Solas
Solas' control slipped through his hands like water. No not water. Water cleansed as it went, washed away sins. This left a stain across his palms. Something thick, oily and viscous, but still too slippery to hold on to.
So many people dead.
How had this happened?
He had calculated. Deduced that the monster Corypheus would die in his attempt to unlock the orb. That his agents could sweep in after the wreckage had settled and he could begin moving towards his goal. It had not crossed his mind that Corypheus would use the Conclave as his opportunity to break into the orb. Had not occurred to him that an explosion of this magnitude was even possible by anothers hand.
That explosion had killed thousands. Humans, elves, mages, templars. Whole swathes of lives destroyed in the blink of an eye. The sky had been torn asunder. The veil left in tatters. A burning, blazing void straight into the fade. Spirits, innocent and curious, were drawn to the wounds and violently sucked through. The waking world was too much, too different. They contorted from their true purpose in the disorientating descent. Became demons, angry and wrathful in their confusion. He had not wanted this. Had sought out to minimise the damage as much as he could.
Solas had miscalculated. Again. His mistakes were a monument towering above him. Any more would send it toppling, crushing him beneath the weight.
Clothed in the garments of a humble apostate, Solas sought to rectify them.
"You say that you are a mage? That you can stop this?" The seeker spat, clearly unbelieving.
The woman, with short black hair and already bloodied armour stopped him at the gates of a town called Haven.
"I endeavour to try," Solas said, leaning on his staff like a walking stick.
The seeker crossed her arms across her chest. A piercing glare in her eyes. "What makes you different than the rest? There have been a few mages already to make an attempt to close this thing. All of them have been snuffed out."
Yes, he could imagine they had. This destruction was too large for a mage born of the veil. Their power was too limited. Not enough magic got funneled into their bodies to be of any use against this.
"I am a dreamer," he said simply "I have cast my mind into the fade and encountered magics not seen for thousands of years. If there is to be a solution it may be found there. No circle mage would have this knowledge."
The seekers frown turned contemplative. Reluctant acceptance warred across her face. "If what you say is true then you may stay. May study the breach. I don't like putting my trust in an apostate but we have no choice. Nothing else we are doing is working."
"Thank you, Seeker," Solas nodded.
"So you are an expert in the fade?" She said, a spark of something in her eye.
"I do not think anyone would be considered an expert on something as large and changeable as the fade but I know more than most. Why?"
The seeker uncrossed her arms and drew in a deep breath. "Come," she indicated with her head. "I will tell you as we walk."
The seeker led him through the gates and up a winding, snow covered path. Harried looks of hopelessness was plastered on every face they passed. They rushed by, casting suspicious glances at Solas' staff on their way out.
"We have prisoners. Elves. Guards say that they fell from a rift like the demons."
Solas drew to an abrupt stop. "Are you saying that these people were in the fade? Physically?"
That shouldn't be possible. Even before the veil, it was not a place you could simply stroll through on a whim.
"That is what the reports say," said the seeker urging him to start walking again. "One of them carries a strange magic within them. We think they may be the cause of all this."
Solas doubted that. These unfortunate elves had probably just got caught up in whatever chaos Corypheus had managed to cause. But he schooled his features into something placid, attentive. It would not do to show his hand or his knowledge yet. That was a sure fire way to end up on the other end of the giant blade at the seekers back. This weakened body would probably not survive such an injury. Then they were all doomed.
"You want me to look into this strange magc?"
The seeker pushed open the heavy door of a chantry building. "Yes, and report back to us all that you learn."
"Of course."
Solas stared down in horror.
When Seeker Pentaghast–as he had learned her name to be–had told him of prisoners he had not expected to encounter a literal child, barely in her mid teens. Not only that. The poor thing had been beaten black and blue. For one horrifying second, her ghostly, white palor, mixed with the sheer amount of blood caked into the light brown leather of her armour, made him think her dead. Only a shallow breath and a soft cry made him realise she still yet lived.
The wolf in him stirred at the sight. An uncomfortable reverberation in his chest. A howl in his ears. An unmistakable need to protect. The sheer size of the impulse confused him greatly.
