Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The first few days after the end of her world pass in a blur of physical pain and emotional numbness. Mythal’s palace is sprawling and bright, flooded with people who gawk at her like some sort of sideshow attraction, and magic hanging so thickly in the air that it is almost hard to breathe. Aili can feel her own power burning at the tips of her fingers constantly. She is used to having to reach for her magic, to pull it through from some intrinsic connection to the Beyond and force it to manifest in the shape of her desires in the waking world. With time and practice, the effort to use such talents had become minimal, but here… It feels as though she has to figure out how to do everything whilst also wielding a particularly large knife at all times. A knife that could potentially set someone on fire.

It calls for near constant focus for her to keep hold of it, and this world is so loud.

Aili can sense the magic in its people. In the spirits that have taken to following her around in some strange sort of entourage. In the golden walls and polished stones of their buildings. Even in the plants blooming in the gardens and out in the verdant wilds. And it feels as though a million voices are all screaming at her at once. Buzzing and pulsing and hissing behind her eyes.

More than anything, she wishes for silence and solitude, but even her dreams do not seem capable of delivering such a reprieve. She wonders if Solas knew what this place would do to her. How it would feel for a mage who had been born long after the Veil to be plunged headfirst into a world where magic is inherent in almost everything. But she supposes that even if he had had some insight or warnings to share, he did not have much time to impart them.  

It makes her head pound and her heart ache; to the point where she almost regrets stepping into the time fold he had created, even though that was clearly what he wanted her to do. To live. Even in misery and inescapable grief. She suspects that he meant it as some form of altruism, but she does not want this gift any more than she wanted the anchor that his orb had burned into her hand. Let someone else take up the sword for once. Let her rest. Let it end.

But there is nothing for it now. She is alive and she is here, and if she has some chance of altering the course of the catastrophic events that led to the end of her own world, then she owes it to everyone she has lost to try and fix things.

 …Not that she has much in the way of ideas about how to actually go about doing that.

And, truth be told, she is hardly in a fit state for anything at the moment. Her body is off kilter from being ‘fixed’ and her mind is overwhelmed from trying to process everything and her magic is a loose cannon that could explode at any moment. She tries to find remote corners of Mythal’s palace where she can sit alone and think. It is easier to be outside. The magics in the gardens seem…softer, for lack of a better word, and given her apparent ‘emptiness,’ the other elves hardly seem to notice her at all when she climbs up into a tree and tucks herself into the foliage.

The only beings who bother interacting with her at all are the spirits.

Compassion, with its warm shifting light, and its generosity, and its patience. Her first glimpse of kindness in this world, and her only reliable advocate thus far. She suspects that if it had not interceded on her behalf, Mythal would have taken one look at the vallaslin on her face and shipped her off to Ghilan’nain with barely more than a word passing between them.

Curiosity is generally close at hand, too. Blue and bright as veilfire, with a minimum of four eyes at a time, always looking everywhere at once. Always wanting to learn. And to teach. To help her find lost things. And she has so many lost things.

Rage crackles at the edges of their party. Vague glimpses of armor past a sea of flames. Different from the rage spirits of her time, but similar enough that she is wary of it. It seems to enjoy offering her the opportunity to burn things. Plants and finery and such. Which, since some part of her would sincerely like nothing better, she has decided that it is wiser not to give it opportunities to tempt her into doing something foolish.

Sorrow drifts behind her like a solemn raincloud. It seldom speaks, but she often finds it hovering nearby, almost as often as Compassion. It does not cheer her with its presence, but she finds there is some solace in the recognition of her grief, even if they do not discuss it. And a comfort, too, in simply being a little less alone with the weight of it.       

She is dozing late one morning in a silver and blue tree she had found in one of the smaller gardens which seems perfectly suited to her needs. Half asleep and half waking, turning over various theories on what course of action she can take to unlock the mystery of Solas’ intent. Sifting through old memories that seem to paint themselves into hazy pictures in the Dreaming, just beyond her reach.

Reading a weathered tome up in a tree just beyond the cluster of her clan’s aravels, listening to the familiar bustle of her friends and family going about their lives. The laughter of children at play. Her mother humming quietly to herself as she stirs the stew pot. The leaves rustle in the woods around her. Their shadows dappling spots of shade across the pages in her lap.

Sprawling out on the roof of Skyhold’s tavern with Sera. The warm sun and the crisp mountain air. The sweet cider and the awful cookies. The sound of raucous laughter when she had slid off and accidentally traumatized poor Cullen.

Curling up in a bedroll out in the Hissing Wastes and counting the stars.

‘Look, Solas, the sky is so clear out here. You can see even more stars than you can back at Skyhold. There’s Satinalus. And Toth. …They say that the constellation Fenrir used to be the visage of Fen’Harel, but I don’t think he seems so intimidating up there. A white wolf made of starlight. He looks too pretty to be a harbinger of misfortune.’

‘…Appearances can be deceiving, Vhenan.’

Something brushes softly against her skin. Comforting. Compassion.

“You have a visitor,” the spirit tells her quietly. She glances down at the snow-white wolf sitting at the base of the tree.

“Do not leave me,” she requests in a whisper. Compassion nods, reaching out again to touch her shoulder. Steadying.

“I wish to speak with you,” the wolf tells her plainly once he sees that she is awake.

“I suppose there is not much I could do to stop you, given our current positions,” she notes dryly.

“Yes,” he agrees, tilting his head slightly, “Why are you sleeping in a tree, exactly? I was told that you have been given a room to use until Lady Mythal returns you to your rightful owner. Was it unsatisfactory in some way?”

"It's fine," Aili shrugs, "Especially considering that Mythal seems to think I am just some experiment of Ghilan'nain's that has gone horribly wrong. I half expected her to just toss me in a storage closet and have done."

"It would have been well within her purview," he replies, raising his chin slightly, "But my lady is not without pity. However, I find it all very suspicious. She thinks that whoever created you simply made you imperfectly, and that is why your speech is stilted and your lies so strange. But incompetence can be its own disguise, and I do not think you are as witless as you would have us believe."

"I'm flattered, truly," she says sarcastically. The wolf bristles.

"Compassion says that you are grieving, and you told us that you come from a world that has died, but you are furtive with your answers about what ended it, and I do not think that you feel any grief at all," he declares boldly, "I think you are dangerous and not to be trusted."

The barb lands more sharply than he could possibly anticipate, and she feels her hackles rising in acrid and immediate fury.

"Get fucked," Aili replies hotly, "And kindly go somewhere else to do it, I want to leave and you're in my way."

"That was uncalled for," Compassion tells him evenly.

"And that was extremely rude," the wolf huffs, clearly affronted.

"You weren't exactly polite either," she reminds him with a growl, feeling her magic burning in her palms, "Now let me down from here before I set this whole damn place on fire."

"Why would you wish to destroy a garden?" he asks, clearly baffled, but obligingly stepping back few paces so she can jump down without landing on him, "Especially if you prefer sleeping in trees?"

"I don't prefer it, it's just…familiar," she grumbles, sliding down onto the grass and pinching the bridge of her nose, searching for a scrap of calm, "And I'm actively trying to avoid destroying things, as it happens. My magic has felt strange ever since I got here, and I'm doing my best to adjust. The air is more…natural out here. And it is quiet. Less chance of me accidently ruining the frescos if I stay outdoors with the plants."  

"It sounds as though you are some sort of Abomination," the wolf tells her, sounding just a bit nervous about it, "But even a corrupted spirit would produce emotions once it joined with a physical body…"

"Well, it sounds as though you are an asshole, and this conversation is over," she replies blithely, briskly stepping around him and speeding back towards her room.

She does her best to avoid the young wolf after that, for a great many reasons.

Not only because he is a pompous ass, but simply because it hurts to be near him.

It hurts to hear his voice and take note of how young he must be. It hurts to think that he is not the man she fell in love with, even if, ostensibly, he is. It hurts to think that if she actually completes the mission Solas sent her here to do, he might never become that man. And, selfish and foolhardy as it is, it hurts that he looks at her and she can tell there is no spark of recognition. No tenderness. No love.

