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Chapter Text

Mahanon Lavellan, like every other dumbass that plays a morally gray hero at some point in their life, has an unfortunate backstory. As a not so brief recap:

Born under the name Mahina as a fraternal twin to the lovely Ellana Lavellan, Mahanon was a menace from the moment he was able to form complete thoughts. As a toddler, his favorite hobbies were wandering aimlessly into the forest and attempting to throw himself into bonfires. His lack of success led to quite a few raging meltdowns.

‘Angry’ has always been a generally good way to describe him.

Keeper Deshanna Istimaethoriel Lavellan was a blessedly patient man, but Mahanon is certain that his behavior pushed the leader’s limits right up to their breaking points. His poor parents probably had to argue until blue in the face to keep bringing him along every time the clan packed up their aravels. Jokes were occasionally made about abandoning him at a camp just to see how he would manage to find the clan and continue his chaotic reign, but Ellana Lavellen — the sweet, chubby cheeked angel that she was — always insisted she would stay behind with him.

If he ever sees her again, Mahanon should probably thank her for his continued existence.

To the relief of their clan, Ellana was almost his opposite. She was gentle where he was abrasive; patient where he was restless; flexible where he was stubborn. She was the calm, cool water of a mountain river whereas Mahanon was a raging forest fire caused by a careless strike of lightning. She had the beginnings of a princess from some sort of flowery bedtime story and likely would’ve become the Lavellan clan’s halla keeper if she hadn’t decided to mirror Mahanon’s mischievousness.

Whenever Mahanon caused mayhem, Ellana was no more than two steps behind him. Or ahead of him, where Mahanon would shove her when they had to run away from any particularly irate clan members. Sometimes, she would create chaos all on her own, and Mahanon happily took the fall for it each and every time in the face of her wild, mismatched eyes and wide, toothy grin.

Their habits of causing havoc led to them quickly being pushed into weapons training, and when their unruly energy lended itself to making them fast learners, they were given hunting positions. They were great. Ellana took to a bow like stars took to shining and had been able to outshoot even the eldest of hunters with less than a year of practice.

Mahanon’s aim was atrocious; somehow, practice seemed to only make it worse. He couldn’t hold a shield considering they were damn near two thirds as heavy as he was, and he couldn’t wield a sword because the ones the clan used were half his size in length.

He flourished with daggers. He could slice cleanly, he could stab quickly, and he could even throw the blades with pretty acceptable accuracy. Why he was able to do that but not use a bow will forever remain a mystery. He could also creep through the forest unseen like nobody’s business. Years of being described as a ‘sneaky little shit’ paid its weight in gold and then some when he could use the abilities he gained from sneaking salt into tea to creep up on an elk so silently that the animal didn’t see him coming until it was already laying lifeless on the damp forest floor.

Blessed, the clan had said about them. They must’ve been blessed by the Creators. Ellana by Andruil, and Mahanon by…

…Somebody?

A teenage hunter made a joke once that his patron was surely the Dread Wolf, and he was smacked so soundly up the head that the clap of it echoed throughout the woods. Nobody dared to make that joke again.

Mahanon thought it was funny.

When he was around seven, he got his very own set of knives as a gift from the same teenager that likened him to the Elvhen god of rebellion. His parents weren’t pleased, but young Mahanon was over the moon. He named them Stab and Jab — fitting names for a seven year old to give knives, in Mahanon’s opinion — and he felt bad when all Ellana got was a stupid halla stuffie.

He made her a bow in consolation, and only she was able to make the poorly made weapon work. Being a savant pays off, apparently.

He treated his daggers as if they were his babies; always sharp, polished daily. They were constantly strapped to his body, and his parents were only able to convince him to take them off when he slept by building a stand that he placed right next to his bedroll in their aravel. He practiced with them every chance he got — usually multiple times a day — and he was soon sent out every time a hunting party went searching for food just so he had an excuse to actually use them.

Mahanon was nine when everything went to shit.

Most shemlens Mahanon had met up to that point — and there had been very few — had at least tolerated his clan. Some had even been friendly enough to initiate trading instead of just staring awkwardly at Keeper Lavellan until he asked if they would like to barter. The town that they walked too closely to, though, did not have the same tolerance. The citizens made it quite clear that they didn’t appreciate a bunch of ‘knife ears tainting the land and children with their untrained, rabid habits,’ so the clan tried to move quickly away from the rural city in an attempt to avoid a fight.

It didn’t work. A small militia composed of the most aggressive town members stalked them half a day out from their settlement and attacked with pitchforks and torches. It escalated to Keeper Lavellan ordering lethal combat — the man usually tried to avoid bloodshed in an attempt to lessen the human belief of Dalish elves being savage — but the permission was given too late.

Almost a quarter of the clan was killed. His parents were among the fallen.

The following months were an ode to self destruction.

Ellana — soft, kindhearted Ellana — began to fade, and Mahanon hardened to stone. Silence replaced the gentle laughs of his sister, and Mahanon’s quips went from teasing to malicious. Anybody he deemed a valid target fell victim to Mahanon’s unpredictable outbursts, and both twins created an almost immeasurable distance between them and the rest of the clan.

This, of course, was when Mahanon’s magic decided to begin manifesting, but the boy’s mind was too occupied with agonizing over his identity to really take note of the strange haze his dreams were taking on.

Life in a Dalish clan is one of constant movement. The nomadic choices are the largest aspect, of course, but even when aravels are set up, there’s no time to stop and think. Hallas have to be cared for; food has to be caught; training has to be run; plants and wood and ore need to be collected to create the salves and potions and weapons that the clans sell for crumbs of gold. While the twins created the space between them and the rest of the Lavellan tribe, the other elves allowed them to make it.

This led to a lack of movement and too much time to wonder what Mahanon was now that he wasn’t somebody’s child. Not a daughter anymore, he thought, and not really a girl at all. He twisted his name to better suit him, and Ellana didn’t even blink when he shared it with her.

Duh, had been her response to his earth shattering revelation, and then she turned over and fell asleep. It was all quite anticlimactic.

The slavers struck a month after that.

It was the middle of the night when one of the clan’s watchmen sounded his horn. The warning was cut off abruptly, but it was enough to shatter Mahanon's dream. He all but threw Ellana’s bow at her as he strapped on his daggers, and he helped his sister when she struggled to equip her quiver. They rushed out of the aravel holding hands and trembling while older members of the clan succeeded in holding the Tevinter traders off.

A small group, however, had snuck around back for an ambush. Ellana screamed as she was ripped away from Mahanon, and she was only able to send a single arrow through a shemlen’s jaw before the weapon was snatched from her hands and tossed off to the side. Her eyes glinted in the dark as she was dragged past the treeline, and none of the parents in the clan could get a solid grip on Mahanon to keep him from chasing after her.

The woods were dark and wet and suffocating, but Mahanon had two advantages. He knew the woods and how to creep through them effectively, and he could see. One of the humans tripped over an obvious root in their dash away from the aravels, and Jab ended up deep in his chest. He died before he could make a sound, and Mahanon wiped his blood off on his pants as he continued after his sister.

He sent Stab flying through the air, and it landed solidly in the throat of the man carrying Ellana. He dropped immediately, and Ellana’s bloodshot eyes tracked the glare of Mahanon’s as she slid between the two men that were behind her captor. Mahanon made sure to make sound as he began racing back to camp, and he lagged when Ellana caught up so he could shove his sister ahead of him. Sticks cracked and leaves crunched underfoot as they darted through the underbrush, and the sound of heavier steps were closing the distance behind them.

The desperate shouts of other members of the Lavellan clan were within earshot when one of the slavers dove out of a bush from their right to wrap an arm around Ellana. Mahanon cut him down the middle of it with his remaining knife, and the man let go with a loud scream. Immediately, the voices of the other elves started coming closer, and Mahanon shoved his sister desperately to run. She followed the order, but Mahanon’s leg was grabbed by the shemlen’s uninjured arm when he tried to dive over the man.

When Ellana looked back, it was to the sight of Mahanon barely managing to shove his dagger between the shemlen’s eyes as he attempted to pin him against the dirt. The man was heavy, but Mahanon managed to shove the body off of him and drag himself back to his feet. The twins could fully hear the rest of the Lavellan clan, and Mahanon began shouting at the top of his lungs. The humans knew where they were already, he had to make sure his family did as well.

In the middle of screaming at Ellana to run faster, Mahanon was hauled off of the ground by an arm wrapping around his stomach. The momentum of the grab took both him and his captor to the ground, and Mahanon didn’t waste time digging his nails and teeth into whatever he could reach; a hand, an arm, an eye and throat when he twisted around to deal real damage. His hair — long at that point — was grabbed roughly and pulled so he would release the shemlen from his jaws. Ragged snarls were pulling themselves from Mahanon’s chest — so loud that he barely heard Ellana’s desperate scream. His eyes snapped to his sister, and the image of her being pulled back to safety by another member of his clan began to pull away from him. The world went black with a crack.

It was quite a traumatic start to his life, and Mahanon is probably lucky that he doesn’t remember the months following his capture clearly. There was pain and needles and chains holding him against cold walls, but the rest of what happened is stuck inside of a black void. Mahanon can’t even guess at what he’s supposed to be remembering.

Another elf enslaved by the magister he was sold to told him once that it was a trauma response.

It’s probably best that those memories are left blank, dear. Do your best not to think about it.

Mahanon was thirteen when he begged for somebody to scar a vallaslin onto his face.

The magister he was sold to was a monster. He killed without warning or reason; his punishments left deep scars and shallow burn marks across bodies; he drained the blood of any elven slave that manifested magic in an attempt at some sort of grab at power. Mahanon prefers not to speak of the man past that.

The Dalish boy had never gotten the chance to pick a vallaslin while in his clan. He’d been half the age required for the ceremony when he was abducted, and he would have still been forced to wait another five years to go through the experience if he was with his family. His face was bare, his body bore no marks, and the magister that owned him made a comment about him not yet being claimed.

He was scared.

The woman who knew how to make the ink stay didn’t know all of the patterns of the gods, but Mahanon didn’t want one of them anyways. He’d begged the Creators for help — strength, an opportunity to escape, the sudden death of his master, for him to push a punishment too far, anything — for three straight years before deciding that they’d abandoned him. Why should Mahanon have shown them honor? Dedicated pieces of his body and mind to deities that show no mercy to their devotees?

It was a stupid decision. The cause was just and the reasoning was sound, but with how the world has unfolded, Mahanon all but damned himself with his decision. What better way could a Dalish boy have shown rebellion, though, if not by paying homage to his alleged patron. Blessed by the Dread Wolf, the hunter had joked. He drew up a lupine vallaslin depicting the many eyes of Fen’Harel and requested white ink. The woman carved it into his face the next day.

Like he said: it was a stupid decision.

The magister was livid, to say the least. Mahanon can’t quite remember anything from the two weeks he took attempting to remove it except for pain. He’s pretty sure the woman who gave him his bastardized markings laced some sort of strong magic into it, but he doesn’t really have proof to support his theory past the fact that it wouldn’t budge.

Healing magic couldn’t remove it; fire couldn’t remove it, but left blisters across his face for almost a month; not even blood magic could take the ink from his face. His master considered attempting to carve it out with a knife, but realized quickly that all that would lead to were twisting scars in the exact same pattern he was trying to get rid of.

The torture didn’t stop after his two weeks of agony passed. He was put to work immediately, and the only reason Mahanon survived the following month was due to the fact that he was put in the kitchen. The other slaves took one look at the child that couldn’t manage to stand on his feet for even a minute before listing dangerously to one side and quickly decided that he would be left to rest on the bags of flour thrown into a corner of the room. He repaid them in the form of letting them take breaks.

Soups and stews and breads were made day in and day out on top of every other meal of the day, so there was always something to look occupied with. Even when everything needed to be boiled or rested, hands always had to be busy, or you risked them being cut off. Mahanon, though, spent his childhood sitting in the woods just listening.

He could identify the type of birds near him by their calls; he could identify if an animal was a carnivore or herbivore by the way plant life shifted against them as they walked; he could identify what animal his clan would be eating for dinner by the sound of their steps — all from miles away, at one point. He could identify the sounds of the predator in the house moving from the other side of the building, and could tell the rest of the kitchen when they had to be back on their aching feet.

Whenever Mahanon gave the warning, somebody would gently place him in front of a boiling pot to stir. He was only punished twice for not giving the magister something to rage about.

Mahanon’s magic progressed at an incredibly slow rate. It might’ve been another trauma response or the needles he couldn’t quite remember; Mahanon isn’t sure which he’d prefer. His dreams had shifted so slowly to include the fade that he couldn’t remember not needing to speak with spirits to fight boredom. He wasn’t able to twist the fade to make more pleasant dreams at that time. Honestly, he’s still awful at it.

When his abilities began to manifest more intensely, he found himself arguing with or battling demons at least twice a week. Exhaustion had been creeping up on him the day it decided to burst into the waking world, and it’s a miracle that one of the older Dalish elves enslaved in that prison of a house caught him before the magister did.

He’d spent the night before in a fight with a rage demon, so he had been dead on his feet and unbelievably irritable. Mahanon isn’t even sure what had triggered him, but frustration flared and so did a nearby fireplace. A hand was immediately clamped around the back of his neck as the older slave dragged him into the kitchen’s storeroom.

His name was Faelor. His hair was cropped and graying, and he had dark eyes — a shade of purple Mahanon hasn’t really seen again — surrounded by crows feet. Elgar’nan’s vallaslin was inked into his face in a soft shade of red, and Mahanon often wondered what he was like before he was forced into slavery. “Find a spirit of wisdom,” he had said. He slammed a dark band of a ring into Mahanon’s hand and closed his fingers over it carefully. “This is the most I can do to help. You need to gain control of yourself before he finds you.”

Mahanon equipped the piece of jewelry whenever he slept, and his forced interactions with demons lessened. Unfortunately, so did his meetings with spirits, so encountering one took a lot more work. He found a spirit of wisdom to help him calm his magic that lived somewhere in the Exalted Plains, but it took great effort for one to find the other due to whatever charm was in Faelor’s ring.

She seemed concerned about the way Mahanon’s magic was progressing — going from almost nothing to the beginnings of it rattling around his ribcage with its lack of use in only five years — but she did her best to teach him about controlling it. The spells she taught him were from the time of ancient elves, and Mahanon didn’t even know most of the spells even existed, but like everything else, he learned quickly.

They still didn’t meet as much as they should have, but they did their best. Her teaching is probably the only reason he’s still alive; not only could he effectively fight off demons using a lot less energy, but she taught him how to release gradual amounts of his magic through mundane activities to keep it from weirdly bottling up in an attempt to escape with an explosion.

It was dumb to build any relationships in the manor they were trapped in — it made it all too easy for the magister to create a new sort of torture — but Mahanon was young and afraid and he missed his family. He missed his parents. Faelor must’ve missed somebody, too, because he took Mahanon under his wing.

They didn’t get many moments, but if Mahanon was stressed, Faelor was there. If Mahanon was hurt, Faelor was there. If Mahanon was scared, Faelor was there. He became some sort of pseudo-father to the Dalish boy, and Mahanon is sure that he probably filled a hole that belonged to a missing — possibly dead — child. He was the only consistent comfort in the prison they were trapped in, and Mahanon became attached.

Mahanon was seventeen, and his world almost ended again.

He can’t quite remember everything that occurred — and yes, it’s incredibly frustrating to have almost an entire half of your life wiped from your memory because of shitty situations — but it happened at a dinner party. Faelor was somehow exposed as a wielder of magic, and Mahanon and the other slaves had watched in horror as plates of food and full cups of wine were thrown to the floor carelessly in the shemlens’ haste to pull the man onto the table.

One of the guests had pulled her steak knife from her plate, and Mahanon moved his body as if he was throwing a punch.

A fist made of stone and the green glow of the fade shot past his head with a burst of golden light. The guest’s neck broke upon impact, and silence fell over the room as she slumped to the floor.

Flashes of lightning crackled from Faelor’s body to send the guests and the slave owner flying across the room, and chaos erupted. Some slaves grabbed knives, some grabbed broken planks of wood from the now destroyed table, and Mahanon felt a wave of power rush through his body as he raised his hands. Golden shields flashed to life around the slaves as blood began to splatter across the room. There was screaming and gurgling and flashes of fire and electricity, and Mahanon grabbed onto the fade and warped until green flared around the room to manifest hands that broke bodies into their individual pieces.

Mahanon let out a scream, and the veil tore open above his owner with a screech. A stone surrounded by fire blazed down to the man’s body, and the magister was crushed into the floorboards. The rip closed and Mahanon felt his body fall to the floor as cheers erupted around the room.

When the world came back into focus, he was on a bed in one of the guest rooms, and Faelor was holding a compress to his head. Mahanon had tried sitting up, but the older man gently pushed him back onto the bed.

“You hit your head when you fell,” he said quietly. A lick of light from a brazier in the hallway flickered over Mahanon’s face, and it felt like his head was about to blow up. After a moment, Faelor whispered, “What you did was foolish.”

“They were going to kill you,” Mahanon croaked, and Faelor sighed, looking down at the floor. 

“You’ve worked with Wisdom, but you are still untrained. I am old, and you have a life ahead of you.” Faelor paused, letting out a small hum. “Please do not think of me as unappreciative. I am grateful. We are grateful, but using your magic like that could have destroyed you.”

“I couldn’t watch you die.” Mahanon struggled to make eye contact as the world spun around him. Faelor brushed his hair from his face, and frowned. A cold cloth was wiped against his forehead and dragged down to his neck.

“Rest now, Mahanon. We cannot stay here long, and you need your strength.”

Faelor was right. The now freed slaves were only able to remain in the mansion for a week before other Tevinter nobles came knocking. The house was cleared that day, and most of the freed elves ran for the hills.

Mahanon, however, could only think about the other souls that were, at that very moment, trapped like he had been. Thoughts of those already enslaved and those forced into rusted cages on their way to Tevinter kept Mahanon up almost nightly, and his magic was going into overdrive with the restlessness that plagued him as a result. All of the small spells Mahanon used throughout the day barely skimmed the top of his reserves, and even Wisdom struggled to help him figure out what to do to keep his magic from consuming him. He’s still not really sure how he survived that period.

Faelor had a connection in Minrathous that worked with body modifications, and he put the young Dalish man in contact with her. It was overwhelming to figure out what specific changes he wanted made — just describing his wants as ‘more masculine’ wasn’t actually very useful — but he went with minimal changes to his face and body. It was the body that helped him escape hell; he didn’t want to get rid of it entirely. He left with sharper features, thicker eyebrows, and two distinct scars on his chest.

His almost-father had gone with him to the appointment, and when he came out of the surgical room, he’d been sitting with his head in his hands — clearly fast asleep. The procedure took just over nineteen hours, apparently, and the graying man had been sitting there the entire time. There was a sturdy pack sitting on a pile of newly made clothes on the chair next to him, and when he woke, he passed it gently to Mahanon.

“I have business in the city I need to deal with,” he had said. “I’ll see you later, okay?”

It was a lie, and Mahanon knew it as the words passed his lips. He wore the expression of a man in mourning — missing an almost-son that was still living and breathing in front of him. I love you, Mahanon wanted to say, but he couldn’t make himself choke it out; wouldn’t have been able to bear it if Faelor didn’t say the words back. They shared a brief hug instead — Faelor holding him so tightly that it took the breath out of his lungs — and the older man took a deep breath and stepped back.

“I’m proud of you,” he said, and then he was gone.

Mahanon hasn’t seen nor heard from him since, and none of his contacts have been able to find Faelor either. He hopes the older man is okay; hopes that if he passed, it was a peaceful event.

Mahanon was eighteen when he started attacking Tevinter traders, and he had been nineteen the first time it almost killed him. The sword that ran him through left a jagged scar on both halves of his body, and if there hadn’t been a spirit healer in the group of slaves he was helping, he would’ve bled out almost immediately. It didn’t stop him.

When he was twenty, he ran into a face he recognized from the dinner party, and she offered him a gift for starting the bloodbath it became. It was another ring. The band was an even darker shade of black than Faelor’s, and the rough cut of the opal on it muted the kaleidoscope of colors that made up the gem. It was perfect; no light could reflect off of the matte surface, and it had an illusion spell crafted into it.

He found an inordinate amount of joy when he first activated the enchantment during an attack. The look on the slaver’s face when halla horns sprung from the sides of his head was worth the stab wound he’d received as payment.

With the illusion, the legend of The Halla of Tevinter was created. Mahanon had to try extremely hard not to let it get to his head, and he had to try even harder to cover his face and distort the way his body looked. He wore a mask to cover the lower half of his face and did his best to keep a hood up over his head during battles. It didn’t work very often, so he took to scrubbing charcoal over his uncovered features. It was a mess, and it left him feeling gross, but his poor decisions made him a little too identifiable to risk being seen.

The constant fights that Mahanon threw himself into both helped and hurt his magic somehow. His skills improved greatly, and he was able to burn through his stores faster than they could attempt to overflow, but it also seemed to make it so his reserves filled up even faster than before. Wisdom’s only advice was to practice a lot while he wasn’t at actual rebellions to burn off the excess magic. She told him that she had to search the fade for more information before she could tell him anything; damn wisdom spirits and their inability to share theories until they have infinite proof to back them up.

Mahanon was twenty-three and thought everything in his life had finally settled down. His body is littered with scars; his chest, his limbs, his back, his legs. Even his hand has a large gash across the back of it, but he looks exactly how he wants to and takes pride in the marks he bears.

Most importantly, he’s free. He’s made an almost mythical name for himself helping slave rebellions, his magic only tries to kill him sometimes, and he has a daily rhythm that works out just fine for him. Who cares if his life is completely void of friends, acquaintances, or lovers — he’s a little too busy to care about that anyway.

Mahanon was twenty-four, out of breath, covered in blood, and about to fall over when his life decided to fall apart again. One of the elves from the rebellion he just helped walked up to him warily, and he was hoping it was to thank him because he could just tell he was going to hate what the other man said otherwise.

Of course, the elf asked him, “Halla, are you with the Inquisition?”

A heavy sigh followed a pregnant pause. “The who? ”

Chapter Text

As it turned out, it was taking more than a month for news of a cataclysmic event occurring on the same continent as Tevinter to reach its citizens.

More specifically, to reach the citizens who weren’t involved in a weird, blood magic wielding cult that worshipped somebody called The Elder One. They dubbed themselves the Venatori, and Mahanon had to laugh at how comically evil they were. If he didn’t, he definitely would’ve ended up crying

No steps forward and about three steps back for the general public’s opinion on the people of Tevinter. An acceptable citizen really needs to get popular at some point soon, or Thedas is going to wipe them off the map to avoid the creation of any more supervillains. Mahanon wouldn’t even blame them.

One would assume that the normal reaction to suddenly no longer being a slave is to flee to a random town in a nondescript countryside. Mahanon has had more than enough experience in that field to confirm that suspicion, and has spent literal years of his life building strong relationships with random farmers and blacksmiths in an attempt to obtain housing for those with regular responses to things of this nature. It felt good that he was able to point the lost souls in a somewhat useful direction at such a vulnerable point in their lives.

Most of the slaves he freed took up residence in Hasmal, and it wasn’t that bad of a trip. It went as followed:

Take the imperial highway — never step off of it, or you’ll die in the woods in some sort of unfortunate fashion. Walk through the Silent Plains and ignore the fact that nothing can grow there due to the first blight ravaging the land. Also, don’t think about the thousands of dead Grey Wardens buried beneath the never-ending sand — that wouldn’t be great for morale. When you hit the Minanter River, hook a left, and keep walking until you find a town full of what are clearly ex-slaves.

Ta-da! Congratulations on your newfound freedom. Listen to your fellow townspeople when they tell you to hide somewhere — slave hunters have probably started sniffing around that area — or you’ll get hauled back by Tevinter by your hair. Everything will blow over in about a week or two.

All of this changed, of course, when the Inquisition started to gain popularity. Suddenly, Hasmal was no longer the hot spot it used to be. Haven was where it’s at, and that walk is a bitch and a half. Here’s your updated itinerary:

Follow your previously easy path, but keep walking on the imperial highway when you find the river. When you hit Cumberland, take a left, and keep walking through the entirety of Orlais until you loop around Lake Celestine. Then, you get the lovely experience of walking the border of The Dales.

Mahanon can’t lie, sometimes he takes a bit of twisted pleasure in the idea of humans being forced to witness the devastation their kind brought to his ancestral home after being saved by a Dalish elf. They didn’t know — sans the times he had wardrobe malfunctions — but he did.

Moving on. Pass the Frostback Mountains, say hello to Orzammar, and be depressed about the fact you’ll never be able to visit. Use Gherlen’s Path until you hit Lake Calenhad, then take a right. Continue your lovely stroll until you hit a random large path leading to the right, then take a trek back into the mountains you were excited about avoiding.

Voila; you’re at Haven.

If you’re not one of the poor bastards who died from starvation, dehydration, hypothermia, hyperthermia, sickness, betrayal, murder, or a bear. As previously mentioned: it was a bitch and a half.

Mahanon tried his best to turn people off of that trek, but after two instances of groups insisting they had to get to the mountains despite the risks, he threw in half of his favors to set up an easier route. Let it be said: if there’s a genetic trait within the Lavellan clan, it’s an almost lethal amount of compassion. Mahanon’s choice in career is a great example of that.

Now, you got to walk through a dusty graveyard, try not to get sea sick as you take a boat from Cumberland to Jader, and start the previous grueling journey at Orzammar. It’s nice, and short, and it cuts about five months off of the previous itinerary. Mahanon drew a map about it and everything. He started carrying about ten copies to each rebellion that he attended.

Mahanon tried to continue his serial-killer-esque career as normal and added eliminating bloodthirsty cultists to his job description. There were problems that he was already attempting to solve in Tevinter, but with each self-assigned task, he heard more about the Inquisition. It was distracting.

At first, he didn’t care much for the alleged Herald of Andraste. What self-righteous, egotistical asshole would dub themselves something like that? The idea that they dropped physically from a fade rift gave Mahanon enough of a headache that he concluded that it had to be a lie, and the man decided that he had more important things to worry about.