He cast a glance at the other prisoner. Dalish. He frowned. A shadow of a shadow. A proud people that clung bitterly to scraps of information no matter how wrong that information was. So far from the elvhen of old. Her presence caused him discomfort. Though that may have been the Elvhen sized hollow that had been carved into his heart from guilt.
The elf woman seemed to have fared significantly better than the girl. Only surface wounds and already healing bruises. The difference was night and day. What had happened with these two? Why had a child taken the brunt of the damage?
"Has a healer been in?" Solas asked, rushing to the girl's side.
Her shoulder was the worst, the most obvious. But there was more injuries if one looked passed it. A circlet of bruises around her neck. Someone or something had grabbed her by the throat. A very large something if the imprints of fingers was anything to go by. Cuts and slices covered exposed skin, thin and healing over but spoke of hurried journeys through dangerous terrain. Her ankle was also covered in lacerations. Sprained or maybe even broken.
"We gave her a potion and some salve for her shoulder. We could not spare more. There are people dying as we speak."
Deep seated anger began to churn in his gut. The strength of it surprised him and he tamped down on the feeling. Quenching a fire before it sparked. Of course they would not expend all their energy trying to heal a person they thought guilty of atrocities. Yet it still felt wrong. This girl needed help.
He drew his gaze to the girls left hand. Ah. That was undoubtedly what the seeker was speaking about. Concentric swirls had been emblazoned onto the skin. Blackened. Stained. The same pattern as his orb. An angry spark of green leaped out from a jagged opening in her palm. The girl cried out in her sleep. A sad mewl that had the wolf clawing at his chest.
Was it his guilt that had him so protective?
Because it washismagic that clawed its way out of that had spread up her arm like a fire that must be slowly killing her. This girl had somehow come into contact with his foci. Exactly how that had happened was unknown. The lack of knowledge irked him greatly.
"The green grows every time the breach expands. We assumed the two were connected in some way," the seeker said.
Solas hovered his hand over the mark. His other held tight to his staff. The need for the object grated sharply, how long would it take to recover his ability? He drew focus from the staff and cast a steady, probing stream of magic out. The familiar tang of his power had forged a path nearly to her elbow. Strange, he would have expected it to have travelled further. The sheer amount of his power the orb had contained was simply too much for elves of today. Perhaps he had just gotten here in time.
Though it helped that the girl was a mage. While clearly drained of mana he could still sense the shape of it. The hollow of a well waiting to be filled. So much deeper than he would expect of one so young. It gave the anchor more room to occupy before it inevitably overwhelmed.
With gritted teeth Solas drew the magic downwards. Forced it back into her hand. If he could coax it back out, draw it back into himself, he could put a stop to this madness. He had erected the veil with this power, patching a hole should be easy.
The green light receded reluctantly down her arm. It slipped over her wrist and reached the base of her hand before it stuck. Burrowed in with strands of barbed magic. The girl flinched in her sleep. Sweat poured from his brow as he turned more forceful. He needed that power. Almost as much as it needed to beoutof this child.
Nothing moved. Stuck fast. No amount of gentle untangling or aggressive pushing would remove it. Not as powerless as he was now.
Solas let out a defeated breath. There was nothing more he could do except contain it to her hand.
"What is it? What have you learned?"
He had learned that their lives hung in the balance of a dying young girl and it was all his fault.
"You were right. This mark is in fact linked with the breach. Perhaps the power contained here may even be able to close it."
Burgeoning hope bloomed in seeker Pentaghasts face. "Can you remove it? Use it yourself?"
If only he could.
"Unfortunately not. It appears to be permanently attached. We will have to wait for the girl to awaken. To see if she can close it."
The seeker grimaced. "We have to rely on the very person who may have caused all this?"
"Unless another opportunity presents itself, which I do not think likely, there is no other option," At Seeker Pentaghasts look he quickly added. "Though I will keep looking for other courses of action."
"How long until she wakes, do you think?" she asked, pacing. Her shoes scuffed against dust covered stone and rotten straw.
"It is hard to say. As injured as she is, it could take days," he tried to keep the accusation from his tone but from the glare he received suggested he did not do a great job.
"Days? We don't have days, the world is ending now!" Seeker Pentaghast yelled, but when Solas did not rise to it she deflated. "Can you heal her? With your magic?"
"I can try."
