Chapter Text
I’ve always loved swimming, ever since I was a little girl. I guess its because my mom was a lifeguard when I was younger, so I was basically raised at a pool. I remember sitting behind the reception counter and playing with a giant box of tiny rubber ducks. But of course you only remember the happiest times, childhood was eternal summer. More to the point I love water, being in water, just entirely engulfed, light and warm and happy.
So it was kind of a given that I’d be a lifeguard, mom was so proud, like she’d handed down the title or something? I don’t know, I did it for the money really. I needed to get out, to grow up. It paid good, and I could use the pool whenever I wanted for free. You can’t beat that.
I hated leaving that job, the first one. But honestly what choice did I have? My own mother threw me out, I had to move half way across the country. Only then did I realize what kind of person she had been. Long story short not a good one.
Bringing it all back around here, the reason I’ve rambled about being a lifeguard is because of the new position I had just gotten, living in Little Rock Arkansas had been hard being a chubby, bisexual, agnostic, democrat girl. But the new job was a much needed improvement. At the very least it made the goal of leaving Arkansas that much closer. Well, 8.50 an hour closer.
It was leading into summer, just after I’d started at the pool, June 3rd and it was already hotter than I could bare. 97 fucking degrees outside, should have been illegal. I was wearing maybe three layers of sunscreen and two different kinds of bug repellent, sitting in the guard chair. It was almost closing time, only three or four people lingering around the small pool, mostly gathering their kids and packing up. It had been a normal, lazy day. Sold a little bit of ice cream, bought myself one when I couldn’t stand the heat. No one had drowned. I’d even had a break when no one had been there, quietly reading the lifeguard manual. It never hurts to be prepared of course.
By the time the last few people headed out and I had waved politely, my boss showed up.
“Hey kid,” He called as I dismounted the chair. I never understood the insistence with calling me kid, he did it with everyone there, but why do it with me? Everyone else that worked there was 17 or under, he and I were the only two people over twenty. Or eighteen for that matter.
I waved back, a little confused as to why he was there. I’d been closing fine all week, a sudden wave of anxiety washed over me, had I done something wrong? Did I not clean the bathrooms well enough yesterday?
I walked over to the staff room, ignoring the thundering fear in my chest as I opened the door.
“I just needed to pick up the checks, meant to do it this morning but you know how it is,” He said, bent over the small safe in the corner. I sighed internally, rolling my eyes at how stupid my fear had been.
“Cool, it was a pretty lazy day. Per the norm.” I replied, opening my locker and taking the ponytail out of my hair. The pool was small, much smaller than the one I worked at previously, but it was nice. Everyone was really polite and sometimes I got free ice cream. Plus it was two blocks from home. Convenient.
I pulled my backpack out, the buttons clicking together in protest at how I bent it. I was always a sucker for unnecessary decorations like that, key chains and buttons. I tossed one strap over my shoulder and with my other hand grabbed my swim bag. I took it with me everyday, even if I didn’t get the chance to swim. It carried the basic essentials, a towel, body wash, shampoo, conditioner, an extra set of clothes, goggles… even a nose plug and a swim cap.
“Think you can close up then? If you’re going to be here longer anyway, I already cleaned the bathrooms, swept the deck and took the evening chems.” I didn’t need him to close, I could do it, but a few extra minutes being home and napping before my aunt came home would be amazing. “I only had to cash out and lock up.”
I pulled my lanyard out of my locker, multiple key chains dangling around only the two keys. I laced it around my neck before closing and locking my locker.
“Sure kid, take and extra ice pop you’ve earned it.” he tossed me one of the blueberry popsicles and I caught it with ease, dropping it into my swim bag. We exchanged a few more pleasantries before I was walking around to the other side of the fence and unlocking my bike. Well not my bike, technically it was my aunts, but she loaned it to me so I didn’t have to walk all the time.
I put my swim bag in the basket and put my backpack on all the way. I wasn’t even going to ride the bike home, it was the perfect light out to walk along the trail in the woods. Mostly I just used it to carry my extra luggage.
