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Chapter Text

It mattered little that she did not want to die. 

Within the last moments of her life, regrets pooled in her conscious mind. The lack of family. No friends. The self-imposed isolation that she had settled into - thought she had thrived in - and how deeply she wished for something other than the lonely existence she had inflicted upon herself. 

It was only at that moment that she realised that she did not want to die. If she had been asked days ago, she might have said that it was a part of everyday life; there was nothing to fear, but perhaps it was not a goal to aim for. It’s different ‘in the moment’. She was dying in a world that she had contrived for herself. Losing herself somewhere no one would look - not that anyone would be searching - and with no control over how it happened. 

The seat belt strapped across her chest may have saved her another day, but it was ultimately what trapped her in her wet demise. 

Until she woke up.

****

****

A bone-deep chill settled in her chest, the cold unnerving in its insistence, but comforting in its reality. The tangible feeling sent a shiver down her spine.

It was real.

And she was not dead?

The thought drove her to open her eyes. 

Stone walls circled her, carved with the most beautiful figures that she had ever seen. Inlaid into the dark room were sculptures of gorgeous Tolkien-esque figures, each with pointed ears and the carved imitation of grace. Perhaps deities, perhaps leaders. The sight was startling in its extravagance compared to the dull grey of the rest of her surroundings. Each statue, however, was missing a face. Evidently destroyed rather than worn with time.

And her? She was swathed in beige cloth, lying in what seemed to be an open coffin. Behind her supposed resting place was an altar, a stone tablet placed in its centre. 

The room itself was one painstakingly dug out of a cave front. 

Moving her arms to the high sides of the coffin, she pulled herself out carefully. The energy that she had mustered for the task was sapped from her with the movement, her thin arms almost gaunt and wire-y in appearance. 

It was a body that was dead in all manners but appearance, grotesque in the visibility of the muscle strands moving beneath the surface like a mass of exposed veins. A body that was certainly not hers, she considered. Where there used to be the fair smattering of dark body hair along her arms and legs, she now found the surfaces smooth. If the body she inhabited was left as long as she suspected, the hair would have grown back thick by now. 

Her ring finger was smooth. The peeling calluses created from hours of transcription had been lost alongside her distinctive writer's bump. 

There was no sign of her own life upon the body. 

In a new body and a new place, she was not sure of what steps to take next. Everything from the clothing she wore to the metals and materials she was surrounded with was completely foreign, seeming more out of a fantasy world than anything that she would find on Earth. 

String theory? A dream perhaps?

She sat on the edge of the dark coffin, fingers clenched white against the unrecognisable, unearthly material. Her arms and legs shook from the smallest of use, atrophied from what seemed like many years of disuse. 

The atrophy was distinctly out of place in her memory. She had been driving from Brussels to Roscoff mere moments earlier, and now her muscles were decaying before her. Car accidents don’t cause this kind of damage. But nor does a car accident usually transport poor (and presumably innocent) linguists to a different universe. Perhaps the universe had been entangled and a point of connection had been established, but she figured that was highly unlikely. More than just her would have been displaced. 

Lost in a place that she had no knowledge of, the only way was forward. With the grace of a baby deer, she stood upon the thin legs she had been gifted. Better to be less able than dead, she supposed. Though uncomfortable, the movement proved helpful in gaining back feeling in the numb, shaky appendages. 

The entrance to the cavern seemed much further than it actually was using short, uncomfortable steps. Having made it to one of the walls on either side of her final resting place, she leaned her shoulder against the cold stone before shuffling forward. Her long fingers caught in the grooves of the carvings as she went, feeling every bump and nook that her hands could find. 

The doors themselves were a mesh of wood and a steel-like metal ensconced cleverly into the stone walls as if they had simply sprouted from their surroundings. 

It was, however, the feeling that caused her to pause for longer than she intended. The door, for whatever reason, just felt right to her. It exuded a soft buzzing. The subtle hissing of something bigger was deafening in the silence, the air becoming charged with unspent energy. The feeling bit into her skin, pulling and nipping at every fold and crease, but soothing its bite with the balm of belonging.

“Holy shit.”

It was the first words she had uttered, and contrary to the state of her body, her voice was assuredly the one that she had always known. As a linguist, it made her obscenely happy that the accent that had rolled off of her tongue was her own. A lilted English that sounded not quite like her mother tongue, but fluent nonetheless.  

Set upon the doors were dozens of runes. They were not nordic in nature, or of any worldly language she might have recognised. The sight of the foreign symbols assured her that she was not in any part of the world, or world, that she knew. With buzzing doors, coffins for the living, and strange languages, she was no longer anywhere she knew. 

Despite that, she understood the words written into the runes fluently. 

She stretched out a painfully thin arm to the door, pressing a smooth palm against the lettering engraved in the dark wood of the looming door. 