Healing magic was not his strong suit. This girl deserved far better than him, but he would try his best.
"Good," she said, her inability to remain still belying her need to move. To return to the fray. "Talk to the guards if you have need of anything." He was not surprised when she nodded and disappeared upstairs.
At least he no longer had an attentive audience. He did not need suspicious people questioning his methods. The guards peered back occasionally but thankfully left him to work.
Solas gaze was drawn to the worst of her wounds first. A hole in her shoulder, straight through from one side to another. Something had pierced her. An arrow perhaps. The skin was ragged, inflamed and open. Ripe for infection. Solas started by unpealing her armour as gently as he could. There was a quiver thrown over one shoulder. Its presence confused him. Surely a mage such as she had no use for such things. In any case he removed the hindrance and looked at the rest of the armour. The buckles at the side were nearly crusted shut with dried blood. It would take too much effort to work them open normally, he sliced through the straps instead. The armour was unrecoverable anyway.
The girl gave a panicked hum as he pulled the bodice away.
"Shh da'len. It will be alright," he said despite knowing she could not hear him.
Even so she appeared to calm at the cadence of his voice.
Solas discarded the useless scrap of leather into the corner, but when he looked back down he froze, eyes widening. Was that what he thought it was? Tucked, trapped beneath her armour. How could she possess such a thing? Solas glanced back over his shoulder to the guards at the door. Once he was sure they looked elsewhere he deposited the object into his pocket. Something to ponder later.
There was something else that caught his eye too. A pendant, veridium perhaps, given the green sheen. Blood had been smeared across its surface and it had seeped into carved grooves. The blood fizzed away in a froth of magic, revealing the image beneath. A wolf. Solas' eyebrows shot up. The dalish usually strayed away from such imagery. Though this one had horns coming out of the top of its head. Halla horns specifically. Strange.
His touch activated something. A spell. A feeling of peace settled over him. Faint due to the sheer chaos of his current mind, but still detectable. A delicate piece of magic. Someone must have cared greatly to make such a thing. He placed it down gently and got to work.
Solas drew on his arcane healing abilities, mustering a spell at his finger tips. A trail of green light sparked between them. With a gesture the spell worked its way under her skin. The wound was vast. It had narrowly missed bone as far as he could tell but the muscles had been torn to shreds. With a push of his will he urged the strands to reform, to reconnect.
His brow furrowed. He gritted his teeth. The wound was resisting him, fighting back. It was almost as if whatever had caused the injury was still lodged in there, despite him knowing the contrary.
It took tremendous effort and no short amount of mana for damned thing to finally close.
Solas pinched the bridge of his nose at his emerging headache. This whole situation was going to be so much harder than he had planned and it had barely even started.
Selene
A forceful, pounding in her skull was what finally drew her to wake. Like someone had taken to prying off the bone and rummaging around her brain. It must have been a heartless, careless hand. It threw thoughts to the wayside, jumbled memory into a mush, took something with greedy fingers.
Where was she?
The ground was hard, unrelenting against her aching back. A scent, sweet but mouldy filled the air. Rotten straw. It made her nose twitch. Selene shifted, tried to feel around her and found she could not. Her hands. They couldn't move.
Selene's eyes shot open. She was somewhere dark, dank. Only the light of a few candles reached her. But it was enough to know she was in big trouble. Large metal shackles encircled both of her wrists. A chain connected the two and bolted to a wall. Bars blocked the only exit. Guarded by four men. Four! Surely that was excessive. Not only that, they were humans, shems. She was a dalish elf locked in a human jail cell.
Fear dripped down her spine like ice water. It had her bolting upright. The movement caught the eye of one of the guards and she swore under her breath. She shouldn't have caught their attention.
"That ones awake! Grab the seeker." One of them peeled away, running up the dark stairs to some unknown location.
What did they want with her? She hadn't done anything. Had she? Her brain was slow to wake, a chugging sluggish thing. It felt like she had to think through syrup before her thoughts surfaced. There was a blankness in her mind, a darkness. She could not recall how she got here. Her breaths came out in quickened pants.
"Easy da'len, you will need your strength for the interrogation to come."