I started walking, pushing the bike along next to me, quietly humming a non-descript song to myself. I hated Arkansas for a lot of reasons, the heat, humidity, the people… but I did enjoy how pretty it could get, even if all of the bugs on earth converged there everyday for the sole purpose of trying to eat my flesh.
The walk was nice, safe to say, calm even. A jogger was coming in the opposite direction and I tried to clear some space, stepping to the right a bit. My bike bumped the edge of the path, swiveling in protest. I looked down to ensure it would stay straight just as the jogger rammed into the side of me, knocking me straight into the bike and down the steep hill.
I tumbled for what felt like an hour, my legs tangling and bruising in the bike chains, trees snapping and rocks cutting my arms and torso until finally, with a thud, I hit solid ground.
It took me a moment to react, my body aching, curling in on itself to cry and groan as blood began trickling from my newly made cuts. There was probably some sort of animal in my hair, and more than likely several bugs stuck to my legs, trying to suck away at my blood. My leg was stuck through the side of the bike, twisted a funny way but not broken as far as I could tell, my face planted firmly down against the mud soaked leaves.
I pushed up onto my elbows, my head still spinning. The only sound was the still spinning tire, clicking loudly as my brain pounded against my skull. I very carefully pulled my leg out of the chains, I could feel the blood trickling down to my knee and soaking into my yoga pants.
I hissed as I turned over, my leg down fully out of harms way I tried to examine it, but my vision was blurred, I must have hit my head too, I thought.
I threw my backpack over my shoulder and dug around until I found the roll of ace bandages. I always kept them handy in case my knee went out, which it hadn’t done in years but who knows. I didn’t have any cloth to put under it, so instead I grabbed my spare tank top out of the swim bag, which by some kind of miracle had stayed in the basket. I wrapped it around the worst parts of my leg, I wouldn’t need stitches but it would take time to heel and I might be left with wicked scars, and then tightly wound the bandages over that.
Other than my leg everything else was rather superficial. A few scrapes on my arms and a tear through my shirt, maybe a bump on the head. But no concussion. Damn, that meant I couldn’t really sue the jogger. Didn’t mean I wasn’t going to give that fucker a piece of my mind though. Finally satisfied with what you could kind of call first aid, I wobbled onto my feet, my leg was irritated that it had to hold me but once I had the bike up and was leaning on it, it seemed to calm down.
It looked like I had just fallen a few feet, the edge of the path just a short climb up. Surprising seeing how much my body ached, I thought I’d rolled at least ten times. Shrugging it off, I started climbing back up, it wasn’t even that steep, within a minute I was back on the path. Though I could have sworn it wasn’t this wide… Maybe I really did have a concussion. Feeling defeated and beyond tired, I continued walking home, my mind too busy thinking about how I was going to explain this to notice that the path kept getting wider, and the trees thinned out, until the path disappeared entirely and I wasn’t standing in a forest, but the entrance to small sort of village.
It didn’t even register with me until the smell hit, at that I was recoiling, my head shaking from side to side to try and push the scent out of my nose. I looked up finally, to the strange buildings and people surrounding me. They were all scurrying about, dressed in armor and gowns, swords or bows strapped to them. My first instinct was that I’d stumbled onto a renaissance fair. A really good one if they go by smell.
I walked further into the town, no one really seemed to pay any attention to me, all too busy dealing with what looked like wounded people. Maybe a LARPing renaissance fair? That’s pretty cool, I thought, passing a cart full of weapons. I got a dirty look from the merchant selling them but didn’t really think anything of it.
I walked up to a woman who was leaning over a man on a cot, maybe praying something. I was more confused than anything else, and really just wanted someone to look at my leg. Maybe a first aid tent or something.
“Excuse me?” I spoke softly, not wanting to spook her but clearly failed as she spun around with fear in her eyes and her hand flying to her hip to rest on a small dagger. That made me flinch back, I wouldn’t expect that kind of reaction from someone who was just playing a game. “I’m-I’m sorry I just uh, I fell back there and really messed up my leg, is there someone who could maybe look at it?”