The electricity she had heard in the hissing of the door ran up her arm. Settling into her lungs, and knocking the air from her chest, the spark moved with her like a warm parasite beneath her organs. It settled comfortably somewhere above her diaphragm, leaving a pleasant pressure that fizzled slightly with each breath.

In her discomfort, the immediate realisation that the door had cracked itself open took longer than it should have. The cavern was bathed with a trickle of daylight, stemming from the direct opening to the outside world. She pushed the door further, finding it easy to swing despite its large size. 

Skeletons.

They sat piled outside of the door, most with hands and arms seared beyond recognition, the bone having almost melted from their body. Though she did not know it at the time, the battalions of Tevinter soldiers that picked through the bones of the Elvhen empire had been reduced to ashes outside of her resting place. 

It was a sickening sight, seeing so many dead. One that made her stomach churn and her chin burn with the bile that she expected would soon find a way out of her throat. They were not recent bodies, that was for sure. 

Eyes adjusting to the harshness of the change in light, she looked beyond her immediate surroundings, looking past the skeleton army to the calm of the trees beyond. It was indeed a cave, evidently carved into the side of a mountain and forgotten about for far too many years. 

Continuing her shaky steps into the world, she carefully sidestepped the crumbling bones of allies or enemies - she was not sure which they could have been yet - to make her escape for freedom. Despite the meticulous craftsmanship of the tomb, nobody had cared for the place in centuries. She was not entirely sure what to make of the fact that the bones outside her doors had started to crumble. Her coffin unopened for a millennium was a future detail she may eventually find upon herself to consider, but it was not an issue for the present. 

Chapter Text

A part of her knew the blackening, melted corpses were related to the soft fizzle she felt beneath her ribs. It felt choking, unfamiliar, but warm and safe all at once. Step by step, she moved from her tomb, the electric pulse becoming a companionable awareness.

Miraculous resurrections aside, her body struggled. Muscles, thin and wasted, strained with every movement, and her translucent skin clung tightly to her bones. She just walked. Walking was all she could manage. Staying on her feet for long periods of time didn’t feel possible, with regular breaks to soothe her irregular heartbeat being the best course of action whilst she regained her strength. 

And as time passed, it was long, hard days that pushed her further into the wilds of a new world.

Pink berries appeared every now and then upon small bushes, hidden under tall trees. It was the only berry she had tried - and had not had ill effects from - so she continued plucking their sweetness as she moved, not willing to try her luck with more than she could handle. In some way, it was a confirmation of the strange world. They were different from anything she had seen in a previous life. 

That was the routine. Rest, eat, sleep. Minimal sustenance - though somehow her body prevailed despite the lack of nourishment -, long days, long breaks. She had once been a traveller, whether for work or for pleasure, she had touched the corners of her world, eventually purchasing a house in Brussels to settle down in. Not that she had found anyone to settle down with. Travel was not new to her, but she lamented the lack of resources she would have once taken for granted. 

No walking sticks, or jerkeyed food. No energy bars or tarpaulin to cover temporary shelters with.

The week of walking reminded her much of the treks she had made through the valleys of the Austrian Alps, the beauty of the Bavarian forests, and the humid climate of South Asian jungles. There was nowhere like it she had ever experienced.

Difficulty began to wane as muscle developed and translucent skin gained colour. 

The decrease in effort meant more distance travelled, with fewer breaks. Then it meant finding food other than the pink berries which had become more sparse with every passing day. She stayed away from the small animals that looked like tiny pigs mixed with rats. They were strange looking and she wasn’t quite sure she liked their chattering teeth and wide eyes. 

The pulsating companionship in her chest had grown, sounding a drum-like tremor with every beat of her feet as she stumbled over forest overgrowth and through magnificent valleys. It had not escaped her notice that the foliage had gotten less dense, the blues and greys overhead creeping through broad leaves and winding branches. It would not become long, she supposed, before she had to forego sleeping between the trees on beds of leaves and moss. Each day she built, and abandoned, a small safe haven of packed leaves and fallen branches. 

The air became colder, the ground developing dewy frost in the morning, the remnants of freezing nights dripping from green shoots. 

Sleep became increasingly difficult. 

She had come to a breaking point. Sleeping would become dangerous the further she walked. Sleeping more than an hour or two in the freezing temperatures may result in never awakening from her slumber again. There may come a time, too cold to continue, and too worn to force herself to move, that she would slip away. Unknown and unwanted to anyone in this new world. 

When it became bad, it became bad very quickly. 

Meagre survival training as a child did not account for life-or-death without the possibility of rescue. 

It was as her feet became sore and legs burned with the exertion of walking further than the norm, she found herself wondering why she ever bothered in the first place. She had died, with no one, somewhere where people would never find her. And she seemed doomed to repeat the cycle. 

Was she of any use in this world?

