The air is wet with life. The tree tops glow with the light of the high morning sun. The grasses and flowers sprouting beneath her bare feet are soft, warm. The smell is...off. No matter. She steps carefully around the sprawling roots of ancient trees. Birds, a variety, perhaps three or four, call to one another from somewhere high and out of sight. She was never more at home than when she was nestled deep in a lush, breathing forest. But this isn't her home...she is aware of this, in that strange and inexplicable knowing that accompanies a dreaming mind.
And in that same strange knowing, she is aware now of something else...something unsettling...Dread.
She hastens her wandering, narrows it to purposeful pursuit of...what? She does not know. She only hopes that her steps carry her away from the unknowable but certain doom that lingers here among the trees. Their profound age seems to impart extremity to this dark power, as her feet, lithe as they were in waking, catch on their twisting roots.
Her heart races as she quickens her pace to a trot, climbing clumsily over thorny brambles and fallen, decaying tree trunks. Shadows fall upon her as she approaches the treeline—yes, she can see it only a few paces ahead, can see where the forest thins and fades to...
She slows and stops. There is no camp, nor road...nor lake, nor hill. Dread snuffs the vision of the treeline she thought she had been approaching. She has not left the forest at all. She has come upon a vast clearing. A fog rolls off the tree tops and settles here, covering the ground in a thick mist. A faint, diffuse light falls through it. She steps forward even as her fear intensifies, unwilling to turn back...or afraid to discover what scourge gives chase.
She sprints into the mist, unknowable terror snapping at her heels, air filtering into her lungs in rapid, shallow spurts. Her legs pump faster and faster until she nearly collides with a great, stone wolf, its features blurred by the mist but its great form clear against the light. She throws herself against it, letting out such a whimper that it could only have snaked its way through her consciousness from those young and distant years among the Dalish. She shuts her eyes tightly, but of course the dread pervades the very air, will not be quelled by the cowardly defenses of a child. A sick and rotting stench fills her nostrils, and she knows her doom now draws within reach of her. She opens her eyes, turns around and presses her back into the stone image of the one she now gazes upon in the flesh.
There it stands, so precise, and towering. Its motionlessness is bizarre, unnatural, and causes her stomach to twist and her heart to pound. More unsettling are its shining purple eyes. Three, clustered together, on either side of its enormous head. The stench stings as it filters through her nose and mouth. A single tear falls upon clammy cheeks, incited by the bitter stench or by the ominous terror given form, she does not know. For a stretching, still moment, it only stares. She dares not move. A cool wind blows in from the western hills far beyond. The beast's great, pointed ears shift back as its immense maw gapes. It emits from some bottomless darkness not a howl, but an otherworldy moan, a strange and songless cry. Louder and louder it laments, and the frigid gust billows from the west.
Ell is at once upright, panting, hair plastered to skin along her face and neck, the large window across from her bed agape.
...
He is her first thought the following morning as she lay there in her bed, eyes still closed, and slowly reaching toward consciousness.
She lays still on her back. The warmth of sunlight pouring through the open window warms her face, still swollen with sleep. A cool, mid-spring breeze filters through the modest cabin, expertly tousling her hair and caressing her neck. She inhales the crisp mountain air and allows her sleepy mind to wander idly. Meandering through the serene terrain of the Hinterlands, gathering fragrant elfroot...The sweet, mineral taste of water collected with cupped hands from the stream guiding their footsteps...Varric blathering on about the plot of the next great tale unfolding in his mind...a sideways smile and an eye roll from the tall elf at her side...Stop.
Her brow furrows and her eyes open. She is foolish to wander to such dangerous places. To regress when each step forward for her, here in this prison, is more trying than the last. It had taken more than a year to train her mind not to do this very thing. In her corner of the Fade, she encountered his memory often, as she continued to lead this life forced upon her, the life of a . You chose had walked across the Veil of her own volition, her hand on his back, ready to face whatever fate awaited them, together. Only to find herself alone on the other side. For months she had embarked on a futile search for him. Or anyone else. Eventually, she arrived at the only conclusion left, as impossible as it seemed. Through some cunning act of magic, he had somehow sent her through the Veil in his stead. It was a bludgeon to her heart.
And so here she was, atoning for his deeds. In the end she had become just another of so many spent tools. Ell had realized that if she was going to survive here, if she was going to escape this place, she could not afford any further preoccupation with the Dread Wolf. She increasingly thought of him as the Dread Wolf. A convenient compartmentalization of the man who had called her his heart…and the one who left her here in this prison. She'd learned over the course of many months to choke the life out of the grief that threatened to turn her to stone where she stood. She has long since steeled herself against such childish ruminations, her love for him reduced to a shadow, a dull ache in her chest inciting grief, and then bitterness, and then, mercifully, nothing.
