The Dread Wolf's Heart

by Feynite

Summary:

Death and time travel and ancient elven trickster gods, oh my.

(Because of course it wouldn't just end with the villain's defeat like a normal story.)

Chapter 1: Death

 

 

 

The breach closed. The orb fell, empty, from her grasp.

She rounded on Corypheus.

Anger sang in her veins. So much. So much, and yet it was cold, like metal shards in her heart. All the suffering this creature had caused. The deaths at the conclave. The Templars. The Grey Wardens. Red Lyrium and its madness. Every child killed by a demon freed through the rifts, every villager kidnapped to be fed to the lyrium mines, the ancient elves and the Temple of Mythal – even the orb, silent on the ground, a piece of the past sullied and shattered by Corypheus’ greed.

She reached out, intent on tearing him from existence itself. How do you even know you can? a voice in the back of her mind wondered, incredulous; the young elf who could still scarcely believe any of this was happening, the simple hunter from the Free Marches. But she knew. It seemed so simple right then, so clear.

“No!” Corypheus bellowed, and reached back, a split second of familiar magic flying from his hand. Magic she had not seen since Redcliff.

Time magic.

Clarity hit her, for one pure second, and she realized her mistake. Of course he would not let it end here. Of course he would, at the moment of defeat, risk tearing the world apart to preserve himself; he had been ready to do just that with the breach. Of course his sheer egotism would not allow him to use it until the last possible instant.

Shit, she thought, in the moment of revelation, and twisted her fingers sharply to try and finish him off before…

Rift magic met Time magic.

A clash of bright green light and purple-black void. Corypheus’ body split and crackled and burned, and the wave of magic washed over her, consumed her in turn. It felt like being pulled in a thousand directions at once, and she wondered if she had done to herself what she did to her enemy; if the rift had won and taken them both in the process.

Voices shouted in alarm.

There was enough of her left to turn, barely, to see him standing there, by the shattered remnants of the orb. His eyes were wide with horror. He started towards her, hand reaching, as if he could have ever possibly pulled her from such danger.

No, don’t come close!

It didn’t matter, then, that he left her. That his explanations for it would never come. If this was to be her end, she would look at him, one last time. She would keep him safe.

“Solas,” she whispered, not even sure he could hear her over the roar of the magic. The pain was getting lesser; but she had the terrible suspicion that if she looked down, she would see it was because parts of her were simply gone, consumed in the maelstrom. "Ar lath ma.”

He was moving too close, more panic than she had ever seen on him before written across his expression.

“Vhenan!”

She wrenched, with what little hold she could get on the anchor, and pulled herself and the spell and all that she could away from him. Away from everyone.

The Fade opened around her, spirits shrieking.

Green light turned to black.

Her thoughts scattered, and she was gone.

 

~

 

She woke.

That… was a surprise.

Stone walls stretched around her. Skyhold? She blinked, and sat up carefully. It felt strange. Not pained, which was another surprise, but… hazy. It took her a while to focus enough to look at herself. But she wasn’t lying on the ground, as she would have expected upon suddenly waking from unconsciousness. It appeared she was… standing?

That wasn’t even close to the strangest thing, though somehow it was what she noticed first. Perhaps because the rest was even harder to wrap her disjointed thoughts around.

Slowly, she lifted a hand, and stared through it.

The light pierced the hazy outline of what should be flesh. Instead she looked like a wraith, green and pale, barely visible even to herself. Only the mark remained strong; but it didn’t look like a mark, anymore. It was more like a small green sun instead, caught in vague cage of her palm.

Was she a ghost, then?

Was this death?

She looked around, and drew some small comfort from the familiar walls. It was Skyhold, she realized. But comfort fled, the more she looked. She was in main hall, and yet there was no one else there. Something terrible seemed to have happened. The throne was gone, the tapestries in rags, debris and dirt strewn everywhere. The light was sickly yellow, rather than the warm golden of true sunlight.

It looked like Skyhold as they first found it, she realized. Or, not exactly like that, but in a similar enough state of disrepair and neglect.

Tentatively, she moved forward. Drifted. Her motion was somewhere between gliding and walking. The air felt thick, almost like water.

“What’s going on?” she wondered. The words echoed off into silence.

It wasn’t until she passed through the main doors – right through, in fact, it tingled slightly – and looked up to see a twisted sky, full of floating islands and the distant outline of the Black City, that she started to piece together something of an answer.

The Fade.

Of course. Skyhold was well, she told herself. She was only in a shadow of it, an echo in the Fade.

She was a spirit, then? Maybe… something like what Justinia was? That would make sense, she supposed. It wasn’t precisely a comforting thought, but at least it gave her some understanding of events to cling to. And things were quiet. There didn’t seem to be any other spirits around. No fear demons or monsters.

She explored, quietly, trying to absorb her new reality. The shape of Skyhold around her was remarkably complete. Remarkably present, if ruined, neglected. She wondered why. Was it just a memory, of how it once was? Maybe even her own memory?

Solas would know.

She stilled.

Solas. The others. Did they make it out? Her eyes swept across the hold, almost as if she expected them to come walking through the gates, bedraggled but alive; but of course, this was the Fade. Unless things went very wrong, they wouldn’t be here.

But there must be some way for her to find out, mustn’t there? Some echo of the battle that she could reach, perhaps. Or a dreaming mage she could find and ask. If this facsimile of Skyhold was somehow tied to the real one, then there should have been plenty of mages close by.

The peculiarity of Skyhold’s emptiness suddenly occured to her, then. There should have been much more going on around her. They had mage allies, and the Eluvian; they made huge political decisions, and practiced strange spells, and had Cole and Solas and Morrigan all drawing attention from the Fade at Skyhold. This place should have been full of spirits, dreaming mages, echoes, and memories.

But then she thought of the spell she dragged into the Fade with her, in an effort to save her companions. The shrieking spirits she’d heard. Were they all killed? That was an unpleasant prospect. Or perhaps – hopefully – they’d merely fled, and would be back once they realized the danger had passed.

If it had, actually, passed.

She looked down at the anchor, still burning in her. Following her even unto death, apparently.

Answers. She needed to know. Were they alright?

“First things first,” she told herself, trying to ground her rising distress with the cadence of a voice in her ears. Even if it was only her own. “Familiarize yourself with the terrain.”

That thought in mind, she set out to explore.

 

~

 

It was hard for her to say how much time passed as she drifted in the Fade ruins of Skyhold. Instead of mountains beyond the bridge, she found sharp drops into sudden blackness, expanses that made her feel uneasy if she looked at them for too long. The courtyard was filled with tiny golden lights, like fireflies, that tingled when she touched them, and helped chase away some of her fear.

Up on the battlements she could see something shimmering. A barrier of some kind? She had no idea what it was, anyway, but it didn’t seem threatening. Morrigan had once told her that Skyhold had old protections on it. Perhaps those manifested somehow in the Fade.

The workshop was full of glittering, silver crystals. The tavern was empty, rundown, but very warm for some reason. She found she could open doors, if she preferred, though it took concentration. But it was less also markedly less disconcerting than just passing through walls.

It took her a little while to work up the nerve to open the tower door. That was a habitual hesitation, she supposed, one she had developed ever since Solas had taken her to Crestwood. Often she went in through other doors, avoiding the entryway to the base level. He’s not there, she reminded herself. Based on what she had seen, his murals would be gone, too.

Or he would be there, walking in dreams, in which case, she very much needed to go into the tower and had no business delaying it at all, because that might finally get her some answers. Whatever else lay between them, he wouldn’t be indifferent to her plight.

So saying to herself, she opened the door.

And froze.

For the first second, all she could feel was deep incomprehension, as her mind refused to accept what her eyes were, inexplicably, seeing.

The floor of the tower was cavernous as ever. Gone were the library and the rookery above. Instead, only blackness stretched there, deep and dark, but she scarcely noticed that. Circular bare walls stretched around, as they had when she had first seen it almost a year ago and wondered what the big, round room was meant to be for.

In the middle of the chamber, on a pedestal, sat an Eluvian. Unlike the one Morrigan had shown her, it was cracked. No pieces were missing, but the glass was splintered, as if a heavy fist had struck the very center of it at some point.

But she scarcely noticed that, either.

Curled behind the mirror, big enough to almost take up the entire room, a many-eyed wolf slumbered. Its dark fur rose and fell with every breath it took. Between its front paws lay a familiar orb, still and silent.

Fen’Harel, her thoughts whispered.

Slowly, she backed out of the room, and shut the door again.

 

~

 

So.

Problems. 

Problem number one – she was trapped in the Fade, in Skyhold, and there didn’t appear to be any way for her to leave either. Not the Fade, and not Skyhold-in-the-Fade.

Problem number two – she apparently had no body.

Problem number three – the Dread Wolf was sleeping in her former lover’s room. Cuddled up with two ancient elven artifacts of immense power, one of which looked like a direct copy of the thing that had almost torn the world apart in Corypheus’ hands.

She lined those issues up carefully next to the ‘mysteries’ accruing in her thoughts.

Mystery number one – why were there no spirits or demons or anything else around?

Mystery number two – why was Skyhold-in-the-Fade apparently cut off from the rest of it, to the point that she could find no way to leave?

Mystery number three – why was the fucking Dread Wolf napping in the tower?

Dealing with one of those issues, she decided, was a little more urgent than the others. If this version of Skyhold was connected to the other, then the Dread Wolf’s presence here could be a huge potential danger to the people back in the real world. Especially the mages.

Especially the mages who liked to wander around the Fade.

Another sweep of the grounds turned up no more unexpected nightmares from elven lore, thankfully, and no new exits – unfortunately. She supposed she could try and open up a rift, but…

Dread Wolf.

Right there.

Visions of a great black wolf leaping through a tear in the Veil to start gleefully mauling the inhabitants of Skyhold danced through her mind.

Yeah, no, she decided.

But that left her few other avenues of exploration, except, of course, to go back to the tower and see if it offered any possible explanations for its unexpected occupant. Or her situation.

You fought a darkspawn magister, she told herself, as she paused outside of the door. What’s one more myth?

Slowly, she slipped through the wood – quieter than trying to open it – and back into the tower room.

It looked precisely as it did when she left it. Staring at the strange tableau for the second time, she could still scarcely believe it. Which was probably a bit ridiculous of her. After all the Fade-walking, the time travel, the encountering of ancient elves and temples and Mythal, why not stumble upon the Dread Wolf?

Because it’s supposed to be over, she admitted to herself, as she watched the steady rise and fall of the beast’s back. Things at least should have had the decency to start making sense after I died.

For a few moments, she simply lingered, and stared.

The Dread Wolf was massive, and she easily counted far too many eyelids. But sleeping, he looked surprisingly like… well, like a wolf. The sharp claws were attached to fuzzy paws, the tooth-filled muzzle sported a black button nose, the long head was topped with a pair of triangular ears, resting flat against his skull. The tail which swept across the other side of the room looked thick and warm.

Somehow, when she’d imagined him in the past, she’d focused more on the claws and less on the… fluff.

Shaking the thought away, she peered instead at the Eluvian, and then the orb.

A foci, Solas had called the one Corypheus held. A way of channeling the power of the ancient elves, sometimes associated with certain gods. Was that one Fen’Harel’s, then? It would make sense, she supposed, for him to want to hang on to it. Especially if it was capable of the same levels of destruction as the other one had been. Fen’Harel was reputedly malicious, but not ‘destroy all of creation’ malicious. Burn all of your toys, after all, and you’d have nothing left to play with.

She waited. Some part of her half expected him to wake at any moment, bracing herself for what might come.

But the wolf just kept on sleeping. Peacefully. As if he had every right to be exactly where he was.

After a while she left to go and try to explore more of the Fade. When that search came up fruitless again, she returned, and finally summoned up the courage to move further into the room.

Up, over her head, the darkness she’d thought was absolute held a single pinprick of light. It drifted down from the center of the tower ceiling, and caught on the Eluvian, where it traced odd, twisting patterns in the glass.

She raised her hand to them, cautiously. The anchor cast its own light – it was probably what was giving her spectral form that weird green tint, come to think of it – and that light trickled, like water, through the broken cracks. Highlighting each one.

But it didn’t leap to life. Of course. She didn’t have a key, and even if she did, this one was clearly broken. But who had put it there, she wondered? Had someone moved Morrigan’s in the real Skyhold? And shattered it? Why?

No answers magically came to her.

With a sigh, she retreated again.

So it went. Time passed, as she searched fruitlessly for either an escape route or some kind of answer. Inevitably she would return to Fen’Harel, if only because he was the most interesting and worrying thing in the place. And each time she returned, her frustration and growing desperation made her bolder.

Finally, she squared her shoulders, and made her way close enough to pluck the orb from between his paws.

The anchor sang as she had held it, just as it had done when she had torn the other one from Corypheu’s grasp. Something flooded through her, a surge of energy that seemed to ground her, miraculously, smoothing out some of the tattered edges of her spectral form and calming the disjointed echoes in her thoughts.

