A Grey Warden 🕊️

There was no mistake; it was his mother’s voice. She had a unique smoothness to her notes that he’d rarely heard since she disappeared in the Vyrantium marketplace twelve years ago. The weapons slackened in Jerran’s grip until they hung limply at his side. Mamae? 

No. It was a trick. It had to be. His mother was gone.

The Child’s scream shook him out of his stupor as they clapped their hands over their ears. “TOO LOUD!” The Child shrieked. 

Clasping their hands over their ears, they screamed, “I NEED SPACE!” before darting off into the fog.

“Hey, wait, da’len!” Fuck, fuck, fuck! Regaining a firm grip on his weapons, Jerran charged after the Child. 

Where are you? Where. Are. You?

All Jerran could hear was his heavy breathing and the muffled crunch of his boots against the dusty floor. “Da’len?” he called. This kid…. Having to play Halla and Wolf like a child…  

How long was this room? No matter how far he walked, it seemed to stretch further and further. He paused to reach for his water and grimaced when he remembered the Demon had swiped his belt. Reaching down, he drew an arrow in the dust in an attempt to mark the way; as soon as he stood, a frigid breeze obscured any trace of the mark.

Shit. Was it hours? Days? Jerran turned around; with a thick mist coating everything like a shroud, this place was more confusing than the Necropolis. He startled when the Voice echoed around him.

“What is it that you desire most?” 

“Fuck off. I don’t have time to play this game,” Jerran snapped. He stepped toward the direction where the Child fled —- 

And tripped as the ground seemed to cave beneath him. His stomach flipped and he gasped sharply at the sensation of falling.

“Time? You have all the time in the world right now,” the Voice said, laughing gleefully. “Let’s see…. Fame? Love? Wealth?” It paused, nails tapping.

Jerran didn’t answer, fearing that he’d puke up whatever was left in his stomach.

“Ah. Prestige. You wonder what life would have been like as a noble's foundling, yes? Not having to scrape for scraps in the gutter, given the best education. Having a mother who was more than just a liberati.”

Licking his lips, Jerran tried to speak around a dry mouth. “Okay, fine. I just want to get out of this fucking trap.” 

As though he didn’t answer, The Voice continued, “Or …. You always hated feeling helpless. Be honest – you didn’t join the Midnight Stars or the Wardens out of duty or the longing to belong. You wanted something, didn’t you? You wanted power. Anything to keep from being helpless again. And you’ll do anything to get it. Even sacrificing your values and your body.”

It paused before its tone sharpened. “So I ask you again, little elf: What is it that you most desire?”

This demon really liked to monologue. “Fuck off.” Jerran reached out to grab at the ground flying by him and touched merely air. His fingers passed through the seemingly solid rocks. An illusion.

Taking a knee, he touched unseen ground. You’re not falling. It’s just the stupid demon. Closing his eyes, he breathed in deeply, coughing slightly on the dust to re-orient himself. The runes… how long were they activated? He touched the tip of his nose with his wrist. No blood yet. I need to speed this along. 

The ground – and his vertigo – steadied. Standing, Jerran peered at the darkness around him. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, guilt-trip me into doing something stupid with a long boring-ass speech. Y’know what? I sucked at paying attention in class. So hurry it up before I fall asleep.”

The Voice from before sighed. “I was hoping to have a civilized conversation, but since you have the attention span of a gnat, memories will have to do.”  

Piercing, dazzling, white light blinded him. Throwing up his arm to block the flash,  he turned to shout at the Voice. What the fuck. 

The painful light eased back and Jerran found himself standing in an empty space. “What the…. Where am I?” He took a step forward, hearing the dust crunching under his boots. 

The blank space changed. Memories bled into each other like water tossed over chalk paintings at the end of the day. He turned, trying to avoid them, but they continually shifted into his field of vision.

 Jerran saw himself, age eight, crying as his father told him that Mamae was never coming back; then he was suddenly in a Vyrantium alley watching his younger self clutching a gold coin smeared with horse dung as several older boys chased him — 

Then himself a bit older, defending a helpless girl from drunk nobles. His broken arm dangled as the men poured cheap rye whiskey over his head and threatened to cut him or shove the bottle up his — 

Vyrantium shifted; suddenly he was in the middle of a dark town. A boisterous crowd of laughing mercenaries surrounded a shop, dousing it in lantern oil and trampling over its broken doors. 

A slight figure stepped forward and lit a match, revealing himself, age fourteen. A mop of overgrown curly hair that tumbled down to his shoulders. Young Jerran tugged at the tunic sleeves swallowing his thin arms and nearly tripped in leather boots engulfing his feet. 

