#da.fic

In Redcliffe, they passed the night indoors for the first time in weeks. Anansi soaked in a large stone tub until the water went cold, brushed fragrant Rivaini oils through his hair until it shone, and slipped a thin silken robe over his bare shoulders.

When he stood in the middle of Zevran’s room, smiling his little smile, the backlighting from the fireplace made the robe look transparent.

Zevran, reclining on the bed amidst at least five pillows -- most of them gleefully stolen from other rooms -- leaped to his feet in a fast and fluid motion that didn’t look at all careless or indolent.

“Ay no,” Zevran sighed as he took in the sight, his dismay evident. Anansi’s little smile faltered. “Amico. I have misled you.”

Not all the Old Gods are asleep or dead. The Dragon of Mystery has plans for us all, and one Grey Warden is about to set one of those plans into motion. 

“Elijah.”

“Serah Hawk,” Alain repeats, his expression strained, as if he is attempting to keep his face placid under great stress, “may I... speak with you? Just for a moment?”

Elijah studies Alain, his darting eyes, the sheen of sweat on his brow as the sun beats down upon the robe he wears with the cowl up over his head. There’s an urgency in his bearing, in the question he asks, despite his hesitation in asking. Elijah obliges him, walking with him into the shade of a pillar.

“This... Gallows... it’s not like Starkhaven. At all. I wish I’d went along with Grace, and given them an excuse to kill me--”

“Wait, Alain-- why? What’s wrong?” Eli’s chest tightens before Alain can even answer. He wears full robes with the cowl up, even in the sun.

“They... they’re...” Alain swallows, glances towards the templars standing guard some distance away, swallows again. When he looks at Elijah again, he shakes his head, his nerve lost.

“I think they’re watching me,” he whispers, distantly, and hurries away before Eli can stop him.

Elijah pegs the templars with a hard glare before he leaves, the Beast stirring in his gut.

a skirmish in the forests of Seheron. a contingent of Saarebas and their Arvaarad deployed to rout the Vints. a particular Arvaarad who is weary of battle, who probably isn’t paying as much attention as ey should have been. a strange specter in the fog -- not quite elven, not quite qunari, not quite mortal. 

they tell you that if something is lurking in the fog, kill it.

Arvaarad calls Saarebas from the main fray. the figure moves deeper into the fog. Arvaarad is annoyed, and instead of returning Saarebas to battle as ey should, drives them both into the forest after the figure.

“well, well. I knew you’d come,” the figure says from behind them, as fog obscures their vision. “I’m only in the market for the leashed one. leash-holder, you may go.”

twenty minutes later, the karataam finds Arvaarad wandering in the fog, blind and gibbering.

Saarebas finds emself in the hands of Zaarilek, in what ey can only understand as the Fade. perhaps it is the Fade; perhaps it isn’t, and is a place that mortals do not have stories about. perhaps it is a place of gods.

“you remember me,” Zaarilek says, not asking. Saarebas does. ey’d seen Zaarilek in dreams, and had not turned away. Saarebas turned away from nothing.

Saarebas watches Zaarilek every step of the way. 

it begins with blue lyrium, refined. it continues with blue lyrium, raw. it begins and continues with Zaarilek’s voice in song, in chant, stoking the fires in Saarebas’ mind where pathways degrade and reroute and form anew. it continues with blood from Avernus, it continues with blood from the Architect. it continues with saar-qamek like nothing the Qunari have used, and here Zaarilek is precise with its measurements, for the balance it is striking is more delicate than a spider’s freshly-spun web. it crescendoes with red lyrium, and the song sharpens and warps, twisting in like a corkscrew, and the pain is beyond pain -- Saarebas’ eyes remain open, but they see nothing now.

Zaarilek smiles almost lovingly as it places the dragon scales over Saarebas’ wide, unseeing eyes. “and behold! I have begun a new song, built upon the fading notes of the old.”

a place that mortals do not have stories about, but will; a place of gods, both old and new. in this place, Talan awaits. Talan, the Truth, once called Saarebas. Talan, the Truth, who cannot see into our world but sees much and more than we ever could, who smiles and sings, who welcomes all to hear eir song.

it is a song of dragons. it is a song of kossith, the firstborn mortals of dragons. it is a song of Titans and Old Gods, of Evanuris and Forgotten Ones. it is a song of Fen’Harel and Corypheus, of the Fade and the Void. it is a song of Razikale-Zaarilek and its children of the ninth age, a song of a new world.

It didn’t snow in the Anderfels. The Anderfels was wind and sand and sun. When a boy named Jethro was ripped from his mother’s caravan during the lull before dawn, the wind had quieted, the sand was still, and the sun was still under the horizon. While a trio of Tevinter slavers knocked the boy unconscious and slung him into a cart with four others and skirted the Orlesian border to spirit their elven cargo back to Tevinter post-haste, the only thing that stirred the sand was the horses’ well-shod heels.

As Jethro’s mother wailed, rending her clothing, the imprint of the slaver’s ring still in her lacerated cheek, neither sun nor wind had solace to offer her.