“Oh.”

The breath came from her, then. Not just an echo of a sigh, but almost a real one. When she looked down at herself, she wasn’t suddenly back in her old body. Sadly. But she was less faded. The anchor was a little brighter, the round edges of it crisper, and that crispness extended to the rest of her, offering her more detail and solidity. She could feel more.

When she looked up, six eyes slit open, red as rubies, and stared at her.

She froze.

The Dread Wolf blinked. Then he sniffed, once.

She braced herself for anything; a lunge, a growl, a swipe from one paw.

Fen’Harel sneezed.

She was clear across the other side of the tower, clutching the orb to her, before she realized it wasn’t actually an attack. Her whole being thrummed, but the Dread Wolf only looked at her, blinking again. Fighting back sleep, she realized.

A sound rumbled from his huge throat, but it was no aggressive snarl or menacing growl. It was, if anything, a sleepy sort of grumble. The tip of a pink tongue flicked out, briefly, and then Fen’Harel yawned.

His teeth were definitely sharp. That was almost alarming again, at least, until he closed his eyes and started sniffing at his paws. Right where the orb had been. He sneezed a second time – more of a snuffle, really – and then looked at her again, squinting at the orb.

She followed his gaze.

The Dread Wolf began to rise. She readied herself to flee – and then the big head dropped back onto the floor. The front paws twitched, stretched a little. The tail flicked. Six eyes fixed on her, almost… beseeching? And then the tower filled with another sleepy grumble followed by a whine.

A whine.

For one blinding instant she was reminded of nothing so much as a teenager who didn’t want to get up.

She gaped as Fen’Harel ineffectually stretched his front paws and flicked his ears and licked at the roof of his mouth.

“…You, Dread Wolf, have been grossly misrepresented,” she couldn’t help but notice.

“Mrr?” the Dread Wolf of legend replied, blearily.

Seriously? Seriously?

Trickster god, she reminded herself. Maybe he’s luring you into a false sense of security.

He looked at the orb again, and another grumble came through, and one of the Dread Wolf’s front paws stretched forward. But it was like he just couldn’t get himself to wake up. He whined and shifted and his eyelids drooped, for several long moments, before he blinked them open again and gave her a look that pretty much screamed ‘why are you doing this to me?’

It occurred to her that she should probably be taking the orb and running. But to what end, she wondered? Maybe she could get out of the Fade with it. Or at least Skyhold-in-the-Fade. But then what? Would Fen’Harel follow her? And how would she keep such a thing safe, and out of dangerous hands like Corypheus’, when she was little more than a ghost herself?

No. That wouldn’t work.

If she was learning anything through all of this, it was that she really didn’t know anything, at all. That all of her assumptions, that all of the stories she knew, were probably misinformed at best and outright lies at worst. So who was she to start stealing things she barely understood?

On purpose, anyway.

After a moment’s more hesitation, she took a step forward, and reluctantly lowered the orb to the ground.

Then she rolled it across the tower floor, back towards Fen’Harel.

It bumped him on the nose.

He scrunched his muzzle, then sniffed at the orb. With a satisfied grumble he nudged it back between his paws, and then rested his head over top of them, and blinked at her.

“Ir abelas, Fen’Harel,” she offered.

Slowly, the wolf inched his massive head a bit closer to her. He sniffed, again, the brows furrowing over his many eyes.

“V’ran… sa… lan’alaan?”

The voice which trembled out of the Dread Wolf’s muzzle sounded dim and befuddled, raspy with long disuse. His accent was strange, and the words slurred, but she guessed he was asking how she had found him. Maybe.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I didn’t… I shouldn’t have disturbed you.”

When she looked back up, the Dread Wolf was once again fast asleep.

 

~

 

Time marched on. Fen’Harel slept as if he’d never woken. Eventually, lacking other recourses and no longer quite so terrified of the Dread Wolf (who occasionally snored), she attempted to open a rift – only to find that the energy fizzled out and dispersed across the distant barrier in the sky, crackling green for one instant, then sinking into the stones of the keep, and trailing through the ground, up through her spectral form and back into the anchor.

Well. That was thoroughly useless.

Underneath her frustration and her concern for what was going on the real world, sheer boredom was beginning to mount. She didn’t seem to need to sleep anymore, and she had no idea how much time was passing. It felt like an eternity, but it could have only been a day or so.

In an effort to stave off madness, she found herself cleaning up Skyhold. Or attempting to, at least. Opening doors was one thing. Moving stuff around was another. The Fade usually reacted to people’s expectations, but here, things seemed a little more… rigid. It was a mixed blessing; on the one hand it meant that nothing really seemed to reshape itself, which didn’t help with the boredom. On the other, at least it meant that when she mustered up the strength to move a piece of debris or rearrange a room, stuff stayed where she put it.

Her strength, she found, was a more subjective thing. When her mood was relatively good and her determination high, she could shift beams and stones that would have required entire teams of men in the real world. But when frustration or sorrow or melancholy overtook her, then even opening a door took extraordinary effort.

Unfortunately, she was melancholic more often than not.

The mystery, at least, provided a diversion for her mind. Corypheus had used his orb to create the anchor. She supposed that could explain how she’d ended up like this. If all the remaining foci were somehow connected, perhaps the anchor had pulled her towards another one when she’d tried to stifle the explosion in the Fade. And maybe this place only looked like Skyhold because she had influenced it, somehow.

She hoped that was the case, in fact. Any other answers for why the Dread Wolf was slumbering in the empty ruins of her home didn’t exactly seem promising.

Focusing on that was better than wondering about other things. Like whether or not her friends had survived. Whether they were mourning her. Or if, perhaps, they were looking for her… though they probably thought she was simply gone. It was what she had expected herself.

When she had cleaned everything she could, she set her mind to trying to repair things, instead.

The ruins didn’t have much to offer in the way of tools, but she found that by lifting a few bricks into the holes in the walls, and nudging them with some pointed expectations, they affixed themselves back in place as if they remembered being whole as well as broken. The most frustrating thing was when she accidentally took a place from the wrong part of the hold, and spent too much time trying to get it to ‘remember’ belonging to a spot it didn’t. Then it wouldn’t work at all.

Broken chairs and tattered tapestries could remember, too, if she hung them up or slid the pieces together, and tried to ‘help’. That took longer. She didn’t exactly know what the furniture and decorations were supposed to look like when they weren’t ruined – that was comforting; they weren’t the pieces her own people had put in after Haven – but if she focused on what, generally, such things were meant to be like, they started figuring it out themselves.

The Skyhold which gradually emerged under her hands was familiar, but not. The bricks were meant to be coated, she discovered; gleaming white that shone like a beacon on the other walls, bright and vibrant colours on the inner ones, marked with looping runes. She happened upon the revelation by chance, looping a finger across the faded rune marks on a single brick while thinking about the colour of a summer sky, and watching as blue followed her touch.

She drifted through the keep, then, touching bricks, focusing on all the possible colours they could be, waiting for the right one to happen. She couldn’t quite manage to float high or fly, for some reason – not for lack of trying – and so she climbed, instead, edging her way up and down every wall and ceiling she could find.

The ceilings! Tile mosaics that sprung to life, depicting different skies; autumn twilight and winter mornings, storms over the coast, and constellations, and swooping dragons and griffons and hawks.

Sometimes she went to sit in the courtyard garden, trailing dirt between her fingers until it began to sprout vivid green grass. She coaxed weathered plant pots and fountains back together, and watched the little golden fireflies hum around her, as if pleased.

And then, after she had finished scaling the ceiling to breathe some more life into Cullen’s room, she came back to find a fruit tree growing in the garden. Seemingly out of nowhere.

After that, Skyhold began to change seemingly on its own.

Great banners burst from the walls, emerald and vivid against the tumultuous skies of the Fade. The golden fireflies spread, and wispy white and blue butterflies joined them, flitting through the front courtyard, where statues of regal-looking figures sprung up, and flowering bushes began to bloom. The air changed. Sometimes a breeze would flutter past her, a little icy, just like in the mountains. Sometimes silvery flecks of almost-snow would fall.

At times she would venture back into the tower room. She peered at the Eluvian often, wishing she could find some piece of inspiration that would tell her how to fix it. Maybe letting Morrigan drink from the Well had been a mistake after all. She was almost certain that the Eluvian was probably the only way out of this place.

But as she returned, time and again, she noticed that the tiny pinprick of light at the top of the tower was getting bigger.

Fen’Harel slept. After the first time she accidentally stepped on his tail and he didn’t even twitch, she let herself get a bit bolder, looking him over with some curiosity. She touched the fur on the tip of his tail and peered at his eyes, and eventually even hefted up one of his paws to measure his massive claws, and lifted his lips to get another look at his teeth.

Good to have some idea of what she was up against, after all, if he did suddenly wake up and decide to make a meal of her. He was supposed to eat spirits, in the tales.

Based on what she had discovered of the accuracy of her people’s perceptions so far, though, that probably meant he loved spirits to bits and pieces and would never, ever harm them.

On one melancholy visit, she circled him, around the base of the tower; looking at the bare walls that should brightly display Solas’ murals. She wondered if they could be coaxed into changing, too, if she focused on making them. She wondered if unfamiliar murals would spread of their own accord someday. Her thoughts drifted into memory, a pale hand placing a brush in hers.

“Add to it,” he’d encouraged.

“I’m not much of an artist,” she’d replied, nevertheless warmed by his proximity, by the offer.

“It need not be complex. But I would like it if there was something by you in this,” he’d told her. “Please.”

There was no possible way for her to turn down that request, and so she made the attempt, trying to copy his style of thick lines and simple shapes. Just a small arrow, in the end, but he had nevertheless smiled sincerely at her contribution.

A pang of longing shot through her, so sharp it made her hand waver. It wasn’t the first, by any means. Often, when she drifted past the places where her friends and companions should be, a wave of longing and loneliness would wash over her. It was frightening to think that this might be it for her. Trapped in the Fade, with only the echo of her home and the slumbering Dread Wolf to keep her company.

But there was always that extra pang when she missed Solas. A sharper edge of longing.

She didn’t touch the tower walls.

 

~

 

As the light at the top of the Dread Wolf’s tower grew, she found herself wondering what would happen when it filled the entire room.

 

~

 

She was in the garden, trying to convince green leaves to turn to autumn gold, when the air shimmered overhead.

Her eyes flew up to the barrier, and she stilled, shocked and hopeful as it flickered. She waited, hoping it might fall, that if it fell she might at last be able to leave the hold – but then it steadied, again, and her hope dimmed.

Still. That had to be something.

Fen’Harel, she thought, and before she could talk herself out of it she was racing for the tower.

Someone was standing in the main hall.

She faltered, caught entirely aback by the sight, and twice over when she recognized who it was.

“Mythal.”

The woman looked more or less as she had before, in her elaborate armour, with her hair curled up and her face marked by age. She was staring up at the ceilings, eyes roaming across them, until they snapped down and stared at her. And through her, it felt, though all things considered that was a legitimate option. They flitted to the anchor in her hand and roved across her spectral form.

“And what,” Mythal said, very softly. “Are you?”

She supposed she didn’t look very recognizable.

“I’m the Inquisitor,” she admitted.

“Inquisitor?” Mythal murmured. “A spirit of curiosity, perhaps? But no, you are no spirit, are you? Not in truth. There is… something else in there. Pieces. A patchwork thing, too many conflicting magics, parts strewn together like wreckage in a storm. How did you get into this place?” she wondered, and then lifted her eyes to the keep again. “This is your doing, isn’t it?”

She honestly had no idea what to make of that reaction.

“Yes,” she admitted, shooting for the simplest response. “I woke up here.”

Mythal strode towards her, still looking at everything else until she was directly before her, and then she looked her over once more, eyes catching on the anchor.

“He is more than I thought, if he marked you in his sleep,” she declared. “But you have claimed it for your own, haven’t you? And he let you. How unexpected.”

“I… what?” she finally asked.

“When last I visited this place, it was a ruin. An empty dream. There should be none here but Fen’Harel,” Mythal informed her, which didn’t exactly explain much. “And yet, I arrive, expecting to find him waking, and here I find you instead; and a lavish fortress, fit to welcome any visiting dignitary.”

“Does this Skyhold connect to the one in the real world?” she couldn’t help but ask.

“It should connect to nothing but memories,” Mythal replied.

Well. That was a relief, at least. She probably didn’t have to worry about the Dread Wolf waking up inside the Inquisition’s headquarters, then, if nothing else.

“Do you know, did my people survive the battle there?” she pressed.

Mythal tilted her head slightly.

“Which people and which battle, I wonder? There have been so many,” the dead goddess mused, as if it shouldn’t be obvious.

Before she could attempt to further cut through the cryptic shenanigans, however, a low rumble shook through the keep. It was similar to the sounds Fen’Harel had made when she’d woken him, but deeper and louder, and it made the air tremble.