She had tried so hard to hate him. She had come close once or twice. When she stumbled upon the first body of a child in some little hamlet caught up in the war, covered in dust and blood. Terror frozen on their face. When her parents had died. But she seems to have failed at hating him just as she had failed at stopping him. Saving him. Freeing him.

But she cannot forgive him either.

She can see why he felt that this was a better world. Spirits move freely. Magic is respected and understood instead of feared. No Darkspawn. No Veil. No broken sky.

It is hard to stack those things against the lives of everyone she ever knew, though, and she is not about to try. She does not owe him fealty or absolution for his atrocities just because his plan seems to have actually worked for once. She does not owe him anything.

Still, she does not want to kill him. She had not wanted to before, and she does not wish to now. It is the most obvious solution to the enigma of why she was sent here. After all, Solas cannot raise the Veil if he dies before it is even conceived. He had mentioned stopping Mythal's murder, too, but even if she does not fall, the evanuris might become the monstrous creatures that attacked her world once their prison had finally been broken.

Stopping such political machinations might be untenable in her current state. She is, after all, regarded as some sort of creepy flesh doll. Given Mythal's reaction to her story about the fate of her world, she deeply suspects that the other evanuris will be less than inclined to heed her warnings.

Assassinating the All Mother's pet wolf, however, is a much more achievable prospect. Especially given her sudden power boost, and his habit of trying to pester her. It seems like an unusually cruel thing for Solas to ask of her, knowing how young and comparably innocent he would be at this time, and the likely retribution she will receive if she succeeds.

She would not put it past him, though.    

Aili would vastly prefer to find some other way of saving the world, even if attempting to stop the evanuris from doing anything seems nigh impossible from her current position. The thought of murdering someone for crimes that they have not even committed yet leaves a sour taste in her mouth. Still, it is probably best if she keeps her distance from him, in order to prevent herself from getting attached. More attached. Just in case.

He does not make it easy on her, though, as he seems intent on following her about the palace as though he thinks she is apt to make off with the good silver. She’s had years of practice dodging annoying nobles that she does not want to interact with, though, so the game goes on for quite a few days before he finally manages to hem her in.

Blasted sparkly place with all its gilded walls and fountains. Everything looks the same. It’s a wonder people don’t just starve to death getting lost in some random hallway or other.

The place he finally traps her in is yet another small garden, off in some far flung corner of the palace with only one way in or out. She can feel him behind her even before she turns around. Her heart clenches painfully in her chest at the sensation. How long had she waited for him to come back to her? To reach for her in dreams? Why is it only now, when there is nothing left between them, that he cannot simply leave her alone?

“Well, what do you want now?” she asks with a frown, turning to face him with her arms folded across her chest. Defensive and wary and ready for a fight. “Have you thought of a few more demeaning names you’d like to call me?”

Compassion had gone to help someone else for a change.  She wishes it hadn’t. It is far too easy to lash out at him without someone more sensible on hand.

“It seems that I have been impolite, and indelicate in my assumptions,” the wolf tells her. “I am sure that you have lost companions in some regard, or else Compassion would not be so convinced of your apparent sense of sorrow. I am merely uncertain that the depth of your emotions is comparable to those of People. If you are truly some illegal creation of Ghilan’nain’s, or one of her followers, you have likely been taught to say these things and feign some sort of feeling, and it was, perhaps, unfair of me to accuse you of machinations that were most likely thrust upon you.”

Aili stares down at the grass and does her best not to set it on fire beneath his feet.

“That has got to be the worst apology I’ve heard in my entire life,” she commends, her voice tight with anger. “I am a person. I speak my own thoughts and I feel my own feelings. I shouldn’t have to pass some kind of test in order for you to treat me with some level of common decency. My heart beats and my body moves, and I am clearly aware and alive. The limitations of your own understanding are not a summary of all there is to know about the world.”

He blinks at her, slightly taken aback, before seeming to rally his own sense of indignation.

“It is only natural to approach an unknown entity with caution,” he retorts, “You manifest from nothing in the heart of my lady’s entourage, badly damaged and speaking in some broad approximation of language, and expect us to take you at face value? You bear the markings of one of the great leaders, but claim that you do not belong to her? If you would have me trust you, then you should give me more cause to. You should tell me what destroyed your world, if your story holds any kind of truth in it. If the danger is here, as you say, then I must stand against it to keep the People, and Mythal, safe. I am a guardian, I protect. I only ask for the tools to fulfil my duty, I do not think that is so unreasonable.”

Perhaps it is not, but she chafes at his tone, none the less.

“The danger is you,” she snaps, “You and Mythal, and all of your kind who do not look beyond your own borders to see the truth of what the world is and how it functions. You only understand yourselves, and think that is all that is worth understanding. The danger is greed. And power. And too many lives held in the hands of too few. It poisoned my world, and it will poison yours as well.”

“Mythal is a just ruler,” he insists, “She cares for her people, as do I. We all must look after our own, and protect ourselves with what tools and knowledge we have at our disposal. You are a construct, but you have not been treated unkindly here. No one has been permitted to harm or violate you. Was that not generous? Do you feel that you somehow deserve more than you have been given?”

She had expected more from Mythal at one time. In another life, where the only home she ever thought to have was pulled along by halla through a maze of trees and ruins. When she had taken the blood writing on her face and sang the hymns to light the evening fires. Not anymore.

“No,” Aili answers quietly, bitterness crawling up the back of her throat like bile, “I do not deserve or expect more.”

“Then why are you so firm in your convictions?” he wonders, “Why are you so certain that the tragedy of your world will repeat itself in ours?”

It is an understandable question, and one that she is almost certain that she would be asking him, if their roles had been reversed. Not that she has any intention of given him a straight answer. She doubts he would even believe her if she did. 

"My people had a legend about a wolf," she tells him solemnly, in the same voice she had used to tell the tale of Fen'Harel to the younger children of the clan, "He was a god, and a monster, and a man, all at once. He stole our past and left us wandering blindly in the dark. And then he slept, and hunted us in dreams. A whisper of a shadow. A girl grew up on these stories, and thought that she was cautious and careful and wise. She thought she would know the wolf when she met him. But he came to her with soft words and tenderness. With kindness and knowledge and trust. And she did not think that when she gave him her hand that he would eat it. But he did. Just as he would gobble up her home and her friends and her family in the days to come. He ate one of her eyes when he found she could not kill him. And her heart he swallowed whole in what seemed to be particular delight. She thought he might be content with the ruin he had made of her, but his hunger could not be sated. He ate and ate until there was nothing left in the world but the wolf and the girl on an island of fire. And then, when there was nothing left for him to take from her, he did the cruelest thing of all."

"He tried to kill her?" the wolf guesses, tilting his head curiously.

"Oh no," Aili says with a cold smile that does not reach her eyes, "No, no, death would not have been the cruelest thing. Not when there was nothing left in all the world that she had ever known. The wolf took everything and everyone away from her, and then he condemned her to survive the devastation he had wrought. Entirely alone. The last of her kind. Of her people. Of her world. Without even the wolf to walk beside her anymore."

Somewhere towards the end of it, she can feel that she has started crying. Her words feel thick and clumsy as they leave her throat. Her eyes itch and her ears burn. Sorrow and frustration and anger all mixing together in a sour concoction churning in her stomach.

She did not want him, of all people, to see her break down.

"You do feel," he says, sounding genuinely surprised.

It is honestly the last straw.

"Of course, I feel!" she exclaims heatedly, her voice breaking past her lips in jagged sobs, "How many times do I have to say it until you believe me? Are emotions all that make someone a person? Is there no inherent value in a life that does not perfectly resemble your own?"

Her legs give out and she tumbles into the grass on her hands and knees, freezing it in a perfect circle around herself.

"I wish I could be as emotionless as you claim I am," she chokes out, "I wish the light I fell through when I came here had burned them out of me and left me with nothing but logic and reason. Perhaps then I could carry the weight of everything that was lost without faltering. Perhaps then I would understand why I was sent here."

