Chapter Text
Preface
"Try to move your fingers."
Kelsey Lavellan looked down on her newly acquired arm. The metal gleamed in the dim light. With a focused frown, she willed her fingers to move. All she got was a twitch.
"It's going to take a while. That you can do anything with it is remarkable." The healer said.
A few weeks after Solas took her arm, she researched ways of how to cope with a missing arm - and see if there was a way to replace the missing limb. Dagna was on board with the project. Her first prototype was a type of crossbow with grappling capabilities. For a month or two, she was satisfied with it, following Sera and aiding her on her Red Jenny missions. But she longed for something more. Dagna worked on a new prototype, aided by healers who knew the anatomy of humans. Their combined effort created something that took the shape of an actual arm, right down from the fingers to the thin, vein-like steel that swept up the inside of the metal arm. The working theory was that, somehow, they could connect the nerves left in her arm to the mechanical nerves in the metal arm.
It was a grueling process. It would need the help of blood magic. Kelsey traveled to Tevinter. Dorian helped her find a group willing to give it a shot - for a generous bout of coin of course. Next, she found a healer willing to give her assistance.
Solas had removed her arm at the elbow. The healer cut away a thin layer from her remaining bicep to expose the tissue and nerves. She then attached the arm. Blood magic did the rest.
Over the next two years, she worked religiously to regain use of the arm. It was painful, grueling work. Kelsey was a mage, but she fought to learn all the arts - with the exception of the two handed build. Cole taught her to use daggers, Cullen with a sword and shield, and Sera with bows. On the side, she refined her magic using the whispers of the Well.
All the while, she worked to keep her identity hidden. She let the rumor that the Inquisitor had retired to a quiet cabin out in the Free Marches bounce around. She didn't want Solas to know what she was really doing. His agents would keep an eye out for a barefaced woman with a missing arm. She was neither. She used temporary ink to retrace her missing vallaslin. She wore long sleeved shirts to hide her metal arm. They would look for a woman carrying a staff on her back. She now carried whatever fit her fancy - daggers, bow, or the sword and shield. She knew he didn't have spies watching over her, but also knew that he had agents all over the place. She didn't want to tip any of them off with her presence.
In the following year, she followed the voices of the Well. They whispered the locations of several Elvhen temples located in Tevinter. Ones that the Dread Wolf himself did not know of. She visited each one, asking the aid of any ancient Elvhen remaining there. Many reacted like the ones from Mythal's temple. They did not like her nor trust her. She wasn't, after all, one of them. But she told her story to those who were willing to listen. She told them about this world, about Corypheus, about the Well of Sorrows, and about...him. Solas. The Dread Wolf. Fen'Harel. She told them of his plans. Begged them to help her find a way to both return Elves to their glory and keep this world in tack.
"Remember what is was like to have the world as you know it fall apart. Remember the panic, the families torn apart, the fear. This is what you would unleash upon this world and its people. They don't deserve to have their world torn asunder, just as you didn't deserve the fall of your home."
Some agreed to help, others outright refused. They were, after all, the guardians of the Gods Solas himself had sealed way. Many more despised him.
Kelsey Lavellan worked with that she had. After she had visited every temple the Well knew of in Tevinter, she lead her followers to an abandoned temple devoted to the Black Divine. It sat right in the heart of Tevinter, but was hidden in the overgrown forest that surrounded the area.
She called for the aid of her friends. Dorian promised to keep in touch with the crystal, Cassandra was too busy rebuilding the Seekers, Cullen wanted to enjoy retirement, and Varric had plenty of business in Kirkwall but promised whatever aid he could. Leliana could not leave her post as Divine and Josephine remained in Antiva with the promise to send aid when it was needed. In the end, it was only the Iron Bull, Sera, and Cole - who popped in and out from the Fade - who answered her call. It was preferable, as the gathering of the Inquisition's party would only spur rumors. Rumors that would inevitably find their way to Solas.
Now, three years later, backed by both her friends and Sentinels, Lavellan finally threw herself into her studies. Trying to find some way to stop Solas, return the Elves to their former glory, and save the world.
One more time.