@dreadblaidd sent : The last thing Solas heard was their frustration. The last thing he saw was their sudden turn. The last thing he felt, was Sacrifice.
Ice poured through his veins, the near imperceptible beat of their blood bond went silent.Â
And then nothing.
“Rook?” he called. He stood still as the statues closing in on him, frozen, waiting to hear them. But the only answer was his small voice echoing back in the chamber of regret. “Casadh?” he whispered, and only the stale wind whispered back.
Solas’ breath came shallow and quick through the tightness of his chest. He reached through every altar near where they’d been, but with no call from the other side, he railed only against that silence.Â
Rook was dead, they must be, and he was alone, trapped for an eternity as the Evanuris ravaged the world. His people forsaken, their hope extinguished, his fate sealed. But above it all, the enveloping regret - Casadh was dead. They must be.
There was no time in the prison, no cycle of day or night, or light and darkness. He passed the unending stagnation on the cold ground, staring in stunned grief across the chasm, willing them to appear until exhaustion took him.
Solas woke to voices from his altar in the Lighthouse. Hushed voices, whispered concerns, and then Nanna. Something is wrong, he thought she said, and his reply was a desperate, “Do they live?”
Yes. But something was wrong.Â
He forced himself to dream, but with no tether to grasp he could not find them. He shouted himself hoarse, here and in the Fade, and his anger and panic and fear suffocated the ever stifling prison.Â
No time here, so Solas did not know how long it had been before the prison inhaled the held breath preceding their appearance. He staggered to his feet, rushing as close to the edge of the chasm as he dared, beating against the bars of a cage or pulling at the end of a taut rope around a tree.
And then they were there. Here. Alive.
“Casadh,” he all but gasped, relief a flood of cool water that washed the tension from his body. He stumbled, pushing against the boundary as if to grasp them. But the impassable chasm yawned between them, and he could do nothing but stare with that helpless relief.
“I thought she…” Andruil was dead, but Andruil was here. He could hear her voice in the discordant echoes. He could see her in the looming statues. He could feel her, under his skin. But he couldn’t feel Rook. Casadh. They were a statue in shadow.
Something was wrong, but they lived. That had to count for something.
THE HUNT HAD BEEN SUCCESSFUL. Hours of tracking the Evanuris' agent through the paths and twisting ways of Arlathan, the near-loss of the trail, the capture, it had all been worth it in the end. They'd gotten the information that the group sorely needed.
That's what Casadh focuses on as they walk down the hall of the Lighthouse, glancing down to see blood in the cracks of their nail beds. It hadn't all washed off. They'd take care of it later.
Energy still buzzes just underneath their skin. It fills their stride with purpose and strength. It makes them feel powerful. This fight has gone on long enough. It is time to end it. It is time to take the false gods down once and for all.
They should talk to Solas. That would be the wise course of action.
The thought, however, grates on them more than normal. As though a hand is being drawn the wrong way down their skin—it makes them feel raw and vulnerable, which in turn makes them feel angry.
It could be that the energy from the mission hasn't yet left their body. It's probably what it is, and not—
Casadh shakes their head and sits in the meditation room. It takes longer than usual for them to quiet their mind enough to drift into a dream, into the Fade, but finally they do.
They pull themself through the small veil of dreaming sluggishly. Their limbs don't acclimate as quickly, and their breath catches, as though their body doesn't want them to be here. But the Fade is the realm of the mind and the spirit, so Casadh pushes onward and is able to settle into the space after a moment's struggle.
Solas is there—he looks worried.
They tilt their head, curious at his reaction. They think of how their last conversation had ended abruptly. They suppose it must have been strange, but for him to worry about them? There's a part of them that wishes to laugh at him.
They push that part away, shaking their head to dislodge the feeling of claws sinking into their skull.
A shadow falls over them, and this more than anything guides them to the conclusion that something is wrong. Shadows don't fall in the Fade. They grow, yes, and they slither sometimes. They rise like mist and drift like clouds. But they don't fall.
"Solas," they say, or try to. Their voice sounds loud and harsh to their ears. It sends a spike of white-hot pain through their temple. They squeeze their eyes shut, take a breath, and try again.
"Solas," they say, softer. The shadow falls heavier on their shoulders. Suddenly they're afraid to look back.
"Is something else here?"