#pre-dai

“Yes, Keeper,” she said. “Everything is packed and re-packed and double checked, just as you wanted.”

“Good,” said Deshanna. She ignored Aylwen’s tone. She’d never had much patience for whining, now as then. “Come here.”

Aylwen rolled her eyes, but moved closer. Deshanna stepped forward to adjust and smooth out minuscule wrinkles in her First’s travel clothes. Aylwen fidgeted.

“Keeper,” she protested. “I can manage on my own, you know.”

Deshanna gave her a look, but said nothing. She set about straightening Aylwen’s scarf, ignoring the second sigh and eye roll she got in response.

“What are you to do when you arrive in Kirkwall?” Deshanna said.

“Board the ship bound for Amaranthine,” Aylwen replied. “The ship leaves at half past. Don’t be late.”

For this last part, Aylwen did such a good impression of the Keeper that Deshanna couldn’t help by crack a smile, which Aylwen returned.

Satisfied that her apprentice’s clothes were in order, Deshanna stepped back, face settling into her usual serious expression.

“And from Amaranthine?” she said. “What are you to do?”

“Your contacts will be waiting at the docks,” Aylwen said. “I’m to travel with them to the Conclave by land.”

Deshanna nodded. “Very good. You remembered.”

Aylwen grinned. “Of course I did,” she said.

Still smiling, she reached for her pack and staff. After strapping them to her back, she stood before the Keeper and spread her arms.

“How do I look?” she said, turning in place.

Deshanna crossed her arms.

“Like an unremarkable mage,” she said. “Which is the point.”

“Keeper.”

Deshanna grinned again. She stepped forward, rested her hands on Aylwen’s shoulders, and met her eyes. She had to look up to do so. The girl was a good head taller than she was now.

“You look very grown up,” Deshanna said. “And I’m very proud of you.”

She felt a lump in her throat. What she said was true but, even so, when Deshanna looked at Aylwen she could still see the grinning, cheerful four-year-old she’d rescued and raised. For a moment, doubt clouded her thoughts. How could she let her apprentice go out into the world alone?

Aylwen seemed to sense what the Keeper was thinking, because she planted her own hands on Deshanna’s shoulders, and smiled bravely.

“I’ll be all right, Keeper,” she said. “I can look after myself.”

“I know,” Deshanna said. “But do be careful. Don’t go looking for trouble, and for goodness sake, avoid Templars.” She gave Aylwen a gentle shake, driving the point home.

“I’ll be careful,” Aylwen said.

She swallowed, seemed to hesitate, then leaned forward and swiftly embraced Deshanna. The Keeper hid her face in Aylwen’s shoulder and blinked back tears.

They stepped apart at the sounds of many footsteps and voices beginning to sing outside the tent. Deshanna cleared her throat.

“It seems they’re ready for you,” she said.

Aylwen nodded. Her own lip trembled. Deshanna tried to smile.

“Write when you get the chance,” she said. She gently nudged Aylwen forward. “Go on. They’re waiting.”

Aylwen nodded. With one last watery smile at the woman who’d raised her, she opened the tent flap and headed outside. Once she was gone, it rustled back into place.

Deshanna wiped her eyes, and took a moment to collect herself. She reminded herself that she was doing the right thing, that this experience would be good for Aylwen, and that she would be all right. She had to be.

Black as night with hair like the blood of a battle field, she comes to his valley with golden eyes and golden tipped teeth to match. She comes with a smirk that is as sharp as her golden claws. She comes with a roaring blood lust to defend his valley- as a matter of fact, she comes to him only minutes ahead of an invading army. She is one of the Namless- sworn enemies of the Evanuris- but she failed to consider him one of the False Gods even before he publicly cast the mantle aside. Yara has been... if not a friend, then a close acquaintance over the millennia. He has always found her personality to be as sharp as the various skins she wears, and almost entirely driven by her desires. But she is steadfast in her loyalties, so he is not entirely surprised that it is she who has come to aid him.

Some follower of Sylaise leads an army on her heels, and word has hardly reached him back at his palace before the battle begins. She rouses his freed slaves and gives their attackers one chance to lay down their arms. Some even do, perhaps seeing the delight in her eyes and understanding that this is a battle they would not win. The ones that don’t, she makes suffer. Her claws are golden but razor sharp, and they tear through the flesh of the People just as easily as through the meat of a meal. Her magic clings close to her skin like a shroud, but it catches anyone that dares too close and throttles them with pure force. She relentlessly rains fiery meteors on them. Then she takes the form of a golden lioness, every golden strand of fur sharp as a blade, and she lends herself earnestly to the battle.

Afterwards, he seeks her out. He takes his wolf form because he knows it’s impressive and, he can admit, he wants to impress her a little. He may not be a God but neither is he some rebellious child. She could be useful to him if properly reined in.

She basks in the blood of her vanquished foes and purrs as he draws near.

“I had wondered,” she drawls, “Why you didn’t take that form in the battle. Would we not have looked magnificent together?”

“I hardly wage battles for the aesthetic pleasure of them,” he intones with more than a touch disapproval.

“Perhaps that is your problem,” she says, and she raises from her pile of corpses with a leisurely stretch and a yawn. As if she were raising from a pile of cushions instead. “You take yourself very seriously, I see. It’s why they worship rather than follow you. Only Gods could be so serious about themselves.”

