Chapter Text
Vir Assan
The Way of the Arrow. Fly straight and do not waver. Be swift and silent. Strike true; do not waver. And let not your prey suffer.
The elves sat huddled in the ruins of their people's legacy, hearts light, their bellies filled with First Day sweets and warm buttered rum. Their clear voices were raised in song foreign to the ancient stone walls and to the spirits which yet dwelt within their cold embrace. Exotic woods, unfamiliar to the merrymakers, popped and cracked a complementary percussion from the communal hearth.
One of the men, a bit stronger and a bit older than the others busied himself at the nearby feast table folding something into a red square of linen before quietly slipping away from the holiday festivities.
A young barefaced woman with loose ash blonde hair rose from the song circle and walked toward the retreating arcane warrior, brazenly swaying her full hips with each barefooted step. “Cillian,” she called after him coyly. “Where exactly are you going?”
Her delicate Tevene accent drifted through the space between them warming the apples of the male elf's cheeks to a flattering flush. Cillian turned around, taking a few slow strides back toward his dear one. Their love was new and uncertain. He smiled, crinkling the white lines of June's mark around his eyes—a mark which he continued to wear not in honor of a false god but in honor of the tenacious people who raised him. “Sable, emm'asha, I'm just going to bring a little holiday cheer to our illustrious leader.” Cillian nodded toward a small wrapped bundle in his left hand and the flagon of rum in his right.
Sable's face dropped as she crept closer, wrapping her arms around her slim shoulders. “Are you sure that's the best idea? He doesn't strike me as the festive sort,” she whispered, strangely still fearful of Fen'Harel's wrath despite the freedom his forces had secured for her and all she'd learned since joining his noble cause. Old fears run deep; it would take time for even the most open of minds to adjust to such new and unsettling truths.
“You worry too much,” Cillian chuckled and shook his head. “I won't be long. I bet you won't even miss me.” He smiled warmly and carried on toward the Wolf's study, his armored feet clinking lightly against the mosaic tiled floor.
Sable was left alone with her worry, straining her eyes in the low light until his long bronze encased figure disappeared into a veil fire lit hallway. Behind her one carol ended in a swell of laughter and sighs, and another soon rose up in its stead.
* * *
Fen'Harel usually kept to himself when he wasn't giving orders. He spent most of his days locked away in his musty study or searching the Fade for whatever answers he sought. Cillian had known him before—well, known of him at any rate—during his time with the Inquisition, when the Wolf had called himself “Solas” and stood at Lady Lavellan's side. The other recruits had not, nor had the ancients among them. They'd been drawn to the legend, the power, the chance to reclaim Elvhen glory. Cillian had other motives and other loyalties, and although he was sent to infiltrate Fen'Harel's organization, in truth the Wolf was not his enemy nor his true master's.
One of Fen'Harel's sentinels stood watch outside his private library. This particular guard was actually sitting on a stack of worn books rather than standing and whittling at a chunk of pale wood with a pen knife rather than watching intently for would-be assassins or spies. Cillian slowed his pace and cleared his throat as he approached the ancient woman. Startled, she quickly slipped the vaguely canine shaped carving into a pocket in her dark robes and lowered the knife to her side.
“Crafting more wolves for the master's army?” the younger elf jested. “You really have quite a talent there, Lieutenant Noori.”
“State your business, fool,” she spat in highly accented Common. If Noori's complexion hadn't been so dusky nor the light in the hall so ominously green, Cillian was certain he'd have seen an embarrassed blush creep from the top of her bald head to the tip of her pointed chin.
“A gift for Fen'Harel from the little people.” Cillian raised the flagon and the parcel toward Noori as he spoke.
Her steely blue eyes searched his lavender ones as if deception could be discovered in the constriction of a pupil or the light refracted in an iris. Her dry, weathered hands took the bundle, hastily unwrapping it to reveal its innocent contents. She snorted and exchanged the parcel for the flagon. Pressing the pad of her thumb against the lever, she raised the domed lid of the pewter vessel and sniffed at its steaming contents. The lid fell back in place with a clink, and Noori passed the offering back into Cillian's waiting hand.
“You know if you plan to poison him he will know—” Cillian opened his mouth to reply, but Noori continued before he could speak “—he will know, and you will die.”
Cillian tilted his head to and fro as if weighing his options, his white hair falling over the right side of his face. “I don't doubt it.”
Noori mumbled something to herself in inaudible Elvhen and rapped lightly with a tightly balled fist against the chamber door before opening the portal a crack and whispering into the study, “Ara seranna-ma, hahren.”
“Fenedhis lasa....atish'all.” Cillian heard the Wolf curse in a low growl.