 The wolf is mercifully silent for a few minutes, and it gives her a chance to calm down somewhat. The tears do not stop, but they ebb into silent rivulets winding their way down her cheeks. She sits up, but keeps her gaze turned down towards her fingers. To her left hand, with its lack of nicks and calluses. She's embarrassed now, and she just wants him to leave.

"I did not mean to distress you," he says, sounding awkward and wrong-footed about the whole thing, "I have never had dealings with something like you before."

It is still something, she notes sourly.

"You live in a tiny gilded box encrusted with jewels, and expect me to pity you for never stepping out of it in order to see the sky," she croaks out, feeling tired. Of this. Of him.

He looks around for a moment, clearly puzzled.

"Jewels? Gold? Is that somehow upsetting for you?" he asks, "You do not like being surrounded by beautiful things?"

She pauses for a moment and wonders if his question has some merit. Not so long ago she would have been enthralled by this place. She would have given everything she owned for a single hour here, to walk its hallways and speak with its people. She would have given her left arm to Solas of her own volition if it would have gotten her into Mythal's library for an afternoon. But…the reason she had wanted this world and this life so badly was so that she could bring what she could of it back to her own people. So they could finally have a clear picture of the history they had lost.

Now there is no one left for her to give it to.  

That is not the fault of the people living here, though. At least, not most of them. She does not resent them for living impossibly long lives in relative splendor and ease. If anything, it is one of the best things about this world that she has seen thus far. She had never cared much about finery either way, but she is bitter at her own loss, and it feels as though she somehow traded the simple beauties of her own world for the wealth and grandeur of this one.

"This place is just…loud," she finally admits with a sniffle, letting some of her weariness color her tone, "Your feelings are loud and your magic is loud and your clothes are loud. Even your walls and your floors and your flowers are loud. It's like living inside a drum constantly being beaten by a multitude of children."

"That does seem like it might be overwhelming," he concedes.

"It is," she sighs heavily.

"Is there something I could do to help?" he wonders. 

"Just…leave me alone," she replies in a low voice, pressing her eyes shut and feeling the last of her tears slip down her face.

The wolf is quiet for a moment, and she honestly thinks that he is just trying to think of more invasive questions he can prod her with, but when she finally opens her eyes again, she finds that he has gone.  

Pride has never thought about magic in terms of its abundance.

Or, no, he supposes that isn’t entirely correct. For him to never think of magic in its abundance, that would make it like air; something only noticed for its absence. But instead, magic is perhaps more like water. Something that can be abundant without drawing too much notice, if one is accustomed to it; but in fact, there are indeed places where the form and shape of it makes a difference. A vast ocean is a different matter from a rainy town, from a sparkling lake, from a flooded settlement, or artfully constructed fish tank.

Perhaps, he thinks, it is mostly that he has never been in a situation which brought to his attention that the level of magic he lived in might be ‘too much’ for someone else.

Whatever Aili is, whether she is a constructed doll or a person from another world or someone who has suffered grave injuries, or some combination of those things, it is becoming increasingly clear to Pride that her distress is very real, and even urgent in its nature.

In fact, he thinks the situation might be worse than any of them could have easily appreciated. Since Aili seems not to have emotions, that means it is very difficult to parse the nature of her distress. Compassion believes in Aili’s grief, and after witnessing such a visceral display, Pride finds he cannot doubt it either.

When most people are in terrible distress, their control over their emotional projections will lapse. It is a nonverbal plea for help. An elf suffering from extreme grief, distress, pain, or in terrible mourning, would not be able to disguise it, or read as ‘blank’ as Aili does. With her emotional expression… different, in its nature, there is no good way for any of them to actually gauge her suffering. Even animals must be cared for ethically, and Aili is not an animal.

Pride thinks of the matter more than he might have guessed. And not in the terms he would have expected; he finds himself disinclined to consider threats and security, for now.

He is not inhumane. And the way that Aili looks at him… He cannot claim it is devoid of emotion.

He also finds that he dislikes the emotions he can read within it. Pain. Resentment. Fear. But others, too, things that he isn’t familiar enough with to parse without the additional context of projections.

Leaving Aili alone is only a temporary solution.

He abides by her wishes for a week. It could be obfuscation, a small part of him warns; an attempt to deter him for the sake of some underhanded plot. But the suspicion feels reflexive, and unconvincing. He lets Curiosity keep an eye on her instead. The spirit is perceptive, and Aili doesn’t seem to mind its company. Instead, while the strange ‘guest’ of Mythal’s attempts to recover in the quiet corners of palace, Pride takes a day trip to Arlathan.

Without the ceremony of a procession or the pomp of accompanying Mythal, it is much swifter going. Pride dresses in more casual attire, but still suitable for the city’s upper districts. He doesn’t want to draw notice, and being either too flashy or too subdued would accomplish that. A few times, he is waylaid by other elves of rank and esteem, who stop to converse and ask after goings on at the palace. For the sake of propriety, Pride cannot brush them off. This is technically a personal errand, rather than a duty, and his behaviour reflects upon Mythal. But he finds himself wishing he had more liberty to travel without notice.

It is the price of rank and notability.

Still, the delays give him the chance to notice things that he would ordinarily take for granted. 

He finds himself wondering how Aili would fare in the Crossroads, with its strange, ephemeral energies, and abundant - but disjointed - magical qualities. Would she find it worse than most other places? Or better?

When he arrives at the city, he must concede at once that Aili would undoubtedly not enjoy a trip to the crown jewel of the empire. Arlathan’s magic is abundant. It is far less natural than the magic of Mythal’s palace as well; even the ‘nature’ surrounding the city is carefully cultivated, all of it shaped with deliberation and artistry, and therefore, a wealth of magical energy. His gaze drifts towards Sylaise’s crystal palace, floating not far from his exiting gate. Then off towards the shadow of June’s ever-shifting tower. Even the flower petals that drift down from one of the garden roads have a touch of magic; residual energy from the deliberate spellwork used to cultivate the blooms all season long.

Pride still finds the place beautiful, but he decides almost at once that it would be a cruelty to bring Aili here.

He keeps his eyes opened, focusing on his new observations, this strange lens of perspective with which to try and understand the world, as he makes his way to the Pleasure District.

Arlathan’s Pleasure District, of course, is known primarily for one thing. But in fact, it is a place which offers a wide diversity of experiences, services, and shops. Pride’s steps do not carry him to the brothels or massage parlors, for which he has little interest. The street he enters by does not even sport some of the district’s infamous erotic art displays; it seems little different from the other merchant shops closer to the market square.

Most of the craftsmen here deal in remedies and cosmetics. Pride makes his way to one of the more reputable purveyors of the former. A few stray spirits venture towards him curiously, offering him an inspection before flitting off to their own matters. The shop does not have many patrons at the moment. Pride lets out a quiet breath of relief, because no one inside seems familiar enough to waylay him again. There are a few elves dressed in clearly mid-ranking attire, and a single short, red-cloaked figure off towards the back end of the shop. Red is not in season, so Pride doesn’t suppose they are anyone of note, either.

The proprietress is behind the counter, mixing something together for her current customer. Pride browses a few shelves, but it is mostly to stave off his boredom as he waits. He could pull rank, and demand attention immediately, but that would be more trouble than it’s worth; and he does not have long to wait. Once the customer has headed off with their acquisition, he makes his way over.

The proprietress bows.

“Commander, what can I do for you?” she says, likely gleaning his rank from the number of branches on his left broach. Her brow is also adorned with Mythal’s markings.

“I am looking for substances which aid in the dulling of magical senses,” Pride says. “Safe for use on any living being, or especially people, if that category seems too broad.” He is willing to concede that Aili is a person, at this point, but he also has no idea if her reactions to any number of things would be the same as most.

The proprietress frowns thoughtfully at his request, an uncertain look coming into her gaze.

“You mean, such as tranquilizers?” she asks.

Pride shakes his head.

“No, dulling magical senses in specific,” he clarifies. “There is a… person, staying at our Lady’s palace, who suffers from an over-abundance of magical sensitivity.”

The proprietress’ frown deepens.

“A child?” she guesses.

“Not a child. Just… someone with a peculiar set of circumstances. I fear I cannot say much more.

A hum comes in answer.