If this Herald could actually do something about the massive hole in the sky above Thedas, then great, but he had local things to deal with. Traders to kill, people to save, cultists to terrify; you know, business as normal. He certainly couldn’t do anything about the demons deciding to take a day trip to the physical world, so there was no point in him panicking about it.

Two months after the breach, this Herald seemed to start becoming more of a person to the people of southern Thedas. Apparently, she was an elf. A Dalish elf, to be precise, and suddenly, Mahanon was conflicted about this Andraste business.

Did she decide to reject their gods and turn to the Chantry? It’s not unheard of, but even city elves keep the Pantheon in mind. Mahanon himself had disregarded the gods as deadbeat deities, but he didn’t necessarily believe that they were fake. He definitely didn’t believe in the Maker. Did the Herald?

Unfortunately, there was an influx of human and Qunari slaves at the time, so Mahanon wasn’t able to ask anybody about the supposed representative of Andraste. A lot of their opinions on Dalish elves boiled down to ‘feral knife ears,’ and Mahanon figured they wouldn’t have been the most reliable of sources.

Information about this strange elven woman never seemed to make its way to Tevinter through proper channels in the early days of the order, so Mahanon learned about the Herald’s support of mages through Venatori letters that a group left laying on their dining room table. It was kind of difficult to read them past the blood splattered on the pages, but apparently, the Herald decided to throw her lot in with his kind over the Templars. Mahanon took one look at the notes attached to the correspondences discussing time travel and lit them on fire.

It was an interesting decision from the vessel of the Maker in Mahanon’s eyes — especially considering there were whispers of Templars already having members within the Inquisition.

Everything seemed to kick up from there. All of Thedas heard of the Herald rising from the dead. Haven had been razed by this Elder One, and the Dalish woman had heroically sent the city to safety in a hidden passage while she faced the villain on her own. Days later, she ‘arrived unscathed by the blessings of the Maker himself.’

If the story was to be believed. Mahanon thought it was a crock of shit. It sounded like the deluded rantings and ravings of a manic devotee, so he didn’t give the stories much credit. Those who spread them didn’t so much as mention that the Herald was elven — and doesn’t that track with those who worship the Maker — and half of them said she was a man. Some crumb of truth had to be hiding there, though, because stories about the woman kept coming.

A Dalish woman was named the Inquisitor; unsurprising, in Mahanon’s opinion.

Then, the Inquisitor stopped an assassination attempt on Empress Celene and gave an elf the title of Marquis. That was surprising.

Then, the Grey Wardens fell to blood magic at the hands of the Elder One.

Then, the man turned darkspawn was revealed to be an ancient Tevinter magister. Corypheus, apparently — Mahanon can’t think of any name that could be more Tevene. Put another two steps back on the ‘Popularity of Tevinter’ tracker.

Then, the Inquisitor fought the Wardens at Adamant Fortress, physically entered the fade, physically left the fade again, and gave the Wardens a chance at redemption.

At that point, Mahanon was starting to believe that all of the stories he’d heard since the beginning of the Inquisition forming were at least a little bit true. Too much weird shit was piling on top of other weird shit consecutively.

The only normal gossip he heard about this woman was that she was dating the commander of her army, and honestly? Good for her. Mahanon had seen drawings of the man after the assassination attempt in some newspapers. You’d think there would be some of the Inquisitor or any of her other companions, but the citizens of the Tevinter Imperium were nothing if not obsessed with pretty things. Magpies — all of them.

A week after the battle at Adamant, Mahanon was asked if he was Fen’Harel.

He had assumed it was some sort of trauma response. It was a Dalish girl around sixteen years of age, and she had a stare that went straight through him. She was disoriented, Mahanon had reasoned, and scared. Who knows what questions Mahanon had asked in that forgotten period after his capture. Probably some that were equally as delusional as hers.

The Halla had been a legend that Mahanon had adopted for around four years at that point, and it had taken on a mythical quality by year two. It made sense for somebody young and terrified to associate the fantasy around his alter ego as some sort of ancientness, but the deity she chose was an interesting one. The charcoal that Mahanon had smeared across his forehead that day was still blocking out his skin, and his hood had stayed up the entire fight, so she couldn’t have based her opinion on his ‘vallaslin.’

It took two more rebellions before he was asked again — this time by a group. Again, he excused it as confusion caused by what they’d gone through. Maybe, they’d been held by the same trader as the girl, and they had collectively decided in a moment of mass hysteria that the Dread Wolf would be the one to save them? Maybe his hood had slipped a bit during the fight and he didn’t notice?

He was contemplating how he was going to get the stains out of his clothes at a third rebellion when a human walked up to him. He said in an Orlesian accent, “Fen’Harel, thank you.”

Saying that Mahanon got freaked out is an understatement. 

The man snuck into Minrathous the very next day to find something that would cover his face completely while he worked. A mask was out of the question — the one he had been using clearly wasn’t enough to block the lower half of his face, and his current cloak didn’t seem to be doing him any favors either. People had to somehow be seeing his forehead beneath the hood. His vallaslin is too distinct. Given the fact that he had wanted that when he created the design, he should’ve expected as much.

One of his contacts in the capital pointed him towards a back alley market, and while wandering down the stalls, one caught his attention. There were knives and swords and bows scattered across it. A few necklaces and rings that were clearly enchanted were on display as well. What pulled his curiosity, though, was a cloak.

The woman working behind the stand was frail with long, thick white hair that obscured most of her face. She held a large coat made of dark feathers around her body, and her eyes were wary when Mahanon approached. Oddly, they softened when he pushed his hood down and pulled the mask off of his face. That wasn’t the usual reaction to his markings.

“Has something caught your eye?” She asked in a whisper. Mahanon nodded, pointing towards the cape he’d noticed. It was made from a thick material that was black like the halla horns his ring manifested. Mahanon couldn’t identify the medium it was made of, though. It looked like fabric when the light of the surrounding torches hit it, but in the dark, it melded with the shadows like a dense leather would.

“I think I might like to look at this.” He made no move to touch it despite it being within reach, not wanting to be disrespectful. Something in him itched to grab it, though.

The woman’s amber eyes lit up, looking almost yellow as she said, “An interesting choice.”

“Interesting?” Mahanon had questioned. He could feel a calm magic radiating from the cloak, but he couldn’t identify the enchantment.

“Yes.” The woman did not clarify her meaning, instead continuing with, “That one has been waiting for its owner for quite a while now.”

Mahanon’s brows furrowed. “Nobody has shown interest in it?”

“I would say that it is more along the lines of it hasn’t been the one to show interest.”

The whole situation was weird. Mahanon could admit it at the time, and he’s still confused about the whole thing when he looks back on it.

“Are you going to elaborate on that? Probably not, right?”

“Correct,” the woman responded serenely, and Mahanon nodded. Of course not.

“How much is it?” He asked.

“How about a deal?” She didn’t look like a demon. She had no horns, no talons. Her energy was weird, but not necessarily bad. Still, Mahanon was wary.

“I don’t know about tha-”

“You,” the woman interrupted, “tread a precarious path in life. Will you hear my advice?”

There was a lull in the conversation as Mahanon attempted to find a trap in her wording. The woman waited. She didn’t show any signs of irritation as she watched him, but Mahanon still felt anxiety burst beneath his skin. Despite that, he still answered slowly, “I will listen if you wish to provide some.”

Her darkly painted lips twitched in amusement. “It is good that you are clever.” That did nothing to help alleviate Mahanon’s stress. “You have the potential to become salvation, but you may also bring ruin.” The woman said, “When the time comes, you will need to make a series of decisions.”

There’s another bout of silence until Mahanon prompted, “That’s the set up. What’s the advice?”

“Here is where I present my deal: take heed of my advice, and you may have the cloak.” Mahanon probably should’ve walked away, but there was something almost magnetic between him and the damn cape.

“What’s your advice?” The woman grinned as if Mahanon was a prized trophy she had caught in a hunt. The flickering light of the torches around them lit her in a hazy orange glow, and it looked as if she had grown in strength — thicker and less pale.

“Hesitate.”

“What?”

“Hesitate. You may still opt for whatever choice you prefer, but hesitate.”

“What-” Mahanon spluttered, “What the hell am I supposed to do with that? How am I going to know when these decisions are happening? I don’t exactly work in a field that lends itself to stalling.”

“You’re clever,” the woman repeated, still smiling. “Perhaps a little too strong-willed. I believe you will be able to figure it out.”

“That is incredibly unhelpful,” Mahanon had replied, and the woman let out a laugh.

“Yes,” she said, “but now you may claim your prize.” She motioned to the cloak, and Mahanon’s hand hovered above it. Magic licked at his palm.

“What does it do?” He asked.

“What you need it to.”

Mahanon nodded and sincerely hoped he didn’t just sell his soul or something. He looked in the woman’s eyes and said, “Thank you.”

“Quick, stubborn, and kind.” She said, “I think you will do just fine.”

Mahanon then grabbed the cloak, bowed his head, and walked back down the alley.

“Mahanon,” the woman called after him, and his blood froze in his veins. He wanted to turn to face her, but his body wouldn't respond to his commands. “When Inquisitor Lavellan calls, do answer quickly. I will give you this single hint: that is not one of the decisions.”

The elf couldn’t breathe. There were no overlapping Dalish clan names; the Inquisitor’s origins could not be traced back to anything besides his bloodline. He took a shuddering, angry breath in and readied himself to question the woman. He heard her laugh before the sound of violent wind overwhelmed him.

Mahanon was released from whatever held him, and he whipped around to face whoever — whatever — had been behind him, but the woman and her stall were no longer there. Mahanon half expected the cloak to have vanished as well when he looked down at his hands, but it was still there. The elf shakily shrugged out of his pack — the same one that Faelor had gifted him — put the cloak he had on into it, and slid on the new one.

The woman’s cryptic words had been right — it does exactly what he needs it to. When the hood is raised, a charm activates an illusion spell that shades his face and distorts his voice. When fire or electricity is thrown at him, the cloak is able to catch it for a short period of time. Once — and only once — it manifested an eerie blue barrier against his skin when a slaver got a lucky shot at his side.

The newer scars littered across Mahanon’s body prove that it didn’t like having to cast that one.

She had also been right about the Inquisitor. Mahanon does his best to avoid interrogating the slaves he helps. They’re dazed and confused, and asking questions usually only makes things worse. He had to make an exception, though, he had to know.

Inquisitor Lavellan, they had all confirmed. A Dalish woman with tanned skin and mismatched eyes. Some captured elves identified her vallaslin as belonging to Mythal. Unfortunately, the Lavellan clan is massive, and those traits didn’t narrow anything down. Half the women in the clan fit that description — heterochromia is a weirdly strong trait within his family. A look at his eyes can confirm that.

Ellana was set up perfectly to receive Andruil’s markings, too. They’ve been separated for over a decade now — closer to two if he rounded — but she’d always been a hunter. Mythal wouldn’t make sense.

Still, he couldn’t help but feel his stomach twist at the thought of Ellana being forced into the position of a holy savior. Despite everything, she had always been too soft. Too kind. The decisions that the Herald of Andraste had to make could break her; twist her into somebody unrecognizable. She, of all people, didn’t deserve that burden.

The Inquisitor — who he tried not to think about too often — continued to shape the world. Mahanon continued his work as The Halla, and became more distressed with every slave that decided he was Fen’Harel. It got to the point where he had to clarify after every battle that he was not, in fact, the Elvhen god of lies, treachery, and rebellion. 

Was it something in his voice that exposed that he was elven? The charm was supposed to prevent that. Was it his height? Did he need to start wearing heels to these damn fights?

It was only after supposed agents of Fen’Harel started helping with uprisings that he got a break from the title — once again recognized only as The Halla of Tevinter. While it was nice to get his true alias back, the fact that there was somebody going around claiming to be the Dread Wolf took precedence over any break he could allow himself.

Twice the amount of slaves were being freed; Mahanon couldn’t be mad about that. Most of them were finding a purpose with this supposed Dread Wolf, and Mahanon was a little mad about that. It would be a significant issue if not for the fact that all they did was help free more people.

His problem with it is that those freed slaves might feel as if they owe something to whoever was masquerading as an ancient elven god.

It’s a fine line that one must walk when dealing out freedom to those that didn’t previously have it. Mahanon took on an alias and works alone because of this. If he were to start a team, he risks people putting their lives on the line in his name. Each time somebody asks how they can help him after being set free, Mahanon pities the Inquisitor just a little more.

The Inquisitor who apparently went to a temple of Mythal, recruited a dragon, and used that dragon to fight another dragon? Everything she does is weird, and ever since he learned she’s a Lavellan clan member, everything she does stresses him the hell out.

It took a month for news of the manifestation of the breach over Thedas to reach Tevinter. It takes days for news of its sealing to arrive. Despite the fact that almost nobody did anything to help, there were mass celebrations. Mahanon did hear of an Altus of House Pavis vanishing and then being seen at the Inquisitor’s side, though, so maybe one citizen of Tevinter could celebrate without hypocrisy.

There was peace in Thedas for a moment. At least, outside of Tevinter. Mahanon was still raising hell and pretending that there weren’t more people claiming to work with his people’s god of treachery every day. At least they were emphasizing the rebellion aspect of Fen’Harel’s name. It made his workload significantly lighter, and he now only had to say that he doesn’t work with or for the god instead of having to argue that he isn’t the man himself. 

Mahanon isn’t sure why nobody was taking his answer at face value. The Dread Wolf is the god of lies, but Mahanon is notably a Halla. The two, historically, don’t get along very well.

The world blows up again when Inquisitor Lavellan loses her arm and formally disbands her order. Mahanon hears she threw a book, and is vaguely proud of whatever Lavellan member decided to do that. He isn’t able to think about it for very long, though, because:

Surprise! The ancient elven god of lies was not lying. He's actually very real, and he's trying to end the world as it’s currently known!

Thinking of all of the slaves that decided to commit to working with him makes something cold attempt to creep over Mahanon’s heart and lungs. It’s even harder to breathe when Mahanon wonders if he’d already come face to face with the man. It’s not impossible that he was pretending to be one of his agents at some point.

He’s never actually wanted to meet his patron.

Mahanon is twenty-six, and a man that he doesn’t recognize is trying to get his attention on a random street in Minrathous. He should’ve known better than to come back to this damn city.

“Halla! Please wait!” The voice is breathless, and its owner sounds distressed enough that Mahanon makes the mistake of pausing.

He’s still in his cloak and horns and covered in blood, so he can only stare in bewilderment at the random elf as he runs to catch up to Mahanon. The man hunches over, breathing heavily. Looking at where he came from, it was clearly an uphill jog — poor bastard.

“Yes?” Mahanon asks, five voices layering on top of each other to hide his.

“This is for you.” There’s a letter held up between them, and a rattling cough escapes the other elf as Mahanon eyes it.

“Do you need to sit down?” He asks, and the other man nods, all but falling onto the ground. It’s directly into a pile of mud, but he doesn’t seem to care.

“Please, I come all the way from The Dales. Inquisitor Lavellan requests your aid.” Mahanon flinches at the name, but the other man doesn’t comment on it. “We need help.”

Mahanon looks around for something to wipe his hands on, and when the man offers the coat off of his back, he knows that this is a desperate call. He takes the note from the exhausted man, and he appreciates the elf ignoring the shakiness of his hands. Unfolding it, he stares at the signature at the bottom in horror.

To the Halla of Tevinter,

I am reaching out with a call for aid. I know the importance of your job in your country, and would not write to you if this was not a dire situation. I have heard greatly of your abilities and hope that you are willing to ally yourself with us.

Fen’Harel has awoken from a slumber and returns to the world with the intent of destroying the veil. I will elaborate more on the situation if you are able to help us.

As of now, I can inform you that Fen’Harel has plans that require large amounts of lyrium, and that he has found a sizable deposit near Nessam. It is under guard until he is able to collect it. The courier of this message will be able to provide more information as to when we plan to raid the deposit.

If you are able to provide assistance, please accept this invitation to our closest base. I hope that we may meet soon.

- Ellana Lavellan

“I was ambushed on the way here,” the man wheezes. “If you’ll help, we need to leave now. They’re moving in two days.”

Mahanon’s response is whispered.

“Fuck.”

Chapter Text

Mahanon can feel the weight of the courier’s desperation as he reads the letter for probably the tenth time.

The other man has been resting on the ground for more than five minutes now, and his chest is still heaving as if he’s fighting off suffocation. With every passing second, the man’s desperation presses down on Mahanon with greater effort.

Midway through his eleventh attempt to read the note, Mahanon’s attention is pulled back to the courier when he wheezes out, “Please.”

“Two days?” Mahanon questions, and the layering of his voice doesn’t do enough to hide the panic within it. He coughs in an attempt to smother it. “Can we even make it to this camp in two days?”

The other man shakes his head, and Mahanon’s heart drops to his stomach. His fingers are beginning to numb when the courier says, “No, but I know where the lyrium deposit is. If we go straight there, we should be able to make it just as the Inquisitor- Um. As Lavellan starts her ambush.”

Mahanon nods slowly, and the canvas pack he hikes up feels like it’s full of stones. “I need to collect my things.”

“I’ll help!” The other elf is on his feet before Mahanon can even blink, and he feels bad when his free hand instinctively twitches towards the closest dagger. The other elf almost manages to hide his flinch.

“Who are you, exactly?” The pale elf’s freckles vanish as he flushes a bright red.

“Yes! Yes, I’m terribly sorry. I’ve completely forgotten my manners!” The man almost gives Mahanon a salute, but he catches himself and moves to put his hand through his tangled auburn hair instead. He catches sight of said hand when it’s inches from his head, and he makes a disgusted face at the mud covering it before wiping it on his freshly bloodstained coat. He clears his throat awkwardly. “Revas Cadigan, at your service!”

“Your parents named a city elf ‘Freedom?’” Mahanon asks as he steps carefully around the courier. The other elf stumbles in his excitement to follow.

He sounds embarrassed when he responds. “Ah, yes. I suppose so.” When Mahanon looks back, Revas’ face is scrunched. “I believe I’m named after some great grandparent.”

Mahanon takes a turn down a side street and steps over a large crack in the pavement. Revas doesn’t seem to see it in his haste, and the city elf likely would’ve cracked at least half of his teeth if Mahanon didn’t grab his arm and yank him upright. He releases the man quickly.

“How did you survive a trip from the Dales?” Orlais is composed entirely of roots and ice and hidden rocks — almost none of it is traveller-friendly — so why isn’t Revas bruised to hell?

“Most of my travel companions were hallas. Or nugs,” Revas explains, “and I’m quite proficient with traps. And running.”

“Uh huh. But not walking?” A decorated Tevinter guard steps past the alley they’re walking down, so Mahanon turns in the direction of a different ladder.

“I mean absolutely no offense, but you are quite an, uh,” Revas begins to turn red again as he squeaks out, “imposing? Figure? My balance doesn’t fare well when I’m nervous, I fear.”

Mahanon looks at the towering buildings surrounding them and thinks of his caches resting on their roofs. Great.

He motions reluctantly to the ladder he was looking for and allows the city elf to climb it first. If Revas falls, Mahanon could probably catch him. He looks pretty scrawny; he can’t be that heavy. Silence hangs between the two elves until they reach the roof, and Mahanon decides to respond to Revas’ admission with, “I see.”

He needs to remove his hood and horns; he knows that, okay? Walking around Minrathous with his illusions up essentially puts a bright red arrow over his head for slavers to follow in an attempt to get the jump on him. The guards in this city aren’t exactly his biggest fans, either. They’d fail in ambushing him, of course, but Mahanon doesn’t actually believe in Revas’ running abilities — let alone his ability to jump across roofs. The guy can’t even walk safely, and it doesn’t seem to be a new habit considering the left crook his nose has from clearly being broken in the past.

Showing his face feels wrong, though, in an almost indescribable way.

It’s similar to the feeling of walking out into the streets of Minrathous in nothing but socks; of attending a funeral dressed in a frilly, hot pink outfit; of dumping the bloody guts of hundreds of fish into the Nocen Sea where the predators swim and jumping into the dead center of the gore. In all of his years working as a shady agent of freedom, Mahanon has done his best to make himself unrecognizable — even before he got the cloak.

He put up with the almost daily burn of dirty coal dripping down his forehead and directly into his eyes. He suffered through suffocating himself with a mask three sizes too small to guarantee that the lower half of his face remained covered. He put pins through his hood and into his roughly chopped hair and dealt with them trying to tear off clumps of his scalp with every single one of his battles. Creators above, he put in shitty, painful contacts to make his mismatched eyes a dark shade of purple just so nobody could track the heterochromia back to him during the very few times he decided to go out without being the Halla. It’s been miserable, and now he has to just casually undo all of the work he’s put into being anonymous.

Can anybody really blame him for waiting until the last second to take everything down? Mahanon would argue a strong no.

They only have to step between a couple of flat roofs to find Mahanon’s cache. There are quite a few in the city; there are quite a few in every city, if Mahanon is being honest. He’s nothing if not prepared to flee at any given moment from every neighborhood in the Tevinter Imperium. Slavers like to run him out of towns; it’s an annoying aspect of his career. The cache he’s taken them to is his largest one, though, and in the most scenic spot in Minrathous.

At night, the city is almost a constellation. Soft reds and warm yellows light up the stained glass, arching windows of the gothic buildings that make up each neighborhood. The street lights that line the cobblestone roads burn a vibrant orange that cuts through the black chimney smoke rising from the dark steepled roofs below them. Pointed iron fences with curling designs burned into the metal surround balconies and patios, and the fluorescent lights of spells crackle sporadically throughout random buildings and alleyways. Even the Archon’s Palace — lit up with an almost peaceful shade of blue — looks beautiful where it hovers above the city.

Mahanon takes it in silently — half memorizing the view before he abandons it and half prolonging the inevitable exposure of his face. Revas breaks the tranquility of the moment, quietly asking, “Are you alright?” Mahanon can hear his hair shift against his coat as the other man rubs at the back of his head.

“Yeah. Sorry.” Mahanon crouches down to empty out the cache and carefully organize his pack. Faelor’s gifts have held up well over the years. The black canvas of the bag refuses to stain, and there are pouches made for different types of items. For example, there’s a large pouch for clothes and smaller weapons, there’s a medium sized pouch for random items, and there are pouches made specifically to hold potions, ingredients to make them, food, and a waterskin. There’s even a few slits on the outside to put weapons into.

Mahanon doesn’t like to think about what it cost Faelor to get this and how easily he gave it away. The dark ring on his finger continues to shine as if new.

He finishes placing everything into his pack and just stares at it. A whole minute passes as he tries to get himself to shove the hood down, and he can hear Revas fidgeting behind him the entire time. The other elf clears his throat awkwardly. Mahanon takes a deep breath, and he huffs it out as he shoves down the hood of his cloak like he’s ripping out a splinter. He twists the opal of his ring to break the illusion of the horns, and he can feel his vallaslin burning on his face as he stares at the ground.

It takes another two minutes for him to turn around. When he faces Revas, the man’s mouth drops open slightly, and his eyes widen. “You look, uh, not quite how I expected you to,” the city elf stammers. “That isn’t a vallaslin I believe I’ve seen before. Is it just, um, uncommon? I really am not well versed with the Dalish people and their traditions; my apologies!”

“You haven’t seen it before,” Mahanon reassures. He then narrows his eyes as he rises to his feet. “Wait, how did you expect me to look?”

“Human,” Revas squeaks, and Mahanon’s brows furrow.

“I’m short. I considered wearing heels.”

“I thought you were a very small human.” Revas folds his hands in front of him defensively, and a thumb taps the other hand nervously.

“Oh.” Mahanon keeps buckets next to every one of his caches to collect rainwater, and he’s suddenly grateful for the storm that attempted to drown him two days ago. The bucket is nearly full, and he grabs the rag out of it to wash down his armor quickly. He wipes the blood from his face, and Revas looks like he’s on the verge of tears when Mahanon offers him the cloth after.

“I don’t wish to offend.” When Revas takes the rag, he does so carefully — as if Mahanon is going to bite his hand when it’s within reach.

“No, you’re fine. It’s kind of funny.”

Some of the embarrassed flush leaves Revas’ face as he sighs, “I am glad you’re amused, then. If you would be so kind as to take us back to the ground, I can lead us in our trek to the lyrium deposit.” The city elf hesitates. “You are giving us your aid, yes?”

“I’m giving you my aid,” Mahanon says dryly, and Revas nods to himself with a relieved huff of breath. “Come on; we’re going this way. Please try not to fall off of a building. I can probably use a barrier to blast you back up here, but you might break something.”

“Blast with a barrier?” Mahanon isn’t meant to hear the man whispering to himself, so he ignores the question in favor of leading them across rooftops. His specialization is old. Considering he’s a Dalish elf and even he didn’t know about the existence of most of the spells Wisdom taught him, he can’t imagine Revas has any chance of recognizing the way he uses his magic.

She was alive for the peak of Arlathan, and while she refused to tell him anything about his ancestors — some knowledge isn’t meant to be shared, Mahanon, just known — it was the magic she was most comfortable teaching him. A lot of the elemental magic he now knows, Mahanon had to teach himself. It was a recent decision — within the last two years — and his only option for growth, because Wisdom mysteriously went missing.

Missing, he told himself, knowing it was a lie. Not gone. She can’t be gone. Please, not her, too.

His point is, a lot of the spells he knows aren’t taught by living beings anymore. Now that he thinks about it, maybe people’s assumptions that he was Fen’Harel weren’t so out of left field.

Revas is almost matching his green eyes when his feet touch the dirt road of a back alley again, and Mahanon thinks he hears the man shoot a thankful prayer up to the Creators. It’s a bold move, considering one of them has already come back. Mahanon would prefer that Fen’Harel be the only Elvhen god to return, thank you very much. Considering this one is already trying to end the world, he doesn’t have much faith in the others.

