Chapter Text

For a long time, there was nothing but pain. As she floated back up towards consciousness, Fen’Falon was assaulted by a ringing sound in her ears, mixing with the pain and a faint smell of blood. She opened her eyes, but there was only blackness, flecked with afterimages of virulent green. Through the ringing in her ears there was muffled conversation, but the ringing overruled the speech and she could make out none of it. Fen’Falon drifted back into unconsciousness.

She woke later fully, finally able to see and hear the world around her. Not that there was much of it - she was in some kind of dungeon cell, the walls dank with moss. Her hand were bound in manacles that were attached by a bar in the middle, and chains ran down from the bar to manacles at her ankles. Fen’Falon carefully shifted herself into a sitting position, her backside resting on her heels.

The interrogation was blessedly short, given that Fen’Falon could not remember anything past arriving at Haven. Her interrogators were decidely unhelpful, neither one mentioning what had happened to cast her in suspicion. The one with short black hair and facial scar moved towards her and grabbed Fen’Falon’s left arm.

“Explain this,” the woman said venemously. Fen’Falon looked at her hand, surprised to see a glowing green line emanating from her palm. Fen’Falon shook her head, confused.

“Fenedhis, woman, how should I know?!” The elven curse slipped out, and the second interrogator reached out to keep the first from striking Fen’Falon.

“We may need her,” the hooded woman said. “Remember what he said about the rifts.” The scarred one made a noise of disgust, then pulled Fen’Falon up by the back of her borrowed tunic and marched the elf outside the building. She had been inside Haven’s Chantry. Fen’Falon blinked rapidly against the brightness of the day, even shrouded as it was by swirling clouds. Once outside, the woman with black hair removed the manacles and replaced them with a rope around Fen’Falon’s wrists, likely a precaution against the chance that Fen’Falon would run. She certainly thought about it.

“Look to the sky,” the woman said. Fen’Falon squinted her eyes against the sunlight, following the woman’s pointing finger. The sky was covered by dark gray clouds swirling into a poison green bank of clouds. A spear of the same green reached up into a hole in the clouds, its bottom end seeming to come from the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Fen’Falon’s eyes made contact with the hole and she grimaced in pain. Boiling ice lances shot up her left arm and set it to tingling. The sharp and shooting pain drove her to her knees - the pain of receiving her vallaslin had nothing on this. Nothing.

“It grows larger,” said her captor. “And each time it does, you have screamed out in pain. Come, we must get to the rift. You may be the only one who can close it.”

Fen’Falon sneered at the woman. “So now I’ve gone from being the perpetrator of this mess to your saviour? Tche. You need help alright, shemlen, but I’m not sure it should be mine.”

The woman didn’t answer and pulled at Fen’Falon’s binding until the elf was in front of her. A gloved hand pushed at Fen’Falon’s back. “Move,” the woman said.

Fen’Falon walked slowly, intent on annoying this obnoxious woman. Unfortunately, Fen’Falon had not realised that the people still in Haven had decided that the Dalish elf was the one who had opened the hole in the sky.

“Divine Justinia is dead, and not a soul here thinks you innocent,” the woman informed Fen’Falon.

“Great,” Fen’Falon muttered. The pair continued forwards out of Haven through the gates and onto the road that led to the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Twice more on the road Fen’Falon was driven to her knees by the pain emanating from the glowing scar on her hand. The second time it happened, the woman looked worried and pushed them to walk faster. As they reached one of the bridges across the now-frozen river, the hole in the sky spat out glowing green balls of flame. Fen’Falon could not help but stare at them, even as one crashed into the bridge in front of her and sent the two women and the bridge guards tumbling onto the river.

To Fen’Falon’s disgust, her captor also rolled with the fall, coming up into a fighting position just in time. A shade had risen from a fragment of the fireball and engaged the warrior woman immediately. Her prisoner forgotten, the human woman tried to cut the shade down and was soon focused wholly on her enemy. Fen’Falon looked around for a weapon, anything that could help her. A nearby by knife served to cut her bindings, but the movement drew the attention of a second shade. The shade moved forwards, its physical body jerking as the spirit within grew more accustomed to having a body. Fen’Falon grinned when she caught sight of a staff that had fallen from the bridge and lunged for it. She brought it up into the guard position before spinning it to direct frost balls at the creature.