She was alive. Stuck in a new, perhaps wondrous place, but quickly enveloped by an insipid taste, characterised by jaded eyes and a frozen, lifeless land. 

This universe felt broken. Un-whole. It was missing something integral to the fabric of her identity. 

The warm pulsing in her chest rose at the thought, becoming suffocating… Choking her as it did when first leaving the tomb she had been placed into. It had reacted swiftly to the idea of death, fearing herself a threat as much as the environment she trudged through. 

With waning willpower, she attempted to shutter the rising panic, pushing upon the heartbeat other than her own that had taken residence deep within her bones. Met with deep resistance, the fire rose to brush against her skin. It pushed against her fingertips, making her hiss with discomfort as it pushed through like a dull blade. 

The seemingly sentient energy rebelled against every fibre of her being, berating her lack of self-preservation. It would save itself if it must. 

It rose. Pushing barriers. Manifesting into a flame that ensconced the woman’s hands, dancing wildly as if deprived of oxygen for too long. 

The chill of the air dissipated in its wake. 

“What on earth…” she whispered in a language she did not understand despite speaking it. Her lips chapped in the unfamiliar movements, her vocal cords aching with the harmony of disuse. Isolation had taken its toll in some ways. 

Stretching her fingers out, she watched as the small flame followed, billowing but playful. Surprisingly unpainful, she thought. There was a tingle and a warm, welcoming heat, but never did the burn of white-hot flames follow. 

Powers? … Magic?

Whilst the phenomenon had renewed some hope, she wondered whether this had been a wasted gift, bestowed on a woman out-of-time, doomed to die within weeks of encountering a new world. 

She had been wishing. Hoping . For a sign. Anything. Everything. 

She wanted to make something of herself this time. Find friends. Start a family. Make a change. She had died once and wanted no more regrets upon her second. 

A memory guided her hands. One that she knew she did not know, but one that revealed itself all the same. Dropping to her hands and knees, she found herself looking at the hard dirt beneath her. With nimble fingers and little idea of what she was actually doing, she drew a geometrical shape into the ground, pressing her fingers into its shape as she hoped , as she wished to live. 

The warmth that had traversed her body pushed against the barrier of her skin, fizzling its way to the outside world. It was less painful this time. Less like a blunt knife and more like sliding a ring upon a well-oiled finger. Clear bouts of power drew itself between dirt lines, filling the gaps in the dirt she had drawn, and eventually melting the frost that had formed around it. 

Tears pricked at her eyes. A chance . She had a chance . 

To be someone she wanted to be. To live a life where she felt fulfilled. Where she felt useful. A life that she would enjoy, even when it came to an inevitable end. 

She fell into the first decent rest she had had in a while. 

Chapter Text

The forest was called Tirashan. 

A land where those with pointed ears thundered upon overgrown ground, red markings shining from the crevices in their skin, their entity whispering nefariously into the void. 

The woman out of time had only caught a glimpse. 

Just one. 

It was enough to push her beyond the cusp of exhaustion, using the energy she had to move through the area swiftly, unnerved by the creatures that inhabited the area. 

The land pooled into a crater, the gradient steepening further toward the centre of their camp. She had seen all that she needed to see from the top of the crater, far from the heathens that called the crater their home. 

Their ears were small, pushed grotesquely further into their heads than seemed possible without pain, the pointed tips wrapping around the curvature of their skull. The darkness of their features was reflected in eyes that held no whites, and within the eerie glow of facial markings that they wore with pride. There was not a singular being without them. 

The Forgotten Ones was the name whispered amongst the trees. 

The Forgotten Ones they praised in a language unnatural to their deformed tongues as they bowed beneath shrines of dried blood and bile. A wolf is whom they cursed as they cried for repentance from gore-covered stone.

The Forgotten Ones they wore on their skins as if slaves to a greater master. 

The uncorrupted trees sang for the out-of-time woman’s freedom, pushing her toward the forest boundary and away from the immorality of the encampment. The wind aided her, flying her scent away from the beasts that lived in the Tirashan. 

They worshipped the land created by Elgar’nan. But most of all, worshipped his demise, using the sacred land that he had fought upon to call on Gods that bore no name. The Sun and the Land had given birth to the damned God, creating a perfect son. Elgar’nan was beautiful. Intelligent. And revelled in the Land’s creations with a reverence none had seen before. 

It was told that the Sun grew murderous, jealous of his happiness. He burned the beauty of the Land to a crisp. And with that, the Land cried. She created oceans with her tears. 

Elgar’nan saw his mother’s pain and fought with the sun for eternity, throwing the sun from the sky into a deep abyss. The absence of the Sun threw the Land into darkness, with a single twinkle to lighten the darkness that their battle had wrought upon the world. 

And these forest beasts believed the crater the entrance to the abyss. The place they would find the Sun again, ready to replace the bright light of Elgar’nan himself who had stolen the skies from his father. 

