Chapter Text
The Herald of Andraste, the Inquisitor, the one with the green hand that can close the rifts in the sky. Ellana Lavellan rarely heard her name spoken anymore. People would greet her with “Inquisitor” now and before that in Haven it was “Herald”. Occasionally they tacked “Lavellan” onto it, but that reminded people she was an elf. People knew her name, but it was easier for them to address her with a title. It was easier to hold someone up with a title and on a pedestal rather than to believe that someone average could do the those things.
Ellana never grew up aspiring to be great and do life-changing things. She grew up aspiring to be good. She knew she would not be the next Keeper, as she had no magic. She grew up under the tutelage of her mother, a hunter as well. Her father was a healer. She assisted her father with his herb gathering and her mother with the hunt. She wanted to be good, not great.
In the clan, she was just Ellana. She was greeted with laughs and smiles at home. At Skyhold, she is greeted with nods and mutters of respect before people shuffle off in fear that they’ll somehow offend her. She is not a comrade here, she is their leader, their savior, their Inquisitor.
Ellana Lavellan often thought of her clan, and with each thought she missed them even more.
She missed the talks with her Father about herbs and helping him heal small animals they came across just for the sake of doing something kind in return to nature. Her father bore the marks of Sylaise on his face and her mother the marks of Andruil. She missed the days when she would spend time lying on their chests at night and tracing the patterns after a long day of work and travel when they were all exhausted. She had them memorized by the time she was eleven. She missed the nights when she would sneak out of the tents to the nearby stream with her friends. That was the most exciting thing to her then.
Now, the most exciting thing was not dying when they went out to seal a rift. It was returning from a battle alive. Even so, it was a different kind of thrill. It was a relief instead of an exciting bit of teenage rebellion without any major consequences. She missed even those that she hated in her clan. Seeing them would act as a reminder of who she was before the glowed green mark that now dictated her life.
Her companions in the Inquisition like to think they know her. They pretend to know her reactions and what she likes and dislikes. In a way they do. They know what the Herald of Andraste would say. How the Inquisitor would respond to things. What they don’t know is how Ellana would respond and what she would say.
Ellana’s every move outside of her room felt scripted. An automatic response that was repeated and varied from person to person. None of it felt real. None of it felt like Ellana Lavellan, the young Dalish hunter, was speaking.
She pushes these uncertainties about who she is down. She cannot have a crisis about who she is when the Inquisition relies on her- when Thedas relies on her. She tells herself that she imagines it most of the time. She is still the same person after all. She starts to believe it over time. When asked how she is, She always returns it with a bright smile and a “Well, and yourself?”. She thinks no one notices that it’s fake. She’s wrong.