“Commander, if the matter is sensitive, it may be best to summon a healer to assess things and prescribe a sedative first. Without knowing the particulars, it would be difficult to safely recommend something for a matter such as this,” she tells him.

It is Pride’s turn to frown, at that. Mythal’s healers have already seen to Aili. Since they have determined that she is a malfunctioning construct of sorts, they have given no further thought to the comfort of senses which they do not believe she has.

Considering the matter a moment more, Pride’s gaze pauses at the markings of Mythal on the proprietress’ brow. Since it’s like this…

He confirms that the mid-ranking elves in the shop are not in earshot, and then leans in somewhat closer.

“In truth, the matter I am speaking of involves a… creation, akin to that of Lady Ghilan’nain’s,” he admits.

It is not really the truth, but it is not precisely inaccurate in terms of conveying the matter, either. And it is better than announcing that a potential traveler from another world has arrived and is under his Lady’s protection.

The proprietress raises an eyebrow.

“A beast?” she asks, but at least also keeps her voice down.

“No,” Pride refutes. “She is elven in shape, and intellect as well. It is a complicated matter which requires discretion.” He keeps his tone meaningful, and knows that a fellow servant of Mythal will not spread gossip outside of their ranks. Even in Arlathan.

The proprietress hums thoughtfully; obviously curious, but wise enough not to press the matter further. She drums her fingers on the counter.

“And this pet, it is having difficulties processing magical stimuli?”

Pride winces at the terminology.

“She is over-sensitive,” he nevertheless confirms.

With a nod of understanding, the proprietress bids him wait a moment, and then disappears into a back room.

A few minutes later, she returns with a palm-sized jar of salve.

“This may or may not solve the issue entirely, but a lot of magical sense comes through one’s connection to the Dreaming, and therefor to dreams. An application of this upon the temples at night will help diminish the impact of dreams. I ordinarily prescribe it to patients who need to recover from trauma, and are not ready to relive their experiences while also attempting to rest. It won’t stop dreams or inhibit the pet’s senses altogether, but it should still help,” she explains.

That… actually sounds quite perfect, given what he knows of Aili. Pride thanks the proprietress and carefully packs away the jar of salve. It is strongly scented; he can pick it up even through the seals on the jar. His nose wrinkles a little. The scent isn’t precisely unpleasant, but it veers close to it; astringent, like too much mint or lemon.

It earns him a few odd looks on the return trip. As an unexpected bonus, however, fewer people waylay him as he makes his way back to the palace. It means he manages to arrive again before evening.

Twilight is painting the sky in fingers of purple and pink. The high spires of Mythal’s palace look particularly elegant against the backdrop of the whirling, twisting clouds, and artful patterns scattered across the barely-visible moon.

Pride has to make a few inquiries to find where Aili has gone. Most elves cannot say, but the spirits know better. Sorrow tells him she is in the Reflection Garden, climbing trees again.

Why anyone would want to climb a tree when there are perfectly comfortable benches, Pride cannot say. But he finds himself wondering about it, not simply criticizing it as something preposterous; but sincerely wishing to know the answer.

Is it better for her, in some way?

Perhaps the magic in the trees feels less discordant than that of the benches…?

He makes his way towards the Reflection Garden.

Sure enough, Aili is up in one of the trees. Contrary to his usual preference, Pride doesn’t change into his wolf’s shape. Firstly, because he has something to give her; and secondly, because the discomfort she has professed towards wolves might be part of the reason for the inexplicable looks she gives him. A wolf ostensibly ended her world.

Pride does not want to remind her of that.

When he gets close to the tree, Aili looks down and towards him.

She goes rigid.

Pride halts.

He supposes, given the nature of their last encounter, that his welcome is far from a given. Again, he finds himself wishing that he could parse Aili’s emotions. He is not used to only having physical cues to read. Is she surprised? Offended? Afraid?

Her eyes on him are wide. One of her hands clenches tightly around a nearby branch.

“I am not a wolf today,” Pride tells her.

She swallows.

Doesn’t answer.

After a long, awkward moment, that has little visible emotion to it and yet somehow seems fraught with imperceptible tension, Pride reaches into his pocket and retrieves the salve he bought. He extends it upwards, so that Aili can see the decorative shell container. Then he settles it at the base of the tree.

“I made a trip to acquire something for you,” he explains. “It should help with your magical sensitivity. And… grief. Ideally. You are supposed to apply some to your temples before you sleep.”

Aili looks down at him.

Her grip on the branch is white-knuckled. After another moment, she still has not responded.

Pride clears his throat, and ducks his head.

“It’s safe,” he promises. “You can ask Compassion to check it, if you doubt me. I understand if you might. I… want to apologize, as well.”

More silence, but the expression in Aili’s gaze seems even more complicated as well.

Pride sighs.

“I will not apologize for being suspicious, or for doing my utmost to investigate a potentially dangerous matter. But it was not my intention to be discourteous or cruel, and yet, I was. You make a good point. Just because you process your emotions differently, that does not mean they are not still deep or meaningful. Even if what you feel is not the same, or if it is but is simply expressed in other ways, it is still your experience. I will try better to understand.”

He finishes the apology with a bow.

When he looks up again, Aili has averted her gaze. Her hair is loose; it hides most of her eyes from sight. Pride decides to leave her be, to think over the matter, even though part of him wants to press things until he gains her acceptance. He wishes she would reply, but he has been attempting to master the art of patience.

It is only the first overture, and she is still living in the palace. Where he also lives.

There will be more opportunities to interact. And Pride already has plans for a few of them. So, after another moment of no response, he turns and leaves Aili to her tree and to his peace offering.

Hopefully, it will help.

The fact that Aili picks up the jar the wolf left her instead of just leaving it at the base of the tree is a testament to how badly the abundant magic of this time is bothering her. Especially once she catches a whiff of the scent emanating from it. She frowns down at the smelly little container in her palm for a moment, nose wrinkled in obvious distaste, wondering if he truly left the her alone or if he slunk off somewhere to wait and see if she would take his offering.

There is a part of her that would very much like to simply smash the jar onto one of the benches in the garden and have done. See how much they like the place when it reeks of…whatever that smell is. Almost lemon, but sharper, pungent and acrid, like Orlesian perfume.

The impulse strikes her as more than a little petulant, however, and while she does not much care if the young wolf himself finds her rude or childish, she is keenly aware that her position here is…precarious. She has garnered that 'constructs' are apparently easy scapegoats for abuse in this time, and while she doubts there is anything much worse that they could inflict on her after the agony of burning new body parts into her flesh, she's not eager to find out. Besides, surviving the conclave and Corypheus and the anchor and the war just to be executed for stinking up one of Mythal's gardens just seems a bit anticlimactic. And embarrassing.

The jar probably has enchantments on it to protect it from breaking anyway. Just like everything else around here. Aili sighs, tightening her grip on it for a moment before reluctantly slipping it into her pocket and heading back towards her room.

'I made a trip to acquire something for you.'

It is almost certainly a trap.

What sort of trap is the part she is less certain of. She doubts that he would give her any sort of poison that would physically incapacitate her. At least, not yet. What he wants out of her at present is information, and she cannot give it to him if she is too busy hurling into a bucket. Or dead. Perhaps it is some sort of truth serum. Something to make her calm and docile.

Tranquil.

She slams the door to her room shut a little harder than necessary, leaning back against the frame and closing her eyes. Trying to think the past the pulse of ambient magics buzzing in her skull. She knows that she should find Curiosity or Compassion and ask them about the salve's nature, but she would prefer to mull it over by herself first.

She also needs to recover from the shock of seeing his face.  

She could tell by his tone of voice that he would be younger. Much younger. But he is soft and shining here, dressed all in white and whorls of silver with bracelets gleaming on his wrists and dozens of little crystal beads and toggles threaded through his long auburn hair. Like some little girl's vision of a prince from a fairytale.

The hair alone had been more of a surprise than she had expected, but she's never seen him look so…flashy. So unlike the man that she had known during the Inquisition. Not even the golden armor he had been wearing the day he took the anchor from her hand had been this garish. It is…disconcerting.