Noori opened the door wide enough to slip inside and pulled the door nearly to a close behind her. The two ancients continued in a forgotten dialect of his ancestral language, leaving Cillian only able to pick up bits and pieces of their heated exchange. There was something about children, rashvine, and rotten halla milk? In between indecipherable words Cillian caught his name on Noori's tongue and moments later it slipped again from the lips of the Wolf. The door swung open; the sentinel emerged sighing angrily, her painted lips curved into a defeated frown.
“His Grace will see you now,” she muttered through clenched white teeth.
“Ma serannas, falon.” Cillian smiled at Noori as he briskly walked past her into the Wolf's den. The heavy door closed behind him, and he found himself alone with the man who would destroy the world.
Gilded tomes; baskets of mildewed scrolls; and orderly stacks of parchment folios, charts, maps, and blueprints (mostly in old and early modern Tevene) crowded the small dark room. Four long tapers seated in an ornate candelabra perched on the Wolf's cluttered desk bathed the chamber in eerie blue light. The lone window remained shuttered tightly against Winter's chill. Fen'Harel glowered at the petitioner expectantly from behind the stack of books on his massive wooden desk.
“Well, what is it you want?” The Wolf spoke to him in words he could better understand but not in the voice which was once familiar to him. The man had changed, his face stony in its expression, his tone cold and deep as the frozen lake beyond the shuttered window.
Cillian swallowed the lump in his throat before speaking. “I come to wish you a merry First Day, Master Solas.” His head bowed slightly at the last.
The Wolf cringed at the sound of his true name.
“A gift from your disciples.” Cillian was certain not to look the Wolf in the eye as he timidly set the holiday treats before his commander between a mass of crumpled paper and a half empty ink well. “And...I'm sure the others would be pleased if you would join us tomorrow evening for a little celebration.”
The Wolf barely regarded the gifts before balking at their bestower. “There is no room for revelry in this organization.”
“Certainly you don't mean that, sir,” the younger elf dared to question.
“That is exactly my meaning.” The Wolf raised his voice pushing the flagon just a little further away on the desk and twisting his face into a snarl. “There are no holidays in this cause. Indulging in intoxicants the evening before an important mission is irresponsible at best and suicidal at worst. While you celebrate the arbitrary arrival of a new year my adversaries grow stronger and the tools I require buried deeper in the basements and crypts of insolent Tevinter noblemen.”
Cillian looked at his feet silently waiting for the Wolf to continue his tirade or to coldly dismiss him to his duties.
The Wolf groaned in frustration, rolled down the ivory sleeves of his silken tunic and fastened the cuffs with ink stained finger tips. “Go, and take this"—he paused gesturing toward the parcel and drink—"with you.”
“Keep it, lethallin. One drink is unlikely to dull your sharp senses, surely.” Cillian was daring in his familiarity. The older elf stared in silence, at a loss for words. Slowly, Cillian backed toward the door and turned, reaching for the worn iron latch.
“I know why you are here, lethallin.” The Wolf's low growl burned in the younger elf's ears and prickled the hairs at the back of his neck.
Cillian's hand stilled on the cold metal door handle and he cleared his throat nervously. “I came only to wish you happiness in the new year, sir.”
The Wolf chuckled quietly. They both knew the truth, and they both accepted the lie. The arcane warrior had proved an asset to the cause despite his deception, and his supposed secret mission had proved little threat to the Wolf's own goals. “Go,” he spat, “and tell your comrades if they must sing I ask that they not do so in the language of slavers. If I hear one more Tevinter carol in these halls—”
“Understood, sir.” Cillian opened the door and stepped into the hallway. “And a merry First Day to you!” he shouted back toward the Wolf as Noori quickly pulled the door closed behind him.
“You...you are lucky you still breath, seth'lin.” Noori blinked at him with wide, bright eyes.
“Luck has little to do with it, my friend.” Cillian smiled at the sentinel before walking back down the narrow hallway. “Oh,” he called over his shoulder, “When that old rotten egg finally goes to bed you're welcomed to join us.”
Noori made no reply only drew her whittling from her pocket and leaned against the rough stone wall.
“We have ham!” Cillian added before disappearing through the arch leading back out to the main hall.
* * *
Solas sat quietly at his table, resting his heavy head upon his left hand, a water stained chart detailing the distaff branches of the Alexius family tree sprawled out before him. He stared absentmindedly at his neat annotations in the margins.
“Merry first day, indeed,” he muttered to himself in softly accented Common. The long pale fingers of his right hand reached awkwardly around the inkwell to capture the cloth wrapped bundle Cillian had left. Despite himself he peeled back the rough red linen to reveal a stack of warm hearth cakes freckled with red currents and orange flecks of candied citrus zest. He skeptically raised one of the fluffy cakes to his nose and inhaled deeply. It smelled strongly of cinnamon and vanilla and other frivolous things that were of no use to him.