This night – this night was seared into his memory. Jerran’s mouth went dry at the scent of a familiar, spicy tobacco permeating the air. 

Please, don’t do it. 

Young Jerran’s eyes gleamed in the dim light as he turned to look toward the man towering above him. “I get to be a member, right? If I do this? The shopkeeper isn’t home, right?”

Edrik Kesper. Just as Jerran remembered him – seemingly larger than life, with the damned pipe in his mouth, puffing smoke. Burly, with muscles swung a large axe like it was a child’s toy.  

The man knew every name, every scrap of information of the fifty or so mercenaries under his command. He's been the balm for Jerran's wounded soul that cried out for a father. Jerran had idolized him, wanted to just be like him.

But now, with clarity gained from experience and passing of time, Jerran now saw the coldness in the human’s squinting grey eyes. A momentary sneer hovered on Kesper's narrow lips as the younger Jerran turned away from him to high-five the crowd.

The mercenary leader guffawed and slapped the smaller elf on the back, staggering him. He puffed away at the pipe in his mouth. “Son, after this Initiation, you’re a Midnight Stars member, all right.”

Don’t. Please. Jerran opened his mouth to shout.

With a flourish, Young Jerran tossed the match into the building and grinned as the timber instantly caught on fire.

Kesper whooped, raising Young Jerran’s arm in the air. “The First Part’s done! Halfway to being a member, boy!”

Jerran knew that the crackling and roar of flames filled his younger self’s ears and the headiness of the alcohol and attention had distracted him enough where the sounds faded into the background. 

But with his current honed hearing trained after weeks in the Deep Roads, this time, Jerran heard it —- a thin wail of agony rose from inside the burning shop. 

The realization hit him with the full force of an ogre: his first kill hadn’t been a mercenary train. 

Jerran staggered, the runes flickering rapidly.

Other memories – killing merchants and mercenaries, becoming a Grey Warden. Being trapped with Kaed in a Venatori hideout, taking his eye. The images marched mercilessly through Jerran's mind until he screamed, “Enough! I get your fucking point!”

The Voice tsked at him. “With a past like that? You’re nothing but a liberarti murderer and a thief. Did you really think you were good enough for Eleanor Rudith Amaryllis Ingellvar? She has the finest education afforded to her as a member of nobility. You drag her down to your level.”

It was true. The amount of time he’d embarrassed her. The stupid voice didn’t even need to replay the memories this time. He curled up, remembering her face when he’d accidentally insulted her relative at a Nevarran ball: 

“I would have expected even a foundling daughter of Khoen and Yesult to know her manners better,” the woman looked at him like he'd stomped all over her fine robes in muddy boots. 

He bit back a choice retort. “Then I guess you’re not worth —” 

Eleanor grabbed his arm, looking absolutely horrified. “Duchess Isa Ingellvar, may I present Junior Grey Warden Jerran Thorne? My suitor.”

So, this was that Duchess. Jerran raised an eyebrow. 

“Mmm.” The duchess’s lips twisted. Then she dismissed him and took Eleanor’s hands. “Eleanor, please extend my courtesies to your parents. Tell them that they were sorely missed and we may need to discuss budget cuts the next time we meet.” The woman immediately turned away. 

Jerran glanced down at Eleanor, who looked like she was visibly wilting. “Ellie?” 

“That was her. The one that Mother and Father wanted me to greet. I failed to recognize her and now….” She hesitated, blinking rapidly. “Jerran, just let me speak with people, all right? Please.” 

Shit. “Ellie, I —-” 

“It’s not your fault. You didn’t know.” She forced a smile, but he could still see a hint of tears in her eyes.

“Or that time you mixed up metaphor and meteor on the Notice Board? Or when you became the official lightweight Drinker at the Lighthouse with the baby bottles? Your so-called Veilguard companions take pity on her, you know. The irony – the booklover with a barely literate libarati.”

That wasn’t true. She’d told him repeatedly that he was enough. That… He faltered. He was trying to further his education. But the gods and constantly fighting Venatori and Darkspawn slowed that endeavor. And for some reason he just couldn’t stay focused on the words.

“But I can fix that. You can live out the life that you’ve wanted. Become worthy of someone of her station. Everything changes with just one little event." A mahogany door appeared at the end of the room. “Would you like to see your mother?”

Mamae? He looked around, a spark of hope igniting in his chest. “My mamae’s alive?”

The door swung open, revealing a shadowy room that wavered and shimmered like a melted painting. “Why don’t you find out?”