She looked from my face to my badly bandaged leg and then to my bicycle before looking back up at me. “Go sit down over there,” she nodded her head to a log where another man was sitting, his arm in a sling. “I’ll have a healer look at your… leg.” she finished. I nodded my thanks and hurried over to the log, leaning my bike next to me as close as possible. This would be a shit place to lose it.
I sat there for a little while, watching people walking around, a few horses passed through with someone leading them, but not riding. I saw a small group of women with elf ears and what looked like big walking sticks pass by me and it took a lot not to stare. I was extremely curios where they’d gotten such good fake ears, they matched their skin tones almost perfectly!
Eventually someone came over. A young woman dressed in white but covered in what I was hoping was fake blood. She didn’t look twice at me, telling me to take off the bandages so she could work. I listened, unwrapping the first layer and tucking it back in my bag, before I could grab the shirt, she peeled it off, torn flesh and blood sticking to it. She didn’t even blink.
“Oh I really didn’t think it was that bad,” I laughed nervously, it was much deeper than I originally thought, it would definitely need stitches. Great, that meant hospital. “I guess I’ll need stitches.”
She turned my leg over in her hand, examining it fully. “You get attacked by something with big teeth?” She asked, lowering herself all the way to the ground to get a better look. I shook my head, saying again that I’d only fell and caught my leg in my chains.
She only hummed, sighed, and then put a hand above my leg. I wish she would have warned me about what she was going to do next, maybe then I wouldn’t have fully kicked her in the nose.
When her hand started to glow a bright green, and the flesh on my leg started to sew itself back together, my only reaction was to scream, and kick my leg as hard as possible out of whatever the fuck she was doing. Which ended up with her on the ground a few feet away with a broken and bloodied nose.
“What the fuck!?” I screamed, scrambling to get back, my leg aching in protest. The area grew very quiet as my curse rang out, the only other sound was the woman, her own string of curses matching mine.
“You kicked me!” She yelled back, holding her nose.
“Yeah, well what were you doing to my leg?!” I replied, still trying to distance myself from her.
“You kicked me!” She repeated, lowering her hand to look at the palm full of blood.
“Yes we established that I believe,” came another voice, a softer voice with a French accent. I looked up to see a new woman, bending over me. I almost kicked her too.
She extended a hand to me speaking again, her voice was kind and tired, like she’d been dealing with this all day. “You must trust the mages to heal you my child, they’re magic is no more evil than a blade.”
I could feel my brow pursing, my face recoiling in confusion, but I took her hand anyway and let her pull me back up. She escorted me over to a small cot off to the side, sitting me down and handing me a wooden cup filled with water. Warily, I drank it. It tasted rather musty, like it had been sitting out all day, but I didn’t want to be rude. Someone walked my bike over, clearly curious about it, twisting it around and leaning it at the end of the cot.
“I’m- I am really sorry, about kicking that girl.” I started, eying the guy leaving my bike. “But she really did scare me, a little warning would have been nice.”
The French woman nodded her head and I took the moment to actually look at her. She was older, maybe early fifties, wearing some kind of… nun outfit. African American, lots of smile lines and very tired looking eyes. I thought maybe… I knew her. She was familiar at the very least. I took another sip of the water.
Another woman, not the one I kicked in the face, came over. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to fix your leg now,” she spoke slowly, like I was disabled. I grimaced but nodded, watching in fear as she did what the last one did. She turned my leg around in her hands, checking the deepness of cuts before hovering her hands just above.
Her hands started to glow and I flinched, but didn’t kick. It helped that the nun lady was holding my shoulders and watching with me. It was fascinating, after I’d calmed down, the way her fingers would twitch and the flesh would be pulled back into place. We sat there for a while, until the nun woman left and I was alone with the young witch.
After a while of awkward silence she started talking to me, witch just made me flinch again. I wasn’t sure if she could talk while using magic, but it seemed as though it wasn’t that taxing.