Magister Cassius called the whip-thin, stone-faced Ander boy ‘Third’, at first-- for he was third in Cassius’ sextet of young elven slaves. Later, when Cassius began to favour Third, began to fall in love with the way his body healed and hid all injury, with the way his lips never parted to cry out and his eyes never welled with tears, Cassius made Third first, and gave him a name-- Angiculus.

But when Cassius’ little snake tossed his shoulders back and shed his skin, took in the red lyrium that Cassius fed him and let it flower in his blood, let in the spirits that found him in the Fade and heeded their whispered instructions... when Cassius’ little snake turned red lyrium against him and then looked deep into his eyes as he slid the dagger in to the hilt with almost loving slowness, Cassius could only call him demon.

Jethro carefully wiped the blade clean and slipped it into the cloth belt wound around his slim hips, his own blood singing with power. He hadn’t thought he could do it-- but blessedly, the spirits and his own lyrium-infused blood didn’t give him time to think. He’d uncoiled and struck, and now he waited.

The spirits left him to infiltrate the slaves like a virus. Elven youth that had felt Jethro’s fingertips brush them in the months leading up to now were seeing visions. They were looking upon their masters with new eyes. They were uncoiling and striking. The Magisterium was running red with blood, and this time it was theirs.

Jethro stepped out onto Cassius’ balcony and felt the wind on his scarred cheeks. Next came snow, cold and sharp and stinging, like sand in an Ander storm. The wind picks up, driving the snow against him, and though he is underdressed, he doesn’t shiver or hustle back indoors.

The dragon Zaarilek had pushed him towards the nascent Inquisition, at that time just the three advisors and the Vashoth with the Anchor. At that time, but already people were beginning to magnetise towards Haven, people from all reaches of Thedas, as if Haven bore a deep gravity well at its core.

Solas knew what the gravity well was. The Anchor was the gravity well. The Herald who would vanquish the demons and close the sky.And behind em, the wolf who would open it up again, open it wide and pull heaven through.

The wolf, hungry wolf, thwarted and alienated and denied a pack.The wolf slunk to Haven with the Inquisition, and when Kasaanda tried to thank him for watching over em, he pulled away.“Fine. But I am not here to make friends,” he warned em, for eir own good, as he told himself.

So it went with Varric Tethras, who shrugged and laughed as he left Solas alone. So it went with Elias Lavellan, who along with Dorian rolled their eyes at him in such perfect synchronicity that it was uncanny. So it went with Ashala-aqun, who kept her shrewd eye on him, and with Leliana, who said, “neither am I,” and with Annis the Avvar, who squeezed his shoulder with a sad smile that made Solas sick to his stomach. He assumed, or pretended, that the illness was because he was disgusted.

“I am not here to make friends,” he warned Hiberna Skaara, who knew him before the sky had opened, who’d walked the Fade with him beside her, a bristly vantablack wolf with eyes like the stars and shadows wreathed around his feet. She had not been afraid of him then, and she wasn’t afraid of him now.

“Then you’re a fool, puppy,” she said without reservation, laughing, her dark eyes daring him to retort. “What do you think you’re here for?”

To get the Orb, he thought, stung and snappish as he turned away from her. To build my army. To infiltrate.

Surely.

Arvaarad is afraid, too. Ey do not believe in eir ability to do what must be done. But it is a quiet fear, and ey rock it to sleep with a few whispered lines of the Qun. The most important one, they repeat, three times. Maraas shokra. Maraas shokra. Maraas shokra. Arvaarad is given this Purpose because ey are strong, and steady, and have never needed correction for fostering attachment. In skirmish trials, ey chose to protect, and performed admirably in leadership tests. When Tamassran handed Arvaarad the tools for the ritual, Arvaarad did not flinch, but gazed steadily into Tamassran's eyes and answered with the voice of conviction. Ey would do what must be done, and pass into Purpose with Saarebas leashed at eir side.

"Do you remember the story?" ey ask Saarebas, finally, eir voice still lilting with the edge of youth, although its timbre has dropped significantly in the past year. Saarebas looks up at em, sullen in eir tearfulness, ashamed and defiant. Arvaarad feels a pang in eir heart, and sighs. This was going to be hard. This was going to be so hard.

"Do you remember?" Ey open the box, making a matter-of-fact gesture of it, hoping to remind Saarebas that Purpose is as inexorable as the tides, to remind Saarebas that one either flows with the tides or is swept away by them. Arvaarad is afraid to do this to Saarebas, true, but Arvaarad will do it anyway, just so. Saarebas is afraid to have this done to em, but it will be done to em, just so. Asit tal-eb.

"First Saarebas did not understand what ey were," Saarebas intones dully, and Arvaarad nods, lifting the needle from the box and dipping it in caustic oil to remove any lingering impurities. Ey threaded it with thick black thread as ey took up the tale.