“Ah. And there you are, old friend,” Mythal said, and strode towards the tower door.

After a moment of deliberation, she followed. Morrigan’s mother would probably warn her if she was at risk for being eaten on sight.

When she walked into the tower, it was to find Mythal kneeling next to the Dread Wolf’s head, while he stared at her with his slit red eyes.

Grumbling, again.

“You are too weak for it,” Mythal said, with surprising gentleness. “Try on something smaller, to start with.”

Fen’Harel grumbled.

“No. This is the common tongue, now. Let the words sink in, so you will find their meaning.”

The Dread Wolf exhaled, and then began to glow, light eating up his body, turning to wisps that drifted off until it re-solidified as something much closer in size to an actual wolf.

It made the chamber seem cavernous, empty without all of his bulk to fill it up.

“Good,” Mythal said. “You have slept many years, my friend. By the reckoning of the calendars they use now, the year is 9:32. No, I won’t clarify that; you can find out how much it translates to yourself. Concentrate.”

9:32? As in nine three two, not nine four two?

She had begun to suspect that she’d spent years in the Fade; but even in this place she hadn’t thought they would be running backwards.

Realization hit her like a bucket of ice water. Of course. Corypheus’ spell. Why hadn’t she considered that factor before? He’d been trying to escape; going back would make sense. Ten years, that would give him a healthy head start, wouldn’t it?

Her gaze drifted towards the orb, still nestled in front of the now-much-smaller Fen’Harel. If that was so, then perhaps she hadn’t been drawn towards another foci at all. Perhaps she had been drawn to the same one, the one it always had been, just before it was in Corypheus’ hands.

The Dread Wolf’s foci.

Oh, Creators.

No. It was probably better not to invoke them. Especially not the two closest at hand.

They were looking at her, she realized. Or, well, they were for a little bit – about two seconds later, Fen’Harel’s eyes drooped again, and his head fell onto Mythal’s lap.

“Did he fall asleep again?” she blurted. Because that was obviously the best thing to focus on right then.

Mythal raised an eyebrow at her.

“Did you attempt to wake him before now?”

“I did wake him,” she admitted. “He kind of a flailed around unhappily for a while and then went back to sleep.”

Mythal stared at her. Then she threw back her head, and let out a hearty laugh. One of her hands gently patted the wolf’s neck.

“Oh, to have seen that!” she declared. “He was probably trying to chase you. You took the orb, didn’t you? And he tried to reclaim it, in that giant form of his, with scarcely enough strength to open his eyes. He could not have hoped to stop you. Yet it’s still here.”

Mythal looked at her, shrewdly.

“You gave it back,” she deduced.

“I did. Only now I’m not sure if I should have.”

“Only now?” the goddess wondered.

She hesitated. What to say? What to explain? This Mythal didn’t know her. Would she even believe the truth? Should she be trusted with it, besides? She seemed… fond of Fen’Harel, so there was another old legend for the trash heap, and Fen’Harel’s foci had somehow ended up in the hands of Corypheus and nearly destroyed the world.

Yet. She definitely hadn’t sided with Corypheus, when it came to it. And what else could she do, to stop the mad procession of events to come, when she was little more than a ghost in a ruin? But it could be thwarted, she realized. With a year’s knowledge, they had stopped Corypheus before he could tear the world apart. With an even better head start, perhaps she could stop him before he even began at all.

“In ten years, that orb will almost destroy the world,” she admitted.

“Interesting,” Mythal replied. “And so specific! How could you know that, I wonder?”

“Because I lived it. A darkspawn magister named Corypheus broke free of his ancient prison. He attacked a conclave organized by the Divine Justinia, wielding that orb. He wanted to make something, some kind of key. By chance, I stole it from him. We used it to undo his efforts, but in our last battle, he attempted to go back in time, to start over I think. I tried to destroy him in the same moment. And then I woke here, like this. In the past.”

Mythal didn’t look disbelieving. That was something, she supposed.

“You did not even know it was the past until I mentioned the date, did you?” she wondered.

“No.”

After a moment of contemplation, the old woman reached over, and plucked up the orb. Fen’Harel stirred a little, but she soothed him with apparent ease.

“He will not be strong enough for it, yet. That will frustrate him,” she said, quietly, as if whispering to herself. “Especially when he truly experiences what’s become of the world. How long would it take him, on his own? Waiting? A hundred years, at least. He would not abide resting on his laurels for that long. Oh no, not the Dread Wolf. Too clever by half. Far too much like the girl, that way.”

“What?” she wondered.

Mythal sighed, sadly, and looked at Fen’Harel with pity in her eyes.

“Such noble intentions. But he will blame himself. He always does.” She eased him from her lap, and then stood and walked over. When she was only a few paces away, she gestured towards the foci.

“Did he tell you how this ‘Corypheus’ came by his orb?”

“Who? Fen’Harel?” She blinked. “I never met him before.”

Mythal smirked.

“Oh, I doubt that.”

“I’m pretty sure I would remember meeting the Dread Wolf.”

“You probably do,” the goddess informed her. “You just don’t realize who was in the sheep’s clothing. He would not have been far. Not unless he was slain. Possible, I suppose, but I would bet on that one’s survival through almost anything.”

“Well…” she hesitated, some uncomfortable thought itching at the back of her mind. But before she could grasp it, it was gone. “No one told me how Corypheus got the orb, either way.”

“Pity.”

Mythal tossed the orb, then. Just threw it, like it was a child’s ball. She caught it without thinking, half by reaching but also, in part, by using the anchor, guiding it when it seemed it might go too far so that it rested safely in her hands, instead. There was a soft flash, and she felt that strange surge again. Solid and steadying. Around her, the colours of the Fade brightened.

“Why does it do that?” she wondered.

“You are connected to it. I thought it was to him, directly, but perhaps not,” Mythal informed her. “It lends credence to your claims. As does their sheer absurdity. Lies must make sense. The truth has no such pithy limitations upon it.”

“That doesn’t really clear a whole lot up for me,” she admitted.

“I will help you,” Mythal decided.

Well. That was something, then.

“Good. Because I’m not sure I can do much. Not like this, anyway.”

The goddess raised a hand to her chin.

“And what state are you in, I wonder?” she murmured. “No mere ghost or wraith, surely. Your body is gone, yet the power remains. You should be little more than loose threads, tethered to a shining shard, but you aren’t. You speak sensibly. You remember. You have exerted enough will upon this place to change it, which means you have enough to spare. That power is you and you are it, threading through one another, claiming…” Mythal paused, as if something had occurred to her. Her eyes went up. “Oh.”

“What?” she wondered.

“How unlike him.”

“What’s unlike who?”

Mythal chuckled, and shook her head.

“You must have been something to behold. Or perhaps he was simply that starved. It is a lonely world out there. It will be cold to him.”

“You have completely lost me,” she admitted.

“I was not the one who left you in the dark, child,” Mythal declared.

“And I suppose it would kill you to strike a match?”

The goddess tossed her head back and laughed, again.

“I have struck many,” she said. “But you will not see until it is plainly before you, I suspect. Still. It may be what spares us, in the end.”

She sighed, and decided to give up on her quest for clarification. It was probably better just to let the woman talk and then try to sift through the enigmas in the aftermath. Attempting to get a straight answer just seemed to backfire.

“So what will you do, then?” she wondered.

“Me?” Mythal replied. “There is little I can do.”

The urge to throw her arms into the air was very, very powerful.

She resisted. Barely.

“You said you would help!”

“Help and action are not necessarily entwined,” Mythal replied. “But I will set you on the path. The orb you hold is locked. Our dear Dread Wolf will seek to open it. It will make him reckless. Reckless enough to place it in unworthy hands, perhaps. Yet, within you is a key. I should think the solution obvious.”

“I can… unlock it?” she surmises, looking down at the orb. It didn’t seem ‘locked’ to her, but then, it didn’t look like it had when Corypheus had used it, either. Spinning and pulsing with power. And it didn’t feel like it had when she held it up to the breach.

“As you are now? No. But you may give him hope. It is only the desperate wolf who hunts incautiously.”

She was getting the hang of things, she thought. That almost made sense. It was like talking to Sera, in a way – there was definitely some genuine insight there, just hiding behind what Varric would doubtless term ‘all that Grade A bullshit’.

“So if Fen’Harel thinks I’m the answer to unlocking the orb, he won’t go looking for someone else to do it?” she summarized.

“That is worth hoping for, isn’t it?” Mythal mused. She glanced back at the slumbering subject of their conversation. “I had intended to stay, to make certain of his adjustments. But now, I think, I shall leave him in your hands awhile. Do not be surprised if he sleeps often, yet, and drifts. One would not expect so long a rest to leave only more exhaustion in its wake, but life does resent living up to expectations.”

“You’re leaving?” she blurted. “But…”

“Do you fear the Dread Wolf, my dear?” Mythal wondered. “Do you think he will snap at your heels, or swallow your spirit, or corrupt your pure heart?”

She looked at the wolf. His smaller form only had two eyes. If she didn’t know better, she might even mistake him for an ordinary animal. And so much of what she had thought was the truth had proven to be so very, very wrong instead. She remembered warm light and soft hands on her face.

Ar lasa mala revas.

“I don’t know anything about him,” she admitted. “Except that he apparently hates mornings. I’m… wary, I suppose.”

Mythal smiled. It was a little kinder than her previous smiles. Strange.

“It is his orb which has given you that mark. You share a scent with him, now, and wolves do not hunt their own pack.”

“So you don’t think he’ll hurt me?”

“That he will not tear with claws or rend with teeth, I would guarantee,” Mythal replied. “Beyond that? I make no promises.”

Fair enough. She didn’t presume that she could stop Mythal herself from doing what she pleased, anyway. She inclined her head, and let her pass, before a thought occurred to her; surging up like an unexpected tide.

“Wait!”

Mythal paused.

“Corypheus. If this is 9:32, then he hasn’t woken yet. A champion, named Hawke, who lives in Kirkwall, and a dwarf named Varric Tethras, will be drawn to his prison. Hawke’s father set the wards that are keeping Corypheus in place. You could warn them…”

“To what end, I wonder?” Mythal replied. “Some paths of fate cannot be avoided forever. Where one door closes, another may blow open. Interfere with Corypheus’ plans now, and you may find yourself facing the same adversary with an agenda you have no foreknowledge of later on down the road. Would it be worth that cost, to try and spare these people the hardship of waking him?”

She hesitated.

“I’m not sure,” she admitted at length. “But I suppose it’s not my decision. There’s little I could do to warn them, as I am now. So the choice is yours.”

Mythal raised an eyebrow at her.

“You are abandoning the matter to my discretion?”

She shrugged.

“Unless we’re supposed to be pretending that I have any control over what you do, it is at your discretion,” she pointed out.

“No beseeching, then? No appeals to my better nature? To compassion?” Mythal wondered.

It was her turn to raise an eyebrow. Though she wasn’t entirely certain if said eyebrow was actually visible. What little she had seen of her own features lacked distinction.

“I’m not asking for favours,” she says. “I’m suggesting possible courses of action as an ally. If you are approaching this differently, then let’s get that out of the way right now. No boon of Mythal ever came without a cost. I do not intend to blindly incur debts.”

Mythal tilted her head, and regarded her as if she’d just spontaneously changed shape. She resisted the urge to look down and check. They were in the Fade, after all.

“Of course. Not another hero, not another champion. The world is overripe with them, falling heavy from the trees,” she murmured. “Other gaps must be filled. Inquisitor, you said? A title with ominous weight. Those who seek answers must be careful not to deny painful truths.”

This again. Was it a godly thing, she wondered? Running off on tangents? Probably. The elderly tended to ramble.

“I won’t ask if we understand one another, because I’m fairly sure I’d need a few more centuries to start figuring you out. But are we in agreement over what’s going on?” she asked.

Mythal grinned.

“I am beginning to see how you must have eaten him alive,” she declared. Which was both disturbing and nonsensical. The effect was probably deliberate. But then Mythal sobered.

“Yes. For now, we are in agreement,” she confirmed.

“Let me know if that changes,” she requested – for the sake of being thorough, if nothing else.

“I doubt you could fail to notice if it did,” Mythal assured her.

Then she strode away, leaving the Fade once again bereft of everything except for herself and a sleeping wolf.

 

~

 

As warned, Fen’Harel slept a lot, and deeply. After Mythal left, she approached him again. The empty tower floor had seemed well-suited to housing a giant, slumbering monster. But a normal-ish-sized wolf looked strangely vulnerable in its wealth of empty space and hard surfaces.

After several moments of internal deliberation, she carried him – and the orb – off to the bed chamber instead. It wasn’t as if she could make use of the soft sheets and blankets, after all. She deposited him there, along with his foci, and then left to go and see if the barrier around the fortress was still up.

It was. She narrowed her eyes, raised a hand, and attempted to open another rift. Once again, the magic dispersed, breaking apart and then rushing back to her. But the sky trembled, where before it had only remained still.

