Chapter Text
Acquaintance
When she eventually woke up she could hardly remember where she was. She was feeling groggy, her mouth dry, her limbs sore, her left hand tickled and tingled as if she had been sleeping on it all night. Light wood was above her head and a fire was cracking nearby.
“Strange,” she thought. In her settlement they scarcely had such a nice, clear wood which could be used to build huts. And building huts was a novelty too, considering the nomadic lifestyle of Dalish clans in general. This thought in particular made her realize at once where she was.
She sat upright with too quick a movement, gasping loudly, just as another elf, a young girl, was entering what appeared to be the main door to the cabin where she had been sleeping. The girl gasped too and started excusing herself.
“I didn't mean to wake you up, miss. I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry...”
“What... Wait, where are you going?”
“They told me to tell you that you must go to the Chantry. Lady Seeker would want to know and Lady Leliana too!”
The girl bolted away leaving her flabbergasted, still trying to articulate some questions to better understand her situation. It was all too clear nonetheless: she was somewhere in Ferelden; she had helped a group of creepy weirdos in trying to seal a tear in the sky with the even more creepy thing that had appeared in her left hand (hence the tingling sensation); they clearly had no intention of letting her go and so she had agreed to help them seal what they called “the breach”. They had taken her right below it, where the first rift had appeared. A huge beast came out of it, as voices rang in her head, her own voice too, and when they finally killed the beast and she tried to close the rift, she witnessed some creepy visions and fainted.
Reality hit her hard while she stood up. She was wearing a beige outfit that looked like an orlesian pajama. With a grimace on her face and after having examined her ominous left hand she decided to search for some other clothes. Her body was covered in black and blue bruises and the mere act of undressing and dressing up with a shirt and leather breeches made her hurt in several parts. Her thick, straight, auburn hair was tangled and she desperately tried to comb it with her hands, venting all of her frustration in that act and nearly tearing them out with a suppressed cry of anger. She wasn't with her clan anymore. They had sent her to the Conclave with some of her fellow hunters to investigate. They were all dead, while she had survived: yes, apparently she was the only survivor of a terrific explosion that happened there. She remembered its noise. Its loud “BANG” in her ears and then the ringing sound it left in them when she woke up, lifting herself from the ground and staggering helplessly. Her eyes were blinded by a light that hurt them. Slowly, they adjusted to the eerie green light surrounding her, but the loud ring and the whistle in her ears didn't cease to drill into her brain. Where the hell was she? There were rocks scattered everywhere, growing and glowing minerals that looked like lyrium – except that it was red and pulsating. And then the spiders. Crawling out of the dark, menacing, gigantic, each one with a name she knew: death, night, solitude, failure... She started to run with all the strength she managed to find in her damaged body, feeling something hot and liquid dripping down her temple into her neck. How did she manage to save herself? A bright figure. She took her hand. That was all.
And then she remembered: repeating time after time this same story to the Lady Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast, as she had introduced herself. It was a luminescent figure, yes, but no deity. She didn't remember nothing but light and actually that may have been no woman at all, she had been desperate and the only thing she knew was that she had to run towards the light.
She decided to stop thinking about it, otherwise she would have gone mad. She would have plenty of time that night to think about what happened. She would now find those people and pretend an explanation and then ask them to let her return to her clan right after the breach was sealed. What would the Keeper be thinking by now? They must have thought that she was dead. She grabbed a big woolen sweater and marched out of the cabin.
It was a sunny morning, but the air was crisp and the wind carried the resting snow with itself. She looked at her surroundings sheltering her eyes, not yet adjusted to the piercing light reflected by the snow covered surfaces: she was in a small village of wooden houses, embraced by mountains and overlooking a lake, that she could only discern from afar. There were fortifications all around the core of the town and she could hear the distinct sound of swords in the distance. It was difficult not to see the Chantry even from afar. The building stood out among the others for its sturdy appearance and its height, quite uncommon for a building in that part of Ferelden, to be true, given that they were in the mountains and exposed to the elements. The Chantry was built with its back on one of the mountains and it overlooked the other buildings from its favourable position. She made her way through the streets of Haven – she had just remembered the Seeker, Cassandra, mentioning that name during their absurd encounter – while the people she encountered immediately turned to gaze directly at her, dropping whatever sort of thing they were doing while whispering between themselves: “The Herald!”
The breach loomed in the sky, irradiating it with a sickly green colour. It looked like a wound in the middle of the eye of a tornado. And the worst part of it was that her hand pulsated accordingly with it. She shivered as she passed a group of tents pitched on the other side of the clearing in front of the Chantry and in that moment she noticed the sturdy figure of Cassandra waiting for her by the main door of the building.