“Where are you from?” She asked, not really looking up at me. She had an accent too, maybe English or Icelandic, something European.
“Seattle,” I answered and she hummed, when she didn’t fully reply I added, “I just moved here though, but I didn’t know Arkansas had… renaissance fairs. Or magic.” I laughed at the last bit, watching her hands rotate around the back of my calf.
“I’ve never heard of Arkansas. Or Seattle, are those in Nevarra?” She asked, glancing up at me. I recognized that name, though I wasn’t sure where I’d heard it. Why was everything oddly familiar but at the same time entirely alien?
“Oh, uhm… no? They’re both in America, but isn’t this…” She lifted her hands away, apparently finished, and my voice faded out as she did. It scarred, not badly to badly though. The area where the flesh had been torn the most was still pink, but it looked like it had happened days ago, not minutes. She seemed satisfied with her work, and bored with me, so after giving it one more look over, she left.
I watched her go, over to another injured person and start healing them right away. In fact the entire clearing seemed to be people on cots, groaning or… dying. Arms bent the wrong way, legs torn off, mutilations, arrows through chests. Bloody rags and bloodier people.
With that I decided it was very much time to go.
I jumped up, my leg feeling much better, I could probably ride the bike out of here just fine. I must have only been a few blocks from home. I grabbed my bike, turning it and walking over to where I’d come in through, a small set of stairs that I took a bit too quickly. I wanted to be anywhere but here, if I’d somehow stumbled into a weird, fairy land then I needed to leave, and not eat anything. That’s what I’d always read, people disappearing into fairy worlds and getting trapped by eating or drinking- shit. I totally drank something.
I needed to get out before some crazy fairy woman trapped me.
I stumbled down the road until I ran right into someone, dropping my bike and crashing into the ground.
“Ha!” Someone laughed as I shook my head, blinking away the dizziness. “That’s what happens when you don’t watch where you’re going chuckles.”
“Oh gosh, I’m really sorry, I just, I wasn’t paying attention.” I stuttered, trying and failing to gather my things back up. I had dropped my stuff one too many times today, that was clear. I tossed my things back into the swim bag, not really aware of the other person on the ground until my hand bumped into his while trying to grab my towel.
I cursed under my breath when I looked up and locked eyes with the person I’d ran into.
I knew where I was. Because I knew that face, that outfit, those eyes.
“You’re not entirely at fault,” Solas sighed, looking away from me and instead picking up his staff. I was dead silent, biting down hard on my bottom lip. My eyes flicked across the elf in front of me. He looked a bit different than the last time I’d ‘seen’ him, he certainly looked younger than the game let on. I’d always imagined he looked about forty, but I’d say early to mid thirties. Though obviously he was much older than that.
He stood up while I was still fumbling to find the English language again. “Here.” he said, offering me his hand. I didn’t take it, standing up quickly making him jerk back. I still hadn’t spoken, my face was probably blood red by the way they were looking at me.
“Solas, you made her forget how to speak.” Varric chuckled, slapping Solas hard on the back. The dwarf stood next to him, a broad smile stretched across his face as I fumbled again to find words.
“No! I uhm, I just wasn’t expecting…” I gestured to Solas and Varric lost it, buckling over with laughter while Solas just scowled. Realizing that wasn’t exactly the right thing to say, I tried to back peddle.
“Oh no! I mean I just wasn’t looking where I was going so I didn’t expect to run into-” I was cut off by a young human man throwing his arm around Solas and with his other hand gesture up and down his body.
“Such a handsome, rugged man?” the man laughed as Solas shrugged him off. The man- whom I assume was the Herald, and Varric walked off, laughing still, leaving a scowling Solas and me. A very confused and flustered girl.
“I apologize da’len,” Solas sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “my companions seem insistent on making a fool out of me.” meanwhile I had completely tuned him out, just staring at his features which were all hard edges and sharp lines. Say what you will about him but the man has bone structure and a mouth you could sit on. A mouth that was… speaking to me, shit.