That was… something, at least.

The stalemate of her new existence had finally been broken, it seemed. And the situation wasn’t even one she’d expected. It was a relief, in a lot of ways, but it begged several obvious questions as well. Like, what to make of having another version of herself running around in the real world, somewhere? What events could she – or should she – try to influence? Keeping the orb away from Corypheus was only the most obvious step. Corypheus was a problem in and of himself (again), there was the matter of the war between the mages and the templars (again), and there were dozens of smaller tragedies to consider…

And none of it was really within her means to influence, anymore. Even if she wasn’t trapped, she was a spirit – or something like one – and the Inquisition had yet to form.

Still. It was hard to set aside the feeling that she could just walk into the War Room and find her advisors waiting, the map laid out, ready with suggestions and arguments and updates. Her thoughts drew her there, until she found herself standing in front of the Fade Keep’s bare table. It looked a little more solid than usual. Probably some residual affect from her having picked up Fen’Harel’s foci again.

The golden wisps drifted gently through the room. A few passed through her, warm where they touched.

She tried to imagine what the others would say, if they were there to advise her.

Leliana would agree with Mythal’s caution. Change too many things, and they would lose the advantage of knowing what was going to happen before it happened. She would want to be precise. Surgical. Pick crucial events and alter them to more favourable outcomes, leave aside anything that wasn’t a necessity. Watch from the shadows, and wait to strike.

Cullen would point out that none of it mattered when she was stuck in the Fade and incapable of influencing things herself, especially if her chief and only ally so far was Mythal. Their priority would need to be getting her out, first. And probably getting the orb away from Fen’Harel and into ‘safer’ hands, though whose hands those might be, he likely couldn’t say. Destroy it, he might suggest. Remove the threat of it once and for all.

Josephine would point out that she should probably do something about Fen’Harel. Talk to him, she would suggest. Preferably while he was still groggy and sleep-addled and unlikely to pose much of a threat. It was possible that most, if not all, of their troubles could be resolved if she could somehow safely enlist his help. If nothing else, speaking to him would give them some idea of where he stood in this whole mess.

Morrigan would focus on the Eluvian. Where it might lead, how she might fix it, what it was even doing there in the first place. Surely such a mirror, placed next to a slumbering god, would hold significant importance, she would muse. And it was a way out. Though whether it would take her any place more helpful than the Fade was another question entirely.

Then they would turn to her. Waiting for her to decide which move they should make first. Which approach to take.

She turned, left the empty table, and went back to the chambers where she’d left Fen’Harel sleeping.

The wolf was curled around the orb, on top of the covers of the lavish four-post bed. She assumed he was sleeping, still, but when she turned to leave again, his eyes opened. Slowly. With a grumbling growl he stretched out his front paws.

She couldn’t help it. She snorted in amusement.

“Awake yet?” she wondered.

Fen’Harel rumbled out a response to her, in his raspy, strange voice, that seemed to strain its way unnaturally out of his wolf’s maw.

“I’m pretty sure that was supposed to be ancient elvish, but I have no idea what you actually said,” she confessed.

Fen’Harel yawned, his jaw cracking, and then he scowled at the top of the bed for several seconds.

“Who… you are?” he rumbled out, as if he was consulting some invisible translator.

She hesitated.

“That’s a little complicated,” she admitted.

Fen’Harel took a moment to absorb what she’d said, and then gave her a look that conveyed a surprising amount of annoyance.

“Clear? Explain?” he requested, stumbling at little in his obvious quest to find the right word.

“Maybe when you’re a little more coherent?” she suggested.

He huffed, and then flopped his head back down onto the mattress.

“Fine,” he growled.

“Is there anything I can do to help you?” she wondered, moving closer, finding it difficult to muster up even a little wariness at that point.

Fen’Harel sniffed at her, as he had done before, when he’d been enormous. He grumbled something in the ancient tongue again – she assumed; it was more grumble than words, as far she could tell – and then glared at the anchor.

“It’s part of the long story,” she told him.

“Tell,” he beseeched. “Sit. Tell.”

But he was already drifting back off, and by the time she took another step closer, his eyes were shut again.

“It would have made a poor bedtime story anyway,” she murmured, and after a minute, left him be instead.

 

~

 

The next time Fen’Harel awoke, she was standing on the bedroom balcony, staring at the barrier. Through the shimmer, the shifting expanse of the Fade looked… increasingly violent. Almost like storm clouds were brewing. She wondered if it had anything to do with the barrier’s weakening. Or, perhaps, with the coming strife that was building between the mages and Templars, out in the real world.

No sound alerted her to the Dread Wolf’s presence. Only a black shape in the corner of her eye, walking up beside her, managed to, and she nearly leapt over the railing in reflexive alarm.

Fen’Harel cocked his head at her.

“Ir abelas,” he growled. “I… frighten?”

“You just startled me,” she corrected, which was true enough. She’d been alone for long enough that almost anything bigger than a butterfly, moving of its own accord, probably would have gotten the same response. Or at least, she told herself that. “Are you properly awake now?”

Fen’Harel looked out at the Fade, sitting heavily onto the balcony beside her.

“Yes,” he pronounced, determinedly.

Some of her scepticism must have shown, because he glanced at her, and then huffed.

“For time. Now. For time… is being? No. For the time being,” he managed, and for some reason, when his voice gained a note of clarity, something uneasy twisted in her chest. But she wasn’t quite sure why. He seemed only pleased at having managed to find the right sentence.

Stop being superstitious, she told herself. Too many tales of the Dread Wolf and his malice in her head, she supposed.

“Well done,” she commended.

He snorted again.

“Story. Now. Please,” he requested.

She let out a surprised chuckle at the ‘please’. So polite! Wouldn’t the Keeper have been surprised to learn how well-mannered the Dread Wolf was. Or maybe not, given his reputation as a trickster.

He didn’t look too keen about getting laughed at, however, so she reeled herself back in. It seemed ill-advised to turn her gaze away from the Dread Wolf, but she did, anyway, looking back out towards the sky. It was easier to gather her thoughts when an ancient legend wasn’t groggily staring her down.

What to tell him? She didn’t suppose there was much point in telling Mythal and then keeping secrets for him in turn. From what she’d seen, they were fairly close.

Best just… do it, then.

“I’m from the future. Ten years into the future,” she began.

When she glanced towards him, he was still looking at her expectantly.

“It started with a conclave, in a place called Haven…”

The story flowed, surprisingly easy in some places, unsurprisingly rocky in others. The basics – the war between the mages and Templars, the destruction of the conclave, her survival, time travel and Corypheus’ mad plan and the Grey Warden’s desperation, those were simple, if often horrific, to relay. Skyhold was harder. Her people, her friends and followers, were harder.

Solas was hard. But she found she couldn’t tell the tale without him, not entirely. He was as firmly woven into it as the anchor, it seemed.

“And then I woke here, ten years in the past,” she concluded. “I had no idea what had happened until Mythal came.”

Fen’Harel was lying on the balcony by then, drooping, slightly, but making a point to keep his head up so she wouldn’t think he was falling asleep and stop narrating. When she finished, he stared at her for a long, long moment. Long enough to make her feel strangely self-conscious and a little wary.

Then a torrent of words flew out of him, barked and growled and bitten off, utterly incomprehensible and barely recognizable as any form of elvish at all. She took a step back, with growing alarm, some part of her hindbrain entirely convinced that he was trying to put some ancient curse on her even though she knew enough about magic to know it wouldn’t really look like a flurry of angry gibberish if he was.

But the Dread Wolf only ranted until he apparently ran out of steam, and then just slumped, heavily, as if all of his scant energy had fled him all at once.

“I… my apologies,” he managed, coherently.

She realized she was practically plastered against the side of the balcony. Fen’Harel seemed to notice, too, as his exhausted posture took on an extra note of remorse.

“What was all that?” she wondered.

“Not for you. Me,” he explained. “Abelas. Apologies.”

She swallowed.

“So… you believe me then?”

Fen’Harel looked up at her, and for just half a second, her heart stuttered to a stop.

“Yes,” he rasped.

Then he passed right out.

 

~

 

The next time Fen’Harel woke, she was in the courtyard. Some new, twisting vines had climbed their way into existence, crawling along the walls towards the gates. She was examining them – mostly for a lack of anything more interesting to do – when she heard the very distinctive sound of paws treading over packed earth.

Which was strange, given how silently the Dread Wolf had moved before, but at least it gave her some forewarning of his approach. By the time he had reached her side, she was ready for him.

“I slept in a memory of a ruin,” he told her, the words coming much more easily, it seemed, though his voice was still odd. “Is this how you restored it?”

She stared at him, once again unsettled by something she couldn’t quite pin down.

“If you’re asking whether this version of Skyhold looks like the one we reclaimed in the future, I must admit our real-world efforts produced somewhat less… lavish results.”

“Of course,” Fen’Harel replied, and if he was disappointed, it didn’t show.

“How long have you been asleep for?” she wondered.

“Long,” he said. “But I have dreamed of what has passed.”

“How does one dream while they are in the Fade?” she asked. The question came almost automatically, flowing naturally from her curiosity, and she realized she’d forgotten to how to be cautious about asking after the Fade at some point in recent history. Foolish of her; not everyone was free-handed with such information. She needed to remember who she was speaking to.

But if Fen’Harel minded, it didn’t show.

“In pieces,” he replied. “Wandering. Indistinct. Whispers. Carried through memories and shards of old power, half-heard songs and invocations.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry,” she nonetheless offered.

“Don’t apologize,” he told her. “You have not trespassed. Andaran atish’an. You are welcome here. I have been a poor host, I should have said so before.”

“You’ve had a lot to deal with since you woke up,” she pardoned him.

“And it is only my own fault, for badgering you for answers. I should apologize for that as well. The mystery you presented was… slightly more compelling than my better judgement,” he confessed. “I appreciate your forthrightness. I am aware of my reputation among your people.”

Right. Invocations. She supposed if he heard any of those, he would have to be.

“My people have tried to rebuild our history and culture out of many broken pieces,” she felt compelled to explain. “We’ve accumulated a lot of ‘creative’ interpretations along the way. It would be unfair of me to judge you by fables and folktales.”

The Dread Wolf regarded her curiously.

“But is there some fear, all the same?” he wondered. “Some hesitation? Do you not worry that I am being deceptive?”

The polite thing to do would probably be to say ‘no’.

“A little,” she admitted, instead. “I don’t know how Corypheus came by your foci. I don’t know what your intentions are, either, now that you’re awake. But so far you’ve been less cryptic than Mythal. I’ll give you that, at least.”

“I suppose I haven’t given you much to go off of yet,” Fen’Harel conceded. “You have told me your tale, but I have done little more than listen in return.”

“And angrily rant in ancient elvish,” she reminded him.

He gave her a wry look.

“And angrily rant in elvish,” he confirmed.

“What were you saying, anyway?” she wondered.

“I… would prefer not to repeat it, if it’s all the same to you.”

“That bad?”

“In dreams, I have witnessed the many ill consequences of my misjudgments,” Fen’Harel told her. “And then I woke, and was treated to a summation of what can only be several spectacular misjudgements to come. Let us say, it was not the best news to wake up to.”

That was good, she decided, with a surge of optimism. If he was upset, then at least it probably meant that he hadn’t been plotting with Corypheus all along.

In his regular-wolf-sized form, Fen’Harel was quite low to the ground. Without really thinking about it, she knelt in front of him, the better to look at him straight-on. He blinked at her. These eyes weren’t red, she noticed, for the first time. They were blue, or perhaps grey – in the light of the Fade it was a little hard to tell.

“What I told you can be prevented, at least,” she pointed out.

The Dread Wolf sighed.

“Not all of it,” he replied. “No matter what is prevented, you will still be here. Like this. Whatever you have become, I have no words for it, no knowledge of how to reverse it. Even if everything goes perfectly from here on out – and it never does – you will have paid the cost of my mistakes. I am sorry, for that.”

She bowed her head. Some part of her, she realized, had been hoping he might somehow be able to do just that. Ever since she had guessed that it was probably his orb which had placed the anchor in her hand. Or perhaps even before that, when she had picked it up and noticed its effect on her.

“I chose my own path. If we can stop all of that suffering before it happens, then I won’t regret it,” she decided.

What was it Leliana had said, when she had spoken to her about her last time traveling efforts? ‘One small life for a chance to change the past is a bargain’? Something like that, she thought. It was true, anyway.

But Fen’Harel looked, if anything, even more miserable.

“So it goes; the powerful err, and the virtuous pay in blood for their misdeeds,” he said.

She wondered what she could say. That she would ever need to comfort the Dread Wolf over the state of her own existence wasn’t a twist in fate that she’d ever foreseen.

Probably, she needed to learn to stop being surprised.