Batshit crazy if you asked her.

The trees relayed their story. Reflecting on a time when they had peace upon their mountains and how the landscape had been disgraced by the arrival of the red crystals and the madness they had brought. 

If she was honest, she didn’t know how the trees spoke to her. The story had infiltrated her dreams and she just had a feeling that the trees were the ones showing her. Within a few days, she had passed the crater, fleeing as if Elgar’nan himself had been nipping at her heels. 

That was her first experience of the substance she would come to know as Red Lyrium.

She would never learn what would become of the elves. Not until much, much later. 

****

27 days. 

From her tomb to the meadows, that was how long it had taken her to traverse the forest. 

Twenty-seven days since she had awoken from a wet demise in her own world to an unfamiliar body in this one. Though still not the body she remembered, she had claimed it as hers, and it would remain that way. Slim muscle had developed upon every limb, the journey hardening her starved body. She had gotten over the strange unease that the pig-rat creatures created - they were edible, and she needed the food. 

Those days, she had been met with constellations beyond her wildest dreams. Not a star in the sky matched the sky that she knew. In some ways, it was comforting to know she had not simply become lost in her own world, but it was unnerving to understand she was somewhere else entirely. 

The sparse foliage that had once been a dense canopy levelled into dry grass, the weather’s chill maintaining an iron grasp upon the greenery that still remained. It was calm. It was still. There was so much more she didn’t know that she would love to explore, but survival was paramount. 

Though it wasn’t a new feeling, she continued to be surprised by the warmth that her magic brought, its essence throbbing with every heartbeat. It had transformed, in a way, from something she was acutely aware of to simply just another limb. Something to wield and to use when needed. That wasn’t to say it didn’t have a mind of its own, but she trusted it implicitly. 

The landscape had transformed throughout her journey and she knew that it was going to continue to become harder. Without the canopy covers and thriving berry bushes, food was becoming more sparse and she wasn’t confident in her ability to confront predators just yet. Yet, she was confident she would become more than what she was. 

It would become more difficult, but more than anything, it would just become more and more different. New adaptations and tricks would have to be made and found, but there may be people (people!) in the path ahead of her. Something that she would fear, but not have to fend against, she hoped. She wished for a world that saw her. Really saw her . And she was setting out to find it. 

From the entrance of the tomb to the beginnings of the plains, twenty-seven days wasn’t very long.

Chapter Text

“You are a marvel, my dear.”

His voice was smooth and level as he stared upon the mask she donned. 

“If I were a marvel, perhaps I could have succeeded in avoiding you.”

A glint of something sprung to his eyes. As unnerving and unsettling as it was, the woman was not scared. In a room of carved marvel and elaborate thrones, there were worse things than his ire.

“Running means nothing but a chase. You don’t look like prey to me, so do not try so hard to become it,” He replied. 

The man found irony in her appearance. A rabbit in a room full of-

****

The walls acted as bars. Despite vast skies, the sun appeared only a few hours of the day before retreating behind the solid concrete that enveloped their prison.

Val Royeaux felt like taking in a deep breath you would never be able to release. The suffocating bells and twirling streets were unfathomable to the average farmer. Luxury was rampant whilst the locale in the surrounding area starved, dying of preventable disease as they struggled to find empathy amongst the very rich.

The city itself was a marvel of modern work and was appreciated for the artistry that it had inspired. The people, however, dirtied the canvas, acting as a puff of cigarette smoke that never truly dissipated. 

And the elves?

They weren’t even classed as people.

Not the ones manning bright storefronts, nor the ones acting as palace servants. And certainly not the occupants of the alienage. Almost ten thousand elven people, forced into hiding by ‘civilised’ society. The shape of their ears was too offensive for the city’s humans to tolerate, and so they were alienated.

Additional elves entering the compound wasn’t unusual - it was a hub of elven market stalls, a small city within itself - but there was one woman that the locals may point you to. 

They may say she appeared from nowhere. That she didn’t look elven or human, or that perhaps her strange ways set her apart from the usual alienage inhabitants. 

Truthfully, no one cared much. It was survival of the fittest and despite her oddities, she was as much trying to survive as the rest of them. She was, in every facet of the phrase, one of them. Most of all, she had proven valuable to the alienage leadership, remaining at their beck and call should they need help. 

It was survival of the fittest and without each other, none of the elves would be able to live in the godforsaken city.

“Havera!” A young voice called from outside the door, the wood misshapen and rotting but still holding in place.

The door opened, revealing the same young woman who had woken up in her own coffin a few years prior. Whilst she did not intend to settle down in Val Royeaux, she had found a community amongst the alienage elves, protecting the people and being protected in turn. Her appearance was noticeable, but in an alienage of thousands, it was easy to be bypassed by the chevaliers that terrorised the city.