“Oh no, it’s fine I don’t mind the teasing.” I said, finally composed to a point. Solas was standing in front of me, Varric had just bellowed with laughter, I was pretty sure I was in Thedas. Or I had a really, really bad concussion. “I shouldn’t have been looking at the ground, it’s an old habit. Though some times it allows me to bump into ‘such handsome and rugged men’.” I used bunny quotes for the last part, and while he didn’t seem to understand the motion he did grasp the joke.
A small smile and a light chuckle were my reward. It took everything in me not to bounce up and down and giggle like a school girl.
“I should really be going Ser Solas,” I said with a short bow. I was pretty sure a bow was in order, he was in many ways, above me. “But I should hope to see you again.”
He returned the bow, which was awkward on him, and more of just a head nod. “You should join the inquisition, they’re always looking for people. We could certainly use more elves,”
At that my brow was back to being furrowed. Partly because I had never heard Solas asking people to join the inquisition in game, but mostly because he called me and elf. I had noticed earlier he called me Da’len, which is elven for… little one? I think? But it hadn’t exactly registered.
“I’m not an elf?” as I said it I brought my free hand up- the one not holding the bike in place- and touched the side of me head. Low and behold I was met by something pointed and curved towards the sky. “I am an elf.” I corrected.
Wow okay, dreams coming true faster than I thought they would, I’d always wanted to be an elf. I’d actually considered having the surgery to get pointed ears, but it was always too expensive.
“Indeed,” Solas said, he was smirking with an eyebrow raised and honestly I thought I was going to scream. This wasn’t real, my life wasn’t like this and it most certainly didn’t have Solas smirking at me.
That was the end of our interaction though, he pointed me in the direction of the inquisition camp and I thanked him. I watched him go for a while, watched him saunter off back to his group. I assumed they were there to talk to mother Giselle, meaning they were still extremely early in the timeline.
I made my way up the hill to the camp, I could already hear the clanging of swords against shields, the small training yard filled with inquisition soldiers. My mind was racked with questions, how had I gotten here? Obviously by some kind of magic, and probably when I fell. Was this just an extremely lucid dream? I’d had them before and it certainly didn’t feel like that.
Why was I an elf? Why would going to a different world change the shape of my ears? I was still my usual chubby self, nothing else had changed. Maybe it was by my own will? Probably best to go by that for now, but did that mean I was a mage? Was this shape shifting?
I turned the corner, the camp in full view but still questions were flashing through my mind, what did this mean for the timeline, was I changing it just by being here? Could I… could I change what happens in trespassers?
Could I change Solas?
I walked up to the requisitions officer, she was bent over the table, mumbling to herself as she wrote something down. The list on the table had a million different things on it and I physically winced, remembering how I had to run around and collect all of the different minerals and plants to fill these blasted things in game.
“Excuse me Serah?” I said, hoping beyond hope that ‘Sera’ was the right term, I barely understood how shit liked that worked on earth. “I was told by the inquis-” I stopped myself, realizing a bit late that it was still ‘The Herald of Andraste’ and not the Inquisitor. “The Herald to come up here and offer my services to the inquisition.”
The officer looked me up and down, she was clearly very tired, and I was starting to think everyone here was. No one seemed to be… awake enough.
“What skills can you offer then elf? You a mage?” She asked, her accent was thick and she clearly looked down on me for my race. Ouch, I thought, I completely forgot how they treated other races here.
“Oh uh,” I thought about that for a minute. What skills could I offer? I wasn’t a mage but I was beyond trained in first aid, so a healer at the very least. I even had a first aid kit in my bag with a few different drugs in it. Drugs I planned to use sparingly. But I could be a mage, I didn’t know. Maybe I had untapped magic I’d never known about. I’d love that. “I’m a healer, I know how to stitch wounds and… heal.”
Nice Madi, as close to truth you could get.
“A healer huh?” She looked from me to the bicycle, which I was starting to think wasn’t the best thing to walk around with. “Alright, I’ve got a group leaving to Haven in a few days, you can travel back with them. Pays not that great, but you’ll have a roof over your head and food in your belly.”