The smooth voice pulled her out of her stupor and she realised that she was not alone. An elf kneeled beside her. His lack of vallaslin denoted him a city elf. His head was clean shaven and his face looked like it had been sculpted by the gods themselves.
You could cut yourself on that thought.
He wore threadbare clothes, worn with time but well kempt. They did a good job of making him look smaller, but Selene could see he was actually rather broad shouldered. Especially for an elf.
Was he a prisoner too? No, he wasn't shackled like her. But why would he willingly lock himself in if he was free to leave?
The answer came with the sound of a soft cry. Like someone was trapped in the throes of a nightmare and couldn't wake up. It accompanied a sudden spark. An eruption of green, violent energy that cast the elf's face into stark relief. He grit his teeth and waved his hand in a soothing motion. The green light settled back down.
There was another person in the room. Selene leaned back so that she could see around his tall frame. It was a girl. A child. Her sleeping face contorted with pain. Recognition bloomed, but it took several moments for the memory to find her. It was dark, thick and oily, she could just make out the shape of it. Of a young girl screaming for her mamae. Of the blood and the running. Selene had sought to protect her.
"What's happening? What's wrong with her?" Selene clambered to her knees and shuffled closer. The man made room for her, repositioning himself at the girls feet but still close enough to her hand, where green sparks still lingered.
This poor da'len was alone, the desire to comfort her was strong. Selene used a finger of her bound hand to flick golden hair out of the girls face. Many strands were trapped beneath dried blood and tugged at the skin. The urge lick her thumb and swipe at the offending mark reared its head. It's what she would have done with the children in her clan. But she held off. It might not have been welcomed.
But surely they could have at least wiped the poor girl's face.
"I should be the one asking you that question?"
"What?" she said, looking up.
She could not read the expression in his shadowed face. "You were found together. Of anyone, surely it would beyouwho knew of her plight."
But she didn't. This seemed like a rather big thing to forget. How could she not remember?
His face softened somewhat at her poorly concealed fear. "What is your name da'len?" A simple question with an easy answer.
"Selene."
The man nodded "My name is Solas."
Solas. A lovely name. It rolled off the tongue.
"You are Dalish are you not?" There was an edge to his words. A subtle undercurrent of contempt. It made his attractiveness diminish somewhat.
"What do you know of the Dalish?"
He did not get time to answer her. A clamor of armour charged down stone steps. Raised angry voices echoed off the walls. Selene shrank away from the noise in shock.
Solas calmly got to his feet in one fluid movement and moved to stand by the wall. The grace of it rankled her. Of course he managed to be dignified while she shied away and nearly fell backwards.
A tall, human woman emerged from the darkness. Low light glinted off the sword she swung forward. A pathetic squeak slipped out from Selene's lips and she flinched back, eyes screwed shut. When a death blow didn't land she reluctantly peeled them back open, one eye at a time. The deadly point stayed level at her brow and she froze.
"Tell me why I should not just kill you now?" the dark haired woman snarled.
"What? Why would you kill me?"
"The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead. Except for you two!"
Selene , that can't had been over a thousand people attending the conclave. A thousand lives. They couldn't all be dead.
"What do you mean everyone's dead?" Selene said, horror leaking into her voice.
The woman refused to answer her question, pushing on with her own agenda. "How do you explain that?" she said, pointing with her sword towards the violent green mark on the girl's hand.
"I can't."
There was just a hole where a memory should be. The more she probed at it, the more frustrated she became. There was a flash maybe. Running. What had happened?
"Are you saying you were not involved in this?"
"Yes! I haven't killed anyone. I would never do something as awful as this," she urged.
"Soshedid this? Alone?" the woman said, scepticism plaguing her tone.
"No, that's not what I meant," Selene rose higher on her knees, indignation flaring. "She is innocent too. She is not not even old enough for vallaslin, for fuck sake!"
Fury twisted the lines on the woman's face and Selene found herself facing the wrong end of the sword again. "People younger than her have done unspeakable things. Age has nothing to do with it."
"She did not do this. I promise you." Selene held up her hands, protecting her face.
"How can you be so sure?"
How could she be so sure? Selene could not remember the events leading up to this, but her gut told her it was the truth. It also lurched with the pressing need to protect this poor girl.
"I just am, okay." she pleaded, knowing her words were weak.