She can see that his expressions are lighter, more open and less wary, even behind the twining white branches of Mythal's vallaslin. He still moves with confidence, but it is the cockiness of youth, and not the surety of experience. Not a child, but not entirely a man. Himself and not himself.

His features are the same, though, even if they have not yet acquired all their edges. He still tilts his head slightly when he is curious about something. His lips thin the same when he frowns. And his eyes are still blue as a stormy sea. As a fresh bruise. As an aching heart.

'I am not a wolf today.'

But he is always a wolf.

She knows. She knows. He is still a wolf in worn cotton and patched leathers. He is still a wolf when he is naked and sleeping in her arms. He is still a wolf when he turns to ash and blows away on the wind. He is still a wolf every time he leaves her. Every time he loves her.

'It's safe.'

I am safe.

But he lies. He lies. He lies.

'Only by omission!'

She tugs the jar of salve from her pocket and hurls it against the far wall of her room with a cry of mingled fury and frustration.

Luckily, she seems to have guessed right about the protective charms. The container simply bounces from the wall to the nightstand before falling to the floor with a defeated little klunk and rolling underneath her bed. Aili buries her face in her hands.

He is so young. Too young. He hardly looks a year past twenty.

And Solas expected her to be capable of killing him.

Aili sleeps about as well as anticipated, which is to say, hardly at all. She is bombarded by the same nightmares that have plagued her since she got here and in between the dreams there are long restless stretches of simply staring up at the ceiling in the dark. She cannot tell if the dreams are getting worse or if her own willpower in the Fade is fraying from exhaustion, but it feels like an age since she woke feeling well rested. She stays in her room past sunrise, for once, lapsing in and out of a light fitful sleep for most of the morning, feeling nearly feverish and mentally drained.

It is almost time for the midday meal by the time she finally staggers out of bed and decides that eating something and being outdoors both sound appealing. She wishes that she had a book to read, or some other means of entertainment, but she doubts that they would permit her to take any of the books from the library. They had only tolerated her presence there because of Compassion and Curiosity, and the librarian had scowled about it the entire time. Besides which, the visions and the voices from the tomes there had been so overwhelming to her senses that her brain had felt akin to scrambled eggs, and even the written books were threaded through with enough magic to make her eyes cross.

The idea that she might not be capable of ever reading most of the books here had been a heartbreak all on its own.     

Still, she supposes that she really should ask one of her spirit companions about the salve. And probably think of some way to practice focusing her magic. She needs to acclimate to this place if she plans to survive in it for any length of time. She has to be capable of fighting and defending herself. And preferably lighting a candle without setting fire to her sleeves.

When she opens the door to step out into the hall, she nearly walks straight into someone's chest.

Someone wearing a ridiculous amount of white fur.

Oh, no.

"I looked for you in the gardens earlier," he says by way of greeting, his smile showing off a set of distinctly sharp canines, "I even checked the trees. But Sorrow told me that you had not left your room today, so I thought I would inquire as to whether or not the salve had proven useful."

Aili feels rooted to the spot, her eyes wide and her heart hammering. Her left hand is still tightly gripping the handle of the door, and every last instinct she has is begging her to shut it. Lock it. Keep him out.

His smile falters a bit at her silence, but he rallies himself a moment later.

"Did you sleep more easily?" he wonders.

"…no," she finally mumbles, hoping it will be enough to send him on his way.

His face falls and she feels as though she just kicked a puppy, which is entirely unfair.

"Did it have any kind of effect at all?" he presses, sounding genuinely concerned, "I admit that I was uncertain how useful it would prove to be, given your unique circumstances, but perhaps if you could describe your reaction to it, I could procure something else that would work better."

Aili swallows thickly, hoping that if she just wishes hard enough that he will somehow not be standing in her doorway.

“…I did not use it, so there is nothing to tell,” she admits after a few more beats of silence.

He looks well and truly deflated now, clearly not anticipating this hiccup in his grand scheme of wheedling information out of her. She does not suppose there have been many instances in his life thus far where someone simply refused to give him something he wanted. He has that look about him. The spoiled noble lordling. The exact brand that Sera would toss week-old pies at from the balconies of Skyhold.

“Ah,” he fumbles, striving to regain his footing, “Well. I suppose that…is not so wholly unexpected. I had hoped that…if you were feeling better, perhaps you might dine with me? I have asked that food be sent to a small room with limited enchantments present. I thought it might be more comfortable for you than the main dinning hall.”

Aili almost liked it better when he was accusing her of not being a person. It is much easier to run him off when he is being infuriating. She can see the cunning in it, of course, to invite her somewhere secluded, where she would have a difficult time making a hasty retreat, so that he can ply her with all his questions. But she would not be surprised if there was also a fair amount of sincerity in the offer. He never did like watching someone suffer. Even at the end.

“No, thank you,” she grumbles, staring resolutely at the pale green and silver leaf pattern on his sleeves. She cannot meet his eyes. If she looks him in the eyes, she’ll be lost.

“Please?” he asks with just the faintest trace of desperation.

“I am not hungry,” she tells him firmly, finally digging up the nerve to shut her door again. Right in his face. Her heart is hammering in her ears.

There is a minute or two where she thinks he might be able to hear her stomach gurgling in protest through the walls, and she frantically casts her gaze around the room for some piece of furniture to jam into the doorway on the odd chance that he decides to break in. But then there is only a weary sounding sigh, and the sound of receding footsteps.

By the time Curiosity comes to her, it is past time for the evening meal, she is going absolutely stir-crazy, and she is hungry enough to consider attempting to eat one of the small decorative plants on her windowsill.

The window is not real, as it happens. It is small, but she had made a brave attempt to escape through it, regardless. Not only had the latch refused to budge after ruthless tugging, but she had eventually noticed that the view seems to be a range of seaside cliffs and -as far as she can tell- Mythal’s palace is in the midst of a verdant wilderness.

She would be impressed by spellwork involved in crafting such a thing if she was not so utterly frustrated. Which seems to be the general theme of this place. It is by far the prettiest prison she has ever been held in, she will grant them that.

Curiosity is a bright bubbly creature that cannot quiet seem to sit still for any length of time and, as its name might imply, it is extremely inquisitive. It reminds her of some of the younger children of the clan, even knowing that it is probably several centuries older than herself. all wide wondering stares and sticky grasping fingers. Much to her surprise, and despite her deep lingering melancholy, Aili has already found herself developing a fondness for it.

"You did not climb trees today!" the spirit exclaims, sounding almost accusatory, "Compassion said that if you did not come, we should not bother you, but I still have so many questions!"

"You are not the only one," Aili answers wryly.

"Do you?" Curiosity beams, not seeming the least put off by her tone, continuing to flit about her room in some sort of impromptu inspection, "But of course you do! A new world, new people, new places! There is still so much to see and to learn. I can help you find all the answers! I can help with your magic, too! Compassion was saying that we should offer to join with you, to help your body feel how it is meant to feel. If you can understand how the magic flows here, perhaps it will not trouble you so much. …Or perhaps will. But we could find out!"

Aili tenses, every warning her Keeper gave her about bargains with spirits and demons ringing through her head.

"I…am not sure I like that idea," she admits with a long exhale of breath, "I would not want to risk…losing myself."

"We would not sit inside you for very long, if you did not like it!" the spirit promises, "Even if it was very interesting. We want to help and to teach! We do not want to take things from you. Trying to take a body that already has as spirit of its own tends to end badly for everyone. I have never tried it. I suppose I could not try it without corrupting myself and the body. I probably won’t, then. And definitely not with you! But it is likely an exciting experience. And terrible."

"I will…consider it," Aili sighs, shaking her head in exasperation as Curiosity reaches out and plucks at her clothes and her hair and…everything. She is not sure if the gesture is meant to be comforting or exploratory. "But I do not think it would be a good idea right now. The magic here is so strong, I can barely focus under normal circumstances. If I couldn't handle reading a book, I can only imagine what would happen if a spirit tried to…join with me."

"It would be very exciting to find out, though," Curiosity replies, "But no, you would be distressed, and you should not be more distressed, even if it would be fascinating to learn about how your body processes magic."