She stared at the young boy who had called for her from outside of her home. His mouth was shaped in a worried grimace, some of his baby teeth missing from his smile. Havera had been telling the young ones about the tooth fairy recently, and he was very happy to have received a few coppers for his most recent loss. 

“Taren is back and Mamae says you need to look at him -” He says, perhaps not looking nearly as concerned as Havera imagined his mother was. 

She swore, quickly darting back into the shack to collect supplies before asking the young man to lead the way. Following in his little footsteps, they traversed the winding roads of the Val Royeaux alienage. Houses were stacked on top of each other, leaning precariously over the established streets, but never quite toppling. A result of thousands of people making homes from what they could. A beautiful effort, but an architectural horror. 

There stood very few stone buildings in the makeshift town, but Havera and the young boy barrelled through the door of one of them.

She was aware that the family of five was confined to two rooms - the parents’ bedroom and the living room - but it made her feel queasy seeing the eldest son lying across hastily stacked blankets of the main room rather than in comfort.

His face was black and blue, blood dripping down his jaw and neck to taint the blankets beneath him. Though not terribly visible, the brown linens were slowly being stained a deep maroon, the stench of oxygenated blood becoming stronger as she stepped toward him.

Immediately, an older woman, Ashina, grabbed her hands and pulled her into the centre of the room to kneel beside her son.

“Please,” was all she had to say, tears accumulating in her eyes as she stared blankly at the teenager she had tried to make comfortable in their small living area. The woman was one of the more influential members of the alienage, standing second to only her husband. Her husband, Sorren, was an elf who had somehow managed to contract with the Val Royeaux university despite the shape of his ears. 

Despite earning good money for elves in the city, it opened a host of threats toward the family, with the chevaliers taking liberties when they could. Elf hunting was a common sport amongst the city enforcers. Whether or not the violence was legal was of no consequence. 

The warmth in the woods, as she knew now, was magic. 

She placed her hands on the teenager, feeling for injuries within his aura. Being one of the only mages within the alienage was a blessing and a curse. Though not all felt favourably about mages and magic, it was a tool that became well-used. Not entrapped by circle teachings, nor hunted for her blood through phylacteries, she was an asset without any real risk. The people provided a safe haven for Havera and in return, she provided healing services for the population of elves who could not afford medicine in their squalor. 

The boy’s aura was broken. From broken bones to internal bleeding, he was in a bad condition, the blunt force trauma having shattered several of his ribs and his cheekbone. Aware she needed to get the worst healed as soon as possible, she began stemming the internal bleeding, flushing the blood toward the surface of the skin and puncturing the skin to redirect it into a small bowl that sat at his bedside. Next were the bones. To prevent too much drain on her magic, she touched the broken areas with her hands, pushing the breaks together with gentle manoeuvring, ready to meld together the fractures.

It was not a short process. She stopped only as the sweat from her brow started to drip on the floor between herself and the patient. 

The chevaliers had taken it too far.

Targeting the son of a much-loved man in the alienage felt as if they were beckoning war - and she knew full well that the men behind the attack would have recognised anybody from the well-to-do elf family. As if the tension between the races wasn’t enough. 

Despite being unsettled with the situation at hand, she had done all that she could for the boy. Beaten and bruised, his blood was now clotted at the entry points of shallow wounds, bones reset and mended with the help of magic, and internal organs safe from residual harm from his encounter. She would consider herself a scholar, not a healer, but learning creation magic was a vital condition to her presence in the city, for her own benefit and for her peers’.

“I’ve done all I can… he should be stable, but please don’t move him yet,” She said softly to his mother, “I will come back tomorrow and the day after to help with anything else, but he should heal naturally from here.”

Ashina looked away from her eldest son and gave Havera a watery smile and a nod. She knelt down next to the apostate and gave her a gentle side-hug, turning her face to touch their foreheads together. They were kin even if they shared no blood.

“Thank you, my dear,” she whispered, “A mother’s worry never stops, but I can continue from here.”

Havera pulled away and reached out to hold the woman’s hands, smiling sadly and nodding.

“If you need me, please let me know. This is no place to raise children.”

The older woman clamped her lips together, eyes becoming wet again as she looked at Havera. 

“You don’t belong here,” her voice heavy, “There is more for you than just healing an alienage - you could do more. Maybe even stop this…”

There was a pause before she lowered her voice.

“Come with us.”

Havera reared back slightly, surprised at the abruptness of her statement.

“We are thinking of leaving to the conclave to talk about the plight of our people and to watch the fate of the city to be decided,” she said, ”They can’t turn away an ambassador of the oppressed and Justinia isn’t unreasonable.”

The two women sat hand-in-hand in silence for a second.

Havera knew that there was more she could do than healing; it was not the main focus of her search and was not the subject she had written papers for under her pseudonym. 