“Well, it’s hardly going to be a disaster on the same level when the powerless screw up, is it?” she settled on saying, trying to lighten the mood. “And it could be worse. At least you’ve turned out to be a pretty decent conversationalist, when you’re not half asleep and trying to learn a new language.” And even then, she thought, you were still amusing.

“Ha! And here she comforts the Dread Wolf who doomed her!” Fen’Harel exclaimed, disbelieving.

“I only try to speak plainly to someone who, technically, hasn’t done anything at all to me yet,” she corrected. “I could scarcely punish you for what another version of yourself might have done.” She inclined her head, thoughtfully. “Do you have any idea what that could have been, by the way? Mythal seemed convinced that you had gone to Corypheus for help in ‘unlocking’ your orb. I think. She was a little hard to follow.”

Fen’Harel growled, but more at the empty air than at her.

“She may be right,” he conceded.

“Oh. Well. On the bright side, if she is, then the solution may be as simple as you not going to him for help,” she suggested. “At least that’s pretty easy to avoid.”

“It may be,” Fen’Harel conceded. There was frustration in his tone, though. Enough to make her uneasy.

“What’s so important about unlocking it anyway?” she wondered. “What do you need it for?”

The Dread Wolf stared at her for long enough that she was starting to worry that she’d asked the wrong thing.

Then he stood, and she half expected him to just leave.

“Come with me,” he said, instead.

He led her back inside the keep, through the tower doorway, and into the wide space where she’d first found him. The Eluvian was still in its place. The orb wasn’t there. A little worrisome; she didn’t know what he’d done with it, but it was probably in the upstairs chambers.

Fen’Harel walked until he was directly in front of the mirror. Then he sat, his back to her.

“In your tale, you spoke briefly of an Eluvian,” he said.

“I did.”

“What do you know of them?”

“Very little,” she admitted. “Only what Morrigan saw fit to share with me. I know they were used by the ancient elves to travel places. I know that they can open a gateway to a crossroads place, and to the Fade, and to… other worlds. Ostensibly.”

“Yes,” Fen’Harel confirmed. “In days long, long past, the Eluvian were integral to the People’s daily lives. Open the right path, and you could step halfway across the world. No roads connected the great cities of Elvhenan. They weren’t needed. Eluvians the size of fortress gateways could take whole caravans from snowy mountain peaks to sprawling jungles in minutes. Sacred mirrors in temples permitted petitioners to come and commit to their contemplations. And some led to the homes of those they worshipped.”

“Like the Temple of Mythal?” she wondered.

“No,” Fen’Harel replied. “I speak of places neither in the waking world nor the Fade. Dwellings where beings of incredible power were able to reside. The ‘gods’ came and went as freely as anyone else, and always, where their footsteps tread in the mortal world, the tremors shook the foundations of The People’s lives.”

She could not help but think of Solas, and for a moment. It was because they were in the tower, she told herself, and discussing Elvhenan.

“So, then… this Eluvian leads to one of those places?” she guessed.

Fen’Harel bowed his head.

“Yes,” he replied.

Old stories nudged at her mind. So unreliable, and yet…

“My people have a story,” she began, tentatively. “They say the Dread Wolf tricked the gods and the Forgotten Ones into retreating to the heavens and the abyss, and then sealed them all away.”

The implied question hung between them for several long moments.

“It was war,” he then said, softly. “War between beings of incredible power. What you call gods, and Forgotten Ones. I was a diplomat of sorts, by that point. Kin to one side, but respected enough by the other. I walked between both groups, searching for a means to bring peace, to end the conflict. But nothing I did ever seemed to matter. Not diplomacy, not violence, not guile – always, the fighting began again. It trickled down and swept through all levels of existence. The People warred. Those they worshipped warred. The lines of elvhen society grew ever more rigid and harsh, sacrifices offered to try and buy enough power, enough strength, to finally claim victory for one side or another.”

She remembered Abelas, in the temple, scoffing at ‘elven history’ and telling her that it was the elves who had caused their own downfall, long before the shemlen came to wreak their own havoc on their remains.

“So you sealed them away,” she surmised.

“Mythal was slain,” he informed her. “The rage over her death was profound. I feared the world would not survive that breaking point, when all the wrath of the mighty would finally flood unheeded over the earth. So. Yes. I tricked them. I convinced both sides that I had finally thrown my lot in with them entirely, and that they should withdraw to muster their forces for a final assault while I sabotaged the other side, and then I sealed the Eluvians.” He looked up at the mirror. “All of them.”

“I’m sorry,” she offered.

A harsh bark, like a laugh, escaped him.

“I confess to the destruction of Elvhenan, and receive condolences!” he exclaimed. “What are you? Did you merge with that spirit of compassion you mentioned somewhere in your journeys?”

She scrunched up her face at the prospect of doing anything even remotely associated with the word ‘merging’ with Cole.

“Locking everyone in their rooms doesn’t sound like it would be worse than letting the gods rain fire and destruction on the world,” she defended.

“Were you not listening? There were no roads. I closed every Eluvian. Every city in Elvhenan was built to live in a place of beauty. Resources could be carried anywhere. But when the pathways were shut, suddenly whole settlements were left with nothing to sustain them. Trade halted. Desert cities could no longer find water. Wheat fields were often half a continent away from the ranches where their crop was used. Whole kingdoms, perched on solitary islands, had no ships. Do you know how many starved? Stranded? How many peoples were lost to infighting and disease and desperation and cannibalism as the mirrors stayed silent and their resources ran dry?”

She lowered her head. The pain in his voice almost seemed to shake the chamber around them.

“Did you realize that would happen, when you were doing it?” she wondered.

“Yes. I realized,” he confirmed.

An impossible decision, she thought. Let the gods wage their war, and risk the decimation of the world, or seal them away, but ensure the deaths of anyone unable to sustain themselves.

Fen’Harel let out a breath.

“I told myself, the cost would be great either way. But perhaps without the influence of our pettiness, The People would recover, and grow into something free of strife. Surely, without the demands of worshipping us, without the costs of our battles, or the effort to emulate us, they would never fight. They would never harm one another. We were leading them astray, I thought. Without us, they would be better off.”

She couldn’t help it. She snorted.

“It was foolish,” the Dread Wolf agreed.

“To be fair, most people think the gods are above pettiness themselves,” she defended.

It was Fen’Harel’s turn to snort.

“No, that disease seems to permeate all groups,” he confirmed. “Mythal knew better than I. A shade of her found me, after I had done it. It took all of my strength to close the doors. I was spent; I half thought I would fade away, in grief if not exhaustion. ‘Oh, Fen’Harel, what have you done?’ she asked me. ‘I have put your children to bed, Mother,’ I replied.”

“And then… what? You came here and went to sleep?” she wondered.

“Not at first,” he admitted. “When I had recovered some strength, I tried to help mitigate the damage I had caused. I was, perhaps, too forthright in explaining what I had done. The People did not appreciate being cut off from their gods and from one another. My… help, was not well-received.”

“I suppose that’s where the stories come from?”

“Possibly. There were already quite a few who disliked me for my role in the war,” Fen’Harel said. “Though it would be inaccurate to deny a sudden upswing in tales of my malice and cruelty during that time.”

“But you still tried to help?”

“Of course. I had stranded them. I had stranded everyone. Who was there to help, if not me? Mythal was barely more than a whisper, and all others were gone.” He sighed. “I should have been more cautious, however. I was used to the impunity of being a god. Respected. Revered. And feared.”

“Wait, let me guess – some group of people got it into their heads that if they killed you, it would undo what you had done and open the Eluvians again?” she asked.

Fen’Harel chuckled.

“How old are you?” he asked.

She blinked at the non-sequitur.

“Twenty-six,” she answered.

The Dread Wolf laughed again.

“Thousands of years I lived among The People, and I never anticipated such actions from them,” he mused. “Barely a quarter of a hundred, and she can figure it out in under a minute. Yet I thought myself so wise.”

“Well, I’m sort of coming from a ground-up perspective, here,” she pointed out.

“You are too kind,” he said, and made it sound like a genuine criticism. “But, yes. They tried to slay me. They were not the last to try it, either. Still. I thought it was me. That my presence was causing more harm than good, creating more strife. So I retreated. I resolved to sleep until my strength had gathered enough that I might open the Eluvians again. Then I would see what The People had made of the world. If it was, as I’d hoped, a place of peace and prosperity, then Mythal and I would both fade utterly, at last, and leave things be.”

“Well. That didn’t happen,” she noted.

“It did not,” Fen’Harel wryly agreed. “In dreams I glimpsed the fruits of my labours. They were bitter.”

The urge to offer him some form of comfort again was surprisingly strong. She had to force herself to bite it back. Perhaps it was because they were connected, somehow, through the orb, she thought. She certainly felt connected to him. Strangely so.

In front of the Eluvian, the wolf straightened.

“The orb is a focal point for my power,” he explained. “On my own, it will still take me a long, long time to recover what strength that calamity cost me. With it, that time is lessened considerably. The world has… well. Things are not right. What you call the Blight, and the darkspawn… something has gone horribly wrong, somewhere in all of this. I must open the gateway again. I must pray that my kin have found a way to resolve their differences, that they can help or be helped. But to even open this Eluvian, I will need enough power to unlock the orb. Then I can sacrifice it, once it has been repaired, and restore the gateway.”

Carefully, she turned his words over in her mind.

Was he saying that he wanted to bring back the old elven gods?

Yes. Yes he was.

“You realize that’s… probably going to be a massive disaster, right?” she asked.

He growled.

“As if there has not been only one disaster after another since all of this began!” he snapped out, at the end of it, biting off the words. Rising to his feet, he began to pace around the room. “I never intended this suffering. I never did! My choice was wrong. I should not have sealed the others away. All of that pain, theirs and The People’s and even my own, was for nothing.”

The despair in his last word made her heart twist.

“And if they come pouring out into the world, mad as hell and demanding your head on a spike?” she wondered.

“At this point? They may have it, if it will appease them,” Fen’Harel claimed. “Perhaps my head will finally be of some use.”

“No!” she snapped, with a viciousness that surprised them both. Something crackled around her, briefly, a flare of energy – there and then gone again.

The Dread Wolf stopped pacing, and stared at her.

She blinked.

“I mean…” she began, awkwardly. “You had to make a choice. If you’d chosen differently, maybe things would be better. Or maybe they’d be worse. You can’t know that. What happened afterwards wasn’t all your fault. People are accountable for their own choices in how they react to things, too.”

“I…” Fen’Harel began, and then stopped, obviously a little bit lost as to how to respond.

“Besides,” she said, before the awkwardness could drag itself out any longer. “If we’re talking about blights and darkspawn and corruption, I would be cautious about opening any doors without knowing for certain what was waiting behind them.”

“I do not wish for their suffering any more than I do the suffering of others!” Fen’Harel replied, successfully recovering from his surprise. “If something has happened to them, I must discover it.”

“If something’s happened to them, all sealed away as they are, then they’ve done it to themselves just as surely as we have made our own bed back in our world,” she pointed out. “It’s not your fault, Fen’Harel.”

The look of surprise came back. But then the wolf’s eyes narrowed, and he scoffed.

“And if you had sealed your friends and loved ones away from the world, only to watch it fall to ruin, and hear dark whispers of their fates – would you feel the same?” he wondered.

She faltered at the thought.

“No,” she conceded.

Fen’Harel let out a gusty breath.

“The longer this goes on, the more there is lost,” he said, and began his pacing again. “I must unlock the orb as quickly as possible.”

“Act in haste, repent at leisure,” she replied. Where had she heard that before? Cassandra, probably. It sounded like something someone would have said to her at some point, which she likely would have repeated with dry self-deprecation after rushing headlong into a total disaster.

Fen’Harel slunk around the Eluvian.

“I have not suddenly forgotten your warnings,” he informed her. “But neither can I abandon my goal.”

There would be no guarantee of safety, then, she realized. The right thing to do would probably be to destroy the orb. Remove the threat of Corypheus ever using it, once and for all. But what would her clan say to that, she wondered? To see her arguing against freeing their gods?

Oh, who was she kidding? Keeper Deshanna would faint stone dead just to know she was talking to the Dread Wolf. They’d probably ban her from ever returning just out of fear that she might bring him to their camp grounds.

If she wasn’t already a disembodied, temporally displaced spirit in the Fade, anyway.

That line of thought wasn’t very helpful.

Her mind wandered back to what Fen’Harel had said earlier, instead, when he’d asked how she would feel if she had locked away the people she loved, and watched everything fall to ruin. She remembered the wrench she’d felt when she sealed the rift behind them after they had lost Hawke in the Fade – that little voice in the back of her mind, wondering if Hawke might not survive or escape, knowing that by closing the rift she was sealing the champion’s fate.

And that was just one person. One person she hardly knew.

“I need to think about this,” she decided.

“You don’t. Not truly,” Fen’Harel informed her. “The choice is mine, and I have already made it.”

“Well then I still need to think about whether or not I’m going to help!” she snapped.