“I'm glad to see you're up and well,'' the woman said, after Riwan had reached her hesitantly, “You passed out after closing the rift and you didn't come round for three days. Solas said that you'd be better soon.”
“Three days?”
“Yes,” Cassandra said, opening the Chantry doors, “You have managed to stabilize the breach and we believe that with enough magic poured into your mark we will be able to close it. Still, it's a relief to know that demons won't literally rain down the Fade upon our heads.”
“What do you mean by pouring enough magic into it?” Riwan slowed down, following the Seeker with uncertainty in her eyes, trying to adjust them to the dark environment, “I am no mage, as you well know...”
“Of course you aren't,” Cassandra stopped in front of another, smaller door and faced her, “But we believe that the combined strength of your mark and some other source of magic could succeed in sealing the breach for good. But now we have other matters to discuss and I think you will be interested in them. Please, follow me.”
Riwan turned briefly to catch a glimpse of the rustic main aisle of the building, lighted by iron chandeliers which were kept lit up even in broad daylight due to the excessive height of the windows. She then followed the Seeker into a low room. Behind a large table with a map on it were three people who immediately stopped talking after noticing her entrance. They looked at her intently.
“Lavellan, may I present to you commander Cullen Rutherford, leader of our forces. This is Josephine Montilyet, our Ambassador. And this is Sister Leliana, our... Spymaster.”
Each one of them greeted her after hearing their names. She looked at them with a puzzled look. The Commander was quite a broad, menacing, blonde man, Lady Josephine a mixture which she could not decipher between orlesian and antivan style, while she remembered all too well the Spymaster from her unpleasant interrogatory in what must have been Haven's prison.
Noticing that they clearly expected her to make a statement she blurted out: “What am I doing here?”, her voice sounding more pissed than she intended.
Cassandra gave her a menacing look while the others merely studied her from their positions.
“Since you have agreed to help us seal the Breach we have decided to involve you in the decision-making of the newborn Inquisition, Herald.”
Panic slowly crept upon her in the hour that followed. Things weren't as easy as they seemed: apparently part, if not the entirety of Thedas believed her to be the one responsible for the explosion at the Conclave and the Chantry wanted her head for having killed the revered Divine Justinia. The advisors, as they called themselves, believed that they should seek the Chantry's favour by recruiting a chantry cleric in the Hinterlands who may sympathize with their cause. The commander talked about the recruits and the development of the army and of the necessity of recruiting a capable horse master, while the Ambassador outlined their current diplomatic relationships with chantry members, noble families from Ferelden and Orlais and other prominent personalities. Leliana remained silent, watching her from the shadows of her hood.
“Our next move will be vital, Herald,'' Cassandra said, “We must reach Mother Giselle and ask her to join us. It's a matter of life and death for you and for us all. Meanwhile Leliana will try to discover whatever she can on this Elder One...”
“Wait, wait a minute!” Riwan exclaimed. She looked at them incredulously, then managed to say: “I only agreed to help you closing the breach, I don't... How... How do you expect me to do all these things! Based on what? What do you want me to do... I...” She lost it. She felt anger rise within her, while she grabbed the edge of the table for support. She had just woken up from what seemed to be a nightmare and they had started to brief her in as if it were the most normal thing in the world to do, as if she was a part of their organization, not a hostage, a victim of events that still couldn't understand where she was and what had happened to her in the last twenty-four hours.
Leliana stepped out of the shadows where she had watched the whole scene and drew closer towards her.
“I understand that this may seem all very sudden to you. Maybe for this present meeting we should just answer whatever questions you have for us and let you adjust to the new environment. We could easily delay the trip to the Hinterlands for a few days, right Josephine? Cassandra?”
“Oh, but of course! I apologize for our rude manners. Please, feel free to ask us anything you wish to know!” the Ambassador apprehensively said.
Without them having to encourage her further, Riwan started vomiting questions. An entire hour followed, during which they told her how Justinia had authorized Cassandra to create a new Inquisition if the Conclave didn't turn towards a happy outcome. The conflict between mages and templars had escalated quickly after the explosion, all Circles in Thedas were experiencing riots, breakouts and unrest while on the other hand the templars had gone greedy with power and had started to ignore the directives that came from the Chantry. They tried to convince her that she would have a decisive role in the upcoming events and told her that the people present in Haven after the explosion had seen her falling through the breach guided by a figure who was thought to be Andraste herself; they believed her to be a new Herald of the prophetess, while others believed her to be a criminal, a murderer and some also claimed that she was a Tevinter mage.
Herald or not, the mark on her hand was the only thing that could save their world from the tear in the sky and willing or not their and her survival depended on her cooperation with them. They must search for allies in order to strengthen her mark so that she could seal the breach for good.