… But it was the most important thing she could do for the alienage. A single mage meant less death, less squalor and the chance to change a few lives at a time into something that wasn’t unbearable. Havera thought about the woman she treats every week - in the face of chronic disease, her magic enabled the woman to keep breathing comfortably. Leaving the people was not something she felt she could do, but it would be nice to make a change for herself. 

This kind of change was something she could have only imagined the past few years.

Coming from a privileged, lonely existence on Earth to being surrounded by so many bright people who were treated like dirt was a wake-up call. 

She remembered what the United States did in the face of inequality and the drastic action Europe took in the face of wealth disparity. To continue looking after those born into less fortunate circumstances was important, but she could feasibly train one of the elven midwives to look after those who were easy to heal whilst she was gone. 

Havera took a deep breath.

“If you leave with enough time for me to tell Sulahn how to treat my patients, I will come.”

Despite her son’s life having been in the hands of fate not even an hour earlier, the older woman smiled. 

“We leave after eight sunsets. Please, join us.”

Havera gave the woman one more compressed smile before unlatching their hands with one final squeeze. With a last goodbye - and check of the teenager she had healed - she left their home. 

Though she was easily recognisable, very few people stood around to say hello. She looked and acted strangely enough to be a pariah amongst the alienage despite her proclivity for kindness. In some senses, their relationship was transactional - the alienage provided her the protection and anonymity she needed to live in the city. She was sure that privilege would be revoked should she not prove useful anymore. 

It was an unnerving feeling, to say the least. To have her life in the hands of a community that didn’t particularly care whether she lived or died. 

But in the midst of the uncertainty, she had her home. 

Whilst it was just one room, books were stacked against every wall, some piles teetering with every slam of her rickety door, it was entirely hers. A singular corner was left open for her thin blankets and rumpled cushions. Some semblance of a bed was the least she could do for herself when the majority of her meagre savings was spent on the books surrounding it. 

Havera had never lived anywhere like it back on Earth. She was immensely lucky to have someone she could call her own; many alienage families stayed in similar0sized rooms together, all five family members living and sleeping in each other’s company. Sometimes it was for the best as the cold winters dawned and frost glittered on the windows, but it certainly wasn’t for her. 

Her collection of books boasted knowledge smuggled from every facet that she could exploit in the city. Whilst she was always hesitant to leave the prison they called an alienage, there were plenty of avenues to source her own income. Between writing names under a human-sounding pseudonym and healing the elves that she could, Havera was able to amass just enough coin to continue her bad habit. The books reminded her of her home in Brussels - she had filled every crevice of her city apartment with knowledge from across the world. From the medical journals of the golden age Caliphate to diaries discussing South African apartheid, she was sure every language from across the world had been represented in her private library. 

This was how she had learnt some of the languages of this new world. It wasn’t as easy as on Earth, but books were a vital fountain of knowledge in Thedas. 

Looking at her collection, she thought about which ones were appropriate to pack for the journey. Not all of them would come with her, but some may prove useful or interesting for the long trip. She had never been to Ferelden after all. 

With eight suns to go, she set about creating a small pack for the journey. It wasn’t a difficult task - Havera had an already packed bag of essentials should she need to leave at any point in time. A few extra books on botany and some pre-brewed elixirs and she felt she was good to go. 

Next was ensuring the care of the ill elves scattered around the alienage. Despite being inexperienced, she was sure that Sulahn, another elven healer, would take to the different treatments like a fish to water. It would only be for a month after all.

And so, the preparation went smoothly. 

Havera’s patients from across the alienage were informed of their new nurse, some being cared for by Sulahn, and some by the rather surly doctor that inhabited the sector’s actual hospital - she had pre-paid him to ensure all the needs of her patients were taken care of whilst gone.

She joined the family on their journey from the city.

Then the sky split.

Chapter Text

They had been on the road to the Divine Conclave when the sky flickered with a mysterious force and then broke with anger. The first few moments felt like a nightmare, and every moment from then on was a challenge. 

The travelling group, each donning a hooded cloak, stopped. 

Ashina spoke first.

“By the Gods…” She began, “The Conclave. There was a town near here, we must go and see what is going on before we get stuck on the roads.”

They were not the only people travelling to watch the Divine make judgement, and the people behind them had begun to either turn away or surge forward. The chaos was spreading, and Havera agreed. It was best to continue to see what had happened - turning back now would mean travelling through the night to reach a dry sleeping spot.

****

Havera found herself on the outskirts of Haven tending to the wounded and helping to move the dead. She didn’t know where the elven family she had travelled here with had gone. The explosion hadn’t just burnt the building to a crisp but had released demons across the valleys. There was only one plus side - rage demons cauterised their own wounds, making it much less likely they would deal with blood loss. But terror demons ripped through with tragic ease, and despair mutilated all whom they touched. 