There was so much that he wanted to tell her. He never got to say good-bye, or how much he loved her. Their last conversation was an argument over doing his schoolwork – a stupid, trifling thing that had nearly driven her to tears.

 He had to tell her about joining the Wardens, Eleanor, everything. His feet seemed to move on their own; he found himself standing in front of the door. Faintly, he could hear familiar laughter that he hadn’t heard in over a decade. Mamae. 

 With a cackle, the demon snapped its long fingers and all went dark. The last they heard in space was the simple whisper: “Let's begin.”

—-----

Jerran froze as everything went dark. For a few long moments, only the heavy sound of his own breathing echoed in his ears; he stretched out his arms in an attempt to gauge the space around him. His fingers touched only air. Where am I?

Despite the layers of armor, a slight shiver ran through his body, and he coughed as his feet accidentally kicked up unseen clouds of dust. He swallowed, his saliva tasting of ashy grit. The air stabbed his lungs like a Crow’s knife.

The darkness seemed to lighten into a dull gray as his elven eyes adjusted. Looking around, Jerran found himself in a large room with corners that seemed to blur into inky shadows. Dust motes danced in the dim light shed by an opening far above his head. 

He took a step forward with a muffled crunch,  covering his mouth and nose with his right arm. Silence pressed in around him, only broken by the sound of his own footsteps. 

Something – someone? – whimpered. Jerran whipped around, his hand grappling for a sword missing from his side, a bow that no longer hung from his back. He raised his fists defensively and took a stance. “Hey? Anyone there?” he called softly, words landing heavily in the space between the unknown entity and himself.

He turned at the slight rustling of cloth and then a scraping movement from the farthest corner across the room. There. Cautiously, he edged forward, prepared to run or fight.  As he drew closer, he spotted the unmistakable shape of a small humanoid huddled against the wall. 

Two miniature elongated ears emerged from slits cut into a worn brown hood that covered the stranger’s face. Even as Jerran stared, the child – at least they looked like a child – curled up, shoulders shaking as they whimpered. 

This had to be a trick, right? Jerran stopped several feet away out of the child’s reach. “Hey, kid. Are you all right?”

“I… I don’t know.” Their shoulders trembled as they used the sleeve of a worn brown tunic to wipe under the hood. When they pulled their arm away, snot glistened near their wrist. “I wanna go home. I want my mamae.”

Mamae. An elf? The young voice was oddly familiar, one that Jerran had heard before. . But, there didn't seem a way for him to quite place it. It was as though his mind wouldn't allow him.Or perhaps it was the surroundings. The cold air. Who knew? 

Jerran softened his tone. “How did you get here? Are you from the Circle of Mages?”

Before the child could reply, a familiar, deep voice echoed through the room. “To state that I will get you is – if  you lose… it is not you that I want, but that of your body. Either way...I will have access.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Jerran felt his head begin to throb in time to the runes pulsing in his back and neck. “Hurry up, I’m getting bored.” Where was it coming from? He couldn’t pinpoint it.

He nearly jumped at the clatter of steel falling behind him – the noise raucous in the otherwise still room that seemed to smother the child’s whimpering. Turning, Jerran found his weapons carelessly tossed in the middle of the floor. He coughed as the dust coated his lungs. 

The Demon whispered, “Pick them up and we shall begin the test, little worm..."

Jerran edged backwards, eyes and ears alert in case anything tried to ambush him. After a few long moments, he snatched up the quiver and bow, looping them around his back before he picked up the shortsword and his bollock dagger. The runes made the weapons feel feather-light. He hefted them experimentally. "Now what, stupid slug?"

A snap of invisible spindly fingers accompanied the voice as it surrounded and filled the room. “We shall now begin…” 

Jerran’s ears picked up the strange noise of liquid filling a cup. Two shadowy beings appeared in the room on either side of him, swaying like snakes that he’d seen in a Rivani marketplace.

At the sight, the child screamed and attempted to crawl further into the corner.

In the dimness, Jerran could see the one on his right, a twisted, spindly thing, shifting forward, its shadow dragging across the ground. At the child’s shrill cry, it abruptly turned and reached toward the helpless young elf.

“Now...protect that child..."

The second hunched Shadow swung around and began in the direction of Jerran, sliding right up to his face -- seemingly ready to consume him in its darkness.

Jerran dodged and swung his dagger at the shadow swaying in his face. The blade slashed across its neck where the cataroid artery would be located. The slash felt cold on Jerran's hand, but the hit certainly touched something – the shadow growled hollowly in response.