Once again, it seemed, she had surprised the Dread Wolf.

“Help?” he asked.

“Mythal thinks I might be able to unlock the orb. Or assist in unlocking the orb,” she explained.

“Oh,” Fen’Harel said. He looked at the anchor, tilting his head. “I had not even considered that.” He sounded surprised at himself.

“I’m connected to it. Somehow,” she admitted.

“…Somehow,” the Dread Wolf agreed.

“Does it make sense to you?” she wondered. “No one in my time could really figure out what Corypheus wanted to make, or what it… became when I ‘claimed’ it. Or whatever I did. Even Solas had never seen anything like it before.”

“I fear my insight will not be greater than his,” he replied, looking aside. “Whatever Corypheus was attempting, he must have been approaching it from an angle that escapes me. Perhaps if I saw what he was trying to create before it became so… interwoven with you, I could say more. But whatever he was making, the end result is something else.”

She tried not to be too disappointed.

Failed, mostly.

“I wish I knew what it was. What it’s done to me,” she admitted, lifting her hand to look at the object in question. When she had first woken up with it, it had been terrifying. A sparking, consuming, glowing magical scar that convulsed with pain every time the Breach expanded. And even after it had settled, it glowed sometimes at night, keeping her awake unless she tucked it under the blankets, and always jarring the bones of her arm whenever she used it to seal a rift.

It had only begun to ease up at all after Haven was destroyed.

Or, no, that wasn’t quite right, she supposed. It had felt different when she’d first gone to distract Corypheus as well.

A memory flashed in her mind’s eye. Her heart hammering in her chest as she prepared to go out, to leave the safety of the chantry, in an effort to buy Cullen the time to get everyone through the tunnels. She had been trying to focus on the task, and not her incredibly low odds of surviving it.

Solas had stopped her, before she left.

“Herald,” he’d said.

“I hate that title. But right now I almost hope it’s true,” she’d blurted.

He’d regarded her solemnly, no reproach in his gaze or disappointment at her lapse in nerve, and then extended his hand. As if to shake. As if to shake her marked hand, which was odd, as most avoided it, but then Solas was odd in general anyway. His grip had been warm and firm. Then it had tingled and glowed with a flare of magic.

“A healing spell. To keep you steady,” he had said, fingers tightening briefly. “I will go with you as far as I can.”

I wish I could have had more time to get to know you, she’d thought.

“Ma serannas. If all were as brave as you, Solas, it would be a brighter world,” she’d replied, dwelling for a moment on the man before her, the apostate who had risked his freedom to try and help strangers who threatened to cage him for it.

“I believe that line would be more appropriate coming from me,” he had told her, and then let go. The warmth of his hand had seemed to linger, the pain in her arm significantly less. She had smiled, a little shaky with the rush of nerves for what was to come, and then they had been out of time for any more attempted farewells – a shame, but in that moment she had thought to herself that she was glad it was Solas she had spoken to.

She shook the memory away, and tried to shake the melancholy pang that came with it, as well.

Fen’Harel was moving closer, she realized. The wolf strode up until he was directly in front of her, and then sat, and peered at her. Not only at the anchor, but at the rest of her, too, the shadowy shape of her, green and hollow.

“What it would have become in Corypheus’ hands, I cannot say,” he told her. “I suspect, even if he had kept it, it would not have worked as well for him as he might have intended. It is a piece of my power, channeled through the foci. Such a feat should not have been possible. In the days of Elvhenan, in the height of its glory, my kinsmen would sometimes bestow such shards of themselves upon their most favoured champions. Only their most beloved ones, those they intended to lift up by their side, and keep there forever, even beyond the typical longevity of The People. It was a rare event.”

Her jaw dropped.

“Uh,” she managed.

“But that was only ever done… in person, not through a foci,” he continued. “And such shards remained a part of their originator. They could be revoked at any time, if it came to it. What has been done to you…”

“Corypheus said that I had ‘spoiled it with my stumbling’. That it couldn’t be taken away without killing me,” she recalled. The words came out a little flat, most of her feeling rather distant with shock.

“That is true, in a sense, though I would not phrase it in such a way,” Fen’Harel confirmed. “Whatever Corypheus did to draw that shard of power through the foci distorted it. When it came into contact with you, it must have been further changed. And at some point…”

She waited for him to continue. And waited.

“At some point?” she finally prompted.

Fen’Harel let out a gusty sigh, and grumbled a word she did not recognize.

“At some point, the power was released to you. That was what allowed you to claim it for your own. Now, what it is, what it has done, is even harder to define. It would have been noteworthy even before your physical form was destroyed. The shape of your power resembles what I would bestow, were I to ever bestow such a thing. But I do not own it. It will not answer to me.”

“I suppose Corypheus wouldn’t have wanted it to,” she mused.

“He would not have had any say,” Fen’Harel informed her. “For my power to become divorced from me, I must relinquish it, freely. How he pulled it from the foci is a mystery, but even so it would still have been mine. I have no idea what would have come of his subsequent attempts to manipulate it.”

“Fire, death, destruction, and holes in the fabric of the universe,” she suggested. Then she shook her head. “But how could you release it to me? I never met you before I came here.”

“…It is most mysterious,” Fen’Harel agreed, turning away and walking back towards the Eluvian.

“Perhaps you were watching from a distance?” she suggested. “But then why wouldn’t you simply reclaim your power? Why give it to me?”

The wolf’s ears drooped, and his shoulders sagged. Tired again, probably.

“Fen’Harel?”

“I do not understand what Corypheus did. If you were using that power to try and repair the damage to the Veil, perhaps I feared that reclaiming it would erase his alterations, and leave the world without the only tool capable of closing the rifts,” he suggested.

“But that’s not all of it,” she guessed. “You’re holding something back.”

What was it about this tower, she wondered, that everyone who spent any great length of time in it seemed so fond of obfuscating?

“Yes, I am,” he admitted.

“What is it?” she pressed. “Please. Just tell me.”

“It is not easily explained,” he insisted. “I must have time to consider how to do so. I will tell you – I swear it. But… at the moment, I cannot fathom how to even begin. I can scarcely wrap my own head around it.”

Well. She supposed they were discussing a lot of insanely complex magical concepts in a language he’d only learned – somehow – a very short while ago.

“Take your time, then,” she agreed. “But I’m holding you to your word.”

She wasn’t even sure why she suddenly felt so adamant about that. Fen’Harel had been nothing but straightforward with her, so far. In fact, it was almost surprising how easy it was to take him at face value. She should have been more wary. Even while trying to keep an open mind, she would have expected her instincts to rebel against simply taking him at his word.

But she didn’t think he was lying. Even if that was foolish, she just… didn’t.

“I must sleep again, now,” Fen’Harel announced.

He moved towards the door.

“Rest well,” she offered, tentatively.

He paused, inclined his head, and then left her with the Eluvian and her thoughts.

 

~

 

May the Dread Wolf never catch your scent.

She turned the old warning over in her head. The phrase was a common enough parting that, many times, she never even considered what it was actually supposed to mean. In common terms it was simply a hope that ill-fortune wouldn’t find someone. When she’d been small, though, she had always pictured a massive beast, slinking around the dark parts of the forest, nose to the ground as it sought unwary elves for its breakfast.

She had done more than let him catch her scent, though. By far. But had it brought her any ill-fortune, she wondered? Obviously the Breach and Corypheus and what had happened because of them were terrible, but for her, personally, it was… more complicated. She’d been uprooted. Thrust into the center of things, turned into a shemlen figurehead, and ultimately left in this strange and lonely state.

And yet.

The anchor had saved her from death at the conclave. It had saved her again, she suspected, when Corypheus’ spell had thrust her into the past. It had made her a target, but it had also given her the means to fight. To help. To do things and see things that she never would have been able to otherwise.

After a few moments, she shook the thoughts loose, and let them go. There wasn’t any point in dwelling on the oddity of her situation. She’d already learned that lesson, although her definition of ‘oddity’ kept getting strained past the point of breaking.

The problem, she supposed, was that part of her couldn’t stop thinking about things in terms of the stories she’d grown up on. And in those stories, the Dread Wolf was a trickster and deceitful and malicious, whereas the other gods were largely benevolent. So on the one hand, by the logic of those stories, she shouldn’t help Fen’Harel – but on the other hand, she should do everything she could to free the gods from their prison.

It was ridiculous. And pointless. The stories were just that; stories. Whatever kernels of truth they held had long ago been buried and turned over and misplaced by the passage of time and the destruction of elvhen history. They were less than useless to her now; she would likely be better off, in fact, if she’d never heard them to being with – at least so far as this particular situation was concerned.

In the garden around her, a few brightly glowing butterflies winged past. She watched them for a moment, and then closed her eyes, and imagined she was in another Skyhold.

“What do you think?” she asked the empty air.

He’s right about one thing, Varric’s voice drifted to her. Stories always change with each retelling. You can’t rely on what you think you know about any of this. There’s no way to tell where all the creative edits have been put into place. You want my advice? Stick with your gut. But maybe don’t rush into waking up any angry gods without at least a solid back-up plan.

Oh, please, Vivienne interjected. A trickster plays tricks, does he not? This ‘Dread Wolf’ of yours, whatever he truly is, has a reputation for a reason. Don’t fall for his ploys. Take the orb and destroy it before it has a chance to unleash chaos onto the world. You can’t just throw the world into disarray because you feel sorry for him.

I agree, Cassandra chimed in. The orb poses too much of a risk. And I don’t like the sounds of this plan to resurrect these so-called elven ‘gods’. Perhaps they are benevolent. But if they are not? If they are wrathful? You could create a disaster even worse than anything the Breach has caused.

It’s probably demons, or monsters, yeah? Sera agreed. I’m not much for this ‘elfy magic’ business. And that wolf makes me twitchy. Sure, he’s all nice and friendly when he’s small enough to get his arse kicked, but what about when he’s back to being a giant… six-eyed… freaky thing with jaws big enough to bite your head off? Bet he’s not so chummy then.

I wouldn’t say no to trying to fight him, Iron Bull interjected. Anything else…? Too weird.

If we assume he’s telling the truth, then he’s trying to make up for past mistakes, Blackwell offered. But that’s a pretty big ‘if’. And besides, just because he’s trying to make amends doesn’t mean he’s going about it the right way. Seems to me like he’s more on the verge of repeating history, but in the opposite direction.

How dreary of you all, Dorian declared. But I have to say, I don’t see much appeal to this whole ‘wake the elven gods’ plan, either. Though that could just be self-preservation talking. I’ll be the first to admit that my homeland isn’t perfect, but I’d rather not see it go up in a column of smoke thanks to vengeful elven deities who might just be a teensie bit upset over certain parts of our history.

I think you should help, Cole said. It’s not right to be left and locked away and forgotten forever. Nobody deserves that.

She opened her eyes, and blinked, as the air in the garden seemed to shimmer around for a few seconds. When it passed, she looked up towards the barrier. It looked… thinner, she thought. Her gaze trailed back to the anchor, but after a moment, she decided not to try it. There was too much to sort out, yet. She hadn’t really made up her mind about anything.

With a sigh of resignation, she continued her internal deliberations.

 

~

 

Fen’Harel found her on the battlements.

He approached with the orb in his mouth, claws clicking over the stone, and when she glanced at him, he set it by her feet.

It glowed, slightly.

“It reacts so strongly…” he marvelled.

“Mythal said it was because the anchor came from it,” she replied.

“You are connected to it,” Fen’Harel confirmed. “For good or ill. I suspect you could destroy it, if you wished. I might not even be strong enough to stop you.”

She paused. Her eyes flit over a few the deep, dark voids beyond Skyhold’s walls, resting instead on an arc of white lightning that split the sky in the distance.

“I won’t destroy it,” she said. A moment ago, she hadn’t even been certain that that was something she had decided. But then, she wasn’t even sure she’d ever seriously entertained the idea of doing so, either.

“Do not mistake this for disapproval, by any means, but… why not?” the Dread Wolf wondered. “Why didn’t you destroy it earlier, for that matter? It would be the simplest way of preventing the future you fear from coming to pass.”

She folded her arms, tight against the twisting feeling suddenly working its way through her chest. How unfair; if she was going to be incorporeal, you’d think the universe could at least do her the favour of letting her numb such feelings.

“I promised someone I would try and preserve it,” she admitted.

“Surely not anyone who would actually recall such a promise,” Fen’Harel pointed out.

“Are you trying to change my mind?”

“Not in the least,” he assured her, emphatically. “I am trying to understand it! You would risk letting everything you fear come to pass in order to keep your word to someone who has no means of holding you to it?”

Her jaw clenched.

“If it comes to it, I will do what I must. But in the meanwhile, yes, I will keep my promise,” she snapped. “I’ll do my best. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t know. I didn’t make that promise to impress him; I made it because it meant something to him. And if he was here, it would still mean something to him. Or it would come to again. However it’s supposed to work with time travel.”