Templars were few and far between, as a result of the death of much of the order as a result of the explosion, so Havera took the chance to stitch together wounds with small amounts of magic and ensure that the soldiers’ internal bleeding didn’t go unnoticed. 

Amidst the dragged bodies was a man - unharmed. The culprit, Havera assumed. She paid no mind. He would be dealt with after all, given that the bodies of soldiers impacted by the explosion’s after-effects were beginning to fill the hole they had dug. The letters to their families would be numerous, and that was if they could be identified in the first place. 

It was hours later she would hear the words…

“...There will be a trial, I can promise you no more.” Her elven ears pick up, not too far from where she was stationed. 

Looking up, she saw the Seeker who had been overseeing the actions in Haven, and a man who was being set free from his bindings. 

Before she could think, Havera stood up, taking a step toward the pair. 

“I would go with you if you would accept my aid, ser. The magic plaguing his hand will not hold without magical intervention, and I would ensure his survival to the breach, ser,” Her voice shook infinitesimally.

The Seeker swung her eyes toward the elf who had spoken. Havera, though small by human standards, was the tallest female elf she had ever seen, and lacked the typical elven features she would expect.

“You are a mage?”

“Yes, ser.”

The Seeker made a noise in the back of her throat. 

“Come along.”

Havera let out a breath of air, nodding quickly and falling in behind the prisoner as they walked. She could feel the magic of the mark from here, and had heard of its proclivity to attempt to murder the prisoner the longer it remained attached to his body. 

Her steps were quick as she scuttled between the two tall humans, the Seeker at her back and the prisoner leading the way into the valley. 

The prisoner seemed insufferable. His face had changed at the discovery of her mage status, and he had not attempted to speak to her once, instead opting to speak to the Seeker. His gait shortened as they developed a clearer view of the Breach, his hand flashing and sparking as the sky shook. Havera was by his side as he fell, pushing magic through the hole in his hand. 

It did seem familiar in some way. Not from anywhere she could remember, and her only exposure to magic other than her own was remnants of the magical signature expelled from White Spire. Stopping the sparks from spewing was a simple matter of knitting together the small section of veil that was buried within his hand’s magic. It was akin to crocheting missed stitches back into place, and felt just as easy. 

The mark sputtered and quieted, the prisoner now able to get to his feet, shortly followed by Havera herself. 

He gave no gesture of thanks, just dusted himself off and peered at the Seeker. 

“The larger the Breach grows, the more demons we face - we need to continue,” She said, a hard look falling across her face. 

“How did I survive the blast?” He replied, starting to jog forward.

Havera tuned their conversation out, keeping pace, but ensuring that her focus was on calming the mark. Now she had properly quelled its magic once, she was pinning its jagged veil closed as they walked. Their tepid jog was set at a consistent speed and the mark was calm - it was almost as if-

They went crashing to the ground as the breach spat its viscera at the bridge they were crossing. Tumbling to the ground, over the rubble of the destroyed bridge, Havera swung her head up at the sound of the Breach’s sizzling, another ball of green rift catapulting toward the ice that lay beneath them.

Stabilising herself, Havera grabbed the dagger she kept on her belt, glancing briefly as the prisoner took the sword and shield from the wreckage. 

The ground bubbled and boiled as a shade rose into existence, staring directly at the prisoner who, rightfully, looked scared shitless. 

With a dagger in one hand, Havera willed her magic forward, creating a small spirit blade in the form of a throwing dagger in her free hand, taking the moment to throw its pointy end into the head of the shade, causing it to hiss and crumple. Not dead, but momentarily incapacitated. The prisoner swung his sword, destroying the creature, the shadows of its existence melting back into the ice.

Truthfully, she had never seen a demon in the waking world before. Would its existence pollute the ground it graced? Would it be reformed again as emotions ran high?

The Seeker turned back to face Havera and the prisoner once again, her own Shade dwindling into nothing. 

“Drop your weapon.” She seethed, “Now.”

“Seeker, he needed it to-” Havera began.

“If I am going knee-deep into this… breach, I can’t do it without a sword,” the prisoner spat, “Maker knows this is what I am meant to do and I will not place the Maker’s task in the hands of a stranger.”

The Seeker grimaced, her face twisting as she considered the implications of letting the man go unarmed into the face of danger. 

“Fine.” She said shortly.

The two Andrastians took no real notice of the elf, save to allow her to soothe the mark when it sparked and spat. Another knife-ear in their midst to do their bidding, Havera supposed. She was used to being unnoticed, but found it hard to believe they did not notice her magic at work as they battled through shades and demons on their way to the source of the Breach. 

Spirit blade after spirit blade left her hand, each conjured weapon finding its mark in their intended. Some stopped a well-placed claw from being dragged into the sides of her human companions, but both seemed ignorant of their own surroundings as far as the elf was concerned. 