Aili snorts.

"I admire your restraint," she says, her lips twitching upwards. It is a good feeling; to know that she is still capable of amusement. That her mouth has not completely forgotten how smiling is supposed to work.

"I have been very patient!" Curiosity insists, "You are so interesting, but you do not want to talk yet. But when you do, you must come to me. You must tell me everything! And you must ask me all of your questions, too! But only if you want to. I hope you will want to."

"I do have a question for you, actually," Aili admits.

"About the salve, yes!" the spirit chirps happily, divining beneath her bed and retrieving the little wayward jar. It blinks at it for a few moments with several huge blue eyes, pondering possibilities. Then it reaches out with long gleaming tendrils and plops it into her hands. 

"It is safe!" Curiosity declares blithely, "It will not take your mind or your magic away. It is only for pushing the Dreaming back a little."

"Do you even need to ask me the questions if you can tell what the answer is before I say anything?" Aili wonders.

"You need to be thinking of the question for me to see the answers," the spirit grins. "You have a lot of new questions, so I like to hear them. I would like to hear them even if they were not new. I would like to help find all the things you are looking for!"

"I am not certain that anyone can help with that," Aili confesses wearily, "I do not even know what I am looking for yet. I'm not even sure what questions to ask."

"The question most frequently in your mind is 'why?'," Curiosity says, sounding a little more subdued and floating closer to her, "Why did he change his mind at the end? Why did he save you? Why did he send you here without even the slightest idea of what you are meant to do?"

"Yes," Aili admits, closing her eyes for a moment and sucking in a sharp breath, "He was not… Even though I cannot forgive him for it, I know… I know it hurt him. To do those things. To make those decisions. Perhaps, at the end, he simply wanted to know that he had saved something. Just once."

"But you can never know for certain. Just as you can never know if he was driven by a softer inclination. It is not a question that I can give you an answer to," Curiosity says, sounding unhappy about it, "And no matter what the answer is, it would hurt. Just as not having an answer hurts you now, and must hurt forever and always. I am sorry."    

Aili shakes her head, trying her best for a smile and only having minimal success at it.

"I did not expect you or anyone else to be capable of answering it for me," she assures it, "It is a new layer to an old wound, anyway. I know how to bear it well enough."

"But I am sorry that you have to," the spirit insists, sincere enough to pull a real smile from her lips. "I can still help with the other things you need! I would like to. Please."

Aili's stomach makes a loud gurgling sound. The spirit blinks at her, and she makes a face. A bit embarrassed, and remembering the wolf prowling the hall earlier.

"I…do think there is something else you could help me with," she tells it, the beginnings of a plan already hatching in her mind, "So long as you don't think you'd get in trouble for it."

"Oh!" Curiosity gasps in delight, "I have never tried to sneak things out of the kitchens before!"

The next three days are a dance of subterfuge.

The stinky ointment is a blessing, dulling the magical sensations surrounding her to a soft hum instead of a constant roar. Still more than what she is accustomed to, but not enough to rob her of her focus. However, the absolute last thing she wants to see is the smug look on the wolf's face once he finds out that she has been using it.

Which means that she cannot let him get close enough to smell it lingering on her skin.

And that…is more difficult than she might have thought.

Before, people had been avoiding her because she is some strange broken flesh monster. Now, they are avoiding her because she stinks like an old lady's sickbed. At least, she thinks that is why they all keep making those faces at her. She is not entirely sure which form of revulsion is preferable.

The wolf has more than likely heard about her sudden stench, and put the clues together about whether or not she ever tested out the treatment he brought her, but she has gotten much better at hiding from him, too. He gave her a whole week to find little nooks and crannies around the palace that he would likely never think to cram himself into, and Curiosity and her other spirit friends have been helping her swipe things from the kitchens, so she does not even have to worry about him ambushing her on the way to the dining hall.

As they do not eat things themselves, the food her friends bring her is…varied. Compassion seems to trend towards sweetness and simplicity. Sorrow’s offerings are almost always bland to the point of nearly being tasteless. Curiosity seems to simply grab whatever looks bright and colorful, or strangely decorative with the odd flavor combinations, and Aili has suspicions that the spirit is actually using her as some sort of test subject. Rage only makes the attempt once, and the food is charred beyond recognition.

All the food is rich and heavy and settles strangely in her stomach, but she gulps it down without complaint.

Well. Except for Rage’s burnt plate of…something. She hid that in a plant pot to spare its feelings. She does not know if it is possible to make a rage spirit feel badly, but she would prefer not to find out.       

Once she is sure in the knowledge that her mind is her own again and her will is strong, she meets with her ghostly entourage in the Reflection Garden so they can show her how her magic sings here. She readily agrees to join with Compassion and Curiosity, and  after a few minutes of uncertainty, she agrees to Rage’s offering as well.

Sorrow does not ask. It simply sits with her, observant and accepting. It is probably for the best. Aili thinks if there were any more sorrow inside of her, she might stop breathing from the ache of it.  

Each spirit feels different as it takes its turn and sinks past her skin. Gentle warmth, tingling energy, and blistering intensity. Her mind is not gone, but her thoughts feel…quiet. In a way she does not think she likes, but it is not as terrifying as she had feared. The spells they show her feel simplistic in nature, but they are unlike anything she has used before. Dalish magic is, as Solas had put it, ‘practical.’ Used for things like lighting stubborn cookfires in the rain, reinforcing old wards, and healing wounded hunters. Some of the Keepers could activate the magics in the old ruins of their people, but it was a rare gift, and risky besides. It was hard to justify expending time and resources on magical theory and spell development when nearly all of their energy needed to be focused on survival.

Compassion makes lanterns from nothingness. Blooming from her hands like round red flowers. They gleam and flicker with the same warmth that the spirit carries with it everywhere, before floating up and fading away into nothing.

Curiosity weaves one of her memories into a vision of light and color suspended in the air like a looking glass into the past. There is no sound to it, and the scene is fairly innocuous. Dorian, Bull, and Sera sitting at a table in a tavern with her with cards and tankards strewn about them carelessly. Bull smirks at Dorian and says something she can’t quite make out, and Sera spits ale clear across the table. Bull claps her on the shoulder, grinning and unrepentant. Dorian scowls and mutters something darkly under his breath as he fishes out a handkerchief to wipe away the spittle. Aili wants to laugh, but it sticks in her throat. Choking.

Unsurprisingly, Rage has her burn things. Between her own self restraint and the urging of the other spirits, they do manage to rein it in enough not to destroy the entire garden, but one of the benches is covered in an impressive amount of ash. Hopefully, nothing serious enough to land her in trouble.  

It is a little frightening, to feel how the spark of magic within her has ignited into something huge and warm. Like a tiny sun, flooding her with light. With connection. But it feels right, too. As though a part of herself has been returned. Something that she lost so long ago that she had not even realized it was missing until she was holding it in her hands.

Afterwards, Aili slumps down in exhaustion on one of the unsinged benches and wonders again just how much the Veil had stripped away from the world. And just how badly things must have been going for Solas to think it was the most preferable outcome. A world where nearly everyone had been severed from their magic. From a natural part of themselves. The very part that seems to bind them to everything else.

Compassion drifts a little closer as Curiosity flits off to some other place. Sorrow brushes a tendril of itself across her cheek, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. She offers it a shaky smile, and it nods once before slowly seeping down into the earth.

"Thank you for showing me," she says to Compassion once the other two have gone. Rage is still simmering along the edges of the garden, inspecting the damage they had wrought most likely. "Where I come from, when a spirit joins with a person who already has a physical body, the results are…a bit permanent. And it does not generally end well for anyone. All of my previous teachers have warned me against it."

"I am glad that you trusted us enough to overcome your misgivings," Compassion replies, "It is a difficult thing to explain with words, and I am not the most proficient at it. But even if I had some ulterior motive, I do not believe I could have fought you for control and won. There is…something in you. A strange bright thing. I think you could use it to burn me out of you, if you had felt threatened."  

Her stomach lurches.