The panic that leaked off of Revas upon their meeting had been enough to convince Mahanon of the severity of this mission he’d been summoned to. The man was terrified nearly to the point of a heart attack, so Mahanon doesn’t understand how the gravity of the situation sinks in only when they hit the fifth stable that Ellana had set up some sort of deal with. They’d been traveling for an entire day — having ridden straight through the night — when the reins of the black Amaranthine charger Mahanon had been astride were traded for those of a striped Frostback Mountain horse.

The horses they’ve been riding were pushed through galloping the entire distance between each of their stops, and Mahanon was starting to wilt. Being able to see Weisshaupt in the distance only twenty four hours after being in the heart of Tevinter was a jarring experience. Allegedly, they’ve covered more than half the distance to the lyrium deposit, but just barely. Mahanon is terrified they’re not going to make it on time.

Revas slips the stablemaster a bag of coins, and smiles brightly at Mahanon as he starts riding ahead of him. The Dalish man spurs his horse into action, and is a few feet from the city elf when he says, “You need to rest.”

Mahanon throws a baffled look at the back of Revas’ head. “There’s no way we can stop and set up camp. We’re barely making it as it is.” The other man nods.

“Yes, but I’m able to tether these horses together! The Inqui- by the gods! Lavellan! Lavellan paid extra to make sure that I could.” Revas throws a hand over his eyes, and Mahanon squints his eyes at the rising sun.

“You’ll never break that habit.”

“The-” Revas cuts himself off again with an attempt at a growl. It was a cute try, but was about as vicious as a rabbit thumping at somebody. “Lavellan has made it quite clear that she is no longer the head of a religious order.”

“Unfortunately for her, she’s never going to drop that title.” Revas throws a confused look his way. “If I dropped my hood and let everybody see my face at uprisings, do you think I would ever escape being The Halla? That everybody would let it go if I demanded to be called Mahanon?”

“Perhaps if you worked quite hard on it?” Mahanon snorts at the response.

“The most Ellana will be able to drop is the title of ‘Herald,’ and that’ll still take years. Once something takes on a mystical quality, you’re shit out of luck and stuck with it for the rest of your life.” Mahanon ignores the sideways glance that Revas sends him at the use of his Ellana’s name.

“You seem displeased.” The city elf slows down so he’s next to Mahanon, and begins tying their horses together.

Mahanon lets out a breath and tilts his head back to face the sun. “No,” he says, “just tired.”

They ride in silence for at least ten minutes before Revas asks him, “How old were you?”

“Hm?”

“When you started this hero business?”

“Eighteen.”

Another moment of silence.

“And how old are you now?”

“Twenty-six.”

Revas doesn’t respond to that, instead handing Mahanon some sort of dark purple concoction. “This will help you sleep. Can I trust you not to fall off?” Mahanon makes a show of thinking about it, then downs the potion.

—

It knocks him on his ass. The man doesn’t even remember falling asleep, but when Mahanon wakes up, it’s already dark out again. He’s surrounded by thick trees on every side that block out most of the moonlight, and he isn’t even on the same horse? Somehow, there’s still sand in his shirt.

“Oh, good! Welcome back!” Revas kindly doesn’t comment on the absolutely delirious look that Mahanon sends his way. The bags under the city elf’s eyes could pack up an entire Dalish camp. “Please eat something. We’re less than an hour out from the deposit.”

“That close?” Mahanon croaks, taking the jerky that’s offered to him. He rubs at his eyes as he tries to count up the amount that he’s slept. He’s unsuccessful. “How long was I out?”

“Oh, about eighteen hours.” Mahanon’s half-lidded eyes snap open.

“Eighteen hours?” He hisses.

“Give or take.” Revas says calmly. “It’s been a while since you’ve had a good rest, I assume?”

“Something like that.” Mahanon would hazard that it’s been over two weeks, but who’s counting? He shakes his head in an attempt to reorient himself. “What was that?”

“I’m not quite sure what the potion was made out of, but it’s intended to force the body to rest until completely recharged. I was beginning to get concerned you wouldn’t wake up in time.”

“You’ve been concerned.” Mahanon counters. His voice is raspy, so he takes a drink from his waterskin.

“I’ve been panicking for around three hours now.” Revas confirms. “It’s been horrible.”

“Wait, you said an hour?”

“Less than. It’s unwise to move quickly through forests — what with the roots and random rocks —  but I saw some flashes near our destination. I’m worried that something has gone astray.”

With that, Mahanon is fully awake. He shoves the rest of the food into his mouth and grabs each of his daggers to inspect them. They’re battle ready, as always, but it never hurts to check, and Mahanon is anxious. He takes his healing potions from his pack and shoves them into his belt compartments. “What are you going to do? You’re in no state to fight. Can you fight?”

“Oh, absolutely not. I would likely manage to grievously injure myself before an enemy even approached. I will head to our camp." Revas sends him a small grin. “It has been quite a pleasure traveling with you.”

“It’s because I’ve been asleep for half of it.” Mahanon mumbles, and Revas laughs. It becomes strained when there’s another flash off in the distance.

They ride in silence, and when Mahanon slides off his horse, he can hear the sound of fighting. There are explosions sounding off that shake the ground, and dread settles in Mahanon’s stomach next to the nausea-inducing beginnings of adrenaline. They don’t exchange words, but Revas gives Mahanon a shaky smile and a nod before he sets off in the direction of the Inquisition camp. Mahanon’s horse trails after him.

With his hood up and his horns equipped, Mahanon moves in. He crests a hill, and the battle is laid out before him. The vein of lyrium is massive, and it glows eerily as the light of the moon fractures off of it. The fight is lit up in hues of orange and yellow as fire blazes where explosions were set off, and torches line the surrounding area. Another explosion erupts, and Mahanon can see a large chunk of lyrium combust next to it.

They’re destroying the lyrium, Mahanon realizes. Something has gone wrong, and they pivoted from looting the material to making sure Fen’Harel can’t collect it.

An arrow flies down from Mahanon’s left and another explosion destroys some of the vein. Tracing its path, Mahanon finds a dwarf holding a crossbow. His hair is a dark ginger bordering on brown, and stark strands of grey streak through it. A fur lined coat does little to hide an almost completely unbuttoned red shirt, and a gold chain holds a circular band that rests in the middle of his very exposed chest. It’s like the man has drawn a target of exactly where his enemies should aim.

His voice is gravelly when he shouts out, “One more for me!” Mahanon thinks it’s to the elf with manically cut blonde hair that’s barely in range to hear him. A hooded agent of Fen’Harel silently emerges from the shadows behind the dwarf, and they carefully step around his trap with a dull wooden mace raised.

Mahanon reveals himself with the manifestation of a stone fist that thunders past him in a flash of gold. It cracks into the chest of the Dread Wolf’s agent, and they go flying directly into the corner of a mining crate. The dwarf whips around with a raised crossbow as the agent slumps against the wood, and Mahanon raises his hands in a surrendering position.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Mahanon says brightly, “but to be fair, you guys started the party without me. How rude.”

Chapter Text

“Andraste’s tits, I almost blew your head off!” The dwarf lowers his bow and drags a hand through his hair to get rid of the stray strands that fell onto his face. He lets out a huff and then drags said hand down his face, eyeing Mahanon with an unimpressed expression.

“If it makes you feel any better, the arrow wouldn't have landed?” It somehow comes out as a question, and the other man groans.

“What is with you hero types and unnecessary danger?”

“You barely have a shirt on,” Mahanon deadpans.

The dwarf opens his mouth, furrows his eyebrows, tilts his head, and then concedes his point with a shrug. “Touché. I’ll take a shot in the dark and guess that you’re The Halla?”

“What gave it away?” Mahanon asks, and the other man shakes his head. A grin tugs at the corners of his lips.

The dwarf gives a dramatic bow. “Varric Tethras, at your service. I was getting worried that you weren’t planning on showing up.” Right — Mahanon had heard somewhere that the Viscount of Kirkwall had joined Ellana again when Fen’Harel emerged from wherever he’d been hiding.

“Revas didn’t find me until two days ago.” Mahanon hangs his head dramatically and manifests a golden barrier around them. Incoming arrows bounce off of it. “You guys started without me. I feel a little left out.”

“We’re trying to end this early, too.” Varric is eyeing his barrier warily. “You’re in luck, though. The fun hasn’t stopped yet. Where’s your staff?”

“I don’t use one.”

“Huh. I don’t think I’ve seen that before.”

“Probably not. I like to be special — it really adds to my mystique, you know?” The dwarf snorts in response. “Where do you need me?”

Varric raises his crossbow to motion to the middle of the fight. “You see that big guy fighting our big guy?” Mahanon assumes that ‘our big guy’ is the massive Qunari warrior, and he does, in fact, see the towering elf attempting to hack him in half with a greatsword.

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah. They built them bigger back in the day, apparently.” The adrenaline building in his body is making his hands shake; Mahanon takes a deep breath in an attempt to calm it down. It doesn't really work.

“When you say back in the day, how far back are we talking?” Mahanon asks.

“Oh, not too far.” Varric says, “Just far enough back that pretentious, immortal elves were roaming Thedas.”

“Lovely.” The word sounds like it was choked out of him, so Mahanon clears his throat. “What’s the plan? Why am I looking at the giants?”

Varric’s eyes flicker across the deposit, and he shows Mahanon a weirdly shaped arrow. “We’re working on blowing up the lyrium with these. It’s too much for us to bring back, and intel says that we’ve got people coming to collect today.”

“And I’m sure that word is getting back to them that their lyrium is getting blown to shit.”

“Yeah. Which means that we have to get the hell out of here. Our big guy is the Iron Bull, and we need him to finish setting up explosives. If we get everything set up right, we can cause a chain reaction.”

“But he’s busy.” Mahanon says, grimacing as he watches the Qunari man — the Iron Bull, apparently — barely manage to avoid a wide swing from the elf’s blade.

“But he’s busy, yeah. Can you do,” Varric waves his hand in front of him haphazardly, “whatever it is that you do and take the heat off of him?”

The shouts and screeches of metal begin to fade into a quiet hum as Mahanon focuses on his target, and he takes a quick glance around the battlefield. There’s-

There’s no blood? Or bodies? He turns to look at the agent of Fen’Harel again and takes note of her choice in weapon with greater detail. “This isn’t a lethal battle?”

Varric shakes his head. “Firefly said no deaths. I’m not sure that our friends here got the same memo.” It looks like they did, is the thing. That elf slumped off to the side is clearly a skilled rogue, but they didn’t bring a blade. They brought a bludgeoning weapon. The army of the Dread Wolf is fighting viciously, but none of the agents on the field are bleeding out.

Mahanon has heard of the lengths that Fen’Harel has already gone to in an attempt to secure his victory. The Dalish man keeps Faelor’s ring equipped most nights no longer to avoid demons, but to avoid the god himself. He’s killed mages in their dreams, but this battle is where he draws the line for bloodshed? That makes no sense. What’s different?

Of course, the only people that really seem out for blood are the two Mahanon is supposed to be rushing to right now. “Right. Okay.” Varric frowns, and Mahanon brushes imaginary dust off of his cloak. “I’ll go do whatever it is that I do, then. I would greatly appreciate a warning before you decide to set everything on fire.”

“We’ll get you out; don’t worry.” Varric grins at him. “I’m not sure exactly how, but you’ll be safe and sound. Promise.”

“How comforting.”

“What can I say? It’s what I do best. Do I need to wish you luck?”

“I hope not. Find some cover; I’m taking my barrier with me.” There’s probably a small mountain of arrows at the foot of it at this point. Mahanon’s skin has been prickling uncomfortably this entire conversation.

“Will do.” Varric heads towards a nearby tree. “Have fun out there.”

There’s no way to reach the two towering combatants except straight through the fight, so Mahanon takes a calming breath before he steps off of the small cliff Varric hid himself on. It takes three consecutive fade steps to reach the ancient elf, but Mahanon goes right to cutting a clean stripe through his side when he arrives in a flash of gold. The man lets out a roar and pivots the swipe he was aiming at the Iron Bull. Mahanon yanks his head back to avoid being decapitated as the Qunari warrior slams his foot down on the ancient elf’s knee.

“You’re late!” He yells. The haft of his great axe almost snaps when it catches the brunt of a swipe that was aimed at his abdomen. The Qunari slams his shoulder into the elf, and the agent of Fen’Harel stumbles back a few paces.

“And your replacement!” Mahanon warps the fade above the elf to manifest an abyss. He stabs into the ground and plants his feet to avoid the pull. “Get your shit set!”

The Iron Bull charges past him, and the ancient elf’s eyes snap to Mahanon viciously. He has to fade step again as the other man attempts to run him through.

“Ir emah’la shal!” The towering elf snarls, and Mahanon parries the large blade when it lunges at his chest. It knocks the wind out of him, but he learned years ago how to stay on his feet despite the forceful lack of air. The Dalish man kicks out at his counterpart’s chest, and he’s forced to fade step again when his leg is caught. He can feel the other elf’s blade slice a line through his lip before he evades, and the taste of copper fills his mouth. I will kill you! How unoriginal.

“Banal nadas, Hahren!” Not necessarily. Hopefully. The use of Elvhen throws the ancient being off. Mahanon would regret revealing he speaks the language, but it gave him an opening to cut at the back of his opponent’s knee. The elf almost goes down, but he catches himself with his sword. He swats at the wound and pale blue crackles around it as healing magic takes effect. Shit.

Mahanon forms a barrier around himself that he blows up immediately, and the other elf goes flying backwards. He rolls to land on his feet, and the ancient elf has a feral grin when he stands.

“Ahn mar melin?” There’s blood on his opponent’s teeth when he asks for his name, but the lunge Mahanon is expecting isn’t coming. His anxiety rises with every moment that his counterpart doesn’t make a move.

“The Halla.” Mahanon responds slowly, unsure of the point of this sudden conversation. His hair stands on end as the other elf seems to reevaluate him now that there’s distance. There’s no chance that his opponent feels the same way as Mahanon searches for weak points, but it doesn’t hurt to have wishful thinking. Usually.

“I am Ellanis.” One who has the ability to do anything. Mahanon eyes the greatsword, the daggers, and the magic mending the other man’s wounds. “And you are far too sharp to be a gentle greeter.”

“Would it be too much to ask that you not live up to your name?” Blood has begun leaking onto his shirt from the wound on his lip. Something that looks almost like amusement dances in Ellanis’ eyes.

The shade of yellow looks vaguely familiar when the elf responds, “Vin.” Yes. Mahanon throws up a barrier just before a crack of shimmering blue lightning attempts to fry him. His teeth tingle, and the Dalish man appreciates that his hood blocks the disgusted face he makes. “Why were you summoned?” Ellanis asks, and the disgusted face turns into one of bafflement.

“For aid.” He says, and tries not to phrase it as a question.

“Why you?”

“I feel,” Mahanon narrows his eyes, “like that's something you’re supposed to figure out. Why have you stopped attacking?” It’s not that Mahanon necessarily wants Ellanis to keep trying to kill him, but this whole situation is weird.

Agents of Fen’Harel continue fighting the Inquisition behind him. The sound of footsteps approaches from behind him, and Mahanon readies a retaliatory strike, but whoever it is turns to lunge off to the side instead. It is abruptly obvious that none of the Dread Wolf’s agents have attempted to turn their blades on him. Ellanis’ eyes track them as they pass behind the Dalish man. Because he’s figuring it out, Mahanon realizes.

He doesn’t have time to think about what specifically Ellanis might be figuring out or how he can try to obscure it. A high pitched whine sounds out across the field, and Ellanis lets out a vicious, “Fenedhis.” He fade steps behind Mahanon, and the Dalish man throws a barrier up to block the cheap shot Ellanis throws at his back before he disappears into the crowd behind him. Mahanon slams back a healing potion the second Ellanis is out of sight.

Members of the disbanded Inquisition are retreating as explosions begin to sound off, and Mahanon starts running as well as they begin to approach him. He’s injured, though, and while he did sleep, his mana reserves were sapped almost to empty two days ago and haven’t recovered yet. It becomes a genuine concern that he’s going to be blown into pieces when a deep voice calls out, “Loosen up, Halla!”

Mahanon catches a glimpse of the Iron Bull only seconds before an arm wraps around his middle and he’s pulled up into the air. Some sort of gem shatters over him, and the world warps around him, folds in, and then explodes back out. There’s a white glow around the Iron Bull, and he was hauling ass before, but now the world whips past Mahanon in a blur of colors. They enter the treeline and are probably almost a mile into the woods when he’s put down.

“What the fuck was that?” Mahanon asks, and his new companion lets out a loud laugh.

“Get’s your blood going, doesn’t it?”

“More like my stomach.” Mahanon glances up at the Iron Bull and stubbornly ignores how that makes the world shake around him. “Thanks for the rescue. Are all of you always this underdressed for fights?”

“Only the dangerous ones.” The Iron Bull has a wicked grin on his face, and gives Mahanon a strong pat on the back to get him moving again. He walks next to the elf, his covered eye on the opposite side. “Gotta give the people something to appreciate. Boost the morale a little bit.”

“Right.” Mahanon’s lip stings, and he scrunches his nose as he’s still forced to suffer the taste of blood.

“You injured?” The Iron Bull asks, and Mahanon eyes him warily.

“Just a cut,” he responds, and the Iron Bull slows as he reaches into the pouch at his side. Mahanon tenses, but the other man pulls out a rag and a jar full of some sort of green paste.

“I can smell the blood,” the Iron Bull clarifies, “and I’m sure you don’t want your introduction to start with me carrying you to a cot. This should speed up the healing before the blood loss catches up.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

“Sure.” The Iron Bull shrugs, and Mahanon follows as he adjusts their path slightly to the right. They come across a small stream, and the taller man pauses as Mahanon bends down to dampen the rag. “You’re shorter than I thought you were gonna be.”

“Thanks,” Mahanon repeats; much more dry this time. The Iron Bull chuckles as the elf washes the blood away from his wound before smearing paste from the jar across his lip. It tastes almost as bad as the blood — herbaceous and sour. “I’ve been getting that a lot recently.”

The Iron Bull takes the jar back from Mahanon, but grabs the hand holding the rag and pushes it to Mahanon’s face. The elf’s eyes widen and he almost falls backwards, but the Qunari releases his wrist and motions to his hidden face. His eye has narrowed just slightly as he seems to reassess the Dalish man. “Put pressure on it. The salve helps, but it won’t work that quickly.”

“Right.” Mahanon follows the instruction and clears his throat with a slightly strangled cough. A life of constantly almost dying consists of a lack of almost any socialization, and Mahanon isn’t sure when the last time he’d actually made physical contact with somebody was. Besides when he was killing them, that is, but that probably doesn’t count.

They continue their trek in silence before the Iron Bull breaks it. “I’m Bull. Figured you were told, but thought, ‘Hey, the kid took on someone twice their size for me, I should actually tell them my name.’”

“Kid?” Mahanon’s brows furrow. “How old do you think I am? Also he wasn’t twice my size.”

“Dunno. Hard to tell, but with the shit you pulled, you’ve gotta be young.” Bull eyes him. “Pretty good work, for a ‘Vint.”

“I’m not native.” Mahanon has to put effort into getting the displeased expression off of his face. “And I’m twenty-six.”

“So a kid.” Mahanon lets out an offended noise. If being in your mid twenties made you a kid, Mahanon would very much like his body to catch onto that fact. He hurts.

“I’m not a- How old are you?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“That would be why I asked.”

Bull lets out another loud laugh. “You’re spicy. I think you’ll get along with us just fine.”

Mahanon is abruptly confronted with the fact that he’s going to actually be living with Bull for an undetermined amount of time. Actually, with a lot of people. He’s going to have to be a real person for the first time in a long time. A very long time. For the first time in eight years. His face has to be out and everything. Bull is mercifully silent while Mahanon goes through his crisis.

“My name is Mahanon.” Saying it feels weird. His hands hover over his hood as he tries to force himself to take it down.

“You need help with that, Mahanon?” 

“May-” Bull grabs the back of the hood and shoves it down, and Mahanon is too disoriented to bat away Bull’s hand when he ruffles his hair. He can almost feel the weight of the Qunari man’s eyes — eye? — when he takes in his face. His stomach drops.

“It’s not-”

“Rebellion, huh?” Bull throws an arm around his shoulders casually, dragging the elf with him as he turns them more to the right. Mahanon feels like he’s burning alive. “Good, strong message.”

“It sends the wrong one now.” Mahanon shrinks in on himself, and Bull shakes him a bit before releasing him. He has a calculating look on his face as he takes in the way Mahanon’s hands have started shaking again, but it’s gone in less than a second. The elf sees it, and actively decides not to bring it up.

“Nah. Can’t blame you for assuming your missing gods would stay, you know, missing.” There’s shouting from up ahead, but Mahanon can’t hear any actual fighting. He twists his ring to remove the halla horns. “Buck up, kid. You’re about to meet the rest of the gang. Welcome to the allegedly disbanded Inquisition.”

It’s chaos. There are medics running around cot to cot trying to help soldiers with deep cuts and lodged arrows and burns. A human has to shout to be heard over the groaning to allocate resources. A dwarf and an elf are leading a scramble to pack up materials and bed rolls. A Qunari woman is attempting to figure out how many torches she can put out to keep their position hidden but leave enough light to help the healers.

“Tiny!” A familiar voice draws their attention, and Bull and Mahanon turn to face Varric. He’s got a bruise forming on the side of his head and a small cut on his brow, but he looks mostly uninjured. He catches sight of Mahanon behind his Qunari companion and he smiles. “And Rook! Glad you made it. I told you we wouldn’t let you blow up.”

Mahanon glances behind him, but nobody is there. “Rook?”

“Powerful, but with a tendency to move in straight lines,” Varric clarifies. Mahanon is a little offended; did the dwarf want him to waste time getting to his target?

“I don’t know if that’s a compliment or an insult.”

“He said powerful,” Bull comments.

“Take it as you will, but I think it’ll stick.”

“What he means to say,” a new voice cuts in, “is that he means no harm, and that he’s a jackass who can’t say someone’s real name under threat of death.”

“Hey, boss.” Bull’s words knock the air from Mahanon’s lungs. The warrior shifts from where he stood in front of Mahanon to behind him, and the elf is processing things too slowly to fully take in the fact that he appears to have a bodyguard. “Our new ‘Vint decided to show up. Took a nasty cut for me. I don’t know what we’re paying him, but you should give him a raise.”

Ellana lets out a soft laugh, and she’s still looking at Varric when Mahanon slowly turns to face her. Her hair is still long, and she’s let it loose with the exception of some braided strands that are wrapped around to the back of her head. She went for the complete version of Mythal’s vallaslin. Not Andruil’s. Dark brown that’s just a shade deeper than her freckles marks her cheeks; her forehead; her chin.

There’s a bow made from an almost silver wood — ironbark, most likely — strapped across her back, and she’s dressed in a navy set of leather armor with boots that leave the majority of her feet exposed. Some pride settles within Mahanon’s chest that despite everything with the Chantry and the Herald business and the leading of a religious order based on Andraste, she’s still a Dalish elf. She’s smiling at her companion, but she looks so tired.

It feels like Mahanon stares at her for hours but also for no more than half a second before Bull introduces him. “His name’s Mahanon.” Ellana freezes where she stands, and her mismatched eyes snap to him. He wants to step back, but Bull is too close behind him to really be able to get anywhere.

She looks him up and down — eyes trailing from his dark hair down to his feet and then back up to his face. Maybe it was stupid of Mahanon not to completely change his appearance. Tears begin to collect in Ellana’s eyes, and he realizes that he was always able to be identified in some part by those who knew him when he was young and innocent and still able to call himself Dalish without feeling like he doesn’t fit in his skin correctly. Ellana takes in the shape of his cheeks; his jaw; his ears; his eyes that are identical shades of brown and green. Mahanon can almost see it when something in her cracks at the sight of his bastardized vallaslin.

When she shifts to fully face him, she does so slowly — as if Mahanon is a wild animal she’s trying not to startle. Maybe he is, because it feels as if a wall has manifested against his back, and when his eyes flick down, he sees that he’s stepped back and ran into the Iron Bull. The warrior must feel him shaking because one of his hands comes up to hover next to Mahanon’s arm as if to catch him if he falls. Varric is looking between the siblings and Mahanon breaks out in a sweat.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Honestly, it was never supposed to go at all. Ellana had grown with the clan and learned to live without him and became this hero to all of Thedas — to the world even though not all of it knew. Mahanon had no intention of coming in with his trauma and the blood of hundreds of sons and daughters and parents and lovers soaking his hands in inch thick layers. Here he was, though; traipsing all over the good she’s done for herself and the growth she’s made and the family she’s clearly created through blood, sweat, and tears. He’d been so caught up in needing to help Ellana that he never thought about the shitshow that would come with his arrival. He was never supposed to come in and ruin it all.

“Isa’ma’lin,” Ellana whispers, tears streaming down her face. Brother.

Mahanon is a selfish man, because suddenly, he doesn’t care about the consequences.

“Hi, Ellana.” He blinks, and he’s suddenly thrown to the ground with an almost crushing weight on top of him. Bull has moved to the side, and is using his size to block the Lavellan siblings as he faces the camp. Varric silently walks over to help do the same; it won’t matter when they stand, but it’s helpful for now.

He manages to sit up, and Ellana sits with him, clutching him in her arms. She rocks him slightly, and Mahanon is confused until he notices that her shirt is wet where she’s holding him. It’s like a dam breaks after he notices that he’s crying, and he throws a barrier up against his skin when he starts sobbing. Ellana holds him close and shushes him despite the fact that he’s made it so she can’t hear his breakdown, and Mahanon clings onto her coat like he’s going to be snatched away from her again. His face burns with embarrassment where it’s shoved into his sisters shoulder, but he can’t fucking stop.

It takes somewhere around twenty minutes for the siblings to calm back down. Varric and Bull stand as silent sentinels the entire time, guiding away anybody who attempts to walk close enough to see the pair. When they stand, Ellana grabs onto his jaw to move around his face, and Mahanon tastes blood again. He must’ve split open his lip again with his screaming. His barrier fizzles out of existence.

“You guys good?” Bull asks, and turns around when Ellana gives him an affirmative answer. 

“That was heavy,” Varric adds, then looks at Mahanon’s face with concern.