The warrior dispatched her shade just in time to see Fen’Falon strike the final blow against the second shade by calling lightning from the sky. The suspicion that had painted the warrior’s face quickly morphed into fear at the sight of her captive wielding a staff.

“A mage! Drop. Your. Weapon,” the warrior woman said.

“Excuse me?” said Fen’Falon. “Without this staff, without me, you would surely have died out here just now. Which frightens you more, warrior, a hated apostate elf, or these creatures falling from the hole in the sky?”

The warrior made a noise of disgust. “Fine. I suppose you make a good point. But do not think that I will not hesitate to cut you down, apostate.”

Fen’Falon gave a slight nod. “Which way now?”

“We follow the river. We must see if you can close this breach before it swallows the world.”

The two women ran along the river, occasionally stopped by more shades, and on one occasion, a rage demon. Their path was winding, and far longer that it should have been had the road been clear. The sound of fighting could be heard up ahead, and the warrior woman rushed forwards with a shouted “We must help them!” at Fen’Falon.

The mage sighed with exasperation - warriors were forever rushing into their fights without thought - and moved to follow. It was not a sight that she wished to see again that greeted her. A person-sized hole in the air spewed forth wisps and shades as another mage and a dwarf sought to hold their own. The warrior’s entry into the fray helped the dwarf remove himself from it and he fired his crossbow from a now-safe distance. Naturally, the warrior completely neglected to help the other mage, so Fen’Falon took it upon herself to pick off the shades that the mage could not see. As the other mage turned and twisted to rain fire and frost down on his enemies, Fen’Falon saw that he was an elf - an unmarked elf. She hoped that he wasn’t with the Circle, as even in their rebellion they were unusually unkind towards elven apostates.

The shades dispatched, Fen’Falon set fire to the last of the wisps. The other mage approached her and grabbed her by her scarred hand to point her palm at the rift in the sky.

“Quickly, before others find the doorway!” he said. “Focus and close.” Shocked by his rudeness, Fen’Falon listened before she even realised she was doing so. She flexed her will through the mark on her hand and pushed. Pain flickered in her arm briefly, a faint memory of the earlier bouts as the breach opened wider, and the rift twisted upon itself until it vanished from sight. Fen’Falon snatched her hand away from the bald elf and looked at it in shock.

“It seems I was right,” the unmarked elf said. Fen’Falon wanted to smack the smugness from his voice - he may be older than her, but that did not give him the right to sound so self-satisfied after using her like he would a sentient staff. “The mark can close the rift, Cassandra.”

“I noticed,” the warrior woman - Cassandra - said dryly.

“Well, that’s useful,” said the dwarf. He looked at Fen’Falon and gave a short bow. “Varric Tethras, at your service. Bianca here and I were having fun, but help never hurts.” The dwarf chuckled at his joke.

“We must get to the breach,” said Cassandra. “The sooner we close it, the sooner this madness can end.” The warrior walked forward, clearly expecting the rest of them to follow her.

The other mage turned to Fen’Falon. “Well, if there are to be introductions, allow me. I am Solas, apostate and Fade researcher.”

The dwarf - Varric - cut in. “What he’s not saying is ‘I kept you alive even though that mark on your hand tried its damnedest to kill you’.”

Fen’Falon curbed her normal reaction to city elves and inclined her head at Solas. “Then it seems I owe you my life, Solas. I am called Fen’Falon, First to the Keeper of the Lavellan clan. It is nice to see that not all lost elves are entirely without manners.” Solas narrowed his eyes at her, as though she had insulted him by calling him lost. All city elves were lost to the Dalish; they had forgotten elven history, elven culture, and now lived as second-class citizens in shemlen cities. Fen’Falon may have been more open-minded than most Dalish, but it was hard to overcome years of ingrained attitudes towards non-Dalish, even if one had apparently saved her life. She would have to think of some way to apologise to the elven mage, as it seemed they were the only elves in this strange group they found themselves a part of.

“We should follow the woman,” Fen’Falon said. “She will likely get herself killed without us.” Solas and Varric fell in behind her as she followed Cassandra towards the Temple of Sacred Ashes.