“You…” Fen’Harel trailed off. “Who did you promise?” he wondered.

“Solas,” she answered, shortly.

“Ah.”

The Dread Wolf went uncommonly quiet. She looked back over at him, half expecting to see him sleeping again, only find him staring at the battlement’s stones. The ones beneath him were the colour of sand, warm even under the sickly light around them.

“You’ve mentioned that name before,” Fen’Harel said. “The one who helped you find Skyhold. The mage.”

“Yes.”

“You were… close?”

“Why do you ask?” she snapped. Maybe a little harshly. She let out a breath. “Ir abelas; I didn’t mean to be rude. Yes. We were close.”

The silence which fell between them was awkward and unreasonably tense. Strange, she thought. It was easier to listen to him talking about the gods. But then, that was his past. This was hers, unsettling as it was to think that it was truly all behind her, now. Part of her kept waiting to see if she could go back, she realized. Part of her kept expecting some portal to open, for Dorian to stick his head through it and shout ‘aha!’ at the sight of her.

Though it was more likely he’d scream in horror and demand to know what the hell had happened to her body.

It got blown up, Dorian, she thought, and then snorted at herself.

“Foolish,” Fen’Harel whispered.

“What?” she asked, drawn back out of her imaginings.

The Dread Wolf shifted slightly, ears flicking back.

“That was… not a wise time to attempt a romantic pursuit,” he informed her.

Anger, hot and heady, burst in her chest, chasing a familiar frustration that she had expected to have dredged up in her again.

“Oh, well, thank you for that unnecessary bit of condescension,” she snapped, and turned to walk away, ready to be done with the entire conversation. He toe nudged the orb as she did, and the air around them rippled, briefly.

“You are so beautiful.”

She froze, shocked still, as the voice drifted through the ether. Then she whipped around, searching, even though she knew it couldn’t be…

A pair of indistinct figures shimmered in the air. Illusions of the Fade. Like the vision of Divine Justinia, but more clouded, their features almost impossible to see. They were twined together. Intimately. But then one pulled back, suddenly stiff, suddenly cold.

“And I am sorry. I have distracted you from your duties. It will never happen again.”

“Solas…”

With a curse she lashed out, not even entirely certain what she was doing, only knowing that she did not want to hear this. Not again. The anchor rippled and the orb whirred, and the air around them seemed to constrict as the vision was destroyed. The figures vanished into wisps and dust, quiet memory once more.

Her damnable heart fractured just a bit more.

She couldn’t bring herself to look at Fen’Harel, to risk seeing either pity or approval some smug ‘I told you so’ in the wolf’s gaze.

Head down, she stormed away.

 

~

 

The content of them aside, she supposed it was interesting that the orb had helped manifest one of her memories in the Fade.

If that was even what had happened. She only thought of it once she had calmed down, standing in the War Room, perched on one end of the empty table as she watched distant shapes shifting through the stained glass windows. Of course, memories in the Fade weren’t at all uncommon, but none had happened to her yet here. She supposed it had something to do with the barrier.

But maybe it was something to do with her nature, instead. After all, she wasn’t really a spirit or an elf or living or dead, as far as she could tell. The orb made her feel more… real. So maybe it let the Fade react to her presence more, too.

She never thought she’d ever gain so much firsthand insight into Cole’s state of being.

It’s like a dream, she decided. Like I’m just dreaming.

Longing swept over her. She wanted to wake. She wanted to eat, to drink, to tire, to feel the weather change, to look up and see the sun. She wanted to roam. To camp. To sit around a fire and listen to the chatter, to walk with Josephine while she ranted about the latest diplomatic mishap, to watch Cullen put his people through their drills, to walk into the tower and hear Leliana’s messenger birds in the rafters. She wanted to hear minstrels in the tavern, to fight bandits on the road, to stand on the Storm Coast and watch the sea try to swallow the earth. Let the spray hit her face.

She wanted to feel warm lips against hers, warm arms around her, soft fabric beneath her fingers and softer whispers in her ears.

Was this what demons felt, she wondered? It was easy to see how such a longing, left to fester unappeased, could twist almost anyone into monster.

The thought made her shudder.

Claws clicked across the floor outside of the chamber door. Fen’Harel had finished his nap, then. They came to a stop outside, and then paused.

When the door didn’t open of its own accord, she eventually stood, and went to it herself.

The Dread Wolf was sitting on the other side.

“You can open doors,” she noted.

“Of course,” he replied. “The lack of opposable thumbs is something of a hindrance, but less so in the Fade. May I come in?”

She shrugged, and stepped aside, gesturing towards the interior of the War Room.

“You can go wherever you please, I expect,” she said.

“It has occurred to me that I should attempt to afford you more courtesy,” Fen’Harel replied. “It is not my place to pry where I am unwelcome. For all the strangeness of our circumstances, we are, after all, only just acquainted.”

“You’ve shown me plenty of courtesy,” she assured him. “Much more than I would have expected.”

He raised a brow at her. An interesting expression, on a wolf.

“Knowing what I do of what the average Dalish would expect of me, that’s a rather low bar to set,” he replied.

“How do you know? Just… through dreams?” she wondered, leaving the door open. It wasn’t as if anyone else could come and walk in on their conversation, after all.

“More or less. It isn’t the same as actually being present, but there are places – shrines, old battlefields, ruins where the Veil is thin – where one dreaming from the Fade might find the real world not so far away,” he explained. “And some spirits, ancient and enduring, have been known to whisper to me in my sleep. A spirit of wisdom has often kept me company. She has recounted much knowledge to me, as she accumulated it.”

“Huh,” she said, suddenly uneasy again. “Spirits of wisdom are rare.”

“They are, at that,” Fen’Harel agreed.

“Solas knew one. She perished, though. A group of fool mages tried to bind her into fighting for them, and twisted her nature into that of a demon. We managed to free her, but the strain was too much, and she didn’t last long after,” she admitted. “It was cruel.”

Fen’Harel’s eyes narrowed.

“Mages?” he asked. “What mages?”

She shrugged.

“Apostates fleeing the war, I suppose. We didn’t precisely take down their names before Solas…” she trailed off, and shrugged again.

“Spirits of wisdom are rare, as you said,” the Dread Wolf replied. “I would hate to see even one suffer, let alone perish. Perhaps, if we are vigilant, we might be able to prevent such a thing from happening again.”

“If I could just get out of the Fade,” she grumbled, clenching her hands in frustration. “There is so much I want to try and prevent! To help stop before it even begins!”

“I’m afraid that, even if you could leave right this moment, it would do you little good as you are,” he pointed out.

She dropped her hands and sighed.

“I know,” she admitted. “No body. At best, people would assume I was a ghost.”

“And I a wild beast,” Fen’Harel added. “My strength is returning more slowly than I would like. I’ve never been so weak before. It is… unsettling. The wards around this place are beginning to fail, and when they do, it will no longer be safe here.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Have you not noticed? There are no spirits here,” he pointed out.

“I did notice that, in fact. I assumed the giant barrier was keeping them out.”

“It is,” Fen’Harel agreed. “But once it is gone, this place will no longer be an island within the Fade. Spirits both benign and malevolent will be drawn here. Most will be harmless, but some will be tempted by the power they can sense – in the orb, in the Eluvian, and in both of us as well.”

She looked at him in horror, and just a hint of relief. The latter mostly for the prospect of finally getting out, at least.

“So what do we do?” she wondered.

“That… is a very good question,” he replied. “Hopefully Mythal will return before circumstances become truly dire.”

Mythal must have stayed the whole while last time. There would have been no one else to look over Fen’Harel while he recovered, she realized. Her presence had changed that – what an unpleasant surprise.

“You know Mythal is… slightly unhinged, right?” she checked.

“Death does not tend to promote mental coherence,” Fen’Harel conceded.

“So what’s our back-up plan?”

The Dread Wolf considered that, tail swishing a little across the stone floor as he thought.

“Skyhold itself will draw the most notice; the falling of the wards and the pristine nature of this place, steeped in memory, will make it like a beacon. We will have to flee. There is little any spirit could do to the Eluvian, broken as it already is, but the pair of us and the orb would be different stories. In a purely pragmatic world, it would be wise of us to split up, to further evade notice. But in this instance, I wouldn’t recommend it. You are new to this existence, and I am exhausted of the vast majority of my strength. We are both easy targets,” He huffed. “If I could only accelerate this recovery somehow, it wouldn’t be an issue.”

“Yeah, that’s frustrating for you, I know, but how about we steer away from thoughts along the lines of ‘if only I could do something to get more power in a hurry!’ from here on out,” she suggested. “Especially while we’re in the Fade.”

Fen’Harel slumped just a bit, adopting an expression perilously close to embarrassment.

“Point taken,” he conceded.

Then he glanced up at her, considering.

“You know, if you could unlock the orb, we might be able to repair the Eluvian and open it,” he suggested. “We could easily avoid trouble, then.”

“Because walking in on a bunch of ancient elven gods – that’s safer than dealing with some spirits?” she replied, radiating scepticism.

“We wouldn’t go there first,” he protested. “All Eluvian open to the crossroads, and thence to other planes. You would be safe there.”

“Until the gods came pouring out into it,” she mused.

“They would have no reason to concern themselves with you,” Fen’Harel informed her.

She stared at him. Then she lifted her hand, and waved the anchor a little.

“Oh, no, I’m only branded with the mark of the Dread Wolf who sealed them all away in the form of a mysterious magical object they’ve never seen the likes of before. I’m sure they wouldn’t pay me the least bit of mind,” she countered. “How did you describe them before? Petty, wasn’t it?”

Fen’Harel blinked.

Then he cursed.

It surprised a snort out of her.

“That surprisingly valid concern aside, we could at least proceed to the crossroads,” he suggested. “I would figure out something after that. I am certain.”

“Forgive me if I don’t have a lot of faith in your patience and self-restraint at the moment,” she replied.

“I… cannot even say that is unfair, which, let me assure you, is infuriating,” he admitted. “At one point in time I was capable of waiting decades just to watch a single flower bloom and wither before my eyes.”

“But now you feel like you’re out of time?” she guessed

“It did not seem a waste, back then,” the Dread Wolf muttered. “It did not seem as if each second that passed added to the weight of my misdeeds.”

“Rushing is likely to create more problems than it solves,” she pointed out.

“I am aware of that,” he groused back at her.

She raised her hands, anchor gleaming.

“And yet…?”

He sighed.

“It has been so long. Part of me just wants it to be over, at last, one way or another,” he confessed.

“That’s not urgency, then,” she informed him. “That’s exhaustion. You still need more rest. We can discuss things once you’re not falling asleep every five minutes.”

“And if the wards break before then?” he wondered.

“I’ll think of something,” she promised.

 

~

 

I’ll think of something, she scoffed at herself, later, sat upon the balcony outside of the bed chamber while the Dread Wolf slept. Curled around his foci. The urge to get up and touch it again was surprisingly strong, but she resisted, and tried to think instead.

She didn’t want to go too far, now that she knew the barrier could drop at a moment’s notice.

There had to be a way for Fen’Harel, at least, to get back into the waking world. If not, she wasn’t sure how the orb might have gotten there. But he probably wasn’t strong enough yet. She wondered how fast he could move, if he really needed to. She wondered how fast she could, come to it. And how fast would the rest of the Fade come pouring in once the barrier was gone? Would it be like the Red Templars marching on Haven, a massive force banging at their doorstep? Or would it be a trickle, like the refugees fleeing the war, coming in fits and starts?

The barrier crackled, and she jumped, and then glared at it. But it was only another fluctuation.

A rift, she decided. If it came to it, she could try to open a rift. It would probably work once the barrier was down. She had no idea what she would become, out of the Fade – if she would look like the spirits that occasionally crossed through, or if she would warp and twist like a demon. But Fen’Harel, at least, could escape, and hopefully keep the orb safe.

Putting your faith in the Dread Wolf, she thought. That sounds like the start of a cautionary tale.

The Dread Wolf in question huffed in his sleep, and then let out an irritated grumble.

Waking up again, she realized.

After a great deal of shifting and grumbling and some stretching, Fen’Harel flopped off of the bed and landed on the floor with an ineloquent thud. Then he growled, muttered a curse, and shook his head.

“Are you always this terrible at waking up?” she wondered.

His head whipped up, surprised, but he seemed to calm somewhat when he caught sight of her. Which was strange because, honestly, she kind of thought that her voice was infinitely less unsettling than her appearance, all things considered.

“No,” he protested. “Not this terrible. Usually.”

“But still somewhat terrible?”

“It is disorienting,” he confessed. “In dreams, everything… flows. Waking is like being stuffed back into a box that’s several sizes too small.”

“I can see where that would be unpleasant,” she noted.

“It is revolting,” Fen’Harel insisted, taking a few steps forward, until he was sitting across from her. “I can scarcely imagine how much worse it’s going to be outside of the Fade, where everything is so much more unyielding.”

“Not looking forward to leaving?” she wondered.