“You need stitches,” Ellana murmurs, and Mahanon’s nose scrunches up. He has to fix his face quickly, because the movement sends a jolt of pain through him.

“Your healers are busy enough as it is,” he says, and Ellana rolls her eyes. Standing this close, Mahanon can see that Ellana is a couple inches taller than him. He’s a little irked.

“I can sew it up. C’mon.” Ellana drags him in the direction of a bonfire surrounded by tents. A man with slicked back, wavy blonde hair is pacing anxiously near the largest one. His hair has started to fall from the gel — likely from him pulling at it. He’s dressed in metal armor with fur lined shoulders that make it look as if he has a mane.

“Ellana!” He exclaims when he notices them, rushing over. “Thank the Maker, I thought- I don’t know.” He looks at Mahanon and his brows draw together as he eyes the white markings on the elf’s face. “Who’s this?”

“Mahanon.”

“Mahanon?”

“Mahanon,” Ellana emphasizes, and the other man stands up straighter. His eyes widen and his brows rise quickly, but he forces the shock off of his face with an awkward cough to clear his throat. One hand rubs the back of his neck while he extends the other to the elf.

“Well, this is an unexpected surprise. Not a bad one!” He clarifies as Mahanon shakes his hand. The elf kindly doesn’t comment that all surprises are unexpected. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I’m Cullen.” The commander of the Inquisition’s army. The heavy armor makes more sense now.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Mahanon says with a nod. “I’ve heard good things about you.”

“And I, you.” Cullen looks over to the Inquisition members attempting to pack up supplies, and Ellana touches his arm.

“You can go. I’ll catch up with you later, okay?” Cullen nods and leaves them on their own. Ellana ducks into the large tent, and Mahanon takes in the mayhem happening around him. There’s still shouting, people are running around, and vegetables scatter across the ground as somebody drops a crate. “I know.” Ellana has emerged from the tent, and she sits Mahanon next to the fire. She drops down next to him with a needle in one hand and medical thread in another.

“You know?”

“It’s a lot,” Ellana mutters, “but they’re good people. All of them.”

“You have spies.” Ellana looks exhausted, and she nods. “Any idea as to who?”

“No. Bull is working on it.” At his confused look, Ellana continues, “He was a member of the Ben-Hassrath.”

“Was?”

“Was.” There’s no room for argument. Mahanon hadn't been planning to start one. Ellana grabs his jaw to angle it for better lighting, and then begins sewing the wound shut. “This will scar.”

“Nothing new there.” He regrets saying it when Ellana’s eyes sadden, but she doesn’t acknowledge it. He tries to move on. “You have strong fighters.”

Ellana snorts. “Thanks. It took a while for Cullen to whip them into shape.”

“He did a good job.” Ellana ties a knot at the end of the thread and cuts it off. She moves around Mahanon’s head to check her work, then gives a nod.

“Welcome to the team, Mahanon.” There’s a moment of silence. “I’ve missed you.”

“As you should.” Mahanon grins. There’s been too many emotions running around tonight already, he can’t handle more. Ellana smiles back at him when he continues, “I’m a joy to have around.”

“You’ll make friends here, I think. Let me introduce you to everyone.”

Chapter Text

It takes about three months before Mahanon stops being overwhelmed by the not-so-disbanded Inquisition daily. In all the universe’s infinite mercy, it drops down to twice a week instead. Mahanon isn’t that grateful for it, to be honest. The universe could’ve done better.

Ellana is trying to make up for lost time, and Mahanon gets it. He feels like at any point he’ll blink, and she’ll be gone. Not even dead; just taken out of his life again in a way that leaves him in limbo for what exactly he’s mourning about. It would be worse if she disappeared on missions, but she takes him to every single one. The space to burn off his magic is helpful — probably lifesaving. The way that she clings to him whenever there isn’t some sort of fight — against agents of Fen’Harel that she won’t let him kill, against Venatori agents that she happily lets him kill, against skeletons that shouldn’t really have to be killed again to be honest — is overwhelming, to say the least.

To say the most:

It makes him feel like he’s going to crawl directly out of his skin and burrow so deep into the earth that he’s going to fall straight into Orzammar. It makes him feel like he’s simultaneously burning alive and drowning in some arctic lake. It makes him feel like there’s an electric current searing its way through his nervous system attached to a crippling bolt of lightning that manifests wherever she grabs onto. It makes him shake like he’s some pathetic street dog for hours after she leaves him alone, and he hates it.

Contact in combat? Fine; easy; no reaction needed. He’s spent more than half of his life getting into — usually life threatening — fights, so he knows what to expect from the punches and slaps and kicks and scratches. What he doesn’t know how to react to are the harmless touches; the pats and the hugs and the bodies that lean up against him to relax. He hasn’t experienced any of that in almost two decades, so even the heat that radiates from somebody sitting too close to him tries to suffocate him.

But he’s not given anywhere to process all of this. If Ellana isn’t dragging him to missions, she’s training with him. The knowledge of spies within the order stops Mahanon from using his magic during the spars, and he holds back most of the time physically; Ellana didn’t spend her life honing her body to be what is essentially a weapon. He doesn’t need to somehow injure her in a fake fight that will lead to her death in a real one. Bull is the one he’s gotten closest to going his all with, but both of them clearly restrain themselves whenever they scrap. Probably for the same reason.

When he’s not training with Ellana, she follows him to help with tasks around their base. If Mahanon is washing clothes, so is the Inquisitor. If Mahanon is mucking a stable, so is the Inquisitor. If Mahanon is trying to get a moment to himself by hiding in a room to sew pants, the Inquisitor manages to be there as well. The only real win from her constant presence is that she catches him up on the shitshow that was the formation, duration, and end of the Inquisition — formally, that is.

When none of that is happening, Ellana walks into his room through the door Mahanon struggles to keep locked and sits in a corner while he reads or draws.

Not all of Ellana’s original companions stay at the base; some of them don’t even work with the Inquisition anymore. Apparently, Mahanon missed meeting a mage named Vivienne. She was described as powerful, no nonsense, and a lover of the chantry’s circles. Mahanon knows without a doubt that a meeting between them would lead to physical — or, more likely, magical — blows, and that it’s best for the entire order that the two of them stay separated.

There was a seeker — Cassandra — who worked closely with Ellana, and she’s busy attempting to rebuild her order. Ellana very casually dropped the information that the Seekers know how to reverse tranquility, and he’s still reeling about it. There was also a man kind of named Blackwall, and he’s currently roaming Thedas as a Grey Warden after multiple years of pretending to be one. Allegedly, there was another mage that worked with the Inquisition as well, and Mahanon isn’t sure if they abandoned the order or if they died. Ellana avoids the topic like it’s poisoned, and Mahanon hasn’t been back long enough that he feels safe pushing about it.

The other members of the Inquisition get along with Mahanon just fine; except for one. Sera — the elf Varric had been yelling to during the battle at the lyrium vein — took one look at Mahanon, spun on her heel, and walked the other way. Something, something, why another elf, something, something, just look at his face! Mahanon is fine with them avoiding each other. It upsets Ellana, but there isn’t anything she can do about it. Sera doesn’t trust him because he scarred Fen’Harel’s claim onto his body, and Mahanon doesn’t like her for being a walking representation of exactly why he’s insecure about his exposed face.

Mahanon and Dorian get on like a house on fire. The elf is able to keep up with — and sometimes one up — the other mage’s dramatics, and both have a toxic love/hate relationship with the Imperium. They bond about it over drinks and games of chess, and the man blessedly keeps his distance.

When Bull isn’t attempting to help Mahanon win his matches by distracting his boyfriend — husband? Mahanon isn’t sure exactly what’s going on with those two — the warrior drags him into training with the Chargers and drinking shitty, unnecessarily strong liquor around bonfires. He lets Mahanon sit separate from his crew when he’s clearly overwhelmed, but otherwise all but traps the elf between him and whatever wall is closest. There’s always enough space to keep Mahanon from panicking, but the proximity itself makes his hair stand on end.

Varic regularly traps him to question him about ‘mage things’ because apparently, ‘Everybody else is so secretive with this shit, and I can’t write a mage if nobody tells me how to! Are you even a reliable source? You don’t even have a staff. Do you know how to use a staff?’

The answer is no, but Mahanon refuses to give the dwarf any ammunition.

Revas is the only one that lets Mahanon just sit around silently. Don’t be mistaken, Revas talks and laughs and sometimes cries, but he doesn’t do it with the expectation that Mahanon gives him something in return. He works with the horses, and he usually gives Mahanon a brush to take to one of the animals while he works the more irritating jobs: feeding them, filling their water troughs, changing their horseshoes. Sometimes, Mahanon will feel bad watching him struggle to pick up bags of food and will carry it for him wherever it needs to be put. Revas always looks pathetically grateful.

It’s nice. He has friends, and he has Ellana back, and he even has his own little room with a door that locks. Everything is nice.

But it’s so suffocating.

It comes to a head when one of Ellana’s old companions stops in to visit her. He’s a pale boy with hair somehow lighter than he is, and he has blue eyes that bore into Mahanon’s from beneath a very large hat.

“Warm rain falls on a mountain to erode jagged stones. It’s supposed to drip, but it isn’t.” The boy’s voice is monotone, and Mahanon feels as if he’s being stared through instead of stared at. “It’s all wrong. It’s coming down in buckets where water has never been before. The stone wants to crack.”

“Um?” Mahanon’s voice cracks embarrassingly loudly in the silence the boy's words created. “Nice to meet you?”

“Yes. It is nice to meet people.” A dark haired woman standing next to him nudges the boy with her elbow. “I am Cole.”

“I’m Mahanon.”

“You look like a Mahanon.” The elf doesn’t know how to take that, but he’s spared from responding when Cole moves past him. He’s quick to retreat to the forest near the Inquisition base under the guise of hunting, and he downs three rams before he returns.

There was a ruined fortress that the Lavellan clan set up camp near once at the edge of the Tirashan forest, and apparently, the Keeper mentioned it to Ellana when the Inquisition formally disbanded. He put great emphasis to never venture into the ancient forest.

Occasionally, towering elves with a strange vallaslin would be spotted stalking hunting groups, and at one point a party was attacked. Only one member survived, and the clan moved out of the area the next day. Their explanation for the other elf was that he must be some sort of protective spirit.

During the end of the Inquisition — the very end; at the meeting where it was ‘disbanded’ — Ellana’s ex-spymaster mentioned that there had been reports of ‘strange elves’ that resembled those now recruited by the Dread Wolf. Ellana — who had always been so smart — made the assumption that those ‘protective spirits’ were likely ancient elves, and the fact that they weren’t working with Fen’Harel meant that the god was purposely avoiding them for some reason.

Revas of all people managed to find the dilapidated hold, and it was far enough out of the woods that Ellana was able to set up a base and begin rebuilding it. So far, there haven’t been any attacks by dangerous ancient elves. Mahanon is hoping that they’ve taken on a ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ stance and not a ‘plan a hostile takeover of the newly rebuilt castle’ one.

Either way, Mahanon probably wandered too far into the forest to hunt, but he’s always been good at listening, and he never felt the weight of hostile eyes during the hours he spent between the trees.

It’s dark out when he returns to the Inquisition’s base, and he drops the animals off next to the kitchen quietly. The young cook standing outside looks as fatigued as Mahanon feels and gives him a nod when he approaches. There’s another nod when he leaves, and Mahanon walks against the outer walls of the castle as he drags himself back to his room. It’s tucked away in a dark hallway, and Mahanon makes sure to take the unlit ones on his way there in an attempt to avoid any conversations about Cole’s weird comment.

It doesn’t work.

Bull is leaned up against his door when Mahanon walks into the hall his room resides in. The elf can’t even attempt to evade the warrior because Bull’s eye is already tracking him when he turns the corner. He’s breathing so quietly that Mahanon can’t hear him even while in the same corridor. Right: ex-Ben-Hassrath agent. “Was wondering when you were gonna come back.”

“Please tell me you haven’t been sitting here for hours.”

“Nah.” The warrior doesn’t elaborate beyond that. Mahanon could run, but where would he go? Bull wouldn’t chase him, but he would definitely stay seated right next to his door until Mahanon returned. “Invite me in. I think we need to have a chat.”

Mahanon appreciates that he doesn’t pretend the command is a question. He’s dealt with enough ‘suggestions’ to last him a lifetime. He takes a deep breath as he approaches the other man, and lets it out slowly when Bull moves to the side to let Mahanon unlock his door. He’s really feeling how small a seven foot by seven foot room actually is when Bull crowds in behind him — the man has to crouch slightly and turn his head to fit through the door.

Mahanon turns to face him and his arms wrap around his chest awkwardly as Bull takes in the room. He’s pinned a few of his drawings of animals and flora and the team up on the walls, and there’s a rug thrown under a cushion Ellana likes to sit on in the corner. The only other things in his room are his bed — which is large and surprisingly soft — and an end table placed next to it that holds an oil lamp. Oddly, there’s a small pot of what looks like a Tevinter honey candy sitting on it, and Mahanon furrows his brows at it.

His door’s lock slides into place with an ominous click, and Bull’s attention catches on the gouges littering the doorframe. There’s still a knife sticking out from one above the door. Mahanon had been too tired after the nightmare last night to drag over the table so he could get it down; he’s regretting that now. Bull reaches up and yanks the weapon from the wood, and he spins it around in his hands when he turns back to Mahanon. He leans his back against the door, and Mahanon’s anxiety spikes.

“Sit down.” Mahanon opens his mouth to argue, but Bull’s face hardens into something the elf hasn’t seen before and he’s cut off. “Now.”

Mahanon sits. The oil lamp on his table sparks violently in response to his irritation, and the yellow glow of the glass flickers across Bull’s face. The warrior doesn’t even look at it.

“How long have you been doing your work? Six years?”

“Eight.” Mahanon knows that his tone is bratty but he’s exhausted and embarrassed and he just wanted to sleep.

“Right.” Bull’s unimpressed. “And you were, what, eighteen when you started?”

“Yeah, actually.” An uneasiness creeps up his spine, and Bull watches as Mahanon sits up straighter. His magic churns warily in chest; he never told anybody that.

“Did you make any friends?”

An empty meadow in the fade; violent in its vacancy. “It wasn’t exactly in the job description.”

“A team?”

“No.” He’s not a leader, and he won’t let anybody die because he wants to play pretend.

“Ellana said her brother was taken by slavers. Did anybody from your master stay with you?”

The wording puts a nasty taste in Mahanon’s mouth, but there was no other way to ask the question. He thinks of the purple contacts he used to wear; about the ring on his finger and the pack under his bed; about the grief on Faelor’s face as he hugged him then held him at arm’s length. I’ll see you later, okay? A friend. A parent.

A liar.

Bull takes his silence as an answer. Mahanon doesn’t know what kind.

“You had contacts.” Bull’s stance is open; he’s leaned back to give Mahanon space in the small room; one of his hands raises to scratch his jaw as if he’s thinking, and the other is in his pocket. It’s all so calculated that Mahanon almost misses it. He doesn’t. Too many scars are from farmers and bartenders and stonemasons that played almost perfectly at wanting to help. His fingers itch for the blade in the Qunari’s hands. “You stayed masked, though. When was the last time somebody saw your face?”

Angry. He’s always so angry. Golden light tries to crackle up his throat so violently that Mahanon has to clench his jaw against it. His palms sting where his nails are starting to draw blood. He’s shoving himself to his feet and something ugly snarls in his chest when Bull doesn’t so much as twitch in the face of his rage; it feeds it.

“What is your point? What have I done to get a gods damned interrogation? If you have something to say, you should just fucking say it and-”

Air is all but punched into his lungs in a violently shaky gasp, because Bull is in front of him, and Mahanon is suddenly scruffed like an unruly kitten. His arms snap up to encircle Bull’s wrist as an animal panic takes over his body, but the warrior doesn’t seem to take it personally when the elf flinches, and he doesn’t move his hand.

When no attack comes, a familiar buzzing sensation starts spreading from the hold that’s strong enough to almost make Mahanon gag. Harmless. He releases his grip on Bull’s arm like he’s been burned to stop the feeling from shooting up his arms from his palms. The Qunari man takes in the scene quietly, and then a sigh full of so much concern that he almost sounds disappointed leaves him.

“This,” Bull shakes Mahanon slightly using the grip on his nape, “is my point.” His other hand comes up to Mahanon’s shoulder and digs into the tense muscle, and the elf’s vision shakes. He’s not sure how long they stand like that — probably less than a minute — but Mahanon’s cheeks are damp when he raises a hand again to move Bull’s away. He doesn’t make contact, because the warrior backs up as soon as he shifts.

Mahanon all but collapses back onto his bed, and he wipes away his tears roughly before holding his head in his hands. Destructive aftershocks are quaking through his body. Bull doesn’t comment on it — opting instead to cross his arms as he looks down at the overwhelmed elf. A minute passes before Mahanon asks, “Why are you here?”

“It was me or the boss,” Bull says. Nausea cuts a cold line through Mahanon’s lungs, and Bull nods when his breath hitches. “That’s what I figured. She’d push too far, too.”

“This,” Mahanon motions to his shaking body, “isn’t too far?”

“No.”

“Creators,” Mahanon whispers, and Bull snorts.

“Careful.” There's an amused glint in his eye when Mahanon looks up at the man, but it vanishes into something focused as he frowns. “This is a problem.”

“What,” Mahanon snarks, angry again, “Fen’Harel is gonna hug me into submission? Have his agents started bringing sleeping bags and teddy bears to their fights?”

Silence.

Mahanon sighs, and his gaze drops to the floor again as he mumbles, “Maybe. How the fuck am I supposed to fix it, though? Tie Varric and me together so we’re always holding hands? Make you give me piggyback rides whenever I need to walk somewhere?”

“Those are options.” Mahanon’s head snaps up with a baffled look, and Bull’s harness squeaks slightly when he shrugs. “You need exposure. You’re not the first person I’ve come across with this issue. The others were soldiers, though, and only went through a couple years without contact. You’ve got options, but you’re gonna hate this no matter how we try to fix it.” Mahanon’s head drops in defeat, and he drags a hand down his face as he tries not to cry again.

“What a great start.” When he looks up again, Bull has his arms crossed, and his head is tilted as he considers the elf. He holds up a finger.

“Option one: we overload your system.” Mahanon can feel the color drain from his face, but the warrior continues, “You’re already barely left alone, but we cut down that time even more. You bunk with somebody — either me and Dorian or the boss, probably — and somebody is at your side throughout the day. If we set you on fire, your mind will have to put it out to survive. It’ll go a lot quicker than option two.”

Mahanon’s stomach rolls at the idea. He eyes the gashes surrounding the door and thinks of the knife Bull threw onto his side table. “What’s option two?”

“Same thing, but it goes slowly. You get dedicated time to be alone, but you’re with people outside of it. We integrate everything slowly — starting with one or two people, then escalating to whole group things. They’ll sit close to you; maybe lean on you. Pat you on the back and everything. Sounds fun, doesn’t it?” Bull grins, and Mahanon feels like he’s choking on something just at the idea. Fun, he says. Asshole. “It’ll take months.” Shit.

“Those both sound awful.”

“Yeah.” Bull sounds apologetic, but it’s obvious that he’s not letting Mahanon out of this. “Which one are we going with?”

Mahanon slams his face into his hands again and groans. Bull waits patiently for him to mutter out, “Option two.”

“Thought so.” Bull ruffles his hair, and Mahanon bats the hand away with a small growl that makes the warrior snort. It’s with a little too much amusement, in Mahanon’s opinion. “Strap in, kid. I’ll spread word tomorrow, and we’ll start up the day after.”

Mahanon stands to see Bull out of his room, and the ex-spy is already in the hall when Mahanon asks, “Wait. I get not sending Ellana, but why you?”

“I’m great with negotiations.”

“I’m not a hostage.”

Bull has a wicked grin when he responds, “Not that kind.” Mahanon slams the door with a red face, and he can hear Bull laughing down the hallway.

What a shit show.

Everything is a lot easier after that.

He still plays chess and trains and drinks, and he still acts as some sort of pseudo-muse for Varric’s mage characters, but it’s in shorter intervals. Cole leaves after about two weeks, and he looks at Mahanon intensely and says, “It’s drizzling now. It wants to help things grow.” Cole tilts his head at him. “I hope you let it. The temperature won’t matter.”

“Goodbye to you too, Cole.” He was following the cryptic message up until the last bit. Mahanon doesn’t think that asking Cole to clarify his meaning will get him anywhere, though.

“Goodbye.”

A hand claps down on his shoulder, and Dorian shoves Mahanon around playfully. “Don’t mind him. He used to be a spirit; I imagine it’ll still take years before he acts like a real boy.”

“He what?”

Ellana, apparently, decided to leave out very important pieces of information in her retelling of the Inquisition’s story. One good example: Cole, and his existence as a body possessed by a spirit of compassion. Or a spirit of compassion turned human? It’s all very vague, and Mahanon desperately wishes that Ellana was a mage so he could have a better description of what actually went down.

Another good example: Fen’Harel was one of her companions. She’d told Mahanon about a third mage that worked with the Inquisition — the one that Mahanon couldn’t determine the ultimate fate of — but refused to give details. Probably because Mahanon is too smart for his own good, and would’ve been able to put together that the weirdly powerful elf that specialized in spirit magic, spent an unclear amount of years ‘wandering the fade,’ and knew a suspicious amount about the artifact Corypheus used was Fen’Harel.

They had been friends. Almost everybody in the inner circle had been friends with the Dread Wolf. Mahanon was furious at the secrets — at the lack of distrust his sister showed the god — but was also relieved at the confirmation that he wasn’t insane. The original members of the Inquisition were sad when talking about the ancient deity that was their new enemy, and there was a — stupid — reason for Ellana not wanting to kill him or his agents.

No matter how many times he starts an argument about changing their approach, Ellana refuses to change her mind about redeeming the god.

In his newly found free time, Mahanon takes to pouring over all of the information that he can get his hands on regarding the Dread Wolf. According to the team, his name is Solas, and Mahanon is kind of baffled that anybody thought that a weirdly powerful mage could be named Pride and not end up doing something world-endingly stupid. He already knew that the god led uprisings and rebelled against the rest of the Elvhen Pantheon, but the knowledge that the markings he scarred onto his face and body indicated ownership — indicated that he was a slave — made them burn.

They have almost nothing on the god, though. He was a rebel that fought the Evanuris due to them becoming tyrants; that’s it. Nothing about what specifically the gods did — Mahanon thought owning slaves was enough, honestly — nothing about how the other gods are actually trapped; nothing about how the veil was made; nothing about how Fen’Harel could tear it down. Nothing. The only interesting thing that he learned was that Fen’Harel saw modern elves as tranquil beings, and that was something that was just an offhand comment from his sister. She doesn’t even seem to know what she knows.

He can’t really blame her for not thinking about the importance of that comment, though, because apparently, her arm was trying to kill her during that specific conversation.

Ellana had a hell of a base before this mess unfolded. Skyhold; Tarasyl’an Te’las — the place where the sky was held back. Mahanon would kill for the chance to explore the fortress, but as far as the Inquisition was aware, it was currently occupied. Fen’Harel had led the order to it after Haven was destroyed, and seemed to have decided he wanted it back after Ellana formally disbanded everything. There must have been some sort of defensive spell worked into the foundation of the keep, because memory of how to return to it has been erased from every member of the Inquisition’s minds.

The god had taken up a rotunda at the base of a library, and somebody had been smart enough to recreate the frescoes that he created on the walls. There’s meanings in them — so strong that Mahanon can taste the significance of each stroke of paint, but he can’t fucking read them.

He can identify the things they depict, but not what they’re supposed to convey: the explosion at the conclave, the formation of the Inquisition, something with Templars, the destruction of Haven, Adamant Keep, some sort of temple of Mythal. There’s an unfinished work of some sort of creature — a wolf, maybe? It’s the most likely culprit considering their enemy — standing over a dragon whose life ended at the hands of a blade.

There are four others that are clearly about the Dread Wolf, and Mahanon is incredibly unimpressed at nobody picking up on what they convey: some sort of scene from Elvhenan with an orb of many eyes in the center, Fen’Harel doing what Mahanon thinks is removing vallaslins, some sort of wolf painted over another wolf behind an elf standing in front of the moon, some sort of light —  a veilfire brazier, maybe? — ejecting from the middle of a huge being cut in half with who knows what surrounding it.

The significance of each piece is slapping him directly in the face and he can’t pick up on a single gods damned thing.

It’s so frustrating that Mahanon wants to cry about it every time he so much as glances at one of the paintings.

Ancient texts pop up during missions — rarely — that can be dated to the times of the rebellions or even from before them, and it’s only thanks to Wisdom that they can even be read. Mahanon spent literal years working with her to learn ancient Elvhen — why, she’d never told him — so he was able to translate the texts. It was never anything very useful, though.

Faelor’s ring has stayed on his hand since it was given to him; Mahanon stopped taking it off during the day only a week after his da-

After he left.

Angry.

Mahanon was getting desperate; he took off the ring when he slept. He found the place where Wisdom used to be, and would sit quietly for hours in the devastating silence it held. The ache that crowds his chest worsens with each visit, and he only manages to stop himself from returning nightly when he notices something suffocatingly strong prowling around in the same area.

There are demons nightly, and Mahanon is strong, but it increases to multiple times each time he sleeps. He thought dealing with them would be the most exhausting aspect — past the crippling fear of the Dread Wolf finding him and destroying him while he slept, blood boiling in his head and running down from his unconscious eyes — but it’s the spirits that fatigue him the most. They used to speak to him — to tell him about Arlathan life when they felt rebellious and about the Antivan language when they weren’t — but suddenly, nobody would talk to him.

A spirit of wisdom — not his friend, never again his friend — pities him enough to give him a piece of advice one night. You will not find allies here, Da’len, he had whispered. Friends of Fen’Harel are the only ones that you will discover beyond the veil.

He doesn’t bring it up to Ellana, and he wears Faelor’s ring when he sleeps.