“Maybe you would like to contact your clan and tell them you're all right?” Josephine hesitantly suggested.
“Yes, please.”
“Very well. I will let you have parchment, ink and quills if they aren't already in your cabin. I will also send you a note with everything you need to know about lunch, the location of the weaponry and such.”
“We may meet again tomorrow morning at the same hour. What do you think?” Cassandra said.
Having all agreed on the next meeting, they all started leaving the war room, Riwan marching in front of them, determined not to speak with any of them until the next day.
She darted in search of a solitary place where she could think in peace, far from inquiring eyes and fanatics that called her Herald. While exiting through the main doors of the village she collided with a dwarf, whom she remembered was the one accompanying her in her forced trip to the breach a few days earlier.
“Varric!” she exclaimed.
“Ah, there you are. Running away, aren't you? You can trust me, I won't tell them where you went.”
Relieved by his sympathetic look and witty tongue she managed to smile for the first time since she had been awake.
“I don't think I will make it very far. I will have to be satisfied with finding a place where I can scream my lungs out.”
The dwarf laughed: “Ha! I can totally relate to that. I would have done that too when I was first brought here, hadn't the Seeker interrogated me for days so that in the end I had no voice left at all to object.”
“So, I understand it is a habit of theirs to bring people here against their will?”
“Uhm... I would like to think that we are two unlucky exceptions.”
“How long have you been here?” Riwan asked, her senses alert.
“Oh, I had the pleasure of meeting Cassandra back in Kirkwall and since then she couldn't live without me. I followed her and the others from Kirkwall to Ferelden as Cassandra planned to use my testimony at the Conclave as a contribution to Justinia's cause,” he sighed, “Let's just say that things didn't turn out as they had planned.”
Riwan gulped. Her brain was ticking like crazy, the word “cause” repeating itself in her mind.
“I... I'm not one of them,” she managed to say, “I understand that my mark will be needed but... I didn't want to get involved in the first place.”
“Who would want to get involved in this mess?” the dwarf laughed bitterly, “But I suppose that now we don't have much else to do. It would be of no use to go back home and pretend that nothing happened. Mainly because our homes may not be there anymore: if what they say is true, that new rifts are opening all around Thedas, we are the only ones who could do something about it. Ahh, maybe I'm just telling stories to myself, as I always do, but that mark must mean something.”
Riwan sighed and glanced at the mountains in the distance, clenching her fists. Seeing her distracted, Varric said:
“Listen, since it seems that we are on the same boat here, what about we have a chat tonight at the tavern? And complain about our tragic destiny?” The tone of his voice was curious and his eyes showed a mixture of concern and shrewdness that captivated her.
Surprised by his proposal and relieved to find someone to talk to amidst all that chaos, she agreed, maybe too eagerly, making the dwarf laugh once again. They decided to have dinner together at 6.30 pm and departed for their own destinations.
“Varric, wait! How will I be able to tell it's 6.30? Do sundials exist here or what?”
He laughed heartily: “Of course there are! There is one right outside the main door, you won't miss it. See you later.”
She strode away feeling a little better: perhaps the dwarf would help her understand everything her situation, perhaps she had found someone with whom she could relate to and who could probably understand her struggle. Maybe she wasn't all by herself.
She exited through the main doors and found the sundial easily enough. She scanned her surroundings: to her right was the training field, full of soldiers sparring. Two huge tents stood at one of its sides and she guessed one of them must belong to the Commander. On her left was a path alongside which there was a smith and further on she could see the stables. In front of her, beyond the training fields, she could see the surface of the frozen lake that she had glimpsed earlier from afar. Snow covered the trees and the mountains all around the village. The path she saw on the left continued also in front of her, leading behind a large group of rocks, and to her right, through a little pinewood which extended on the side of the mountain that stood behind Haven. She instinctively went to her right, with an intense desire of smelling and hearing the woods. But maybe she had lingered there too much and no soon she started to walk towards the pinewood than the Commander appeared at her right cutting her off. He looked at her, surprised as she was, and stopped in his track.
“Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to...” he exclaimed, while she started apologizing too.
If he was embarrassed by that encounter as she was, he showed no sign of it a part from a continuous shifting of his weight from one leg to another. His look was exactly the one that he had had a few moments earlier in the war room: he looked at her with a severe if not somehow withheld gaze; he had an upstanding attitude and she immediately felt his commanding power swaying over her from his posture, his hands placed on the hilt of his sword, the look in his eyes that were this close to pierce you like steel had he not raised questioningly his eyebrows.