"What?" she baulks, her mind racing through possibilities. Is it some remnant of the anchor? Some splintered piece of Solas' magic buried in her flesh? Is it still eating away at her, even now?

Compassion reaches out and lightly brushes a tendril over the center of her chest. Just beside her frantically pounding heart.

"There is something bright here," it says, "Something not part of you."

Aili feels the air freeze in her lungs.

She recalls the last moments of her world. The magic Solas pressed into her. And the pain. She had not thought much of it at the time. She had not been especially coherent, and everything had already hurt so much, but… It had not been a healing spell. Healing would not have burned like that. It would not have turned him to ash and smoke.

Her mind trails to Mythal, and what Solas did to her. What he took from her. Her and the Old Gods that slept beneath the earth.

Oh no.

No no no no no.

How many times is someone going to shove bits of magic into her body without even asking?

"Get it out of me!" she gasps, clutching at her chest and struggling to breathe. 

"I have made it worse," Compassion says fretfully, "Forgive me. There is no need to be afraid. It has done you no harm."

"It isn't supposed to be there," she insists, nails digging into her own skin, "I do not want it! Please, make it leave!"

"It has no mind," Compassion tells her, trying to soothe, "We cannot ask it to go, because there is nothing to ask."

"It is a soul," Aili chokes out, "It's a soul that isn't mine, and I want it gone."

"It has no presence. No emotions," Compassion promises, "I would know if it did. I would tell you. It is naught but a remnant. A fragment. The sloughed skin of a creature long since gone. Do not fear that it will maul you, it has no mind to turn against your own."

"If someone added an extra arm or a spare foot to my body from some other creature, and it had no power to hurt me, I would still want it gone," she tells it, although she does calm down a little, "Please, get it out of me, if you can. The last time someone did this to me, I…"

"You almost died. Yes," Compassion sighs, "I can understand why it must be frightening. But we must proceed with caution. I could make an attempt to take it from you, if that is your wish, but I do not relish the thought. It is a powerful thing, even if it lacks a will of its own."

She pauses at that, considering what the soul of an old god might do to her friend. What chaos it might stir up if anyone else was to discover that she had it, or what it could do. At the very least, they would probably kill her to find out how she acquired such a thing, and then she will be of no use to anyone.

"You…are right," she breathes out at last, still shaking slightly, "We should find out more about it before trying anything. I will carry it for now. I would not want to put you in danger."

"I am sorry I could not be of more help to you," the spirit admits. Aili shakes her head at it.

"It is better to know, in the end," she tells it, "If I suddenly explode with magic or something, at least I'll know why."    

She lapses into silence for minute, stewing in a haze of indignation and lingering panic, and glaring at her toes. Rage must feel the tumult of it roiling in her gut, because when she finally looks up again, it is standing in front of her with a sword. It seems to be some sort of offering.

"You should burn them for what they have done to you," it crackles at her, "Burn them and cut them down until there is nothing left but ashes and blood."

"I…do not fight with a sword," she tells it after a brief pause, "And there is nothing left of the person who did this to me. Even the ashes are gone now."

"There are others left to blame," Rage insists, "And I can see the shape of a sword in your hand. Bright and sharp and clear with purpose."

"In my left hand," Aili sighs, "Which is not good for much of anything these days. Nothing as complicated as swordplay, anyway. If you want to give me a weapon, I could use a stave, though. It does not need to be fancy. I do not want to blindly swing at people with my grief, I need to focus. I need to be able to feel the flow of magical energies here and command them seamlessly. Can you help?"   

Rage contemplates her request for a moment, and while it is hard to discern much in the way of feelings with its face wreathed in flame and light, she gets the distinct impression that it is not especially happy about it.

"A sword would be better," the spirit rumbles, never the less acquiescing to her preference and returning the blade to whatever pocket of the Dreaming it keeps such things in and producing a staff instead.

The weapon is about as simple as she had asked for, with the exception of a long wicked-looking blade at one end. It is almost a halberd, really, but it is good enough to meet her needs, and so she thanks the spirit anyway, and begins the process of trying to relearn how to fight with both hands.

She gets the feeling it is a skill she is going to need sooner rather than later.

Aili fumbles a few times, dropping her staff while attempting to switch it from one hand to the other and even catching herself in the face once or twice, though luckily not with the bladed end. But on the whole, she is satisfied with her body’s reaction time and muscle memory. She still needs to practice more before attempting a real fight, but she is not completely defenseless anymore, or hobbled by her sensitivity to magic. It is a profound relief.

Rage offers to spar with her once she seems to have found her feet, and she agrees, with the caveat that they both restrain themselves from using spells. She needs to focus more on regaining her physical combat skills than her magical ones, for the time being. And besides which, a garden is not really the best place to start tossing around fireballs. They've burnt enough things today.

The spirit knocks her down more often than not, but mostly because a lot of her dirtier tactics do not work on someone who can simply decide that they want a certain body part to be incorporeal. They are a good partner, though, and Aili suspects that if she was a little less off-kilter, it would be a fairly even match. She does forget her left arm once or twice, however, and Rage takes the opening to leave her with a few impressive looking bruises. She’s covered in grass stains and her joints are sore by the end of it, but it’s a good kind of ache.

“You get back up,” Rage rumbles in approval, “No matter how many times you are struck to the ground.”

“It wouldn’t have been much of a training session if I had just laid in the grass after you knocked me over a single time,” Aili points out.

“Not just here,” the spirit says, “Always. You always choose to get back up. To step forward. To extend your hand again. You do not let them extinguish your fire. It is good. Even if it is not always your anger that carries you, even if you do not use a sword, it is good to keep burning. To never let them win.”

“It…never felt like much of a choice,” she shrugs, looking past Rage towards the young man swathed in white furs watching her from the entrance to the garden, “And it did not matter, in the end. They all died. They died because I was not strong enough to stop it.”

“There are always choices,” Rage insists, turning its head to follow her gaze, “And they always matter. Even if they do not produce the outcome we might desire.”

So saying, the spirit nods at her and drifts off to be about whatever other business it must have. Aili stares after it for a moment, turning its parting words over in her mind, before finally looking back towards the person she has been avoiding for the past few days. She considers leaving via a different exit, but he is blocking the one with the most direct path to her room, and even if she avoids him at this junction, he will simply take the faster route and cut her off before she can get inside of it and shut him out again.

She heaves a weary sigh. Choices. Solas had always said that all the other options he could see were worse than the Veil. Worse than the death of her world. He had never elaborated much on what those other choices had been, and she had always wondered at the legitimacy of such an assertion. If there had been better choices he might have missed in his rush to correct the course of history, or if the whole thing was just another one of his half-truths. There was so much he never told her.

Just as there is so much she cannot tell this younger version of him now.

Still. She cannot run forever. Sooner or later, she is going to have to deal with him. Give him the truth, or give him an ending. And even if it breaks her, it will not be the first time. She had wavered once before, and it cost her the world. And her eye. She can kill her heart to save this world, if she has to.

She can get back up again.

But it does not mean she has to like it.

“Don’t you have something better to do than stalk me around the palace every day?” she wonders, walking over to him and pointedly jabbing the tip of her stave into the soft earth near her feet.

“I would not have to ‘stalk you’, as you put it, if you were not deliberately avoiding me,” he huffs in a manner that is probably meant to sound stern, but comes across as something much closer to petulant.

Aili rolls her eyes.

"Persistently dogging someone who has already asked that you leave them alone is more or less the textbook definition of stalking," she points out.

"I apologized, and I did my best to help ease your discomfort," he returns, sounding perilously close to whining, "Is that not enough to broker some sort of peace between us?"

"I can return the salve, if you would like it back," Aili says, raising an eyebrow at him, "I do not want your charity if it comes at a price. Especially if that price is feigned comradery. And if you want there to be peace between us, then I would suggest giving me my space. We can hardly get into an argument if we are not talking to one another."

"I am not attempting to bribe you into liking me," he insists hotly, in a manner that makes it clear that that was exactly what he was doing, "Peace comes through understanding, does it not? How can I learn to be inoffensive to you if you will not even deign to speak with me?"  

Oh, he's good.

Bastard.

