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She had been a different person as a child. In the glory days of the Inquisition, and over halfway through her second decade, Róisín was known by all as being very, very calm — serene, even. Having always felt most at peace when she would wake long before dawn, she would step into the morning air and bend and stretch her body to the rhythm of the larks’ songs. Her love would find her there, bare feet hugging the earth with eyes closed, hands poised, and her chest rising and falling like the tide. Quietly he would join her, and together they would sit in silence until the early sun began warming their skin.
It was not always like this.
She was angry.
“Fen’nas,” they would call her. One who has the soul of a wolf. She was far too angry at the world for someone as young as she, the Keeper would say.
Róisín wielded her daggers as easily as breathing. She was a hunter, unafraid of blood or the bears she would slay for their hides before winter settled in. This was where she found peace. When her magic came to her she did not hesitate to accept the Creators’ gift, and she wielded its power with grace, magical flame flying from her staff as she cocooned herself in lightning. She felt free. Her blades and her magic were an extension of all that was within her — her anger personified. It was no secret.
“You are hurting, da’len,” Istimaethoriel said.
“Nae,” Róisín had snarled. “Ehn ma eolasa em sou’nin, hahren?”
“Sathan, Rosa. Speak to me.”
She left into the shadows of the forest, alone.
She was eighteen when she received her vallaslin. Her patron was Dirthamen: god of secrets, secrecy, hidden things. Róisín bound herself to him, chose him over Mythal or Sylaise or Ghilan’nain, chose him because he was who she needed. He was not filled with light. He was shrouded, as was she.
Before the ritual she sat in silence, overlooking the valley below. A hawk circled around its prey. She felt far too old. She watched the hawk dive, and wondered if one day she would be able to let go of her anger: let it go to the wind, so she could stop running from the world, and begin anew.
The time came, and with her vallaslin came her oath, and with her oath came a sacrifice. She sacrificed what she held most dear, and whispered it away to the heavens.
Róisín was twenty-nine when she was sent to the Conclave. She left despite the speculation that she was to become Keeper within the next year; she cared little for human affairs, but when she offered herself to Istimaethoriel, the Keeper agreed.
"Fen’harel ma ghilana,” her mother said, in parting.
Róisín nodded. She did not disagree.
She left, not sparing a glance back to those she loved.
She was thirty when her clan was slaughtered.
“It was not intentional, Inquisitor. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” her Advisors had told her.
“Crimes against my people are always intentional,” Róisín replied.
They were slain by human mercenaries poorly disguised as bandits. She was alone, surrounded by shemlen at a war table while her people perished due to foolish human conflict — the same conflict she willingly gave herself to. Róisín stood, silently, and listened to her Ambassador’s strained report of her clan’s death in a castle that was taken by the shemlen long ago.
She was alone.
Except —
Róisín cared little about love. Her pal’isalathe was far more insistent, and she coupled with women and men and all others from passing clans. It was fleeting, and pleasurable, and that is how she wished it to be. She did not expect to find her nas’falon among the wreckage of the desperate.
A month after the death of her kin, she brought Solas with her to a grove she had found refuge in half a day’s journey from Skyhold. It was beautiful, there. Secluded. Lush. It reminded her of home.
“A song for you,” she had said, and began to sing. Suledin — to emerge from sorrow and begin to live once more, despite enduring unspeakable pain. Her heart laid bare, palm split open by an angry, ragged, glowing scar, she said: “Ne’emma sa’lath, ma vehnan’ara. Ar minas’salina revas i ma. Minas’salina etha. Ar lath ma.”
His face broke, and he held her.
They stood silently, wrapped in each other’s arms. She traced her thumb along his cheekbone, and he leaned his forehead against hers.
Róisín took a breath, and let go.
She met Sorrow while standing on ancient, sacred ground. The stone sung with magic.
Mythal sulevin.
“We cling to what is left,” he said.
She looked at him, and he looked at her, and he nodded. She took a step into the vir’abelasan, and she felt holy.
Róisín was thirty-one when Solas left her. She did not cry. Instead she remained where he took her, after he walked away. It was beautiful; stone halla arched together in the center of the glen, the stream clear and cold, lotuses flowering at the edges. Ghilan’nain, she thought. Mother of the halla. The goddess poised and graceful, as some had said Róisín herself had become. Yet she was bound to Mythal, now, not having hesitated to accept Sorrow’s gift. This — she did not wish to be Ghilan’nain’s child, or be in her favour.
Fen’nas.
Dirthamen honored her oath, and she remained shrouded, hidden.
It had been over a decade. Róisín was no halla. She was a wolf.
Róisín stared down a would-be god and his archdemon a few months later. Her gnarled hand sent the orb to the heavens above, sealing the snarling, wounded sky. She was bloody, and she was angry. Her vision went red as she twisted the fade within his blighted body.
He perished, and the orb fell.
She found Solas curled into himself, clutching the shattered remains with shaking hands. When he spoke his words were broken, ragged. "It was not supposed to happen this way.”
“It’s over.”
“No. It is not.”
And he was gone.
Róisín was thirty-three when she lost everything. Her faith crumbled before her. Everything she knew, everything she had cherished — all of it was ripped from her trembling fingers.
It was all a lie.
She wanted to scream, claw at her vallaslin-stained face until it was bloodied and scarred and the pain made her forget that the one thing that had sustained her since birth was a lie. Yet responsibility did not allow for pity, so she endured. She had no choice. The Qunari threat was met with sharpened fury, the path before her crumbling to dust in her rage.
“Harden your heart to a cutting edge,” Solas once told her.
“You are a fool,” she had replied.
I did so long ago.
She was thirty-three when she looked into the eyes of a god. She fell to her knees, anguish ripping raw and visceral from her throat.
“Vhenan,” Fen’harel said. His voice broke.
I have nothing left.
He spoke. He explained the past, the history of their people, and Róisín lost herself. She did not know who she was without her faith, without her prayers, without her clan, without him, without —
She was empty. Hollow. But she still had her anger; that had never left her, throughout everything. Dirthamen, false god he was, had not allowed her to repent. So it remained.
Or he had done nothing, and it was coincidence.
Róisín thought of the murals. The Dread Wolf, silhouetted, removing slave markings from those who wished to be freed.
Dirth ma, harellan.
She choked out a plea. Fen’harel nodded, and he knelt in front of her, his expression hardened and his eyes filled with love. She wondered if that is how she appeared to people, when thinking of him.
His palms lit with beautiful blue light. She closed her eyes.
“Ar lasa mala revas,” he said.
Now you are free.
Fen’harel took her wounded, snarling arm marked with his own ancient, impossible magic. He took her vallaslin. They took each other’s hearts.
“Ane nas’falon, vhenan,” he whispered. He leaned his forehead against hers.
Róisín took a breath, and she let go.
She sits atop a mountain, overlooking the valley below. A river cuts through the landscape, splitting the earth in two, and in the distance a hawk circles around its prey.
Abelas sits beside her. “May I ask you something?”
She nods.
“What does one fight for when they have lost everything?”
Róisín thinks of the past thirty years. Everything she has lost, everything she has endured, everything she did not believe she would survive.
She thinks of her anger.
She thinks of Mythal, of Ghilan’nain, of Dirthamen. She thinks of Fen’harel, and the last words her mother said to her.
The wind whips her hair around her face.
“Yourself,” Róisín replies.