I nodded as she talked, I didn’t think it would be so easy to get in. Actually I wasn’t sure I would get in. I didn’t really have any other skills than knowing how to make people not drown. And that didn’t seem like a thing that happened a lot here.
“There’s a tent over there you can share with a few other knife-ears, try to stay away from the human men, they get… rough with your kind.” She reached under the table and pulled out a small dagger and put it in my hand. “If you don’t already have one.”
“Oh- thank you, no I didn’t have one,” I held the knife in my hand, it was little more than a kitchen knife but it would do in a pinch I guess. “thanks, so I should just,” I pointed to the tent and she nodded. At that I was an agent of the inquisition.
A healer no less. That was going to be fun to keep up.
I walked over to the tent, my bike still at my side. At least it was a mountain bike and not a lazy bike like my last one. I could probably ride through all of this wilderness if need be.
I propped it up on a tree and walked over to the tent and took the bag out of the front. The flap was open, and a few people were sitting inside playing with a thick deck of cards.
One was a slender young girl with brown cropped hair and a scar dashed across her nose, a bow laying next to her. The man across from her looked like he could be her twin, but in place of a bow was a staff. They were both smiling at one another, not aware of me yet.
The third person was another man, scowling and shirtless, his tan skin covered in scars and freckles, his long blonde hair tied in a ponytail behind his head.
“You’re cheating,” the girl said.
“You wound me sister, I would do no such thing.” Her brother replied, feigning insult.
I scooted into the tent and all three of them flinched and looked up at me. When they saw my ears though, the calmed right down.
“You new?” The girl asked, moving over to allow me to move in further. They were all barely wearing clothes, both men in nothing but pants and foot wrappings, with the girl in shorts and some kind of bra like wrap.
“Yeah, I just joined, I’m-” It dawned on me that I could totally lie about my name, rename myself, start over. “I’m Melana, I’m a healer.”
“A mage?” The brother asked, his face lighting up. I imagined there weren’t too many people confident about the inquisition and their attitude towards mages. I wasn’t at the very least.
“I don’t know,” I replied a little too honestly. They snickered at that, and I got a clear view of a few cards under the brother butt. I rolled my backpack off my shoulder and put it in front of me, its contents shaking around. I needed to take inventory if I was going to be stuck here.
“That’s kind of a thing you would’ve known already,” The middle guy said, followed by, “I’m Isannan, this is Tannis and Nira, we came from Radcliffe a few days ago. Thought this might be better than hiding with the mages.” he shrugged and leaned back on his palms. Isannan, I thought, I named an OC that once. I didn’t say that out loud though obviously. I matched faces to names, and they quickly went back to playing and ignoring me.
I pulled everything out of my bag on by one, first my journal and two of my favorite pens, quickly opening a page to write down everything that had happened and then to make a list of what I had.
My sketchbook, a few pencils, an eraser and three copic pens. That would be good for keeping up my art at least.
Next my first aid kit that the pool gave me. The roll of ace bandages, a box of 20 count Band-Aids, twelve alcohol wipes, a CPR mask, a bottle of painkillers, my old inhaler, my nasal inhaler, and a bottle of allergy medication. At the very least those things could help me with minor wounds.
After that was a few food snacks, a candy bar, granola bars, a zip lock bag of goldfish crackers, and a Tupperware with some left over chicken noodle soup.
Lastly I pulled out my Ipad, speakers, headphones and I nearly cried. It was perfectly intact, and amazingly the solar charger I’d purchased was resting in the front pocket. I thanked the maker for my stupid work not have outlets, basically forcing me to buy the solar thing.
I swiped the screen on, careful to avoid letting the device be seen by my new friends. It was fully charged, the time and date shining up at me. At the very least I had this, at the very least I would have my music and pictures to remember the life I was happily ready to leave behind.
I tucked everything carefully back into my backpack before pulling out my swim bag. Now this was more of a grocery bag, one of those reusable ones, and if I could I wanted to move things into my actual bag. It was going to be tiresome to carry my swim bag around as well as my bike and backpack.