"I am not some strange experiment to be poked and prodded until you are satisfied with the information you have gathered," she snaps, "I'm not interested in sitting down to tea with you and having a pleasant lighthearted chat about how every single person I ever knew was horrifically murdered."

He blanches at that, his mouth puckering in distaste, and for a moment she is almost certain he is going to dig up a few more insults and insinuations to toss at her, but instead he closes his eyes and takes a few deep measured breaths. She can almost hear him counting in his head. Trying to cool his heels before he shoves his foot in his mouth again.

She almost wants to laugh.

"I know you have little reason to trust my intentions, given our first few interactions," he begins slowly, "But I sincerely wish to speak with you without inadvertently upsetting you. I…I would like to find some common ground. I do not wish to argue, if it can be avoided."

"And what if there is no common ground between us?" Aili wonders, "What will you do then?"

"I suppose…some of that might depend on where the points of contention lay," he muses, "But for now, I think I would be content in the knowledge that you did not simply hate me out of hand."

Her heart twists sharply in her chest, so sudden that she nearly stumbles away from him. But she manages to hold her ground, trembling only a little as she fixes him with a long look.

It would be such an easy lie. Some part of her wants to throw it in his face just to strike at him with something. To take something back from him after everything she has lost.

But…

"I…do not…hate you," she tells him quietly, finally dropping her gaze to the grass at her feet. She frowns at her own admission, not wanting to see whatever reaction it might garner from him. "I…appreciate the trouble you went to in order to help me. But you are…a stranger. In a world full of strangers. And the things you want to know are painful and private. I do not wish to speak of them. I explained to Mythal what I could, and she did not even believe me. Let it be enough."

When Aili finally glances back up, the wolf is all but beaming at her, and she finds herself well and truly mortified. Her pulse leaps and her ears burn. And she suddenly has an intense desire to vanish in a puff of smoke.

"I am tired," she declares firmly, stepping around him and making a beeline for the doorway back into the palace, "I am going back to my room to rest."

"The salve helps, then?" he asks, taking a half step after her, still smiling.

"Yes," she admits gratingly, still making an attempt at scuttling away, "The dreams are less…intense. I can usually defend myself, even if I cannot completely shut them out."

"Then…you dream as People do?" he wonders, sounding genuinely surprised.

Aili pauses to heave a sigh.

"I have no way of knowing if I dream the way you do," she says archly, "I dream the way I always have. The Dreaming here is different from my world, but it is not so different that I could not figure out how to navigate it. To some extent, anyway."

He nods in acceptance.    

"That would make sense," he acknowledges with a tilt of his head, "Then…perhaps I shall speak to you later? When you are feeling less physically drained."

"Anything's possible," Aili shrugs, finally turning away and heading back towards her room.  

She does not go to sleep right away. Between the discovery of the old soul lodged in her chest, and her recent conversation with the wolf, she finds that she is much too agitated. Besides, it is still early in the evening and she has not even eaten her supper yet. And so she paces.

Solas must have given her the soul for a reason. Perhaps it was all he could think to do to keep her from dying before reaching the time fold, but she does not think so. Her body might have been the vessel he chose to carry it, but he was always going to send it here. There must be something she is meant to do with it, somewhere it is meant to go.

Is she supposed to give it to Mythal? Would it give her the strength to avoid being murdered by her kin?

After meeting the woman, Aili cannot say that she likes the idea of that very much. Or the thought that if the evanuris discovered what the soul is and the power it supposedly could grant its wielder, they might go tearing through the earth in search of more of them. If they have not been digging around for lyrium and murdering titans already.

Hm. She should probably find a way to ask someone about that. Delicately.  

She sighs and flops down onto her bed. She really is tired, even if it is too early to consider trying to sleep through the night. A nap might help take the edge off things, if she can manage it. Curiosity or one of the others will come get her if she does not wake up in time for her meal.

Aili drifts off after a few minutes of restless tossing, and the nightmares come for her, as they always do, but now she can build walls. She pulls them up around her, layers upon layers of stone. Turning her thoughts to somethings simple and relatively safe, and willing it into existence in the Dreaming. The familiar solid shape of Skyhold’s keep.

A fire crackles in the hearth, and the distant shapes of mountains loom outside her windows. There are sounds drifting up from the courtyard, muffled enough by wind and distance that she can imagine that it is laugher spilling out the door of the Herald’s Rest, or a few of Cullen’s soldiers getting in some late practice in the training yard. That’s not what they are, of course, but it’s best to avoid thinking about that if she can.

She goes to sit at her desk and begins reading through the mountains of paperwork Josephine must have left for her earlier. Letters from nobility, reports on troop movements, research notes from Dorian and Dagna, and dozens of different sorts of requisition requests from all corners of the Inquisition.

More healing herbs for the Hinterlands. Blankets and warm coats for Emprise Du Lion. Weatherproof tents for the Storm Coast and various sorts of sun protection for the Western Approach. And more food. And new boots And better weapons. More more more. Everyone needs more from her.

But the paperwork is a familiar type of monotony. Almost comforting, in a way. She looks over the reports and pens responses that will never be sent, smiling every now and then when she recognizes the hand that wrote them. The windows rattle and the wind howls like lost souls out in the night. Her eyes grow weary and letters blur, but she feels nearly content as she lets the memory settle around her.

Being the Inquisitor had been overwhelming, but at least she had understood what she was supposed to do. And she had known that she had people on her side. Allies she could trust.

A hand lands on her shoulder, large and warm with long elegant fingers.

A hand she knows very well.

Aili leans into him, pressing her cheek against the back of his palm with a soft hum. Not even surprised that her vision of the castle would end up including him somehow. He will scold her now for staying up so late. He will bodily tug her up from her chair despite her sleepy protestations, and they will both tumble into the blankets on her bed in a mess of exhausted jumbled limbs.

“Ma sa’lath,” she sighs quietly.

There is no crime in loving him here, among these echoes of the things she has lost. Among the bones and ruins and ash. There is no one who can suffer for it besides herself, and her pain over it would not be any less if she denied the truth of it.

He coughs awkwardly behind her, and it is incongruent enough with the situation at hand that she startles slightly, pulling away enough to look up at his face.

He is dressed all in white furs and light silver armor, and his cheeks are positively flaming.

Aili falls out her chair as she yanks herself back, tumbling onto the plush Antivan rug Josephine had insisted on and glancing around wildly for something she could brandish at him.

“I am sorry!” he blurts, hastily stepping forward with the clear intent of helping her to her feet, but then seeming to think better of it at the last minute. It results in his arms making a strange flapping gesture that does nothing to detract from the fact that he is positively silly with embarrassment. “I did not mean to startle you. I was merely curious about the way you dream after the conversation we had earlier, and I thought that perhaps it would be easier for us to speak here. In the Dreaming it is easier to feel intent, so I posited that I might be able to parse your emotions better here, and thereby avoid distressing you.”

She is too stunned to speak, her gaze flitting around the room, wondering if there is anything in it that he might use to deduce the truth about where exactly she comes from. The Dalish symbols on her curtains. The figure of a great owl above her bed, wings stretched wide. The fresco painted by his own hand up against the far wall. 

Does he paint yet? 

"Is this your home?" he wonders, turning his eyes from her to sweep the room.

She can hear the screams outside more clearly now. The begging and the crying. The crackling fires. Wolves howling and hungry chittering and dozens of long legs scrabbling against stone.

Her heartbeat is all but slamming against her ribs as she scrambles back to her feet, embarrassment and anger and a blinding sense of absolute panic washing over her.

"Get out!" she demands, trying her best to conjure more protections. Castle moats and drawbridges and walls of brick and stone and metal all stacked together. Strong winds to push him, and fire to scorch him, and water to sweep him away. Anything she can possibly think of. She does not know what good it will do against a Dreamer like him, but she has to try. He cannot be here. She cannot let him see. "GET OUT!"

The dream breaks around them as the nightmares burst through the delicate panes of stained glass in her windows. The sound is deafening as a multitude of shadowy figures spill into her room, washing over her like a tide. The last she sees of him is a look of shock and horror as she is swept back into the dark.

Back to where she belongs.