"You are lying! You constructed this plot together didn't you?" The woman pressed forward, looming large in the small space.
"No, none of us did this, that's what I am trying to tell you."
"Then what did happen? Tell me!"
"I remember running. Things were chasing us, and then… a woman?"
The sword drooped, the human deflated slightly. "A woman?"
Selene recalled the shining outline of a hand. A beacon. A safe haven.
"She reached out to us. That is all I can remember."
Pain, hope, fury. All warred for control across the woman's open face. Selene felt like she had finally said something right.
She dropped her sword completely and Selene let out a shaky breath.
"If you are as innocent as you claim, you can help us with the demons. You so much as step a toe out of line and one of our own will cut you down."
"Demons?" she gasped. But the woman carried on without hearing her.
"We will interrogate the other when she wakes. Perhaps she has more she can tell us."
Panic reared its ugly head once more. The idea of leaving the girl to fend for herself– the one who had cried into her neck for her lost mamae–was abhorrent. Did these shems even see a child? Or did her elven features dissolve all youthful innocence in their eyes. Selene did not trust these people. Could not trust that they would not hurt the girl in their desperation.
"No."
"No?" Anger twisted the woman's mouth "What do you mean no?"
"I'm not leaving her side."
"Why not? What are you hiding?"
"She is my sister," she blurted out.
A stranger begging not to leave the side of another would not be convincing. But familial ties might do the job. Thankfully, the girl looked similar enough that the ruse was believable. She looked remarkably like her cousin Delanna, actually. They had the same nose shape, like Selene's. Perhaps that was where the urge to defend had stemmed from.
"She is my sister," she repeated, stronger this time "I will not leave her side."
The lie stuck the landing. The woman's features flattened with displeasure but no doubt hung there.
"Fine," she spat "You may remain here until she wakes."
"Thank you," Selene breathed.
"I don't have time for this." The woman sheathed her sword at her side and turned to leave. "Any funny business and my guards will strike, do you understand?"
"Perfectly."
The woman gave her one last analysing look before sweeping out of the cell. The door slammed shut with a clang of metal on metal. The ringing persisted in her ears and her headache pulsed along with it.
Only once the woman's figure disappeared did she allow herself to breathe. She closed her eyes and sighed heavily down her nose.
By the creators how was she supposed to get out of this?
"So she is your sister then?"
The question made her jump. She had completely forgotten Solas was still standing in the corner. The sound of his voice fanned a flame of anger in her gut.
"Oh so now you have something to say?" she said, irate.
She could not say why his silence had annoyed her so much. He was a stranger. Nothing to do with her. But he was an elf. She felt like there should be some form of kinship there. The idea of him being a silent witness in the corner while a shem levelled their sword at her face angered her more than she liked to admit.
Solas scowled back at her. The contempt she spied earlier back and even stronger.
"Is this what the dalish do these days? Send out child soldiers to be butchered."
"No, of course not!" She yelled back.
The accusation in his tone had the flames of her fury rising higher. No clan in their right mind would send a teenager on a mission. Most never left the safety of their campsite. Only brief stints of hunting allowed. Selene would never endanger a da'len like that.
But this Solas did not know that. And she could not even refute him without digging holes in her own lies. She bit her tongue and seethed silently.
"Yet, you still brought yourmagesister into a conclave full of templars, did you not?"
Selene barely tamped down on the shock that threatened to spread across her face. The girl was a mage? that why she was injured? Had a templar attacked her for having magic? That poor girl.
"She wasn't supposed to be there," she conceded.
"On that we can agree," he said, eyes burrowing into her. Like he was seeing into the depths of her soul and had been found wanting. Selene glared right back.
Their silent staring match was cut short by a soft cry. Lightning flared and Solas moved. He shoved his way forwards, almost knocking Selene over in the process, to get to the girl.
"What are you doing to her?" Selene asked, once she finally righted herself. The damn chain kept getting in the way.
"I am endeavouring to keep her alive. Unlike some," he said, pointedly at her. He did not even look up from his machinations.
Selene clenched her hands into fists. The knuckles cracked and the skin drew taut and pale. It took everything in her not to swing for the smug elf.
By the gods, I don't think I have ever seen such a slappable face.