As they climbed, they heard the sound of combatants. 

“Who’s fighting?” The prisoner called as his legs strode up the steep steps. 

“You’ll find out soon.” 

Clearing the top of the shattered ramparts, there was a group of, presumably, Haven’s forces fighting demons that were appearing from a cut in the sky. The fade bled into the waking world, twisting the purpose of the spirits beyond it. Havera could feel their terror as they were swept into a world not of their own.

Whilst the Seeker and prisoner jumped straight into the fray, Havera stayed on the outskirts of the battle, aware that she only would do better work from a distance. 

Demons destroyed, a tall bald elf held the prisoner's hand to the cut in the sky, channelling the energy she had been closing behind the veil into the sky. The cut closed. The sky calmed. 

Tall for an elf, Havera thought to herself. 

“What did you do,” The prisoner spat, yanking his arm from the elf’s hold. 

The man explained the functionality of the mark briefly, making it clear that it had the capacity to aid in closing the breach. The Seeker closed in on the conversation after that, a small smile pulling at the corner of her lips as she heard that there was hope after all. 

Havera looked on, missing the glance that the dwarf sent her. The dwarf, clearing his expression, became the picture of practised non-challance as he introduced himself to the prisoner. 

“Varric Tethras, rogue, storyteller, and occasionally, unwelcome tagalong,” He aimed a wink at the Seeker, who lost all semblance of positive emotion from her face with the action. 

“Are you with the Chantry?” The prisoner asked.

The elf laughed. Varric asserted that he was not. Havera walked to join the conversation, lips pursed.

After a quick glance at her approach, the elf started violently. 

“Dirthel’amem?” He said quietly, an almost sickly paleness overtaking his pallor. 

Havera looked at him for a moment, lifting an eyebrow at the name. 

“If we are introducing ourselves, I am Havera. Pleased to meet you.” Her level tone was at odds with the elf’s incredulous one. She must admit, he had a beautiful voice though - she was admiring it (and him) as he spoke to the prisoner moments earlier. 

His lips dipped slightly, an almost frown appearing on his previously stunned expression. 

“In which case, I am Solas… I am glad to see that the mark has calmed. Perhaps the closing of the rift has helped to expel its energy.”

“Solas is our resident apostate,” The Seeker said to the prisoner, “Though the mark caused less issues with the healer helping on the journey.”

Solas turned to Havera again, carefully eyeing her reaction as he asked, “You calmed the mark?”

She let out a pleasant hum and nodded.

“Yes, it seems to be a rupture in the veil, specifically embedded into his hand. By stitching the edges of the veil together, it was much less likely to accrue the type of power that it had before.”

If he was surprised by her answer, he didn’t show it. He looked placid, interested but not necessarily overly so.

The prisoner rolled his eyes.

“Let’s let the knife-ears talk shop whilst our soldiers die, why don’t we.”

The Seeker’s eyes widened slightly, and Varric raised his eyebrows at the human man. A racist. Havera had known based on how he had acted, but she was slightly surprised he didn’t even try to hide it. Suppose when you are born into a privileged position, it isn’t the type of terminology you correct. 

Breaking the tense moment, the Seeker firmly suggested they move toward the forward camp. As they began the journey there, she introduced herself as Cassandra, realising that she had not been the most chatty on their way to the breach. The prisoner was Maxwell. Maxwell Trevelyan.

A very noble name, Havera thought.

Their trek to the breach continued, all manner of shades and demons appearing in coats of viscera spewed from the devil’s mouth. Several smaller cuts in the fade were closed, and the trudge of footsteps on snow was the only sound that prevailed until the dwarf saw it fit to speak. 

“So are you innocent?”

“Obviously. I am not a mage and to harm Divine Justinia would be against my promise to the Maker,” Maxwell replied, slightly affronted at the insinuation that he would be the one to rip the skies to shreds. 

Havera stayed quiet. 

****

He had chosen to follow the soldiers to the Conclave, barrelling headfirst into the fray of demons, and toward the very danger that the group was trying to protect him from. 

Luckily, the blonde templar (Havera could smell the stench of stale Lyrium on his clothing), prevented one particularly lucky Shade from lobotomising the man. The templar was handsome, Havera would give him that, but the way that he conversed with Maxwell made it quite clear he was a templar first, soldier second. Discussion of magic and demons filled the air for a while, each new opinion more uncomfortable than the last. 

The Breach shone large above their heads, the crackling and snapping of the angered fade echoing like thunder. It was angry and unnatural. 

But for some reason, once the Pride demon had been defeated, and Maxwell’s hand swelled with power before the Breach slammed him backwards, closed but not gone, Havera felt like she had lost something. 

The Breach wasn’t right but it also felt like all of a sudden, the rest of the world was wrong.

She didn’t notice Solas’ eyes following her as she gazed up at the still green hole in the sky.