“Perhaps you don’t take yourself seriously enough,” he counters and falls into stride next to her. “Recklessness. It’s why you’ve never defeated the Evanuris.”

She gives an unlikely, lioness snort. They are headed back to the Eluvian that will lead to his palace. It is a path they have walked together many times. “Oh, fickle Pride. You’ve quite gotten in over your head haven’t you? The others would petition to join your armies.”

His tail twitches.

She lets out an amused hmph of air and continues, “For a price, of course. Ridiculous. The glory of battle is price enough for me.” Something in her eyes goes dangerous and glittering as she inclines her head to him in mock deference, but her tone doesn’t falter as she asks, “Should I report to you directly in future? Or to one of your battlemasters?

“There are no masters,” he begins to correct her immediately, only for her to cut his sentiment off,

“Only those content to be slaves.”

Now that sets his blood to a boil. “No one is content with slavery,” he snaps, and brings them to a halt.

She tilts her head, and her razor sharp mane follows the movement, tiny blades glinting in the sunlight. “No? They why do armies of them appear at your doorstop? Why do only some surrender and not all? Why consent to fight the Dread Wolf, Breaker of Chains, Father of Slaves, God of Rebellion? They are content with their slavery. They will defend it. You need my help.”

Well. And not many things surprise him anymore.

“I’ve done quite well for myself so far,” he says, and he hears the reproach in his own voice, wonders how she’s slipped under his skin so easily. This always happens with Yara. Sharp as her claws and too bold by half.

But maybe he’s in need of boldness.

“You are a God- or at least that’s how they will remember you.” she begins to circle him as she speaks, her razor-tipped tail just short of caressing his face, slicing one long whisker neatly in half, “You are entirely too intimidating for the average elf. You need a liaison, one that isn’t hanging onto your every word. They may know the Namless, but they do not know Yara. You need me.”

It is, truly, as simple as that.

There was a small village once, now a ruin, where a young farming woman named her newborn Pride and meant it only with love. When Yara cuts her eyes at him across their war table and snarls in defense of her strategy, he can understand why spirits of pride are so easily corrupted. When she leads the front line of each battle, laughing off his concerns for her safety, he can see the difference between Glory and Arrogance. But when she comes to him in the Great Hall of his castle, the head of a would-be slaver in one hand, and throws it as his feet as she takes a knee and swears to protect all of The People gathered there, even he can’t tell if it’s sincerity or simple showmanship.

So it is not out of mutual adoration when they go to bed together as much as mutual respect. He has been lonely, so lonely, since Mythal’s murder (she was the best of them. She was their mother, and the best of them, and they will not be able to flee his wrath,) and Yara is warm and inviting and, honestly, in need of entertainment. He makes an interesting diversion for her between battles, at the very least. She lays back on the pelts of his bed and grins, every inch of her naked form oozing pride, and she says, “I understand you served Andruil in bed for a year?”

He frowns and replies, “Untrue.”

Her eyes aren’t quite golden, they are amber- they match her lioness perfectly but in her elvhen face they are unnerving and startling, especially when they glitter with mirth.

“Pity. I’ve met her ladyship, in this and that truce council. She’s an,” and he is endlessly fascinated with the way she can sharpen her gaze into something cruelly sensual, “Experience. To be sure.”

The implications are scandalous. He is compelled- by honor, of course- to ravish the thoughts from her mind.

They wage war. They gain ground. She becomes a lieutenant, then a general, then his second in command. He likes to think that it is his guidance rather than the passing centuries that tempers her fury into something more keen- becomes the concentrated eye of the storm rather than the directionless whirlwind. The people of the valley celebrate her wherever she goes- equal parts awe and gratitude, and because she is Yara, she who will raise them high, and she lives up to her name. She still loves violence and gore and chaos but, begrudgingly, she comes to love him. 

There is no end in sight. They fight, and win, but they are fighting ranks filled with slaves who know no other purpose. They manage to assassinate a handful of slave owners, but come nowhere close to the Evanuris themselves. He gnashes his teeth and pulls his hair while Yara whispers, practically purrs, “Patience, my heart. They are not inexhaustible. The slave owners are not endless in their supply. Patience and we will kill them together.”

But he frets, oh, how he frets. How many slaves can they kill before he has to stop pretending that he is waging war for and not against them. How much innocent blood can be spilled? He wants to free them but they must want to be freed! Daily, the Nameless send him missives offering support, but their costs are too high. They want his allegiance, they expect recompense, and in the end he is sure they just want to step into the Evanuris’ spots. In any case, how can he accept and keep the support of the People? He prays to the Mother of Mercy, but if there’s anything left of Mythal it has long since forsaken him.

When he first conceives of the plan, he is half asleep and relaying it to Yara before he can really think of it. She stretches out on the bed next to him, every inch of her flush against him, and surveys him with lidded eyes. “Is it possible? Could you push back the Dreaming? Could you really hold back the sky?”

Her phrasing is less than perfect, but there are no words for what he is proposing. He shrugs, still drifting, and says, “If I could, it would certainly end all this much quicker. I could trap them all on the other side and be done with it.”

She trails the blunt edge of one nail across his chest. What he finds most appealing about her is how she must constantly and consciously choose not to hurt him. She is gentle with him, though it has never come naturally to her, and he remains appreciative even after all this time.

“It would destroy the world as we know it,” she says with an air of finality, “There would be little left to cherish. Put it from your mind, my heart. We will find another way.”