He huffed, downing the last of his tea. "Let's get on the road, we're burning daylight."

Fenris paused for just a moment. His hand coming to a complete and full stop between the bowl and his mouth. It didn't happen frequently, and Alistair wasn't often aware of it, like now. He watched his friend of many years with sadness.

Sometimes, just sometimes when Alistair would speak, utter a phrase or make a comment, he sounded like Elyria.

And it broke Fenris' heart.

I'm sorry! (I'm not)