"First Saarebas was born after Ashkaari Koslun brought the Qun to us and made us what we are. Until then, order had reigned within the Qunari -- all knew eir purpose, and all lived according to that purpose, and did not question or struggle. Civilisation progressed, and the Qun was known to be wise and rightful by its fruit. First Saarebas struggled. The Qun did not quell the tempest that raged within eir mind. First Saarebas dreamed, and travelled far in dreams, and saw things that stretched First Saarebas' mind to madness. The madness manifested in First Saarebas' works -- in the wild magic that spilled from eir hands and destroyed crops instead of cultivating them, and in the strife-stirring words that spilled from eir lips and confused minds instead of strengthening them. First Saarebas threw eir village into turmoil, raving of things not known since before the Qun, destroying the work of Ashkaari Koslun, who'd brought the Qun to us and quelled our fever-maddened minds."

Arvaarad stands and approaches Saarebas, kneeling before em and tipping eir chin upwards, smoothing back eir hair over freshly-shorn horns. Ey finish the story for Saarebas, eir voice heavy with both duty and fondness, and the strength of the bond between both.

"First Saarebas had to be killed, for the sake of the village. And the Ben-Hassrath of that village devised the Ritual of Saarebas, so that killing would not be necessary again. We value you and we protect you. Arvaarad is given unto you, a bulwark against madness. Saarebas is given unto me, a duty to honour. This is the Ritual of Saarebas. Anaan essam Qun."

Saarebas closes eir eyes when Arvaarad begins to sew, eir body tight and trembling and eir hands clenched into fists from which thin tricklets of blood soon began to run, but ey do not make a sound. Arvaarad's heart swells with pride, but outwardly ey are stoic, pushing the curved needle in through the bottom lip, up into the inside of the top lip, and out and around, over and over, until Saarebas' lips are sewn. Arvaarad touches a finger gently to a bead of blood, touching the finger to eir own lips. A silent, sacred gesture.

Later, the stitches would be undone, so that Saarebas could eat and drink, but the meaning of the ritual would remain embedded, like words etched in stone. Saarebas would only speak at Arvaarad’s behest. Saarebas would only speak the words that Arvaarad allows. And Arvaarad would not take advantage of this, would not make mockery of Saarebas’ plight, would not make light of the gravity of their bond.

The closer they got to Haven, the more uneasy Alistair felt. He’d been enjoying his new companions, even in the midst of his grief. And this grief was heavy, because Ali loved hard-- Ali had always loved hard, and his parents had always warned him that it would cause him great pain every time.

-- Not his parents. His... kidnappers? But they hadn't kidnapped him, someone else had, a stone-faced warrior who wore his grief as a mantle of vengeance. And these surrogate parents of his were right. He felt great pain whenever he thought of them, whenever he reminded himself that they weren't truly anything to him at all, not according to blood. They said facing the truth consistently and ruthlessly would harden him, make him strong. He felt brittle and eroded, instead.

The closer they got to Haven, the more distant he felt from his new companions; he felt the call of the mountains like a second pulse in his veins, like a song that he desperately wished to sing again. And that hurt, too, because he wanted to tell them, Anansi especially; wanted to share this thing with them that was so visceral and integral and immediate, but there were no words for it. Just a hollow, echoing ache.

"Do you miss the Circle?" he asks Anansi in desperation, as they make camp. Anansi laughs, shortly, as if he can't imagine such a thing... but then he sobers, his brow furrowed. "I think so," he says, finally, his dark eyes soft in the flickering firelight. "I don't know how not to. It's the only place I've ever known. But, Alistair..." he looked up to meet Alistair's gaze, seeming almost confused. "I don't want to go back. Not now. I think I am beginning to like it out here, as strange and stressful as it is. So why do I miss the Circle, if I do not want to be there?"

It is a tug-of-war feeling, Alistair realises now, as the mountains become clearer and crisper on the horizon, looming closer in their immediate line of sight; as Anansi starts to shiver almost constantly and Alistair finds he'd rather wrap Anansi in his fur cloak than wear it himself; as the wind howling through tall evergreens keeps them awake at night -- all except Alistair, who sleeps soundly for the first time in weeks -- and they see the first dusting of snow. He is tugged towards the first and only home he's known, but he is also tugged towards now, towards the life he is making for himself, and the people he is making that life with.

When they get to Haven, the pain is overwhelming. The Frostbacks are there, filling his vision, filling his lungs with biting cold air, tousling his long hair with whistling winds. Sten stirs, begins to grumble-- something about them wasting time --and then digs his heels in the dirt and challenges the Wardens' tenuous authority over the group. Morrigan perches on a rock and watches the argument with dry amusement. Leliana, more bemused than amused, shakes her head. Anansi originally tries to reason with Sten but backs off as Briar Heart confronts em, and their shared frustration with each other -- something like animosity but something also like kinship denied far too vehemently -- reaches a fever pitch.

Alistair is drifting towards the center of the ghostly town, listening to the call. He aches, hollowly. He doesn't see Anansi's lonely confusion, looking from the arguing qunari to the silent women and then to Alistair, far away from them, his face turned up to the sky. 

He goes to Alistair. He calls out timidly as he approaches, and Alistair starts and turns around, smiling automatically, although a little wanly.

"Sorry. Got distracted."

"You want to go home," Anansi guesses, and he sounds sad-- he sees himself at the edge of a chasm, one he can't cross, and Alistair is on the other side, turned away from him. The flinty ice of loneliness in Alistair’s heart cracks.