“Bah,” he said swiftly tossing the cake back into its wrapping and scooting his heavy chair away from his day's work. He stood stretching his arms over his head—his shoulders, elbows, wrists, and finger joints each sounding a pleasurable crack. Taking the fur embellished cloak from the back of his chair, he draped his stiff shoulders in velvety darkness—the mantle that was his pride and his dread. He yawned silently; the Fade awaited, and he was eager for its comforting embrace. Without so much as a gesture he dispelled the candelabra's gentle blue flames leaving the room in complete darkness. Before departing his sanctuary of academia and dust and stepping once more into the cage he'd cleverly crafted himself, the elf exhaled a long held breath—the moist heat puffing against the apathetic wooden door.
The Wolf jerked the door open in one fluid motion. He strode into the hallway without a word to his guard. Given the hour his purpose and destination needed no explanation. Lieutenant Noori hurriedly pulled the chamber door closed and once again tucked her carving within the folds of her robes before scurrying after her master, following a few respectful paces behind his long, elegant strides. Holiday carols still drifted through the ancient manor, only now in the flowery style of Orlesian bards and accompanied by a rather flat sounding squeezebox.
Another of the Wolf's ancient sentinels stood guard at the bottom of the spiraling staircase which led up to the tower where the Wolf slept. The second guard regarded Noori with a nod of his hooded head. Her duty completed for the day, Noori bowed stiffly toward her master.
“On nydha, hahren.”
The Wolf inclined his head in silent acknowledgment before the lieutenant took her leave. With one bare foot upon the first granite step, the Wolf placed a hand on the hooded sentinel’s shoulder and brought his mouth close to his ear.
“Give them another hour, no more,” he spoke in the Elvhen tongue, his words metered and measured despite his frustration at his recruits' frivolity. The Wolf didn't wait for a response before drifting up the staircase, more veil fire torches flickering to life every few meters as he climbed the ancient narrow steps.
These ruins never served as a temple to exalt a false god nor were chained slaves ever led up these stones to service their wanton masters in the night. It was a retreat once belonging to a kindly noble loyal to Mythal. It was a place the Wolf had visited only once in his distant past, but at the moment it served him well as a base of operations. The estate sat isolated on a small island surrounded by a perpetually frozen lake which was itself surrounded by a dense petrified forest. His quarters sat perched at the very top of the highest crumbling tower. Old magics and pure luck continued to keep the weather worn masonry bound in the ancient mortar.
The low flames in the intricately carved fireplace cast long shadows on the turret's round walls and flooded the intimate space with inviting warmth. Once over the threshold the Wolf closed his dry eyes against the glow and pushed the door closed with his palms behind his back. His shoulders pressed to the door, he began unraveling the tightly knotted threads of his turgid mind. He pulled his lean body to its full height and moved toward the center of the room. He removed his cloak depositing it on a bejeweled chest at the foot of a large extravagantly dressed bed, before crossing over to a single diamond paned window. Pale moonlight accentuated the sharp angles of his long face, revealing every crease and scar—every tightly held secret and personal failing.
Through the slim arched window the moon hung too large in the jet black sky, pregnant with its own divine light and the Wolf's unholy purpose. The fir trees bordering the lake were perfectly silhouetted against the celestial body whose radiance gave a luster of mid-day to the freshly fallen snow. It was a view he'd have once found soothing if not beautiful, but that was in the past. The Dread Wolf could afford little interest in the treasures of this world. A flurry of snowflakes gently batted against the glass as his hand moved to unfasten the sash holding back a heavy velvet curtain. It was better not to look.
A neat pile of folded silk and wool soon joined the cloak at the foot of the Wolf's bed. Stooping slightly he placed a hand on a slim volume atop the bedside table as if he desired a little light reading before his rest, but he reconsidered sliding under the down filled coverlet and surrendering his body to the cold pleasure of rough muslin against his smooth bare skin. He breathed deeply readying his mind for the dreams to come—the dreams that always came, delicious and bitter guilty pleasures. He closed his eyes eager to look upon her again—upon the love he cast aside, a hope he'd dashed with his own pride.
* * *
When he dreamed of her he was always the Wolf, not the man she loved, not her cherished Solas. This time she was in the autumnal forest of her tender youth, her lovely body hidden from him by a long hooded cloak—wisps of her flowing hair peeking out from the edges of the rich green fabric. Leaves of blood red and gold fluttered from the ironbark trees to the mossy ground. The comforting fragrance of distant campfires and wet leaves drifted through the crisp, cool air. The Wolf kept his distance, leering from the lush undergrowth, for fear of turning her dream to a nightmare whether she proved able to see past his lupine disguise or not.
He watched her hungrily from the shadows, happy that in dreams she allowed herself her missing arm—that not all the wounds of the waking world followed him into the Dreaming. In her unmarked left hand she clutched the handle of a crudely woven reed basket filled with flowers of various colors and shapes, some of medicinal use, others plucked simply for their beauty. He noted the violets amongst her harvest, a sign of good fortune in dreams and rebirth in death.