“I would leave this instant if I could only manage it,” he replied. “I have been here more than long enough. But that doesn’t mean I’m looking forward to the inevitable consequences of going somewhere else.”

“I see.”

They sat in silence, for a while. Fen’Harel turned his head to look at the barrier, beyond the balcony. She stared at him, almost idly, comparing his smaller form to the giant one she’d first found slumbering in the tower.

If she’d seen a wolf like him on a hunt back home, she wouldn’t have been worried. He looked tired, but also healthy – an ideal combination for an elf hoping to avoid confrontation. Such a wolf would have no reason to risk dangerous prey, to go after the halla or try and stalk the clan, and his health would be a good indicator that prey in the area was plentiful.

“I miss it,” she confessed.

He looked at her, questioningly.

“Being solid. Unyielding,” she elaborated. “I miss being able to touch things and have them feel real.”

Fen’Heral was quiet for a moment. She didn’t suppose there was much he could say to that, though. It was probably foolish to even mention it. When he turned and headed back towards the bed, she didn’t think much of it, assuming the conversation was simply over.

But then he came back, carrying the orb in his mouth. He dropped it into her lap.

The crackling rush came again, and before she could ask him what he was doing – if he was being that impatient about getting her to unlock it again – he nudged her hand with his nose.

It felt warm. A little damp. Almost perfect, as if she was sitting on an actual balcony, with an actual wolf.

Her breath caught, and before she could stop herself, she ran a hand over top of Fen’Harel’s skull. His fur was soft. She could feel the individual strands underneath her fingertips, like the lining of a winter cloak.

“There,” the Dread Wolf said, and then sat down against her side.

“You don’t mind?” she wondered, almost snatching her hand back as she suddenly remembered where she was and who he was.

“If I minded, I wouldn’t have done it,” he said, reasonably. “You may continue to pet me.”

He glanced up at her, a hint of wry humour in his voice.

“Oh, well, if I may,” she replied, and rolled her eyes.

But she took him up on the offer, stroking one hand carefully down the back of his neck and across his back. She expected it to be a bit like hugging Cole – pleasant, but destined to last only a moment before he pulled away in either boredom or discomfort.

Fen’Harel flopped his head onto her knee, closed his eyes, and let out a heavy sigh.

She paused, half a second, before she kept going. After a while she grew bold enough to press her knuckles behind his ears, and when he pushed back into the touch, to gently scratch there. She ran her fingers through the thickest fur of his neck and over the bump of his shoulders, until the tentative pats resembled something closer to a casual grooming.

After a while she began to suspect that he’d fallen asleep again. But when her hand finally stilled, he opened his eyes.

They regarded one another silently for a moment. She supposed it should be awkward; she’d just been petting him after all, which, when she thought about it, was bizarre. Even if a wolf was rather close to a dog, Fen’Harel was very far away from both, no matter how he appeared.

“What were you like, before all of this?” he wondered, not bothering to move his head from her knee.

“How do you mean?” she asked.

“Did the anchor change you?”

She raised an eyebrow, and glanced pointedly down at her still-decidedly-incorporeal form.

“I mean in spirit,” Fen’Harel clarified. “Your personality, your nature. Did it… reshape who you were? Make you think about things or react to things in a way that you wouldn’t have before?”

Unease, and a strong sense of déjà vu, trickled down her spine. She tried to shake it off.

“No,” she replied, resolutely.

“You sound so sure.”

“You’re not the first person to ask me that. I’ve had to consider it before,” she admitted.

He fell silent again, for a long while. She didn’t go back to petting him, but she let him stay where he was, and rested her hand on his back. Weird, she thought. This is weird.

The weirdest part, she decided, was that it didn’t feel weird at all.

“Strange,” Fen’Harel eventually rumbled, as if he was reading her mind.

Could he do that?

Probably not.

“Are you referring to this in particular, or just commenting on the universe at large?” she wondered.

He huffed.

“Both, perhaps.” At last, he sat up, and shook himself out a little. He didn’t leave, however. Instead he settled back down, facing towards her. Scrutinizing her again.

“What?” she asked.

“It cannot have been random. I must have chosen you, intentionally. I like to think I would not be so cruel as to foist a burden onto you while you were completely unaware of it, yet you claim that I never once revealed myself to you,” he said.

“I’m not sure I’m following,” she admitted.

“It’s simple. If you received the anchor purely by chance, the likelihood that you would be the kind of person who could carry it well – the kind of person who could handle the myriad situations you have described – is extremely low. Most people would not take well to your situation,” Fen’Harel reasoned. “So it stands to reason that it was not chance. But I… I am not that cruel. Am I?”

Oh.

This.

“It was chance,” she assured him. “I was in the right place at the right time.”

“Are you certain?” he wondered.

“Yes,” she said, firmly. “You weren’t there any more than Andraste was. I heard shouting, I heard a woman calling for help, and I went to see what had gone wrong.”

“And any random servant, any diplomat or attendant, could not have done the same?” he wondered.

“Well, I was spying in a corridor I wasn’t supposed to be in,” she admitted. “I imagine Corypheus disposed of most of the servants or anyone else he found there before they got started.”

“And no one prompted you to go there?” Fen’Harel pressed. “Not mysterious strangers, or… friends?”

“No. I snuck in through the servants’ entrance and saw some of the Templar delegation approaching. I was afraid they’d notice me, so I went in the opposite direction and down the nearest stairway. I wasn’t even sure where to start looking for information, so I decided to just keep going that way, and see what I could find.”

“And you found an ancient magister darkspawn trying to sacrifice the chantry’s Divine to the Dread Wolf’s foci?” Fen’Harel concluded.

“And then I robbed him,” she agreed, raising the hand with the anchor in it and pointedly wiggling her fingers.

He huffed out a laugh.

“That is impossible,” he said.

“Strong words, coming from an ancient elven legend. I’m a time-traveling ghost with a magical key in my hand, and the idea that I accidentally walked in on someone – that’s what you can’t get past?” she wondered.

“I suppose I just cannot believe the good fortune that it was someone like you, and not someone a little less well-intentioned,” he admitted.

“So you approve of me?” she prodded, attempting to lighten the tone.

“Of your circumstances? Not at all,” Fen’Harel replied, going sharper instead. “It is to my good fortune that you were not the sort who might kill me in my sleep. But that simply means you are all the more undeserving of such a grim fate. If I had intentionally done this to you, without even offering the courtesy of an explanation… I would no longer trust anything about myself.”

“That’s surprising,” she admitted.

“Why? Because I am the Dread Wolf?”

“Because most people just stop at ‘I’m glad it was someone like you’,” she explained. And as she said it, she realized it was something that had hurt her, a little bit. Just a little. That everyone was so busy being happy that she wasn’t a raving lunatic or an utter incompetent that no one seemed to mind if she suffered for it.

You’re being unfair, she told herself. It was meant well, when people spoke so highly of her. And what else could they offer, really, except for their approval? Everyone had been suffering, and in danger. She probably wouldn’t have done any different in their shoes. Condolences and commiseration could have waited until after the danger had passed, and there was time to breathe. If they ever really needed to come at all.

They couldn’t have known she’d have to start all over again, from an even more precarious position than a prison cell.

“Most people are intolerable,” the Dread Wolf informed her.

She grinned.

“And yet, you’ve apparently tried to preserve us,” she noted.

“I said they were intolerable, not that they all deserved to suffer and die,” he replied, a touch reproachfully.

“Fair point.”

With a huff, Fen’Harel stood again. She half expected him to reclaim the orb, but instead he leapt back onto the bed without bothering. She stood, a little reluctantly, and went to return it to him herself.

“You may keep that, for now,” he informed her, casually, as if he was talking about a quill or a pair of scissors, and not a repository for his immense powers.

She looked down at herself, at the realness it coaxed out of her. Perhaps he was only hoping to encourage her to unlock it. Maybe he thought she might even do it by accident.

“Thank you,” she nevertheless replied.

Fen’Harel inclined his head, once, and then curled up to resume his recovery.

She walked back onto the balcony, orb tucked underneath one arm, and ran her fingers across the smooth surface of the railing for a while.

 

~

 

Time passed, in whatever way it did in the Fade. When Fen’Harel was awake, he was usually with her – though sometimes he went off on his own, too, walking the battlements or wandering through the keep, the gardens and courtyards, watching the wisps and peering at the tapestries.

“It is not precisely as it ever really was,” he informed her. “But memory is always imprecise.”

The comment filled her with that same peculiar discomfort again, the feeling that there was something about Fen’Harel – not something untrustworthy, per se, but something that she didn’t want to look fully in the face, either.

He was an ancient god. That was probably normal.

“Could you tell I was here, while you were sleeping?” she wondered. “I mean, before I woke you up that time.”

“Yes,” he admitted. “It was incredibly frustrating. You were a mystery. In many ways-”

“I still am,” she finished, hastily cutting him off.  “I know. Could you tell the hold was changing? I mostly did it to stave off boredom.”

“Somewhat,” he confirmed. “I couldn’t appreciate the full effect until I was awake, however.”

She asked him about the coated bricks, then, and the murals, until she began to feel at ease again.

In return, Fen’Harel often asked her about the world that was waiting beyond their little corner of the Fade. He already knew a lot, she found, but history flowed quickly in his mind, and it was only the big events that really stuck out. He knew there’d been a blight very recently, for example, but he also seemed to think that the war between Ferelden and Orlais had happened less than five minutes before it.

She filled in what she could, sharing events yet-to-come as easily as those gone by. It made her grateful for Josephine pressing all of those shemlen history books into her arms, insisting she become acquainted with the basics so she didn’t embarrass herself in diplomatic meetings. And then, of course, Dorian had found her in the library, tsk’d under his breath, and promptly added three more books to the pile and thrown one over the tower railing.

Solas had not been impressed by having it thud down onto the floor scant feet in front of him.

Conversations of history and society and geography, borders and cultures and religions, eventually diverted themselves onto more personal subjects again, however.

“What are you, though?” she couldn’t help but wonder on one occasion, after he had explained some of the runed to her, in the chambers where Cullen’s office used to be.

“You’re asking if I’m really a god?” Fen’Harel replied, slinking around a silvery birch desk that was nothing like the heavy Fereldan piece she associated with the room. Sometimes it got a little bit thicker or darker, in the corner of her eye, as if it was attempting to compromise.

“I’m pretty sure you’re not,” she admitted. Unless we’re straining the definition of ‘god’ to the point of breaking, a memory whispered – but it stayed inside of her head, at least.

“No,” the Dread Wolf agreed. “We had gods of our own, in ages long past. Whether or not they were real, I can’t say; they were something more in keeping with the chantry’s Maker than with Dalish folklore.”

“So what are you, then?” she repeated.

“There is no appropriate term for it, not anymore,” he said.

“Were you a regular wolf, once?” she wondered. “Or an elf? A spirit?”

“Not as you’d consider them,” he replied. “The People, as they once were, would be difficult to recognize compared to what they have become. Within them was a significant divide of upper and lower castes, those meant to live, and those meant to serve. And what I was born as would be another step further removed from that, even.”

“And you and Mythal are all that’s left of that ‘step removed’?” she wondered. “Everyone else was sealed away?”

“So far as I know,” he confirmed.

“So the Dalish mistook you for gods,” she concluded, a little glumly.

Fen’Harel laughed.

“No, your culture need not take the blame for that,” he told her. “We were worshipped long before then. The nebulous concept of distant, unseen forces at work can often be less compelling than a living, breathing being of considerable power. Particularly when certain beings of said power see any acknowledgement of a higher one as a personal insult.”

“Your people disapproved of other religions?” she surmised.

“I once saw a temple to the unseen gods razed to the ground,” he replied. “Followers flogged until they either repented or died. The survivors’ faces were branded in favour of Andruil, lest their new devotion be doubted, and the upper-caste elves who ‘rescued’ them kindly forgave their misguided sins.”

She thought of the Temple of Mythal, and the ancient elves there, dying in droves to protect the Well of Sorrows.

She did not think of light spilling over her face, tingling as magic erased what had once been written on her skin.

“We have been enduring such things for a very, very long time,” she murmured. “It is a bitterness to know we once perpetrated it as well.”

“The upper-castes of Elvhenan would have considered themselves to be as separate from the lower-castes as different species,” Fen’Harel told her. “And even the lower-castes would likely look upon modern elves as something utterly different from them. A pair of pointed ears does not a people make.”

Again, she thought of Abelas, and the Temple of Mythal.

“They were a lot taller,” she recalled.

Fen’Harel barked out a laugh, surprised. He kept laughing, until she couldn’t help but join in, and he was left leaning against the desk, shaking with mirth.

When he finished, he let out a heavy breath.

“Yes, lethallan. They were taller,” he agreed.

 

~

 

When the wards fell, the barrier didn’t break gently or slowly. It didn’t flicker out or simply die off.

It shattered, like a drum struck by lightning.

 

~