There’s word that a town in the middle of Tevinter has some sort of ancient elvhen tomb buried under it, and Ellana is dragging Mahanon out of bed and down to the stables as soon as word of it reaches her ear. Dorian and Varric are already standing by their horses looking bleary-eyed and ragged, and Mahanon groans at the bags that are already strapped to the mounts. Judging by their weight, it’s going to be a long journey. Revas is giving him some sort of heavy look, but Mahanon is too tired to really interpret what it’s made of — probably pity.

Mahanon’s ass already hurts.

Chapter Text

“Well. This looks just lovely.” Dorian stares at the screaming faces etched into the walls around the tomb’s door. He turns to Ellana with a raised brow, “What now? Do we knock? Ask the door politely to let us in?”

Mahanon raises his clasped hands, falling to his knees dramatically. He closes his eyes for emphasis. “Oh, please, ancient elven spirits who are definitely not corrupted into demons at this point; hear our plea! I beg of you; allow us entry to this tomb so we may spend hours getting our asses kicked for something written with so many metaphors we’re going to need a decoder to understand it!”

Mahanon cracks an eye open to look at the door. It, of course, looks no different. “Damn. That’s all I’ve got.” Ellana smacks him on the back of the head when he begins to climb back onto his feet. Mahanon gives her a look of betrayal. “Ow?”

“It’s always caves and bogs and crypts with you. Why do we never go anywhere nice?” Varric asks — suspiciously eyeing a spot of mold that’s growing on a nearby building.

“I thought Mythal’s temple was quite beautiful.” Ellana doesn’t see the baffled expressions thrown at her. She’s too focused on attempting to read the symbols carved around the tomb’s entrance.

“The temple where Chuckles’ new friends attempted to turn us into pincushions?” Varric clarifies. Ellanis flashes through his mind, and Mahanon’s skin crawls with the idea of facing more than one of him.

“I fear that may be the one,” Dorian responds. Ellana ignores their antics. She looks at the door, looks at the notes she brought with, looks at the door again, looks at the map, and Dorian lets out a sigh as he moves to stand next to her. He reaches for the papers.

“Let me-” Dorian cuts off with a yelp, followed by a passionate, “Kaffas!”

“What did you do now?” Mahanon asks, and Varric leans around Ellana to look at Dorian. He glances back at Mahanon.

“Papercut.”

“Ouch.”

“Will you two shut-”

“Nobody has any elfroot salve?” Ellana cuts Dorian off, and the man flicks his hand around as if that will somehow alleviate his pain.

“I’m not wasting my salve,” Varric says, “I think Sparkler might survive.”

Mahanon glances at Dorian’s hand, and there is actually a notable amount of blood welled up on his thumb. The mage flicks his hand around again, and Mahanon watches as a drop is flung against the door of the tomb. The runes surrounding it begin to glow with veilfire. “This has to be a joke.”

The rest of the group turns to face the door again. The stones that make up the door shift, and when the last rune is lit, the door swings inwards. There’s a moment of silence. “Isn’t this an ancient elven tomb?” Varric asks.

“As our friend turned mortal enemy oh so loved to point out,” Dorian says, ignoring the harsh look Ellana sends him, “us evil Tevinter magisters had to learn the ways of blood magic from somewhere.”

Mahanon eyes the decrepit stairs leading into a black void warily. “Why are we doing this?”

“Something in here might help us convince Solas to stop,” Ellana says. 

Mahanon can’t stop himself from letting out a sigh. A lethal amount of compassion, he said. It was supposed to be a joke. “Listen, I know you guys were close, but why aren’t we working on getting ahead of him, Ellana? Trying to save him from himself could literally end the world.”

There’s something sad in her eyes when Ellana looks at Mahanon. Dorian and Varric are staring at the ground. “Do you know what he told me when we last spoke?”

“You never told me, no,” he responds. Ellana clenches her jaw, taking a deep breath.

“I would treasure the chance to be wrong again,” she says, “He wants to be stopped. If there’s a chance of redemption, I’m going to give it to him, dammit. He’s my- he was-” Ellana cuts herself off with a yell and kicks a rock down the dirt path they’re standing on.

Mahanon raises his hands. “Okay.” He pulls Ellana into a hug, and feels her head hit his shoulder. Bull’s work is doing something, because it feels like he’s being shocked by static and not a bolt of lightning at the contact. His shirt begins to dampen. “Okay. I’m sorry. Let’s go find something to make an ancient elven god more sympathetic to us mere mortals. Look at this, I’ll even walk into the creepy, incredibly haunted crypt first. Here I go."

He almost slips on the stairs and dies. They’re ridiculously wet, which, in hindsight, makes sense considering they’re in a town that’s biggest selling point is its port. It gets a laugh out of Ellana, but Mahanon doesn’t appreciate the amused sounds that come from Dorian and Varric. He lights the brazier at the bottom of the staircase, and he goes to make a smart comment to the men, but he’s interrupted by the need to slam a barrier over himself as a skeleton with an unnecessarily large axe attempts to cleave him in half.

“We just got here,” he complains instead. Mahanon blows his barrier up, and bones scatter across the room as the skeleton shatters into pieces.

“And you’ve already managed to step in it,” Varric grumbles; it being some sort of trigger to bring a small militia of skeletons back to life. Veilfire braziers flare to life around the room as the dwarf shoots an arrow past Mahanon’s head. The elf lets out an annoyed groan before fade stepping into the middle of the undead soldiers, a new barrier pulled tight against his skin to act as a second armor.

Dorian creates a vibrant chain of violet lightning that crackles through three of the skeletons, and Mahanon dispatches them quickly — one with a thrown dagger through the skull, one with a slice that separates a head from a spine, and one with a barrier that Mahanon blows up from the middle of a ribcage. The elf manifests and blows up another barrier just past his lost dagger, and he catches the weapon when it’s flung back towards him.

Ellana fires an explosive shot into a group of four skeletons, Varric fires a leaping shot that downs two more, and Dorian activates the walking bomb spell that he’d placed onto one of the warriors. The shielded skeleton and the three that were hiding behind it blow up into piles of bones. One, unfortunately, slams into Mahanon’s shin. Mahanon pulverizes the last skeleton with a swift veilstrike before bringing his leg up in a bounce to clutch his abused limb.

“Are you alright?” Ellana asks, hopping over the fallen pillar she was using as a shield.

“I think it might be broken,” he whines, and Dorian doesn’t warn him before he throws a healing potion at Mahanon. It hits the elf solidly in the side before he can catch it. “Asshole.”

“Walk it off,” the other mage snarks, and Mahanon makes a face at the back of his head when Dorian walks past him. Ellana rolls her eyes at him, Varric pats him on the back in fake pity, and Mahanon has no choice but to follow after the trio as they move deeper into what appears to be a catacomb system.

It would just be too easy for them to be able to waltz into a single underground room to get what they want, apparently. He drinks the potion-turned-projectile as he walks.

Veilfire braziers light the hallways as the group moves through them, and each area spawns a new batch of skeletons as soon as they enter. It’s irritating. Cobwebs and dust cling to every surface despite everything somehow being soaking wet, and the disturbed particles in the air make it unfortunately difficult to breathe. When they manage to make progress, it’s only through the discovery of a massive stone door surrounded by three runes. A barely helpful note resting on the ground next to the towering entryway informs the group that they need to solve nearby puzzles to gain access to the room.

Mahanon almost catches fire trying to help Ellana solve the first puzzle, and Varric ends up electrocuted while solving another. That ends with the group needing to take a half hour long break while they wait for a healing potion to take the dwarf back from the point of being fried. Thankfully, the last puzzle is just some weird form of chess. Dorian is able to work through it while Ellana threatens Varric with bodily harm until he caves and uses his hoarded elfroot salve.

Mahanon has a bad feeling as he stares at the space where the massive door had been. He doesn’t seem to be alone, if the silence from his companions means anything. Ellana claps her hands together, causing the rest of the group to jump, and says with false cheer, “Well, we did it!”

“This better be worth it,” Varric mumbles, “If I have to come back here within the next three decades, it’ll be too soon.”

“I must turn you off of sightseeing in Tevinter then, I’m afraid,” Dorian says. He’s looking at the burning runes warily. “The rest of the small towns are built quite identically.”

“This one is particularly moldy, though,” Mahanon adds. “And usually they don’t stink like fish.”

“What about the smell of death and despair? Does that track across towns, or is it just the cult infested ones?” Ellana asks.

“It tracks,” Mahanon says.

“I wish you luck in trying to find anywhere in this wonderful country free of cultists, my dear.”

“They’ve infested the place,” Mahanon mentions.

“Like bed bugs,” Dorian adds with pep.

“Or rats.”

“Perhaps they’re more akin to ticks?”

“Mosquitoes,” Varric offers.

“Enough.” Ellana ends the conversation with a grim finality. “Let’s go; we didn’t come all this way to turn away at the sight of an empty room.”

The group steps through the doorway carefully. Varric has Bianca raised, Dorian has his staff in front of him, and Ellana’s ironbark bow is gripped firmly in her hand. In the center of the room is a pedestal that the Inquisition’s notes had mentioned. It’s white and clean — completely void of the dirt and grime and general state of disrepair that has infected the rest of the room. Instead of the text that the group had expected to find, there’s a statue. It’s shaped like a wolf and made out of something bright blue that sparkles in the light of the veilfire braziers. An energy hums off of it that causes a feeling of power to scatter up Mahanon’s arms.

“This is ridiculous.” Mahanon breaks the silence.

“I wouldn’t even put this in a story,” Varric says. “It’s way too cliché.”

“What was it I said last time we were in this situation?” Dorian asks. “Ah, yes. And everything was serene until they disturbed the ancient altar. Why have we put ourselves in a position where that question is once again relevant?”

“Look around,” Ellana orders, “See if you can find a trigger to anything. If-”

“When,” Mahanon coughs.

“If,” Ellana sends him a scathing glare, “touching that activates something unfortunate, I’d like us to avoid dealing with traps on top of it.”

The room is bare of any traps or tricks. The group makes about seven rounds to confirm this. There are murals on the walls that were not visible from a distance depicting bloody elven rebellions, and the lupine shape of the statue makes more sense. It’s an idol. Of the Dread Wolf. 

“At least we know we’re in the right spot.” Mahanon forces a chipper tone into his words. Dorian and Varric look at him with identical unimpressed expressions. The elf shrugs, “I’ve gotta take my wins where I find them.”

“Personally,” Dorian says, “I would like to know what kind of calamity is going to occur once we attempt to grab that statue.”

“Idol,” Ellana corrects.

“Who cares?” Mahanon asks.

“Knock it off.” Varric is stressed out. Mahanon doesn’t blame him; every time he’s been electrocuted, he stays jumpy for a minimum of three hours. The four stare at the idol, nobody so much as breathing. Mahanon curses every single one of them in his head before he steps forwards. A tendency to move in straight lines, Varric had said. I think it’ll stick.

Fucker.

“Cowards, all of you,” Mahanon groans as he steps up to the podium. He reaches to grab the idol, but pauses with an, “Oh.”

“Oh?” Ellana asks.

“What do you mean: Oh?” Dorian questions. Is his voice usually that high pitched?

Mahanon’s brows furrow. “I think this is made out of lyrium.”

“That can’t be good.”

“At least it isn’t red lyrium,” Varric says, “It could always be worse.”

“Don’t say that when I’m about to grab a random magic statue of Fen’Harel!” Mahanon hisses, “What is wrong with you?” Varric mutters an apology, and the elf lets out a huff.

Mahanon doesn’t actually make the decision to grab the statue. Something akin to dread builds beneath his skin, and his fingers jerk back just the slightest to abort his plan while he’s reaching towards the figurine, but a barrier manifests and explodes within his cloak that shoves his hand directly to the idol. Mahanon doesn’t know what happens directly after that. There’s a flash of blue; he knows that, at least. There’s yelling and a groaning roar. That’s the extent of his knowledge.

Icy blue invades and flees from his mind as feelings and thoughts and events are shoved into him. They’re too quick to comprehend as they pile on top of one another. Mahanon feels fear crawl up to his neck, hope choke him, betrayal and anger and hurt sear through his mind; pain and devastation leave it blank. Visuals of various places crash together — a forest, a barren and gray landscape, somewhere full of fire, a throne room adorned in gold, a calm and comforting spot in the fade — before all of it is ripped from his grasp and Mahanon crumples to his knees. 

There’s a ringing in his ears and sweat coats his body as he trembles, but his senses come back to him as an electrified whip cracks just to the right of his body. It shatters the altar of the now absent idol. In Dorian’s infinite words of wisdom: “Kaffas!”

Mahanon fade steps about ten feet to his left as a pride demon smashes the ground where he had stood. “He’s alive!” It’s nice to hear Varric so concerned for him. Unfortunately, the sound of his voice causes the creature in front of Mahanon to turn and rush the dwarf. Varric smashes a flask of frost against himself just as claws reach his body. Blood paints the wall behind where the dwarf stood as he’s thrown to the opposite end of the room — towards Ellana. The Inquisitor screams and activates their cloak of shadows, and manages to break Varric’s fall with her own body. They both go down hard.

The demon wheels around — able to hear the harsh breathing of the group’s mages but unable to see them anymore. Thunder roars throughout the room as a cage of lightning crackles into existence around the demon, and the creature’s movements are slowed as it attempts to break from the trap.

The power that emanated from the missing idol crashes around Mahanon’s body, and the man lets out a yell as he raises his hands. The demon follows the sound of his voice and turns to face him. It raises its whip to strike, but Mahanon slams his hands to the floor and rips the veil open above it violently. Meteors rain down on the creature — more than five feet in diameter and blazing hot. It crashes to the ground, holding an arm up to protect it from the assault, but Mahanon just screams louder and rips the rift open wider.

The meteors increase in size as they pummel the demon, and Mahanon doesn’t let up until the creature is reduced to ash. The rift closes swiftly, and Mahanon sways where he stands. Ellana’s cloak falls away from the group, and Mahanon almost jumps when Dorian appears in front of him.

“Well,” the man says, “that was quite an impressive display.”

“You know me,” Mahanon huffs, “never anything less than magnificent.” His head is pounding; that was more energy than he’s had to put out in months. Coughing comes from the other end of the room, and Mahanon watches Ellana shove herself into a seated position. Her real hand clutches the side of her head as she squints against the light of the veilfire, and her artificial one seems to have disappeared.

Varric lets out a groan, still laying down and staring at the ceiling. “Careful, Sparkler. More moves like that and he might beat you in the ‘flashiest mage’ department.”

“I’ll simply have to try harder,” Dorian sniffs, before adopting a serious tone. “Are you well? That was quite a blow.” Varric raises his hand in a so-so movement.

“I’m not losing as much blood as I thought I would be. The world is doing a very complicated dance around me, though.” Ellana shoves a healing potion into Varric’s still outstretched hand.

“Take this,” she commands.

“Are you sure you don’t need this, Firefly? You’re looking pretty green.”

“And you’re looking about three shades lighter than you should be,” Ellana responds, “Drink.”

“As you say, your inquisitorialness.”

Ellana forces herself to her feet. She wobbles for a second, but manages to stretch to her full height without falling. It’s impressive, honestly; Mahanon feels like he’s a strong breeze away from making acquaintances with the floor.

“I thought we had more potions?” Mahanon questions, and Ellana looks at him with concern.

“You were out for a while there,” Varric responds. “We’ve run dry.”

“What happened?”

“I was going to ask you that. Are you all right?” Ellana touches Mahanon’s face with the back of her hand, and her brows draw together.

“Probably not?”

“I would imagine,” Dorian says. He’s leaning a little too heavily on his staff, and there’s an ugly bruise forming on his exposed shoulder. “You touched that idol and it seemed as if you had become frozen. When the pride demon arrived and you had yet to move, we became quite concerned.”

“You were stuck for about ten minutes,” Ellana adds on. “The demon turned to you as soon as you came back, I think. He’d run us ragged by that time.”

“Clearly.” Varric’s addition is unnecessarily dry.

“Sorry.”

Varric shrugs at Mahanon’s apology, still laying flat as his side attempts to mend itself. “What can you do? I assume you didn’t go at this with the intent to get- What were you, actually? You weren’t possessed.”

“I have no clue. I saw things, but not really? And the idol is missing.”

“Elaborate.” Ellana is starting to look distressed.

“I can’t, really. There were these flashes of light, and I- felt things? I don’t know. I saw some random locations, but everything was mushed together.” Thinking about it is making breathing difficult. “I don’t have anything else, and I don’t know where the idol went. I think I need to sit down.”

Mahanon does just that, putting his head between his legs. Ellana rubs his back, humming softly. “It’s okay.”

“It notably is not,” Mahanon snarks back, and his sister raises her hand and steps away. “Shit. I’m sorry.”

“Give the kid some grace.” Varric finally sits up with a groan, eyeing Ellana. “It isn’t normal for somebody to have to deal with random magical artifacts of ancient beings. Our job is just weird. Take a breather, Rook. You’ll be alright.”

“Thanks.”

“I hate to cut this bonding moment between you two short,” Dorian interrupts, “but I think it would be best if this break happened back at our base. I can’t imagine anything good will come from sitting around in an ancient elven catacomb beneath a Tevinter city full of cultists.”

Mahanon wants to slam his head into a wall at the thought of moving, but Dorian is right, so he brings himself to his feet again. Ellana helps Varric to his, and the battered group starts their trek back through the underground graveyard.

The next time Ellana makes them hunt for something that’s too old for it not to be cursed, Mahanon is going to offer up one of their warriors in his place. Maybe Bull.

Chapter Text

After about ten straight minutes of wandering away from the tomb, Mahanon is convinced that this town doesn’t have any main roads. The group has slowed down to a walk, and Ellana and Dorian have taken point. The bickering between them has gotten to a point where their voices have melded together in his mind, and Varric’s dead eyed stare makes Mahanon think that he’s in the same boat. There’s a sound of paper tearing, and Mahanon watches as a corner of their crudely drawn map drops into a puddle. Ellana and Dorian keep fighting over it regardless.

As they walk further from the water, the houses change from being made of wood to being built by stones and brick. The road continues to mix between cobblestone and dirt periodically, but it seems as if every building in a ten mile radius decided that damp and musty would be their top descriptors. The smell of mold, dust, and fish that clings to every corner of this city refuses to slow its assault on Mahanon’s senses. It makes perfect sense that this town mainly consists of cultists and Tevinter supremacists — only roaches could survive in these conditions.

Mahanon almost chokes as the air around them abruptly thickens, and a feeling similar to the weight of chainmail settles over his skin. It’s oppressive, but not suffocating, and Mahanon can feel his anxiety spike vaguely as Dorian immediately stops speaking. Ellana trails off, her face bunching in confusion. The other mage turns slowly to face him.

“Do you feel that?” He asks carefully. His pale eyes have widened almost imperceptibly and Mahanon can see that the man is forcing his breathing to remain even. Not good.

“I can feel that, Sparkler,” Varric mutters. He’s looking down at his arm, and when Mahanon tracks his gaze, he can see that the hair on it is standing nearly stick straight. His other arm has started to cradle his side, and Mahanon thinks he might see the smallest spots of blood leaking through the bandages wrapped around him. The elf turns in a slow circle in an attempt to find the cause of the suddenly electrified air, and he stubbornly ignores it when the hair on the back of his neck rises to match Varric’s.

“What is it?” Mahanon asks hesitantly; Dorian looks like he has an answer, and Mahanon doesn’t think he actually wants to hear it.

“That feels like-” Ellana cuts herself off with a hum, confusion evident on her face. “It’s familiar, though. Maybe-”

Varric interrupts her with a snap, pointing at her. “A barrier!”

Dorian pushes ahead, and he has clearly decided that the group needs to start moving faster. He loops his arm with Ellana’s when he passes her to force her to walk alongside him. “I think that perhaps we should quicken our pace, my merry band of misfits.” His face is notably paler when he asks, “Whose barrier does that feel like? Any takers? I think just one guess will suffice.”

“Shit.” Varric’s voice is pitched low, and he looks anxiously down a side street as they pass it.

“I’ll take that as a valid answer.”

“Can somebody give me a hint?” Mahanon asks. Ellana glances back at him with an anxious look.

“Solas.” A stone rests in Mahanon’s throat.

Fen’Harel.

The bickering cuts out as the group treks silently through the city. Dorian jumps at the sounds of birds cawing on docks; Varric sucks in small gasps when wind shakes the shoddy buildings they walk past; Ellana’s face has dropped into the grim expression of the Inquisitor as she ducks under the collapsed roof of what used to be some sort of shop.

Dorian and Varric follow Ellana dutifully, and despite the uneasiness that has settled over their group, Mahanon is the only one to notice when a shadow melds away from the wall behind them. He moves before his mind fully registers what he’s responding to. It’s an unfamiliar elf, and the woman has her hands raised before she’s fully pinned back against the brick she pushed herself off of.

“Atish’an.” Peace, she says.

Light roars to life behind Mahanon as Dorian ignites the fireplace inside the dilapidated building they’re in. It highlights the decay that’s been taking over the store. The wooden beams that held up the roof have rotted down to their bases; the floor has warped and began to mold from water damage; shelves and deteriorating curtains are piled against the windows to block out any chance of sunlight leaking through the shattered glass. It seems as if the windows have been boarded up from the outside.

Orange light flickers across the woman’s freckled face. It’s bare, but Mahanon can see faint scarring where her vallaslin previously rested. Dirthamen’s, from the look of it. She meets Mahanon’s glare head on.

“Ir garas emma atish’an.” I come with peace. Bullshit.

“Viran se lan'aan?” Who are you? Mahanon bites out. “Garas quenathra?” Why are you here?

“Mala falon.” Your friend. The smile that follows is grim. “I pray. I need your help. We need your help.”

Ellana falls back to Mahanon, her brows furrowed as she bites the inside of her cheek in thought. “Who are you that needs help, exactly?” Her eyes flick between the stranger and Mahanon, and she follows her question with, “Let her go, Mahanon; she’s unarmed. What is your name?”

Something ugly — something angry — flares in Mahanon’s chest at the order. The Inquisitor, the world calls her. Boss, Bull says. She has gotten used to power — she had to in order to survive — but Mahanon has existed without her directions for nearly two decades, and she is not in control of him. Nobody controls him. He-

He takes a deep breath, and lets it out in a violent huff. He still has the woman in a hold when she says, “I am Liara. I have a knife in my boot that you may remove.” Her eyes are a startling blue as they dig into him — calculating and curious. “If that would bring you comfort, that is.”

Mahanon clenches his jaw as he releases her and backs away. The woman rubs her wrists where Mahanon had grabbed them as the man steps between her and his sister. His boss, she is not, but her protector, he is. Now that he’s farther away from the woman, he can see that her hair — six thick, pale braids pulled up into a short bun — is damp with blood. It’s spattered up her arms as well.

“Ma serannas,” she murmurs. “The Halla’s distrust is not unfounded, but I have no need to lie. My request for aid is genuine, and I have put myself in a very dangerous position in order to approach you.”

Mahanon feels like the wind has been knocked out of him. He hasn’t heard his title in months.  

He’d hid around the Inquisition’s base until a fresh group of recruits trailed in after his recruitment to show his face in the hold. While members knew that the Halla was working with the Inquisitor, nobody was aware that he was the vigilante. He didn’t show up at the fortress as the Halla often, either, so it seemed as if the legend was working as an outside agent instead of being the Inquisitor’s brother. He hadn’t had his illusions equipped when he showed up at the forward camp they’d had by the lyrium deposit, either.

Hearing somebody say his alias so starkly while his illusions aren’t equipped feels like a dagger being slipped between his ribs. How does she know?

Ellana’s eyebrows furrow, her gaze flicking to Mahanon with concern. “What halla?”

“The Halla. It’s an alias,” Dorian cuts in, catching on quickly to her attempt at a ploy. “They’re a figure that helps with slave rebellions. A sort of boogeyman to traders and the Venatori. Probably quite a nice fellow, if I were to guess. Why haven’t we tried recruiting them?” He’s turned to face Ellana, but Mahanon can see the line of anxiety that cuts through him; straightening his posture and straining his voice in the quietest way it could. How can somebody from Tevinter be bad at lying?

Mahanon’s words sound strangled when he asks Liara, “How do you know who I am?” Dorian sends him a bug-eyed look, and Ellana takes in a sharp breath of air, but there’s no point in lying about his identity. She’s confident, and she’s right.

“Fen’Harel would not have been able to come this far if he did not keep track of his potential allies,” Liara tilts her head at Mahanon as he rests a hand over one of his daggers, “or enemies.”

There’s an audible click behind Mahanon, and he turns his head to see Varric holding Liara in his sights. “Why shouldn’t I shoot you now?” The dwarf asks severely, but Mahanon can see the slight shake in his hold — can see that the spots of blood have bloomed into much larger blots in the few minutes of conversation they paused for. His injuries are catching up to him, and the air is becoming thicker by the second. They need to leave.

“We don’t have time for this,” Mahanon says, turning to pull Ellana in Varric’s direction. The group left their horses at a nearby abandoned stable, and he’s at least half sure that the building is down the path behind Varric. The dwarf takes a few unsteady steps back, still aiming at the Dread Wolf’s agent.

“Wait!” There’s enough desperation in Liara’s voice that Mahanon pauses. He pushes Ellana further ahead of him, and when she’s within Dorian’s reach, he rests a hand on her shoulder. She turns to face her brother, but the mage’s grip doesn’t allow her to step closer. “Please,” Liara continues, “I am taking a great risk just coming here, but we are getting overwhelmed. We were not even aware that anything of significance was in this city until we found you searching for it.”

Mahanon turns to the bare-faced elf, and a hand falls back to Liara’s side from where it was clearly reaching out to grab him. She continues to speak, panic etching itself deeper into each word. Her eyes have taken on a wild quality — wide and watery.

“We came to interrupt a slave trade; as many as two hundred souls. Fen’Harel was assisting with our attack before he left to chase you.” The bottom of Mahanon’s stomach drops at the confirmation that the Dread Wolf was actively hunting his group — hunting Ellana. He’s not stupid — he refused to completely dismiss the trio’s knowledge of how familiar the air felt — but apparently, there’s a large difference between assuming and knowing that the ancient Elvhen god of treachery was trailing after you.