His love stooped over a brickle berry bush to gather a bunch of wild sweet peas. She raised the bright pink and white flowers toward her hooded face and whispered her secrets into the fragrant blooms, delicate pleasures more suited to Spring than Fall. It was then he noticed the spirits which surrounded her, whispering in her elegant ears—spirits of courage and love too often easily twisted to demons. He followed her on timid paws as she flitted from one patch of color springing defiantly from the dead leaves to another—her fingers delicately tracing the edges of too green leaves and the soft potential of tightly closed buds.
Then the mood seemed to shift. She dropped to sit on the damp earth, placing the basket beside her in the rich dirt. The Wolf moved closer, so he might better discern her actions. Her rosy lips trembled in the shadow of her hooded cloak, her left hand grasping at woody stems of fragrant rosemary. She pulled down and away ripping a long sprig from the low bush. Her thumb caressed the petals of a small purple flower, and a heavy tear drop fell to the ground.
“Rosemary.” He heard her speak with soft concern in a voice he could never forget. “Rosemary is for remembrance...for Solas.”
She placed the pungent herb in the basket as lovingly as a mother putting an infant to bed. Suddenly she turned her head wide-eyed, glancing toward the Wolf but beyond him as if newly aware of yet another intruder in her dream. Then, just as suddenly, her dreaming avatar vanished, leaving the Wolf alone in her woodland fantasy. He imagined some servant woke her from her reverie to tend to some important matter or another, and whoever it was their excellent timing likely saved her dreaming mind undue heartache.
Then the Wolf heard—no he felt—someone—or rather something—behind him. The Wolf turned, rising up out of the underbrush, now wearing his soft elven skin instead of the wolf's tough hide. A light, a mass, presumably some curious spirit come to keep him company, coalesced in the distance drawing its form from the fading fabric of his heart's dream. As the spirit approached it took on a form familiar to him—the lean humbly clothed body, the gentle slope of his hooded head, the laughter lines which framed his violet eyes. He regarded the creature in disbelief. Perhaps it was merely the result of his own intrusive thoughts swelling up uninvited in the Fade. If not, only a demon would be so cruel, and demons rarely bothered to trouble him. The Wolf winced in pain, recognizing the sad face the apparition of his friend wore for him.
“Aneth ara, lethallin,” the wisp spoke in a ghost's tone, a memory of mirth and warmth.
The wolf tried to bend the dream to his will but to no avail. The brightly colored forest subsided, but the image of his murdered friend—murdered in passion by his own hand—remained.
“Felassan?” The name came in a wary exhale from deep in the Wolf's sleeping lungs.
The dead elf smiled and laughed through his tattooed nose. “This form suits my purposes, but no, Solas, I am not your friend. He is...elsewhere, I think.” The figment spoke the old tongue strangely in a familiar voice. He tilted his head and his eyes glistened in the green half light of the Fade. “I am regret. I am joy for others, but for you...I must be regret.”
The Wolf had never met Joy nor Regret in his nocturnal wanderings, and knew not how to proceed. “Are you spirit or a demon?” the Wolf ventured to ask.
“That seems an odd question for you to be asking.” The ghost of Felassan circled around the Wolf, like a predator around its supper. “Are you trying to trick me, Harellan? I know all of your tricks...most of them anyway.” The shade rubbed an invisible wound upon his borrowed head.
“That is not an answer,” the Wolf replied calmly.
“No, I suppose it is not.” The shade stopped circling and faced the Wolf. “A spirit then, if you like.”
“A spirit of regret, come to show me the error of my ways then? To twist the dagger of my shame a bit deeper?” The Wolf turned away and closed his eyes tightly against the prospect of pain. “I do not entertain demons. You will have to take your game to some other unfortunate soul.”
“I am no demon. Regret hurts, this is true, but it teaches. Allow me to share my wisdom with Pride. I make no demands.” Then Felassan's ghostly fingers were on his back, his icy breath against the Wolf's bare neck. The spirit's voice grew low and ominous as he whispered into the shell of the Wolf's pointed ear, “I'd not bargain for your heart, Solas. I could not, for it is not yours to trade away. I will not hurt you.”
The Wolf knew to be cautious when dealing with such shades of grey. Often young spirits remained unaware of their true nature and easily fell prey to their misguided efforts along with the inexperienced dreamers they tempted, but Regret had an air of maturity—an uncommon aura of balance. The Wolf opened his eyes and searched the unnatural firmament of the Fade as if for answers—guidance—still acutely aware of the spirit at his back eager for his reply. He feared no spirit, and ultimately his greed for knowledge predetermined his decision.
“I will take your council,” the Wolf muttered into the ether as one dream ended and another began.