“I'm sorry Commander,” she felt the need to explain herself, “It is not as it seems, I'm not trying to run away. I just wanted to find a quiet spot to be by myself.”
Her apologetic remark made him produce a curt laugh.
“Don't worry. I imagine it must not have been a very pleasant awakening for you today. There is a nice spot over there, in the woods. You must follow the path then turn left after the lumberjack's cabin. It overlooks the harbor and it is quite solitary.”
His features softened a little bit as he looked at her more inquiringly than before. She indulged a little in the pleasure of staring at his handsome face, the light stubble on his chiselled jaw, the scar on his right upper lip and the blond hair reflecting the rays of the tepid sun. Still, he was the scariest man she had ever seen.
She was about to answer when a scout reached them in a hurry.
“Commander, report for you!”
“Give it to me,'' he ordered. He gave it a quick glance and signed it with a quill that the young boy handed him, in time for another one to approach them and say: “Report on the new recruits, sir.”
He took the report and gestured towards the scout to follow him.
“As you can see we are quite busy,” he said. Riwan immediately followed him too, as if the quick gesture addressed to the scout was meant for her and she found herself walking beside the nervous recruit and feeling like a schoolgirl who follows the teacher in a demonstrative lesson; they passed through sparring soldiers supervised by a woman with a templar uniform who barked orders now and then. Cullen continued, seeming not to notice all of the activity that went on around him: “New recruits are coming in every day, guard duty has been already established, the soldiers' camp is in continuous development: all in all I'm confident that we will be able to gain enough support from the right allies, despite the Chantry having branded us as heretics.” He finally stopped near a low table on the other end of the training field where he put the new report beside three others which he had already signed. He handed them to the scout, who was all too eager to run away as fast as he could.
“I believe that we will be able to accomplish great things if only we set our mind to it, your mark could be of great use for the benefit of all people: imagine being able to bring together factions that have been divided for centuries, all in the name of the greater good..., he finally heated up in his speech while he gazed into the distance with a confident and hopeful look. Riwan was hanging on his lips waiting for him to finish when he suddenly looked at her and abruptly stopped mid-sentence. He gave the same curt laugh as before and said:
“I'm sorry, I got carried away. I doubt you came here for a lecture!”
She gazed with awe at his smiling face and thought that no doubt he was fit for a leading position.
“I didn't, but if you have one prepared I'd love to listen to it all!” she said with her brightest smile on her lips.
His embarrassment became evident as he laughed again and scratched the back of his neck: “I, uhm... another time perhaps...”
She averted her eyes trying to hide her embarrassment when she finally saw the templar symbol on his gauntlets. Her smile froze. Trying not to look too shocked she said: “Well, I... I thank you Commander.”
She gave him a quick unsure smile and walked decisively past him and through the training field towards the woods. He stood there quite puzzled by the change in her behaviour, then came back to his senses after yet another scout approached him with a report. He went back to work and drew nearer to his lieutenant, helping her scrutinizing the sparring session.
Riwan ran all her way to the spot that the Commander had suggested to her. It sure was a solitary and nice place, a clearing amidst the pines that looked out on the frozen lake. Someone must have put there some cut logs to serve as a bench. She sat down in a spot clear of snow, puffs of breath coming out of her mouth, as she clenched her fingers on her chest, trying to slow down her heart.
She had seen many templars at the Conclave, but being at such a close distance and fraternizing with one was a completely different story. “No wonder,” she thought, “that the Commander of this organization is a templar. Why didn't they tell me!”
She still couldn't overcome the distrust she had for that wicked order after everything that had happened at the village that stood in proximity of her clan's settlement. She was there when they attacked, to be true she had been very frequently at the village in those days. They were ruthless. Her sister was with her and she remembered her throwing fireballs all around her with terror in her eyes.
She exhaled and her hands started trembling, while the mark on her hand emitted a few nasty sparks. She cried shamelessly for what seemed like forever, thinking about her clan, her sister Orawen, her fellow hunters, Shalle among all of them, her mother, the Keeper, the hahrens, the hallas... How they had bravely decided to settle down near the village of Hoden in the Free Marches, a reality quite untouched by the folly of the Chantry, where a mage called Electra lived and served the village as healer, herbalist, teacher to other runaway mages and, in the end, as teacher to her sister too. It was no use reminiscing the faces of the people of the village, how they got every day more accustomed to having Dalish walking among them. And she had better not think about Brian, the main reason why she stayed there longer than expected from her and why she got so interested in weapon crafting. It was all gone now, part of it had been destroyed by the templars and the other part was gone as soon as the mark was imprinted in her hand. She stayed there, letting everything sink in, while the feeble sun started to descend towards the mountain, painting the sky pink where it wasn't already tainted sickly green.