It reached out towards the elf, but Jerran easily ducked away from its slow attempt. The child. Where was the child? He frantically searched the room. 

There.  The child clawed at the far wall, doing all that they could to try and get through it before the shadows arrived at their side. They seemed to...know these shadows. Or at least...their intent.

The first Shadow, ignoring Jerran, swept and stood before the child, growing seemingly larger in size. A hand disconnected from its cloud and reached towards the child's head, connecting slowly. The child screamed at the touch. A sharp agony - blinding as one of his grenades – exploded in Jerran’s head.

Staggering, he clutched his forehead; only thousands of hours of training prevented him from losing his hold on his weapons. He struggled to take in a breath – and choked as a dark mist clouded his vision.

Fuck! He’d lost track of the secondShadow. Jerran reached up to grab his throat as it encased him, slipping through his lips into his throat, pulling all oxygen with it. Can’t breathe… air… please…  

From the corner of his eye, he saw the child in the first Shadow’s grip. Fury at his own helplessness filled him. .Don’t you fucking touch them!

As though in response to Jerran’s thoughts, an unseen force slammed down the first Shadow like a hammer driving upon its wispy body. It screeched and shot across the room to the opposite wall of the child. 

His head cleared along with the pain. 

Now. 

Jerran flipped his dagger around and repeatedly stabbed the second Shadow’s chest, a coldness enveloping his hand with each slash. With his other hand, he attempted to yank the Shadow from his mouth; he only had one shot before he lost consciousness.

With a screech, the Shadow flew from Jerran's body, dragging further against the floor as though much of the strength had escaped with its 'stab wound'. It slid into the wall, clawing at it as though it wanted to escape now.

The first Shadow noted its partner struggling, and rushed towards them; after a moment, the they both oozed away from Jerran and the child. Jerran blinked; for an instant, he thought he caught sight of a man’s familiar features flickering across the first Shadow’s face – a man who had abandoned him after the loss of his very mother. 

A small hand tugged at his wrist as an even smaller voice whispered, “Mister? Are you okay?”

Relief along with a hint of wariness filled Jerran as he turned to find the Child standing at his elbow, the hood obscuring their face.They sounded young. Maybe an immature five year old? He pulled back his hand. Who knows what the fuck was wandering in the Fade and why were they connected? “Who are you?”

“I… I don’t know.” Their shoulders trembled as they used the sleeve of a worn brown tunic to wipe under the hood. When they pulled their arm away, snot glistened near their wrist. “I wanna go home. I want my mamae.”

Maker’s Balls. Jerran sighed. “You can stick with me unless you’re a demon or something. Then I’ll have to kill ya.” Okay, maybe I shouldn't have said that, he thought as the Child burst out sobbing. But… if it was a demon, it wouldn't have an issue with that, right? “Come on. Promise I won’t kill you. But we aren’t going to get anywhere if we just stand here.” He offered his hand again.

The Child stared at Jerran’s hand before slowly taking it in his. Jerran tried once again to peer under the hood, but the Child turned to wipe at their nose. We can’t stay here. Taking a deep breath, he stepped forward.

_________

As they walked, a thick fog settled over them, muffling all sound, including their footsteps. Jerran held up his hand; even with his Elven abilities, he still had trouble seeing all five fingers in the dim light. 

The Child had dropped his hand a while back and walked silently next to his elbow. A few faint sniffles helped Jerran keep track of their presence. How had a Child ended up in the Fade? And why were the Spirits trying to capture them? Not for the first time, Jerran wished he was a mage and not a rogue. He tightened his grip on his sword.

The first Shadow crouched just out of the elf’s line of sight, its eyes blinking silently at the two standing in a swirl of mist. It swayed to a tune that only it could hear, dark tendrils wafting from its body.

The Child suddenly stumbled and Jerran reflexively caught them by the shoulder. “Hey. You okay, da’len?”

They shuddered, flinching.

Jerran instantly released them, his heart sinking. He’d seen that look many times before, had done it himself. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Won’t do it again. Do you need a rest –” 

Then he heard it. A low humming that sent a shiver through his body and his hands shook. It seemed to come from nowhere and yet everywhere, surrounding them, bursting from their chest. It was a sound that he hadn’t heard in twelve years since he was eight years old.

Tel'enfenim, da'len  Irassal ma ghilas  Ma garas mir renan  Ara ma'athlan vhenas  Ara ma'athlan vhenas

Never fear, little one, Wherever you shall go. Follow my voice-- I will call you home. I will call you home.