I pulled everything out, carefully tucking my bathing suit into my extra clothes, sans tank top. I pushed them into the bottom of my bag, then the soaps. Oh fuck yes I was going to having conditioner. For a little while at least. I very carefully put those in the biggest pocket in front of my sketchbook, making sure that all there containers were secure before rolling the towel up and putting that on top of them. The rest of the stuff, the swim cap and goggles, were tucked into a front pocket, with my green water bottle tucked into a side pocket.
I went to push the bag aside when I realized I’d forgotten something. The ice cream.
I reached in and pulled it out. Still cold.
“What’s that?” Nira asked, their card game apparently over. Everyone was staring at me, the wrapped ice pop still in my hand. These people had probably never had something like this.
I unwrapped it, the hot air making the ice steam. It was one of those double ones, you know, where there are two sticks and you break it in half to share? Half of me wanted to do not that, and just eat it all right there.
But I’m not evil, so I snapped it in half, handing it to the three of them.
“It’s called ice cream. I forgot I had it actually. I got it from an Orlesian mage on the way here.” I lied. If anyone would have ice cream it would be the Orlesians, they were fancy like that. Nira took the stick in her hand, waiting to see what I would do, like she wasn’t sure how to eat it.
I licked the side, catching a drip before it reached my hand. “You can lick it or just bite it, but its cold.”
We sat there for a little while, talking about ice cream, the inquisition and eventually about their back story, passing the popsicles around and reading the stupid jokes on them until our sides were split with laughter. They were good people, originally Dalish, but when Tannis had realized his power, they were going to kick him out. So Nira, his sister, and Isannan, his best friend, went with him. They ended up in Redcliffe because of the mage rebellion, but when it became clear that the inquisition was the better choice, they packed up and left.
“With the Herald being a mage himself there’s no way they wont side with us.” Tannis said, one of the popsicle sticks sticking out of his mouth. “If he was an elf that would’ve been even better.” he added.
“Yeah, I guess it depends on his personality. I mean he could take the mages on but enslave them or something. Not that he would, just, speculation.” I sighed. I had no idea how the war would end up, if anything they knew better than me. I didn’t know anything about the current world state. Alistair could be king, Hawke could be a man, I didn’t know at all.
“They’re staying in the camp with us, maybe we’ll get to meet the famed Herald.” Nira nodded outside, where it had turned dark and the fire had grown bigger. People were crowded around, eating whatever the cooks had put together. Probably soup or something.
“I met them earlier actually, well, the Herald very briefly. I talked to one of his companions, Solas, the most.” I said, tucking my bag behind me. I pulled the hair tie off my wrist and pulled my hair up into a high ponytail, it was getting kind of hot. Which was good, I imagined Haven was going to be freezing.
“I’ve heard of him, the apostate right?” Isannan asked and I nodded. “Heard he just walked into Haven like ‘here you go, take my staff’,”
“He wanted to learn more about the rifts.” I added, “I hear the Seeker almost killed him.” I kicked off my tennis shoes and pulled off my socks, pushing them next to my bag. My leg ached where my new scar was, I’d have to try and be careful not to reopen that.
“We should go grab some dinner. You coming Melana?” Nira asked, standing up and stretching. I hadn’t really noticed how big the tent actually was, tall enough and wide enough for four people to stand comfortably, four mats on the ground with animal skin blankets and a small table at the back, with everyone’s individual packs sitting to the side of their beds. I nodded and stood, walking out after them.
I was surprised to see such a variety of people, humans and dwarves alike hanging out and drinking, eating and talking loudly. But we four were the only elves, other than someone who was tending to the horses.
We walked as a group over to the fire, picking up wooden bowls and filling them with the ram soup that was bubbling over the flames. I didn’t take very much, unsure of the amount I was actually allowed, but the others seemed to fill their bowls to the very brim. We sat on a log angled closer to our tent. Everyone seemed to ignore us, but the air changed when a new group approached the fire.
The Herald.