The rest of the group used to be close to the Dread Wolf. They know his face; his daily routines; what hobbies he partakes in to relax. They have spoken to him about his ideals as comrades and as friends. To lie effectively, there must be truth to build the story off of. Despite any amount of deception, Ellana and her friends know Fen’Harel. They are some of the very, very few who know the god as the man he is; as Solas. They can separate the elf from the myth through familiarity.

That isn’t a privilege that Mahanon is also afforded. He has learned what he can — from texts, from frustrating murals, from stories whispered between members of the original Inquisition, from the inner circle themselves — in a desperate attempt to close the gaps in his knowledge. He’s spent hours — probably collective weeks — taking in all of the information he has access to as many times as he can, but despite it all, he still struggles. He can’t find the meanings in the frescoes, and in this moment, he isn’t the newest member of the Inquisition; he isn’t the Halla of Tevinter; he’s just all that he’s ever been. He’s just Mahanon.

He’s the Mahanon that was raised with stories told around bonfires of the Elvhen Pantheon. He’s the Mahanon that hid his head under his furs and tried to drag Ellana beneath alongside him during the darkest nights — desperate to keep away from the eyes of the Dread Wolf. He’s the Mahanon who evoked the god’s name as a curse while scarring his face and body with his lupine lines as a bastardized vallaslin in a desperate act of rebellion. He is still, in his heart, a defiant Dalish boy.

He is still, in his heart, scared.

“What do you need me for?” Mahanon’s heart is thundering in his chest, but he holds his place. Dorian has pulled Ellana behind him now, and Varric is able to lower Bianca and hide his trembling when Mahanon shifts to block his line of fire. “Fen’Harel has ancient elves; I’ve met one on the field. I imagine he has multiple teams on this mission as well.”

“You are aware of the legend you’ve made,” Liara responds. Mahanon bares his teeth — angry at the idea that he decided to become anything but someone who wants to help. Liara stops him before he can begin by holding up a placating hand. “I apologize; perhaps it is one that has been made around you. Your mantle is a difficult one to bear, but you know the importance of morale in battle. I would also like to assume that the stories of your abilities haven’t been exaggerated.”

“He’s not going anywhere with you,” Ellana seethes, attempting to move around the barrier Varric and Dorian have made between her and the other two elves. Mahanon is surprised at the amount of venom she manages to inject into her tone. She turns her attention to him. “Mahanon, this is ridiculous. You know this must be a trap.”

It might be.

Liara could’ve been sent here to hold the Inquisitor and her comrades in one position for an easy ambush; stalling until the group is surrounded by unseen agents of the Dread Wolf. She could be tempting him away from the group to take him as a hostage and convince Ellana to surrender her cause. There’s something in her eyes, though. A raw panic and desperation that Mahanon has only seen in those resorting to their last option.

“Where is this happening?” Mahanon asks, and Ellana lets out a shocked huff.

“You can’t be-”

“At the Eastern Docks. I could take you on the rooftops if you need to see the ships. We mistakenly thought this was just regular Tevinter trading, but mid-battle, Venatori agents- ” Liara spits the words with such viciousness that Mahanon would believe that they were poisoned, “-arrived on an additional ship. We weren’t ready for the influx of mages, and Fen’Harel had assumed we had the situation under control. We should have the situation under control.” The last part is said breathlessly. “We are dying, and the slaves are going to be taken.”

A lethal amount of compassion.

“Do you have any healing or lyrium potions?”

“Mahanon!” Ellana yells, and he turns to her. His hand grabs into his pocket, and he pulls out one of his communication stones. It glows a faint gold as he closes the distance between them and places it in her hand, curling her fingers over it. Her eyes are tearing up when she asks, “What are you doing?”

“This stone,” he says, pulling a second one out to hold up in front of Ellana’s face, “is connected to the other. When one is in use, the other one glows as well. If this stone,” Mahanon touches the one he placed in Ellana’s hand, “goes dark, that means that I broke mine. If that happens, you need to leave. Give this to Dorian so somebody can keep it in sight — you’ll need your hand if a fight breaks out. I’ll figure something out for myself if I have to.” Ellana is shaking her head, and Mahanon cups her face to wipe away a tear with his thumb.

“I just got you back,” Ellana whispers. “I can’t lose you again. I can’t leave you. You don’t have to do this.”

This is his home. These are his people. He’s nothing if not a bleeding heart, and he will not abandon them. He can feel anger spark across his face.

“He does,” Dorian says gravely, and both Lavellan siblings turn to look at him in surprise. Mahanon’s rage is smothered by confusion. “The Halla is too significant of a figure to allow the uprising to fail. Mahanon can’t sit out if it’s faltering.” The mage attempts a sarcastic grin, but it’s too thin to fully sell the image. “I hear you have horns.” Right — Dorian has never seen them equipped.

Mahanon gives him a toothy grin back — he hopes his is more believable. “Everybody loves a good, old-fashioned illusion spell. We really don’t appreciate the simple things anymore.” 

“We’re too busy figuring out every imaginable way we can blow something up, I suppose.”

“And using blood magic. Can’t forget about that.” Mahanon turns back to Liara as he shrugs out of his pack, and his tone is serious once again when he prompts, “Potions?” He watches Ellana hand Dorian the stone out of the corner of his eye.

Liara nods, pulling all four healing potions out of her belt and placing them gently on the cobblestone ground. She places two lyrium potions next to them as well. Mahanon grabs three of the healing potions and slots them into the right compartments on his belt, then slots the lyrium potions into the opposite side. Varric holds out a hand.

Faelor’s pack rests heavily on his back as Mahanon stares — almost a decade old and at least a decade out from failing him. It feels like his lungs cease to function as the image of him parting with it flashes through his mind; his fingers shake in the pocket he’s shoved a hand into. The weight of the ring on it is the only thing that convinces him to gently remove his bag. Varric takes it as if it’s something precious — it is — and nods at Mahanon as he carefully slips into it.

It feels like he’s lost a limb.

“If the stone goes dark,” he repeats, “you leave.” He’s looking at Dorian over Ellana’s shoulder, and the man’s eyes harden in understanding. He nods, but Ellana takes another step towards Mahanon.

“Don’t do this.” She pleads, but Mahanon grabs her hand gently and pushes it back against her chest.

“I have to.” It’s said softly; Ellana lets out a sob. “And you need to leave. I believe Liara, and if she says Fen’Harel is on the hunt, I can’t imagine he’s very far behind. I know you can taste the magic in the air. Get set up on the horses.” 

Mahanon steps backwards, and looks at Liara. “Drink some of the healing potion. I want to know that it isn’t poisoned.”

Liara nods in understanding and follows the order. A small cut over her eyebrow begins to mend itself as Liara hands the potion over to him. Mahanon takes the flask and downs the rest of it; hopefully, it will heal his aches and pains before he dooms himself to more grievous injuries. He nods, and hands the empty flask back to Liara. Mahanon raises his hood and feels a blast of cool air as his face becomes obscured. When he twists the opal of his ring, the air becomes warm instead. Black halla horns twist up the sides of his head.

“Huh.” Varric says. “Cool trick. I realized I’ve never asked: why a halla?” The dwarf tilts his head curiously.

Another slave of his master thought a prey animal becoming a predator would be funny.

“I figured an animal associated with the Dalish would piss off Tevinter slave traders the most.” Mahanon’s voice is distorted now, and the corners of Varric’s lips twitch in amusement. “Go.”

“Godspeed, Rook.” Varric sounds like he’s speaking at a funeral.

“Don’t be so serious,” Mahanon replies, “I’ll catch up later. It’ll be like I never left.”

He doesn’t mean it. This isn’t an area that he’s been to frequently. Escaping the fight is going to be difficult enough already, and he has no hope of finding the stable afterwards. He’s going to be stuck figuring out how to get back to base from a random, rotten town in the middle of Tevinter.

As Dorian grabs Ellana by the shoulder and begins to drag her in the direction of their horses, he nods once again at the smaller Lavellan child. Dorian will get her out of here, and that reassurance is the only reason Mahanon is able to turn and follow after Liara when she starts running in the opposite direction of the group. He doesn’t let himself look back as he turns a corner, and then the group is completely out of sight. He crushes the stone in his pocket.

Chapter Text

The pace that Liara has set is almost punishing. While the healing potion Mahanon drank is steadily working to fix his minor injuries, it has yet to lessen the soreness that’s decided to plague his body. Despite this, he manages to catch up to the other elf.

“What am I walking into?” He asks, and Liara glances over at him with a grim expression.

“We have twenty agents that were assigned this task. There are seven mages — one of which is a previous sentinel of Mythal. He is doubling as a frontline soldier. The rest are split evenly between warriors and rogues. Most of us,” Liara raises her bow, “are ranged.”

“And the traders?” Liara takes Mahanon up a short staircase that leads to a ladder. She motions for him to go first. He climbs two rungs at a time and is hit with a startling wave of homesickness. Maybe it’ll be good for him to get back to his slaver-killing roots for a second. It’s not like it’ll last long, and it wouldn’t be good for him to get rusty before he gets to return to his regular stomping grounds.

“It started with thirty men. Most of them seemed to be mercenaries, which is why we emphasized long ranged attacks.” There are holes in the roof that Mahanon stands on, and Liara is careful to avoid them as she takes point again. “When the Venatori arrived, they brought rogues and mages. About ten of each. Our warriors can’t maintain defense against this many close ranged attacks on top of spells, and our mages are running out of mana to sustain the amount of barriers we need to keep in place.”

Mahanon eyes the lyrium potions he has in his belt and then her bow. “You have no use for these. You were that confident I would come?”

“A halla can rarely ignore the calls of their clan. Whose summons would you listen to if not those of the oppressed and desperate?” Mahanon squints at the back of Liara’s head.

“That’s a very fancy way of saying I’m a sucker whose trauma and empathy are going to get him killed some day.”

“Your empathy will be your downfall,” she gives him a dry look, “and I decided it was worth a try.”

“Be careful. You almost spoke normally.” Liara ignores him, and when they jump to a taller roof, Mahanon can see the dock. There’s smoke billowing up from two large ships — masts blazing and sails reducing to ash. A third, smaller ship is anchored just past the fiery twins, and even from this distance, Mahanon can see the erratic flashing of spells.

There are clouds rolling in — dark and heavy — and if Mahanon was a praying man, he would send a request for the storm to wait until after the bloodbath he’s about to participate in. He is unfortunately aware, however, that there’s no hope. His luck has always been interesting.

Succeeding at initiating a small rebellion with the other slaves of a shitty Tevinter magister? Okay.

Murdering him in the middle of the night using magic he was barely taught how to control? Sure, why not?

Risking making a deal with a demon for a random cape he got good vibes from and having it actually do something useful? Go for it.

Surviving almost a decade with a career that involves executing people that are responsible for the Tevinter slave trade? That’s fine, I guess.

Asking for the smallest fucking break of not having to fight through a downpour in an already damp and disgusting Tevinter dock town?

A single drop of rebellious rain hits his face. No dice. That’s where the line is drawn in the sand, apparently. 

At least Liara looks as displeased as he feels about it. The two elves start moving quickly again. You’re at risk of falling off of a roof by moving too fast across it, but you’re guaranteed to fall through one if it’s soaking wet and a piece of shit.

Mahanon slides down a roof’s eave after Liara proves it’s safe to do so, and when his boots hit the ground, the sound of fighting reaches him. Screaming and metal screeching and the fade whining as it’s manipulated. Liara’s face darkens.

“I’ll go around and see if I can get close enough to the ship to board.” Mahanon says. “You need to meet back up with your group.”

“They have placed traps. You must be careful with your footing.” Liara’s voice is serious, and Mahanon nods in response. She gives him a long look, then says, “I have heard of your dramatics.”

“I have my moments.” Mahanon responds.

“A moment may be-” Liara looks disgusted, “-useful.”

“I aim to please.” It’s dry. “This has been lovely. Truly. Hopefully, I never see you again.”

There’s a spark of amusement in Liara’s eyes. “If we do, I will pray for better circumstances.”

“I could never be so lucky.” The rain has already started pouring.

Liara turns away first, and she’s gone before Mahanon can blink the water from his eyes. It’s suddenly not so shocking that she managed to sneak up on his group. Turning in the opposite direction, Mahanon begins a brisk walk to the docks. He hates the sounds ringing out through the town, but having to step around a spot that reeks of magic is evidence enough that rushing will lead him to nothing but ruin.

He dips into a crouch as he nears the docks, and finds himself somewhat grateful for the rain when it darkens his surroundings. He is able to meld more with the shadows without the use of an illusion spell with the sun covered. The arrival of the storm has not deterred the fighting, and when Mahanon peeks around a corner he sees carnage.

Most of the mercenaries Liara mentioned are already dead. Some are burned — by flames and electricity alike — but many are cut at the neck, the thigh, or the abdomen by what looks like a very sharp sword. The rest have been turned into pincushions by the Dread Wolf’s archers. The battle has moved more inland, and the bodies of two Venatori rogues and three of their mages are scattered between their ship and the current fight.

Mahanon forces himself to take in the sight of the massacred bodies of freedom fighters next to them. Agents of the Dread Wolf or not, they gave their lives to save others, and they deserve to be acknowledged. There are countless cages placed sporadically throughout the dock that have been cracked open or lockpicked — they accomplished what they set out to do and then some. The scene stokes the rage beginning to burn in Mahanon’s chest, and he sets his sights on his target before it overwhelms him.

Violent waves crash against the Venatori ship, and Mahanon can see people stuck in the cages aboard the vessel. It’s anchored on the furthest spot to the right of the docks, and there’s a building that looks like it may be just close enough to be of use. Mahanon backtracks in order to climb atop the building, and, still in a crouch, he begins to close the distance between him and the ship. He drinks a lyrium potion as he attempts to assess how wide the gap is. It’s about ten feet, but with a well placed fade step-

A scream from the ship rips Mahanon from his thoughts. The world seems to dull around him as he watches as an elven boy — no more than three years old — is ripped from the arms of a woman. Mahanon isn’t sure if it’s his mother, his sister, his aunt; maybe she’s a stranger altogether, but it spurs him into movement nonetheless. When his senses return to him, they are sharpened almost to the point of being unbearable, and he is in the air — directly in the middle of the roof and the ship.

He tears his daggers from their scabbards, and, with a flash of gold, he lands on the ship in a dive. The water collecting on the deck allows him to slide closer to the Venatori agent holding the child, so he only has to come up with a single step to drive his dagger into the hooded man’s throat. He rips the weapon towards him, and the child falls into his right arm as a fountain of blood sprays across his back and onto Mahanon’s face.

He shoves the child back into the woman’s arms and takes no more than a second to count the four cages holding bodies on the ship. A moment of silence has fallen as the six remaining mages on the ship turn to look at Mahanon, and the man lets out an amplified roar as he slams his foot on the ground below him. Four vibrant, golden barriers shutter into focus above the cages as hell breaks loose.

Mahanon lunges to the right as a fireball lobs itself within inches of his face, and he’s almost too slow in raising his cloak to block an electrified missile that comes from his left. He has to fade step again to reach the next cultist, and he manages to grab onto him just in time to whip around and use his body as a shield. There’s a series of sickening cracks as chunks from an ice wall formed by a different Venatori agent collide with the man’s head. He slumps dead in Mahanon’s arm. More lightning crashes in the sky above, and Mahanon thinks he may hear some sort of cheer from the docks beneath the storm. He doesn’t have time to think about it.

He twists the fade above the two mages at the farthest end of the ship, and they crash into each other as the gravitational abyss that forms sucks them to it violently. The air next to him shifts, and Mahanon has to jump backwards as a previously hidden rogue lunges at the spot where he stood. He drops low to sweep the legs from beneath them and kicks their head to the side when they land. One of his daggers goes flying into the chest of the nearest mage, and the flames that licked up their arms die as their body falls. Blood drips down Mahanon’s arm, and his mind is barely able to process that the rogue had managed to land a hit. A healing potion is in his hand, the top uncorked-

Mahanon is momentarily weightless, and the man barely manages to grab onto the net lining the edges of the ship with his free hand before he’s flung into the violent waves below. The rogue he’d knocked down flies into the dark and sinks beneath him, and the healing potion Mahanon was trying to drink goes with them.

He’s disoriented enough that the barrier he throws around himself is almost manifested too late, and his second healing potion pays the price when his body hits the rotting wood of the ship. Mahanon can feel the shattered glass bounce off of his barrier and drop to the sea, and the sound of the storm drowns out the violent cuss he releases. He tries to shake the confusion from his head when he hauls himself back onto the vessel.

A mind blast? What self-respecting, evil Tevinter supremacist slash cultist specializes in spirit magic?

Mahanon snatches his last healing potion from his side and drinks the contents in one swig. He throws the empty bottle at one of the cultists’ heads and is slightly unimpressed when they go down with it. He dives for the dagger still stuck in the previous mage’s chest and focuses his energy on creating a barrier around a barrel stuck behind two of the others. One of them turns to look at the glittering gold, and therefore takes the majority of the blast when Mahanon blows the barrier up.

That cultist is thrown over the side of the ship with the explosion, and Mahanon quickly dispels the barrier that a different one places around them. Their body cracks when the waves smash it against the vessel. The second one flies in Mahanons direction, and the elf grabs them by the neck and slams them to the floor. His other dagger refuses to dislodge itself from the sternum it’s buried in, so Mahanon has to drag the one in his off hand across the trapped cultist’s neck.

The elf can feel his mana storages draining. The barriers are taking a massive amount of energy, and he can see one begin to flicker in and out of existence. He shouldn’t have been using so many spells in the catacombs — he has daggers for a reason. Mahanon drinks his last lyrium potion, watches as strength snaps back into his barriers, and accepts that he’s going to be well and truly fucked if he has to use his magic for anything in the next three days.

Power creeps from his chest out to his arms, and Mahanon throws his hands up as he manifests another barrier in front of him. He can feel the electricity from the bolt of lightning sent at him crackling against it in his palms, and he is reminded once again that he should’ve put more effort into learning how to use a staff.

Mahanon shoves at the air, and the barrier cracks out of existence to shove a forceful wave at the last Venatori mage. He chases after it, and utilizes the water pooling on the deck to slide between their legs. The lightning bolt they summoned vaporizes the space that Mahanon previously occupied. The mage turns when Mahanon rises behind him, and the elf feels a weird burning sensation as his dagger finds its home between the cultist’s eyes. Mahanon collapses his barriers down to the locks of the cages and shatters them, and there’s cheering from the occupants as they escape them.

The woman from before, though, is silent as she stares at Mahanon in horror. He’s covered in blood despite the rain’s attempts to cleanse him, and he just murdered eight people in front of her. It’s not an irregular reaction, unfortunately. The burning sensation is worsening, and a pulse of pain shoots through his body.

It’s the boy that convinces Mahanon to look down. He wears the same expression as the woman, but instead of looking at his face, his eyes are locked on Mahanon’s abdomen.

His breath leaves him like he’s been punched.

Mahanon’s fingers tremble just above the dagger where it sticks out from his stomach. It hurts. Of course it would hurt -- being stabbed always hurts, and he’s had enough experience in that field to back up his claim -- but this is a pain that he has had yet to experience. Blood slugs its way around the blade and drips onto the man at Mahanon’s feet. He bends weakly, holding the blade in place, and removes the hood of the cultist below him. He can’t help himself but to spit on the dead man’s face as he wraps the hood around the knife, but he almost adds vomit into the mixture of saliva and rain when he stands up straight again.

Mahanon thinks he hears his name from the dock, and he turns to see Liara pushing her way towards him. The ancient elf cuts down the final rogue with a familiar greatsword and turns his attention to Mahanon as well — yellow eyes widen with recognition. He follows after Liara, and he’s closing the distance quickly due to his much larger stature. The familiar feeling of chainmail is creeping across the docks as well, and with all three entities heading in his direction, Mahanon makes the decision that leaving would be a wise choice.

He sends a silent goodbye to the dagger still in the cultist’s chest, slips the other back into its sheath, and raises his hand in a shaky two finger salute. The last of his mana is used to fade step off of the ship and onto one of the side streets of the quiet Tevinter town.

Mahanon immediately sets off in a blind dash down the first alley he comes across. Within seconds, he can hear footsteps running after him. The agents of the Dread Wolf are much faster than he had previously given them credit for. How the fuck is he getting out of this?

Based on the length of time between each footfall, Mahanon assumes that the agent rapidly closing the distance between them is either Qunari or the sentinel Fen’Harel deployed. He ducks through another alley when he comes across one, and shoves himself into the shadows with one hand over his mouth and the other cradling the knife that continues to stick out of him.

The fabric around the knife is already soaked through and dripping blood onto the pavement, and Mahanon is suddenly very grateful for the storm that rages overhead. The rain should wash the cobblestone clean before anybody can track the trail he’s surely leaving behind him. Mahanon holds his breath when the sentinel barrels past his hiding place to continue down his original path.

He waits a moment to see if the next pair of footsteps will follow, but instead, he hears them begin to slow to a jog in order to safely round the corner he’s hiding behind. He hisses in pain when shoving himself off of the wall, and he barely manages to knock down the pile of boxes he had rested next to before the Dread Wolf’s agent turns into his alley.

The wood cracks against his would-be attacker and disorients them long enough that Mahanon is able to once again take off. He passes by multiple side streets in a dead sprint, but somebody dressed in leather armor steps into the middle of his path up ahead. Mahanon slips across the wet cobblestone ground with his abrupt stop, but he manages to vault through the window of an unsealed shop before whoever was at the crossroads ahead turns to see his escape attempt. The shop is full of decor — dark pottery, vivid paintings, shaggy rugs — and the lethargy that is attempting to take hold of him causes Mahanon to knock into a display in his rush over a counter.

The unexpected collision causes a clumsy landing, and the fabric surrounding the knife in Mahanon’s stomach catches on the corner of the counter. Violent waves of nausea mix with pain and rush through him as the blade in his stomach is ripped from his body, and Mahanon can’t stop himself from groaning as he slams into the floor. From the corner of his eye, Mahanon sees the display he hit begin to tip, and time seems to freeze as the pottery inside collides.

Mahanon gropes blindly along the floor until he comes into contact with one of the rugs, and he rips his dagger from its scabbard. He barely manages to slice a strip from the carpet when the display comes crashing down next to him. His abdomen burns as if the sun has been shoved beneath his skin; red hot shockwaves climb up to his fingertips and down to the soles of his feet. Glass lodges itself in his palms and his arms as Mahanon shoves himself upright. He pushes through the rest of the shop and breaks through the back door as the front one is shredded by an unseen force.

Mahanon stumbles into the back alley behind the shop, and tries each door down the dirt path until one opens. He slips inside and attempts to close the door as quietly as he can. He slides the lock slowly into place. Mahanon’s fingers shake as he takes the strip of the rug and ties it clumsily across his stomach. He tightens it until he can’t bear the pressure, and then he tightens it slightly more. It’s unlikely that it will actually be able to prevent him from bleeding out, but something is better than nothing. His magic sparks at his fingertips, but it fizzles out before he can even attempt to begin summoning a flame to cauterize his wound.

He needs to keep going. There’s a viciously strong chance that he left a trail of blood that leads directly to this shop, and blood doesn’t wash out of dirt like it does stone. He knows he has to move, but the dark room he’s in spins and pulses around him like he drank an entire bottle of Marass-Lok. He can feel his heartbeat on his face, and bouts of shivers begin to rack his body like he’s developed a fever. He’s so tired. The momentary peace he’s given himself has allowed the state of his body to begin fully catching up to him, and he feels himself start to slide down the door.

He can find solace in the fact that Dorian and Varric have dragged Ellana kicking and screaming from the stables. It’s comforting to know that at least she made it out of this damp, poorly lit town. It’s not comforting enough to keep the panic from overwhelming Mahanon and causing the edges of his vision to darken. He feels like he’s starting to leave his body when he leans over to puke. It sends another wave of pain through him, but the Dalish man forces himself a couple feet to the side so that he doesn’t end up dying in a puddle of his own vomit. That would be far too dramatic — even for him.

Everything begins to sound as if it’s underwater, but Mahanon can still hear this snick of a door opening in front of him. It hadn’t fully registered that everything had gotten darker until the light outside creeps into the storeroom Mahanon hides in. He can barely see it. There’s a silhouette of someone tall in front of him. Mahanon knows it’s pathetic — this is likely a hunter who has caught their prey — but he can’t help but croak out, “Mana.” Blood coats the inside of his mouth, and Mahanon can feel some trickle out of the corner of his lips and down his chin. “Ma halani. Please.”

Help me.

The person moves closer and crouches in front of him. “Hamin, lethallan.” Rest. The voice is deep and methodical. Something pushes his hood away from his face and off of his head, and a hum resonates from in front of him. Mahanon can’t place the emotion that evoked it.

“Viran se lan’ann?” Who are you? Mahanon slurs, “Ir annala for ros.” I can’t see you.

The voice doesn’t respond, and Mahanon can feel warmth spreading out from his wound again — blazing hot and searing his skin. He doesn’t have the strength to scream, but his body manages to force out a choked sound as his vision disappears with a flash of white. “Ir abelas,” the man murmurs.

Mahanon thinks he may be an elf. He speaks their language confidently, but not with the cadence associated with city elves. It’s unlikely that he is from an alienage. Mahanon can’t identify the clan his accent would originate from, though. It sounds completely foreign.

The fire calms slightly, and when Mahanon opens his eyes again, he can make out vague details of who is in front of him. His clothes are made from sharp shapes, and they reflect light as if they are made of leather and metal. Armor, Mahanon assumes. Some other fabric rests against one of the man’s shoulders. His head is obscured by a thick hood, so Mahanon can’t see his face.

The stranger is holding a hand above Mahanon’s abdomen, and pulses of green magic are washing over his body. He must feel eyes on him, because he raises his head. With his swimming vision, Mahanon can only really see dark brows standing out against pale skin. The actual facial features mostly blend together. What Mahanon doesn’t see are the dark lines of a vallaslin. Purple eyes flit across Mahanon’s face, and they sharpen ever so slightly when the Dalish man attempts to move away from the taller elf. The movement causes violent vertigo, and Mahanon has to fight the nausea that follows it. He barely wins.