She hoists her legs over the bed and places her feet firmly on the ground beside. A splash of water, poured into an ornate basin atop a dresser at the far end of the room, washes away the dewy film collected on her face over the course of a restless night. She thinks of this building as a cabin, but the structure is attached to a tall stone tower with a large balcony at its peak. The furnishings within are an odd mix of those she remembers from her modest upbringing among the Dalish, and those that once filled Skyhold, reflecting the power and prestige of her position as Inquisitor.
She shrugs the bedding off of her bare shoulders and dons a simple set of leathers, form-fitting but comfortable for a day of gathering herbs and cataloging each and every wisp, tree, path, and anything else that defined this place from one day to the next. The longer she remained here, the more she had noticed its patterns, the ways this place responded to her. She thought that by observing and carefully documenting these changes, she may eventually learn the key to escaping it. The longer she remained here, however, the more she was compelled to make the uncomfortable acknowledgment that it was a way to pass the time, to provide her even the crudest facsimile of a purpose.
She regards her reflection in the wood-framed mirror positioned in the corner of the room. Notes the faint rings under her eyes. Once he had likened their grey-blue to a tempest. Now they were a still sea, unknowable miles from any shore. She does not linger. Instead, she crosses the room to the kitchen area, where a small stone oven emits the faint aroma of the herbal bread she had baked the night before. She unsheathes the utility knife at her hip and slices off a small piece. She tucks it into her pack before slinging it around her waist and striding out of the cabin.
Immediately she spies in her peripheral vision a familiar wisp, its light twitching anxiously. She offers a knowing glance to reassure it, for it has clearly sensed the rattled state her nightmares have wrought. Over the past year, she and the wisps had developed a language of sorts which, though crude, offered enough mutual understanding to mitigate the crushing loneliness of this place. She was not sure if she had discerned authentic personalities through their unusual conversations, or if her lonely mind simply ascribed personalities to them out of her own desperate desire for connection. One thing is clear to her, however. The wisps are increasingly drawn to her, and are not nearly so easily distracted by the forest as they once were.
The wisp follows as she approaches the tree line surrounding the cabin. She extracts from her pack a well-used, sheepskin-bound journal containing the copious notes she had taken since her arrival. On its worn pages are scribbled the words "cabin", "tree that looks like a terror demon", "set of three stones"—the major landmarks of her prison—along with any notable occurrences or changes. Once, the orientation of the three stones was altered. On another occasion, the terror demon tree was missing a limb. She carefully documented as much detail about her own thoughts and actions when she noted such anomalies, but thus far could not discern a pattern. Complicating the task was the fact that as time passed, these occurrences grew scarcer. The first month, the changes would occur daily, sometimes more than once. It was as if the Fade was solidifying around her the longer she remained here. Though she was always unsettled when confronted with evidence of the impermanence of the Fade, this thought incited even more discomfort.
After checking on each landmark in turn—no anomalies noted—she walks the perimeter of the clearing, peering into the forest. A wisp floats down toward her from the canopy and follows, as if pulled by a draft. Once every few days—especially on the days the Fade changed, Ell set out into the trees in search of a path to escape, or to anywhere else, really. Invariably, after a few hours, and once after nearly two days, she found herself back in the clearing. The same cabin. The same three stones. The same terror tree. She was an experienced orienteer and knew her return to the clearing to be a trick of the Fade. So unfair, she thought bitterly.
Having had such a peculiar dream, she intended to make another attempt at escape today, and while she did not exactly believe it to be a foregone conclusion, she had learned long ago to anticipate an unsuccessful outcome. After the dream, she knew her quarry, whatever it was, would be to the west. As she walks the perimeter, she perseverates on an obvious conundrum. There was no day or night cycle in the Fade, and she had no compass. Even if she had, she could not trust any tool she found here to function true to its intended use. Typically, the direction of her search was of no consequence, as none held any more promise for escape than any other. If she observed an anomaly in the forest, she would pursue escape in that direction. Sometimes, as she walked the perimeter of the clearing, she would have a pleasant interaction with a wisp, or experience a fond memory, and so she would set out from wherever she happened to be when it happened. Otherwise, she simply picked a point at the tree line on a whim. She concludes that her only option is to rely on the Fade to reveal the path she seeks. She squints her eyes and scans carefully for any sign…an unusual fragrance, a tree missing its leaves, a change in temperature.
Her eyes settle on an unusual plant. Teardrop-shaped leaves hang from small branches emanating from a stalk as thick as her wrist. Bright red fruit hang below the leaves. All the flora and fauna of this region of the Fade was native to Orlais and Ferelden. Not only was dragonthorn not native, Ell had only known it to grow far to the west of Thedas. She stood still as stone as she stared at the plant. The Fade had never before given her what felt like such clear direction, both literally and figuratively. That strange nightmare, and the lead it had provided her. The invasive thoughts of Fen'Harel. And now this specific plant, a curiously coherent answer to her query. These peculiar occurrences, together, were unprecedented since the first day of her is cannot stifle the hopefulness beginning to swell in her soul, butting up against suspicion. She is is happening.