“You are going to exacerbate your injuries,” the elf says softly. Each inhale feels labored and rattles against his ribs. His heart feels like it’s engorging itself in an attempt to escape his body. His instincts scream at him to fight — to push and punch and kick — but he’s unable to even lift his hands from his sides now. Mahanon hadn’t registered the warmth at his shoulder as the man’s other hand until it slides across his chest. It pushes Mahanon gently — pinning him to the wall he leans against.

Panic begins to take his vision again, and Mahanon feels like he’s removed from his body once more. A violent sob escapes him, and Mahanon’s face burns as he feels it dampen with tears. 

The only word he can choke out is a weak but passionate, “Fenedhis.”

“Ashir.” Mahanon thinks that he might hear an undercurrent hiding within the severe tone of the order, but he doesn’t have much time to process it correctly. Sleep.

Something intense and heavy coats his mind like honey, and everything around him seems to slow. With a feeling similar to being pulled beneath the surface of a lake, Mahanon’s eyes slip shut, and the man would have slumped sideways without the pressure against his chest — rendered completely unconscious.

Chapter Text

Mahanon opens his eyes in the middle of a meadow. He’s resting on soft grass beneath the largest tree he’s ever seen, and golden sunlight cascades through the large leaves above to warm his face. The elf groans as he pushes himself up onto his elbows, and looking around doesn’t reveal to him how he ended up in this infinite greenery.

Most of the trees surrounding the clearing would tower over the rooftops he’s become well acquainted with in Tevinter, and the flowers scattered across the tall grass vary in shape, size, and color. There’s a clear pond resting towards the other end of the meadow, and Mahanon can hear water running from somewhere behind the treeline. There’s a pleasant hum resounding from the woods, but Mahanon can’t even begin to guess what it’s originating from; he’s never heard a sound like it before.

It’s peaceful, and gorgeous, and something in Mahanon is telling him that this is all very, very wrong, but for the life of him, he can’t understand why.

When he stands, he feels as if the ground should be closer than it is, but he can’t find it within himself to care. It feels like he’s floating instead of walking when he wanders away from his tree. A soft laugh escapes him at the feeling of the ground beneath his feet, and he walks across the pasture to the pond on the opposite side.

Lights glow beneath the water — a gentle, pale blue — and they chase each other playfully in circles. A small wooden dock extends into almost the middle of the pond, and the sun’s heat is by no means unbearable, but the cool of the water that encompasses his legs when he lets them dangle into the pond is extraordinary. One of the lights flits over to Mahanon and rises from the water with a small splash to look at him closely. It’s a wisp — probably of curiosity. This one is particularly small; it must have manifested recently. Mahanon raises his hand to let the spirit hover above his palm and circle around his fingers.

Two more of the wisps emerge from the water to swirl around his head, and the sun begins to shine an even brighter shade of gold. He squints his eyes against the glare, but some feeling begins to press against his lungs and heart like it wants to escape from his body. Happiness? Mahanon wonders, his brows furrowing slightly as his smile widens. It’s too shallow of a word to describe the emotion. It’s more exhilarating than that; almost pervasive in the way it runs from his heart out to his fingers and his toes and the tip of his tongue. He can taste it; sweet and spicy and just past the point of too much.

My old friend, a woman’s voice echoes across the meadow, simultaneously old and young; kind but stern as she continues, it is time. Have you prepared yourself for what is to come?

Mahanon climbs to his feet, and that feeling becomes almost debilitating as he rises. He wants to drop to his knees; to let the rays of this new heat scorch his skin until he’s scarred. If he opens his mouth, he feels as if the golden light of the sun would spill out from his parted lips in the shape of praise. Of prayer. Mahanon can now put a name to the emotion attempting to cripple his body.

Devotion.

“I’m ready,” he says, but he doesn’t know for what. He isn’t prepared for the feeling of nails being driven into bone to start a climb up his legs. He does drop to his knees, then; down to his arms; down to the ground. A scream rips from his chest as he feels his body crack and shift. Weight presses down to his skin and organs as he’s crushed into a fetal position. Grass is ripped from the meadow into his raw hands and he feels as if the previously plush blades have become a bed of serrated knives that cut into skin.

Roots from the surrounding trees rise from the damp ground and grab onto him; pulling him down, down, down into the dark earth. His lungs begin to fill with clay and dirt as he sobs. He screams and he suffocates and he burns and the gentle voice of the sun can do nothing to alleviate the agony that’s tearing through him as the world presses him against bedrock until he’s shredded into his individual pieces. Even then, he can’t escape the torture as he’s dragged back up by a hook through his heart, and when he bursts into a landscape of soot and ash, the air tastes rancid and sits wrong in his chest.

Lines in the twisting shapes of vines sear into his forehead; his cheeks; his chin, and Mahanon can taste the blood from the wounds as his face is coated in red. A cool hand holds his jaw, and Mahanon can see a blurry image of a woman with light brown hair hovering over him. Her eyes are lit with a blue bordering on white, and a silver headpiece circles her forehead and cheeks. Devoutness tries to choke Mahanon once again as he takes in her visage.

When Mahanon reaches out to her, his hand is wrong. Its fingers are long, and the skin is pale and free of scars. His vision begins shaking as anxiety pours through his veins, and the pain that’s invaded his body shrinks down to his abdomen.

“Welcome, Wisdom,” the woman says as the world becomes hazy. “We have much to do.” The pain in his stomach sharpens as if he was run through with a pike, and the world goes dark once again.

—

Mahanon wakes up with an attempt to jolt upright, but the elf is cut off about an inch above the bed — he must’ve trapped himself with his stupid blanket twisting and turning again somehow. His chest is heaving with labored breaths left over from the nightmare, and the panting is probably exacerbating the pain leaking out from his abdomen. He tries to breathe deeply in an attempt to calm down, but he still seems to be stuck in fight or flight mode. At least the pain has calmed down a bit; it isn’t nearly as bad as it was when-

Oh, shit.

The world sharpens into clarity very quickly, and Mahanon lets out a panicked wheeze as he takes in his surroundings. He’s in some sort of infirmary with stone walls, but the complete lack of light in the room makes it so Mahanon can’t make out any other details. His cot — which is incredibly stiff and in no way resembles his bed — is pressed up against a corner. His frantic breaths are the only ones that echo around the chamber, so he can take vague comfort in the knowledge that he’s alone in his pseudo-cell.

He is not, in fact, trapped by a blanket, but instead by chains that circle around his arms, legs, chest, and waist. They seem to be carefully placed around his wound so they don’t disturb it, and Mahanon can admit that they did a pretty effective job in keeping him from moving in a way that would worsen the injury. He’s a little too busy freaking out to actually appreciate that fact, though, because they’ve done a pretty effective job in keeping him from moving at all.

He must’ve been out for at least a week, because his magic rattles angrily throughout his ribcage in a way it wouldn’t have been able to in the days following the tomb and rescue missions. He can’t lift his head well enough to see it start crackling across his body, but flashes of gold light the room up haphazardly. There are two curtains hung around his corner, so he still can’t see any of the rest of the room, but he can see that the chains are nailed into the wall and that the floor is made of wood. No melting his chains with fire magic, then. Wonderful.

The problem with that is there’s no other magic that Mahanon can use right now. While he doesn’t work with a staff, he still has to use a conduit for spells. The conduit he uses is his body, and right now, he can’t fucking move. His arms have been pinned up above his head so his hands could be trapped by some sort of hook, and there are metal boots casing his feet so he can’t jerk them. While he could manifest fire from this position, it’s too likely that the metal he’s pressed against would sear his fingerprints off then drop and light the room on fire before he can fully remove a single chain.

This isn’t a normal hold to put a mage in, and Mahanon is trying desperately not to think about that, but it isn’t like there’s anything else going on to distract him. He tries to take stock of himself. There’s a blanket draped over him that hides his body, but he can feel the restriction of bandages wrapped around his stomach. They feel damp, but Mahanon doesn’t know if it’s with blood, infection, or salves. The pants he’s in are softer than any pair he’s owned, and that realization sounds off an entirely new wave of panic as Mahanon realizes that he can’t see or feel a single thing that belongs to him. His rings — his rings —  have been removed, his clothes aren’t his own, and there isn’t a chest or anything in sight where his cloak and daggers could’ve been put.

He feels naked — and the fact that he’s shirtless is only making it worse. The electricity coursing through his body sets his nerves alight, and the scars on his chest feel raw every time he shifts and the blanket scrapes across them. One would assume that Mahanon would stop moving to prevent that, but he’s not exactly in a good headspace right now.

Here’s the thing: Mahanon has never even considered the possibility of capture. He’s made a distinct habit of getting in and out of battles quickly specifically to avoid it. He always kind of planned on just ending it all in an epic showdown in lieu of being taken somewhere. Never would he be a slave again, so never again would he be trapped. He was really confident that he would never be caught. By the Creators, he threw himself into a storeroom and accepted death over being caught by the agents of Fen’Harel.

It should’ve worked, too. There are tremors racking his body and sweat slicking his skin, and both things were present before he remembered the shit show he got himself sucked into. The blade he was stabbed with was poisoned, and it probably hit a major organ, and he feels like he lost enough blood to fill up a wine barrel. For all intents and purposes, he should be dead. He’s not really sure how he feels about that yet.

That’s all to say, he isn’t capable of being the big, bad hero people would expect him to be right now. He’s trying to pull himself together, but with no enemy to be brave in front of, he’s incapable of it. He’s shaking, and he’s scared, and he can feel that tears are leaking out of the corners of his eyes that can’t be blamed on the pain radiating from his abdomen. The horror he woke up from is still clinging to his mind, and the flashes of light emanating from his body don’t do much to chase away the darkness of the room he’s stuck in.

He’s not in a dungeon, and he knows that Fen’Harel doesn’t take slaves, but all that leads him to is a big fat question mark regarding how the rest of this situation is about to play out. He’s clean , too. Gore should be covering him head to toe, but his skin is free of blood, and the bandage wrapped around his arm where that rogue caught him is stark white except where yellow splotches leak through. It’s infected, then, but regularly cleaned, which, in Mahanon’s opinion, is a really weird way to treat a hostage. Or maybe a prisoner?

Mahanon isn’t sure which term he would qualify under currently.

He feels like he blinks, but he must’ve dozed off somehow, because when his eyes open again, light is leaking onto his cot to warm his face. There must be some sort of window in the infirmary. Mahanon isn’t very grateful for the sun, though, because he feels like he’s burning up, and it’s blocking his vision. Sweat is dripping down his brow, and he can feel himself groan as his stomach lets out a pulse of irritation.

Mahanon’s body is held so tightly to the cot that he can’t even jump when a cool rag is suddenly pressed against his forehead. A streak of lightning snaps at the holder, and a vibrant green barrier manifests in front of them to take the hit. It shudders upon impact, but doesn’t crack. Mahanon realizes quickly that his injured hand is free — and lacking a bandage — and the limb swings up in a blind punch with a stone fist manifesting behind it. There’s a clatter as somebody rises quickly from a chair or stool next to him to avoid his hit, and the barrier once again catches his spell without breaking.

There’s an immovable grip on his wrist, and his arm is pulled to the side so that he’s unable to bend the elbow. A snarl escapes his lips, and a woman’s voice sounds out with a, “Please, don’t!”

“I will not hurt him,” a deep voice responds, and Mahanon shakes his head in an attempt to clear the confusion from it. The light that’s attempting to blind him dims as a curtain is hastily drawn over the window. “It is just a restraint.”

“Are you sure,” Mahanon pants, “that I don’t need another one? I think I can move one of my toes.” The world is finally coming into focus, but Mahanon isn’t quite sure he likes what it’s shaping into.

“He is spirited.” Mahanon recognizes the voice as the same one that found him in the storeroom. He must be the owner of the barriers, because when Mahanon attempts to dig his nails into the wrist above his captured hand, another one manifests to block him. The grip on his wrist slides down to hold his hand instead with an irritated sound, and Mahanon blinks blearily at his captor as he comes into focus.

He can feel his breathing stop and his heart kick into overdrive. Violet eyes stare down at him, and dark brows are drawn together in a calculating look. The sharp armor that the elf had been wearing in Tevinter has been traded for a lighter option. He’s wrapped in leather beneath what looks like a trench coat, and a golden breastplate that wraps up to his shoulders protects his chest. Mahanon could pretend the man towering over him is just another ancient elf, but a wolf’s jaw bone rests just below the collar of his coat, and Mahanon has spent hours studying drawings so he can easily identify his enemy.

Fen’Harel.

Mahanon is fucked.

He tries to snatch his hand back, but the Dread Wolf’s grip doesn’t budge. Another ragged sound escapes the smaller elf as he continues to pull, and a glint of something flickers across Fen’Harel’s face. Mahanon needs Ellana to stay as far away from this place as possible, but he really would appreciate her help with deciphering whatever the hell it was. He is so out of his depth, and exhaustion is once again creeping in the more he struggles.

Unfortunately, Mahanon is nothing if not stubborn. He bares his teeth. Some combination of bafflement, curiosity, and disgust flashes across the god’s face, but he wipes it away with an impressive speed. Mahanon almost thinks that he imagined it, but the aloof expression now on Fen’Harel’s face is too measured not to be practiced.

“Please,” the woman’s voice interrupts, and Mahanon doesn’t let his eyes flick to look at the owner — no fucking way is he looking away from the Elvhen god holding his arm hostage. “He doesn’t know what is happening. This isn’t the first time-”

“He is awake.” Fen’Harel’s eyes narrow as he looks at Mahanon. “And aware.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know who-”

“I know who the fucking Dread Wolf is.” Mahanon feels weird about interrupting the person trying to keep him from turning to stone, but his impulse control is worse than normal currently. He would like to think it’s understandable.

“Halla,” the woman pleads, and Mahanon finds it within himself to bite his tongue at the pinched expression Fen’Harel makes.

“I recommend you finish cleaning this quickly,” the Dread Wolf says, raising Mahanon’s hand. His grasp is still made of iron when Mahanon tries to yank it back. “I have given my assistance, but I would hazard a guess that he will not calm down until I leave.”

“Stop talking about me like I’m not here. Aren’t gods supposed to have manners, or something?” He can’t help it. Fen’Harel is really rubbing him the wrong way — probably due to the abduction.

“And you have agreed that he is your responsibility.” The Dread Wolf’s nose scrunches for just a second, and a flash of elation runs through Mahanon at the idea that he’s irritating him. It’s replaced quickly with stress when he remembers that his arm is still in the god’s possession.

The cold rag is once again placed against Mahanon’s forehead and is left to rest there. The elf lets out a hiss as some sort of cleanser is applied to his wound; it burns. A corner of Fen’Harel’s mouth ticks up — asshole. A cooling salve is slapped over the sting, and his arm is wrapped again quickly. The god sticks his hand back in its shackle and backs up, tossing a key on top of his chest. He looks to Mahanon’s side, but the Dalish man keeps his eyes on the ancient elf.

“You will now be held accountable for him.” The Dread Wolf’s eyes turn back to Mahanon. He looks him up and down clinically then turns and walks to the door. “His actions reflect on you.”

“Speak like a fucking normal person,” Mahanon shoots at the man’s back, and he pauses at the door — one hand on the frame as he turns his head slightly to the side. A rock drops in Mahanon’s gut, but he ignores it as he faces off against his people’s god again.

“I suggest you keep an eye on him,” Fen’Harel murmurs, and then he’s gone.

The cold towel is swiped from his forehead and smacks him on the chest, and he turns his attention to the person who is apparently his keeper now. Liara stares back at him, straddling the line between flabbergasted and unimpressed. She has the rag held up as if to smack him again. “What is wrong with you? He could have killed you!”

“But he didn’t?” She smacks him again. “And these aren’t better circumstances.”

“That is a god.”

“That is a very powerful mage with an even more powerful ego.” Mahanon sucks on his teeth before conceding, “Who might just so happen to be a god.”

Another smack. The blanket on top of him was already damp with sweat, but the rag is beginning to make it wet , and it’s honestly a really gross feeling. Mahanon makes a face, and Liara sighs before ripping the blanket off of him. Staring down at his exposed chest, Mahanon isn’t sure if he likes this situation any more than the previous one. His eyes track Liara as she moves across the room to a chest.

“Why didn’t he kill me?” Mahanon asks, then remembers his question from the night before. “Actually, why am I alive at all?”

Liara freezes as if she’s been caught with something for only half a second before she continues to grab a new blanket from the chest. It’s shockingly soft when she lays it across him, and she picks up the chair she knocked over in her haste to avoid his swing. She sits smoothly, then responds, “Is there no merit in preventing the death of an unexpected ally?”

“Sure there is,” Mahanon says, “but that’s not why he saved me. That’s senseless considering I’m actively working against him.”

Liara looks offended. If it’s about getting caught in a lie or for a dig against her leader, Mahanon isn’t sure. “Fen’Harel sees-”

There’s a thump from nearby, and Mahanon watches as a gangly teen drops from the rafters of the infirmary. They land on their hands and knees, groan, then wipe the cobwebs from the ceiling off of themself when they stand. They’re in patchworked clothes that look handmade, and they shake the dust out of their hair haphazardly. Mahanon thought there was some sort of color mixed into the grime, but it turns out that they’ve actually just dyed their hair a dark blue. It’s shaved mostly short except for a thin braid that hangs behind their left ear. Their wild grin and wide brown eyes make them look manic. “He was curious.”

“Sarel!” Liara sounds scandalized, and the teen — Sarel, apparently — shrugs and rubs the back of their head with one hand awkwardly. They motion vaguely around the room with the other.

“What? It’s true.” They half-skip over to Mahanon’s cot and throw themself into a chair at the foot of his bed. Mahanon narrows his eyes and really looks at them, because they seem so familiar, but he can’t identify from where. They cross their arms, kick their feet up to rest on a corner of the cot, and eye Mahanon’s restraints warily. “That seems like a lot.”

“You think?” Mahanon asks dryly, and Sarel snorts. Liara smacks their feet off of the cot, and they stick their tongue out at her.

A chunk of dried paint on their finger distracts them, and they pick at it while they deliver their report. “Anyways; a bunch of us got together and pretty much begged him to keep you from dying, and it piqued his interest or something. Seems like he barely made it though. You scared the shit out of a lot of us, Halla. Try not to do that again, yeah?” Mahanon can’t feel it when they pat his shin sympathetically, but he appreciates the gesture anyways. The kid has done a wonderful job at single handedly fighting off the panic attack that was building in him with a particularly pointy stick.

“Believe it or not, I don’t have plans to.” Mahanon’s voice is raspy — either from misuse or from screaming while he was unconscious and feverish — and Sarel leans around looking for something. They let out a heavy sigh, throw themself to their feet dramatically, and stomp to the door. They turn and point accusingly at Mahanon.

“Stay there.” Mahanon looks down at his restraints, then back at Sarel. They grin again and throw him a thumbs up before vanishing. Liara seems to be expecting his wide eyed look, but doesn’t seem to expect the smile that slides across his face.

“They’re great,” he says, and Liara lets out what seems to be a relieved sigh. Her tensed shoulders slouch, and she dips the warming rag into a bucket at her feet. When she swipes it across his face again, the water is cool.

“I am glad you think so. They’re already quite attached.” Mahanon’s attention is drawn from his attempts to identify the teenager by the statement. At his confused look, Liara says, “You’ve met before.”

His brows furrow, and he tries to think back on the rebellions he’s attended. “When?”

“A very long time ago. Right before your horns, I believe.” Liara is smiling softly. “You were not yet the halla, but a stranger with daggers and golden magic destroyed the slaver ship Sarel and their father were captured on. It was not a difficult jump to connect that person and Tevinter’s new vigilante. They were ten.”

“Oh.” Mahanon hasn’t ever met anybody who he’s helped before. He has the contacts he sent recently freed slaves to, but there’s never been a situation where he’s met somebody out of his illusions. It was best that way, and Mahanon isn’t really sure how he’s supposed to approach this situation. He’s not sure how to approach any of this situation — the chains binding him feel heavier than before. He decides to avoid the subject altogether. “Am I a hostage?”

“No!” Liara looks startled, but Mahanon doesn’t really think that’s such a crazy concept. He’s stuck behind enemy lines and chained to a cot.

“Am I a prisoner?” He asks instead, and the door slams open as Sarel comes bounding back into the room, a pitcher in one hand and a cup in the other. They tilt their head and bite the inside of their cheek in thought as they drag over a stool to put next to Mahanon’s bed. The door stays open, and the air that leaks in is cold.

“Nah, I don’t think so.” They fill up a cup with water and eye Mahanon’s chains. The key is snatched off of Mahanon’s chest and Sarel knocks away Liara’s hand when she tries to stop them. His arm is once again free, and his chest feels just a little less like it’s being crushed. He takes the offered cup, and the shockingly cold water eases the burn in the back of his throat.

“So can I leave?” The hinges of the door whine as it’s closed, and Mahanon turns his head to face the new intruder. His breathing hitches slightly as his eyes meet familiar yellow ones. Ellanis is dressed in simple leather armor instead of his bulky battle gear, but his greatsword still rests on his back as he leans against the wall.

“No,” he says simply, crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes as he takes in Mahanon’s current state of illness, injury, and lack of restraint. “You may not.”

“So I am a prisoner.” Mahanon sighs and lets his head fall onto the paper-thin pillow beneath him. He stubbornly refuses to let the tears collecting in his eyes fall. “And you’re probably my jailor, right?”

“I am your guard, and if you wish to think of Tarasyl’an Te’las as a prison, you may feel free to do so.” The blunt words are refreshing — at least somebody won’t beat around the bush about his trapped status. Sarel makes an irritated sound. “You will be mended, fed, and housed. We will not force you to work, but you will remain within these walls.”

Mahanon stares at the rafters above him miserably. He misses his bed. He misses Varic and Bull and Dorian and Revas. He misses Ellana. He almost breaks his teeth with how hard he clenches his jaw. “Okay,” he whispers thickly, and Ellanis lets out a quiet huff.

Quiet footsteps approach, and Mahanon can hear the pitcher of water next to him fill the bucket below his bed and a splash as the rag falls into it. “Refill the water,” Ellanis orders Liara and Sarel, and the two elves filter out quickly. Mahanon has shut his eyes hard enough that spots dance across the blackness coating his vision. “They will be back in three minutes.” The rag is brought back out and placed across Mahanon’s neck, and Ellanis closes the door behind him.

He curses the Dread Wolf’s name as he cries, and Mahanon is falling asleep by the time the door opens ten minutes later.

Chapter Text

Mahanon is wandering in a quiet forest — traveling down the bank of a clear stream. The sun is walking next to him, and he can identify it now as a spirit of compassion morphed into something physical. There’s a thick tension in the air, and Mahanon knows they’ve been arguing, and that he is losing. He’s responding to a prompt he doesn’t recall hearing. “When you took the glowing stone to build your body, did the earth not shake?”

The spirit shaped into a woman’s lithe body shakes her head, and the disappointment on her face cracks something in Mahanon’s chest. “The lyrium gives us the strength we had when we were of the Fade. We are the best of physical and spirit.” Mahanon scowls, kicking rocks out of his way as he continues to follow the river next to him.

The world shakes around him briefly — the sound and visuals cutting out — but when everything returns to him, the woman is standing in front of him to block his path. She’s in the middle of a sentence as she says, “-to withstand the louder voices who would go too far, like Elgar’nan.”

Mahanon opens his mouth to argue despite the uncertainty attempting to make him falter, but something in his hindbrain is bending in confusion. He knows of what this spirit wants — of what she’s demanding his help with — but something disoriented whispers to him, Elgar’nan? Something else hisses, Command.

“I need you.” The plea cuts through his conflicting thoughts and fills his lungs with an exhilaration that threatens to choke him. Mahanon lets out a shuddering breath, eyes wide.

“This is madness,” he responds. “You must know that.”

Her expression hardens, and Mahanon feels as if his very being shrinks in the face of her displeasure. His resolve crumbles, and he looks up at the gold and umber leaves of the trees above him when he murmurs, “I will always follow where you go.” The words taste acidic as they pass his lips.

The woman hums methodically, and is smiling softly when Mahanon lowers his head to face her. “I know,” she says, and rests a hand gently on his arm. “I will give you a week's time to prepare yourself. I am proud of you, Wisdom.” Devotion warms his skin, and Mahanon’s body relieves itself of its tension at the words. Compassion fades from his view, and Mahanon steps gently into the stream next to him. He wants to memorize the feeling of it against his feet; this will be one of the last times he feels it as it is in this purest, magic soaked form again.

—

He’s burning alive — blisters forming and bursting across his skin as he suffocates on clay and dirt and poisoned roots. It chokes the life out of him as he’s thrown against jagged stones until he breaks and is dragged by his soul into a place full of rotten air. His hand looks wrong, and the sun’s fingers trace his bleeding face lovingly, and he feels his mouth shape a sobbed word.

Mythal.

—

Mahanon wakes to his body emptying itself into a bucket that Sarel placed near his bed sometime within the last few weeks. His nightmares have been getting worse and waking him up violently more and more frequently, so they had to quickly come up with a solution to avoid him puking all over the floor. Guilt crawls up Mahanon’s spine as Sarel and their father — Thelhen — don’t so much as twitch; not even a month ago, they would’ve been up on their feet and over to his half of the room before Mahanon was fully awake. They shouldn't have been forced to get used to this; Sarel shouldn’t have been forced to get used to this.

Some fucking hero, he is.

Mahanon drags himself to his feet and grabs a wool cloak from the chest at the end of his bed. He’s well acquainted with the panic that attempts to surge through him as he’s once again reminded that all of the things he owned are — that his ring is — missing, so he pushes his way past it quickly. He shoves on his boots, slips into the cloak, and grabs a waterskin and a tube of Thelhen’s mint paste to shove into his pocket. He grabs the bucket and closes the door softly behind him when he leaves the room.

There are eyes on Mahanon as he climbs up to the top of one of Skyhold’s walls to dump the bucket over the side and spit a mouthful of water after it. He scrubs his teeth and tongue roughly with the paste, and he drinks deeply from the waterskin after to clean his mouth completely. More water is dumped into the bucket to clean it before it’s poured out over the wall as well.

When he makes his way back down the stairs, he drops the bucket off at the door leading to the housing section his room resides in. The idea of going back in to face another convoluted dream turns his stomach again, so Mahanon takes a deep breath of cold mountain air and turns. There’s a short staircase next to the main gate of Skyhold that opens to a landing without a guardrail, and Mahanon rests himself there — legs swinging in the wind as he holds his head in his hands.

He can handle the regular nightmares fine. Yes, they make him puke, but he’s usually able to go back to sleep afterwards. A near decade of the same shitty dreams makes it so they’re not as difficult to push past, and there’s only about three major regrets they can shape themselves around. You know:

Wow, I’m a piece of shit because I couldn’t save everybody and let a bunch of people down. 

Wow, I’m a piece of shit because an innocent kid just watched me pulverize a bunch of bodies into piles of gore.

Wow, I’m a piece of shit because that cultist was a human that was important to somebody.

The usual failing hero things. Mahanon isn’t really sure where the last one comes from, though. He never has a problem with it during his conscious hours.

These new dreams, though? The ones that leave the taste of lyrium on his tongue and the crackle of foreign magic in his chest? Mahanon doesn’t know how to deal with those ones. He’d blame it on the stress of his seemingly never ending abduction, but they’re too real to pass off as something so small. Each time he wakes up, the crisp air feels stale in his lungs, and he feels like he’s been shoved into a box that’s approximately seven sizes too small for him to fit in.

It’s magic of some kind, and he’s going to blame it on Fen’Harel. The nightmares started up after he touched that damn statue; it must be some sort of safeguard to prevent access to whatever was in it.

Mahanon’s hands block the majority of his vision, but a shift in the shadows about fifty feet from him grabs his attention from the corner of his eye. Ellanis gives him a look — it seems to be equal parts scrutiny and pity — then disappears back into the part of Skyhold that his room is in. Mahanon vaguely considers the fact that the ancient elf was probably around during the time that weird statue was made, and for half a second, the thought of asking Ellanis about the dreams flits across his mind. The Dalish man quickly dismisses it as a moment of fatigue-induced insanity.

Nobody asks him about his nightmares; it’s a blessing and a curse. On one hand, he doesn’t have to talk about his deepest and darkest fears with people he barely knows, but on the other hand, he has nobody to talk to about these weirdly realistic dreams that attempt to carry over into his waking world.

It’s also incredibly disorienting to want to talk about those nightmares — dreams? — with anybody. Mahanon has been stuck in Skyhold for about two months now, and it’s been impossible not to build relationships with some of its inhabitants. After living a life nearly completely void of socialization, it’s like some hidden part of his brain is sinking its fangs into any and all possible positive connections. He did it with the Inquisition, and he’s failed to prevent it from happening at Skyhold.

Liara was the first person he found himself attached to. Despite Sarel’s attempts, Ellanis was able to keep them at bay quite effectively and trapped them out of the infirmary while Mahanon healed. It led to Liara being the only person he was able to really connect with. She fed him, kept his fever at bay with cool buckets of water, and applied healing salves to the wounds she helped keep clean. She’s the leader of her own taskforce that seems to emphasize aiding rebellions, so she would have to occasionally disappear for a few days. When she’s not gone now, she drags Mahanon around to watch training drills and help clean armor.

Neria — her sister — would take over whenever she was gone. She was the healer actually responsible for keeping him alive. She stitched him up and knew how to keep the infection that festered in his wounds from killing him, and she’s completely unaware of who he is and the circumstances of his arrival at the Dread Wolf’s base. Mahanon sometimes goes back to the infirmary to help stitch up the wounds of ex-slaves that follow Liara back to Skyhold, and Neria carefully steps around the topic of why he knows how to fix life threatening injuries.

Thelhen decided that he would evaluate Mahanon before allowing Sarel to get anywhere near him, and Mahanon respects the man deeply for it. He knows the Mahanon is the Halla — he was able to make the same connections as Sarel — but he thankfully doesn’t treat Mahanon with the weird hero worship that his child gives the Dalish man. He’s also a healer, but more in the way that he creates the salves and potions that Neria utilizes. Sometimes, Mahanon will sit around in his workroom and pass him an herb that he needs. He reminds Mahanon of Faelor, and it eases the ache in his chest whenever he thinks about the older man just a little.

And Sarel is Sarel; there isn’t really another way to describe the teenager. They’re loud and eclectic and covered in paint the majority of the time, and they try so hard with everything that they do. They’re training to be a scout, they go out with hunting parties to forage plants that Thelhen needs, and they drag Mahanon around Skyhold at every chance they get. He helps them sew clothes and ends up stained with paint more often than not, and Mahanon has no idea how he’s going to cope with never seeing them again after he gets out of this damn prison.

The hair on the back of his neck rises, and Mahanon is quickly pulled from his conflicting thoughts. He sighs into his hands, drags them up through his hair, and freezes when he turns his head to the side. He’d been expecting Ellanis to be standing behind him — ready to force Mahanon back into his room — but instead, he’s met with the sight of leather boots that are such a light amber that they seem to be shining gold.

When he looks up, it’s to the sight of Fen’Harel towering above him — the light of the moon highlighting the angled features of his face as he stands with his hands clasped behind his back in a parade rest. His brows cast enough of a shadow below them that Mahanon can’t really see his violet eyes as the god stares down his nose at him, but he can feel the Dread Wolf’s gaze as it roams over his exhausted face. “It is an interesting time to be out,” Fen’Harel murmurs, and it sparks the livewire that permanently resides in Mahanon’s chest.

“You’re out, aren’t you?” Mahanon snaps, and the god’s brows furrow as his head tilts in thought so slightly that it’s barely noticeable. Mahanon catches it, though; he would’ve been killed years ago if he wasn’t able to notice such small reactions.

“Is it so shocking that I walk my own base?”

“Don’t you have people for that? I figured it would be below a god to check his own defenses.” Mahanon watches as the Dread Wolf’s face darkens, and the smallest trickle of fear makes its way up Mahanon’s throat. He swallows it back down stubbornly.

“I am no god,” he says, and Mahanon fights off a sarcastic laugh. “Is that what you are doing?”

“What, you think I would just tell you that?”

“Perhaps in an attempt to divert attention from your true reason for being out so late into the night.” The light of a nearby torch flickers across the god’s face to reveal the calculating look that he’s giving Mahanon, and the weight of it makes the Dalish man feel uneasy. He climbs to his feet carefully, eyeing the other man warily.

“Maybe I’m thinking of who I can recruit to help me get out of here,” Mahanon offers, and the corners of the Dread Wolf’s mouth turn down before he catches himself and cools his face into an impassive expression again.

“You expect me to think that you would put together a test of loyalty?”

“You don’t know me.”

“No,” Fen’Harel agrees with a measured tone, still seeming to analyze Mahanon as silence stretches between them. Mahanon can’t help but fill it in an attempt to cut through the oppressive air around them.

“Maybe I would win.”

“It is possible. How much of Skyhold would tear itself to shreds in the face of such a dilemma?” Mahanon thinks about Sarel and grimaces. He doesn’t care about the defensive implications as he crosses his arms and leans to the side in an attempt to create more space between him and the god.

There’s a reason Mahanon is keeping the title of The Halla of Tevinter close to his chest; a reason that he’s told those who know him as such to not spread around the information in no uncertain terms. The Halla was working with the Inquisitor; they made it to her inner circle. There was no possible way that he would be here willingly, and there would be a battle as those who would side with him tried to get him out of Skyhold. He refuses to have that blood on his hands. He isn’t so sure that the Dread Wolf has the same conviction.

“Why am I still here? Why didn’t you let me die?” Mahanon asks, and Fen’Harel’s brows raise slightly at the bluntness of the question.

“You think I would simply tell you that?” The Dread Wolf echoes his response from earlier, and Mahanon closes his eyes with a sigh. “Can you not put thought into discovering that answer independently? Is the Inquisitor an exception in the Lavellan clan with her intelligence, or are you a disappointment with your preference for acting without active thought?

I went to him for advice on everything, Ellana had cried, and he helped. Every time. Without complaint. It couldn’t have all been lies; he’s my friend, Mahanon. He has to be.

Her friend is an asshole.

The thing is, Mahanon has countless theories about why he’s been kept alive, but none of them mean anything without evidence to support them. He opens his mouth to express as much, but pauses when he takes in the relaxed stance the Dread Wolf has taken on with a new assumption that Mahanon isn’t a threat.

This could work in his favor. If Fen’Harel dismisses Mahanon as a man who’s had an incredible relationship with dumb luck, he won’t be dedicating as many resources to keeping him under watch. Despite what the Dread Wolf clearly thinks, Mahanon is nothing if not observant. He catches that there are more eyes on him than Ellanis, but each of those agents could be called to a purpose elsewhere if Fen’Harel doesn’t think their babysitting services are needed anymore.

Instead of continuing to engage in what Mahanon is beginning to identify as an almost exploratory argument, the man bites out a vicious, “Fuck you.”

It clearly isn’t the response that the Dread Wolf was expecting, and Mahanon attempts to shove past the god to return to his room during the moment of surprise. It doesn’t work. Halfway past the ancient elf, an unbreakable hold latches onto his bicep, and the contact rapidly sends shivers up and down his arm. He curses himself mentally as his breath catches before he can attempt to override the response.

Sometimes, Mahanon thinks about Tevinter and the slave rebellions there when his mind is unoccupied. It fills him with such a helplessness at being trapped here and useless that his chest aches, so Liara has been doing her best to cut off discussions about those topics whenever he comes within range to hear them. This has accidentally built the image of Mahanon as some sort of heavily traumatized ex-slave who can’t handle hearing anything about those topics. Mahanon constantly wears long sleeved clothing in an attempt to avoid feeding into that concept — the scars that litter his body would do little to help with dispelling the idea.

To be fair, he is a heavily traumatized ex-slave, but being treated like he’s made of glass is disorienting when he’s much more comparable to a brick that’s thrown through it. Combine that alleged fragileness with his twitchiness whenever he comes into contact with somebody else, and you have a perfect recipe for Mahanon going right back to a life completely void of physical contact. All of Bull’s hard work has rapidly been undone, and the grip on him is overwhelming to the point where he feels like his arm is on fire.

When he whips his head to face Fen’Harel, the man’s violet eyes are already boring into his. Something subtle shifts in the god’s expression, but Mahanon can’t identify what it specifically is or why. His arm is abruptly let go, and Mahanon almost stumbles as he backs away from the ancient elf. His counterpart tilts his head in some sort of acknowledgement, then murmurs, “Enjoy the rest of your night.”

It feels like running away when Mahanon turns and walks back to his housing section.

—

A dagger of glowing lyrium rests in the sun’s bloody hands, and devastation wracks through Mahanon’s body as he stares at his own tainted ones. She said it was the only way to end the war. Her body fractures into the golden glow of her spirit, and the hue twists into the yellow eyes of an old woman in a dark alley.

A lone wolf howls.

What has he done?

What has he done?

Chapter Text

Mahanon spends another month avoiding conversation about his captor and holding his tongue, and holy shit; it’s hard.

He’s never been one to keep his opinions to himself. He’s never really had to — considering the fact he’s been severely lacking in the socialization department for almost a decade. When he did get the chance to talk to people, it wasn’t like he felt the need to withhold his murderous beliefs about Tevinter slavers and the system in general. Mahanon can admit that his morals veer into the darker shades of gray, and he doesn’t think that anybody can blame him for having an overall aversion to humans, but he doesn’t actually want the world as he knows it to end.

The sundering of the veil and the consequential leaking of the fade into the waking world would destroy everything. There’s the obvious issues — mainly: demons as far as the eye could see — but there are also more intricate problems and too many unanswered questions. Allegedly, elves would be fine with the transition, but what about the other races? Mages would most likely be fine, but if the world floods with magic, what happens to those without a connection to the fade already? Especially dwarves, who can’t even dream. Would they all die, or would they manifest magic they don’t know how to control like it seems modern elves would? 

And if they do manifest magic, how the hell are they supposed to control it? Who would lead all of these people? Fen’Harel can rant on and on about how he isn’t a god, but he’s one of very few people knowledgeable enough for the masses to look to for a leader — especially if almost all of the current ones die from some sort of magically induced stroke. Mahanon isn’t really into the idea of a bunch of ancient elves rising to unfathomable power. Based off of his people’s legends and the implications made by Fen’Harel being real, it sounds like that didn’t go too well the first time.

Honestly, he doubts that the Dread Wolf even has answers to all of these questions.

But he can’t say this shit, and it has him more irritable than ever. His plan has been working so far. Not a peep of resentment or rebellion has leaked from Mahanon’s lips in almost a month, and as he assumed, his guards have begun to be called off. People that conveniently had jobs posted in areas he frequented are no longer working in those spaces. Ancient elves — sans Ellanis — have been getting pulled more frequently to work on frontline issues. Even Liara has begun to pay less attention to where Mahanon is when he’s not directly in her line of sight.

Sarel knows that something is up, but they won’t mention it to anybody. They refuse to even ask Mahanon about it. He hopes that if questioned, they would tell whoever asked about his weird behavior — especially under threat. His skin crawls with the knowledge that they wouldn’t. Despite their clear willingness to help Mahanon with what he’s planning — he’s sure they know it’s an escape attempt — Mahanon refuses to drag them into any of it.

He’s already under immense stress about what the consequences of this might be for Liara, given that she’s his official keeper. He’s confident that she can handle herself, though. A teenager — who is a child despite what they all like to think — shouldn’t have to.

Unfortunately, opportunities to snap on people are presenting themselves at a rapid rate recently. It seems like more and more rebellions are happening, and the majority of those freed are taking up arms for the Dread Wolf, and these people take one look at his stupid bastardized vallaslin and assume that he is an overly willing habitant of Skyhold. Sarel is doing their best to distract him from it, and seems to be the only one really noticing his souring attitude.

They cleared an entire section of one of Skyhold’s back walls of their previous work to let Mahanon mark it, and he’s been working at it the entire period of peace he’s been giving the rest of the base. Where Sarel creates art with smooth lines and gradients, Mahanon slaps colors together to create vibrant shades with harsh transitions to each color. He’s been painting one of the sidestreet markets of Tevinter.

A small group of ex-slaves Mahanon helped created a hole in the wall restaurant in a spot surrounded by shops on carts and other small businesses that opened during nights and closed in the early morning. The food was warm, and they would always share a few bowls of whatever they made with Mahanon if he showed up. He tried not to bother them unless he couldn’t find food elsewhere — he has a tendency to bring up bad memories, believe it or not.

He paints the glow of the lamps around it with warm oranges and reds and painfully bright yellows. The scene he’s decided to depict is one he could only catch a glimpse of. The owners bought some small tables and chairs that they were able to roll in and out of the restaurant at open and close, and one of them had been sitting at one — eating with one of Tevinter’s guards.

They were smiling and sharing dishes, and it simultaneously twisted and warmed something in Mahanon’s chest. She was working past her trauma, and the guard was working past his biases, and Mahanon had to keep from returning to the restaurant so his name couldn’t mar their reputation. The loss hurt, but the progress the restaurant helped make was too important to risk for a small connection between him and the owners.

Sarel sews haphazardly planned pants together while Mahanon paints. The man started a habit of picking up random scraps of fabric to give them as a small payment for the space they’ve given him. He’s found more recently as he’s scrounged around for food to stockpile, and Sarel has started getting quieter with each piece he gives them.

He’s covered in paint when he steps back to look at his work, and some sort of awful combination of pride, excitement, exhaustion, and sadness tries to overtake him. He was giving himself until the work was complete to prepare, and now that it’s finished, the moment is almost surreal as he listens to Sarel hum to themself. There are no more details to add; the scene is finished and depicted as well as he could possibly manage.

“Wow,” Sarel says from behind him, and they’re staring at the painting almost in wonder. “That really pulled it all together. Where’d you learn how to do that?”

Mahanon shrugs, and carelessly pulls a hand through his hair to push it out of his face. He makes a face at the realization that there’s definitely streaks of color running through the black; it’s going to be awful trying to get out.

“I had to do something other than plan rebellions.” He pauses as he crosses his arms over his chest. He tilts his head in thought. “It also helped plan rebellions, I guess. If I had an image of the buildings I was working with, it was easier to get in and out.”

“Huh.” Sarel’s voice is thick. Mahanon turns to see them staring dead ahead, tears collecting in their dark eyes. They look at him, and the tears fall, and Mahanon feels like the air has been punched out of his chest. He vaults up to the landing they’re standing on hesitantly, and Sarel wraps their arms around him almost violently so they can muffle a small sob into his shoulder. The contact is sending shockwaves through his system, but Mahanon carefully copies their hold on him.

He clenches his jaw and swallows back his own emotions as the teenager cries. They need this more than he does, and he refuses to traumatize them further than they already are.

“I’ll miss you.” It’s whispered, and it cuts through Mahanon like a serrated arrow.

The breath he takes is shaky, but he mumbles back, “I’ll miss you too.”

It’s all they can say on the matter. Sarel shoves some paint onto their face to make it so their eyes look irritated by the fumes instead of tears, and Mahanon follows after them as they lead their way back with a loud exclamation of, “It just looks so nice!”

They drag him around the rest of the day, and follow him when he attempts to go elsewhere. Neria’s bright laugh fills the infirmary when Mahanon dunks his head in a bucket to rid himself completely of paint. Thelhen rolls his eyes when Mahanon posts up in the corner of his room to take a nap next to the plants he uses to make sleeping potions. The lavender smells nice; Mahanon refuses to feel weird about it.

Liara is currently out somewhere, and her wife — Jane — has been on a mission for over a week now, so Mahanon has nobody else to bother before he turns in for the night. He stares at the ceiling above him, and tries not to feel awful about the fact that he doesn’t want to leave the people he’s been able to call his friends.

His opportunity to escape comes too quickly.

Mahanon has had his pack set up with dried food and waterskins for days now. He’s managed to steal heavier clothing to fight the freezing mountain weather of early spring, and a kitchen knife has ended up next to a stolen pair of potions — one for healing, and the other for lyrium. He’d managed to actually get a glimpse of a hunter’s map a few days prior and memorized it to the best of his ability in the few seconds he had eyes on it, and he had a plan of where he would go.

Ellana had told him once about her escape from the Inquisition’s first base after Corypheus’ attack. There used to be an escape route in the Chantry. It collapsed during the attack, so I couldn’t use it, she’d said. But there was a mine hidden under Haven. It took me straight into the Frostback Mountains. She didn’t know how many days it took — only that it was a mostly straight shot until she had to walk up further towards the peak of the mountains — and Mahanon can only hope that he managed to steal enough rations for the trip to Haven.

Based off of the map he saw, there’s only one path that matched Ellana’s description. Mahanon knows how to get to Tevinter from Haven, and he knows how to get to the Inquisition’s base from there. He can taste his freedom.

The flavor is bittersweet.

Every waking hour, Mahanon finds himself stuck in a suffocating haze of anticipation and dread, and he doesn’t know what to do when the time to escape finally arises. Just a week after Mahanon finished his mural, he’s woken up by a thundering knock on the bedroom door in what is nearly the middle of the night. Thelhen sits up with a groan, and Sarel nearly falls out of bed as the door whips open. Liara stands in it — the flickering of torches in the hall lighting her frame up a bright orange — and she’s looking to Thelhen.

“The Dread Wolf has called for aid,” she says, and Thelhen huffs out a curse as he stands quickly to get dressed. Liara vanishes, and Sarel makes eye contact with Mahanon — looking miserable as they process what’s happening. The base is clearing out; the guards that used to watch Mahanon have dropped out of the job one by one; Ellanis’ booming voice can be heard as he directs troops through the castle into the Undercroft.

It’s time.

Thelhen files out of the room, and Sarel is quick to jump to the chest at the end of their bed. Under the guise of getting dressed as Mahanon begins to pull on thick furs, they rummage to the bottom and pull out some sort of shimmering white liquid in a vial. It rolls across the floor to Mahanon silently as they pull on their boots, and Mahanon’s hand hovers over it as his brows pull together.

“I hope it’s not cold wherever we’re getting called to,” Sarel mutters, “I’m tired of all of this fucking snow.” They trudge out of the room quickly. Mahanon can’t get himself to raise his head as he feels their gaze flick over him when they take a look back over their shoulder. He’s not supposed to know they’re taking in a final image; he’ll let them believe he doesn’t know it’s happening. With a wet sniffle, they’re gone.

Mahanon waits until chaos is truly taking over the hall to pull up the hood of his cloak and meld into the rushing crowd. It’s easy to dip away under a bridge and slide down a small roof to get to his mural. Somebody must have visited it recently given the footprints placed in front of it — probably Sarel. He hopes they visit it after tonight.

His pack is stored in the nearby stables, and Mahanon moves quicker than he has in a third of a year now. The bag is slung over his shoulder; he climbs up the roof of the stables, and falls flat right before hauling himself over the wall’s railing, smashing Sarel’s vial next to him. A white dust falls atop him, and the furs he’s wearing change from their dark brown to match the snow he’s laying in.

The voices that he heard running towards him continue past his current hiding spot, and Mahanon waits just long enough to know they’re not turning around before he climbs up onto one of Skyhold’s outer walls. As he expected, the runoff snow from the roof next to him has made a sizable pile on the land below. He takes a deep breath, holds it, and steps off of a very high wall.

He’s four days into his escape attempt, and Mahanon has no clue how Ellana managed to survive this trek without real winter clothing and packed necessities. It’s been snowing nonstop, and he’s not sure if that’s unfortunate or not. While he’s actively fighting frostbite and soaked to his underclothes, his footsteps are being covered at a rate that would make them impossible to track. Mostly.

Two nights ago, there was torch fire just past the treeline Mahanon had decided to rest behind. He’d had to stomp out the small flame he’d produced in an attempt to fight off the cold and hastily continue on his way before they got any closer. It was anxiety-inducing enough that Mahanon has only managed to sleep around five hours since. He needs to make camp, though. He hasn’t seen even a hint of a search party since then, and he’s going to be helpless in a fight if he doesn’t give himself a chance to pull it together.

The mouth of a cave comes into view, and Mahanon could cry tears of happiness. He won’t, because they would stick to his face, but he hopes the universe appreciates the sentiment nonetheless. He brushes the snow off of his body and drinks deeply from his last waterskin as he enters the tunnel. It’s huge. While the entrance was only about seven feet tall, the actual chamber that Mahanon finds himself in can fit at least five of him stacked on top of each other.

Sharp stalactites hang from the ceiling and drip water slowly onto the hard rock below, and Mahanon has to step carefully over sheets of ice as he makes his way deeper into the cave. It’s a risk setting up further within — he’ll have to fight his way out from however far he goes if he’s caught — but any fire he lights is less likely to be seen from outside with every ten feet he walks. His breath comes out in white puffs in front of his face as he drags his pack over his shoulder so he can grab some of the dried fruits that he packed.

Water isn’t a problem given the fact that he can shove snow into the waterskins he’s packed and heat them slightly with a flame whenever he’s thirsty, but Mahanon is beginning to run low on food. He’s honestly a little baffled that it’s taking him this long to find Haven; how did Ellana survive this journey concussed, bleeding, and just in her armor?

Mahanon sits on a rock that lays just before a turn into a second chamber to take a few deep breaths and attempt to warm up. Flames lick at his palm as he wills a fire to life, and he holds it dangerously close to his clothes in an attempt to dry them at least a little bit. The cold air hurts his teeth when he pulls his scarf fully below his chin, and the fruit is harder than usual due to the freezing temperature. It takes about five minutes for Mahanon to convince himself to stand up again and keep exploring his surroundings.

The fatigue that was attempting to possess him all but evaporates when he turns a corner and finds a minecart. The track that it rests on leads to a chamber that reeks of the fade, and Mahanon has to wipe his face roughly when stray tears leak from the corners of his eyes. The cracking support beams of the mine lead Mahanon down a path surrounded by dilapidated rocks and harsh ridges he has to climb. Eventually, he comes to a stop below a previously boarded up entryway.

The wooden planks are cracked down the middle where something heavy was thrown through them.

Mahanon had used the healing potion he brought with him yesterday after he sprained an ankle falling down a cliff face, but he still has his lyrium potion. He almost inhales it in his haste to drink it. The entryway is out of his reach as it is, but he can manifest and blow up some barriers to move the stones beneath it. It takes about five minutes to correctly angle everything — as previously complained about, his aim with anything but daggers is shit — but eventually, Mahanon makes a pile of rocks large enough to climb up.

He still has to jump in order to reach the ledge, but when he pulls himself back into the snow, it’s to the image of a crushed trebuchet. He can’t help but let out a laugh. Hope warms his body so thoroughly that it feels like he’s glowing as he takes in the destroyed weapon.

Haven.

He actually managed to make it to fucking Haven. He can go home. He already misses those he grew attached to at Skyhold — Liara, Thelhen, Sarel, Neria, maybe even Ellanis — but he can see his old friends again. Shoot the shit with Bull and Varric; play chess with Dorian; never even so much as think about Ellana as being overwhelming. Maybe he can convince them to send him back to Tevinter to aid with the rebellions again and try to sway ex-slaves away from joining the Dread Wolf. Maybe-

“You’ve no map or knowledge of the uncharted areas of these mountains, yet you’ve been moving with purpose.” All of the joy that was creeping through Mahanon’s body turns to devastation and drops through him like lead. He takes a shuddering breath and releases it slowly — watching it curl slowly in the freezing air in front of him as he searches desperately for an escape route. “Your memory is better than I expected.”

The mountain rests behind him and to his left; a sharp wooden wall stands before him. Mahanon doesn’t have to turn around to know that the mine entrance he just came through is no longer an option — the magic blocking it is so thick that he can smell it. Mahanon feels the eyes of a predator pin him in place, and he almost can’t swallow the panic that claws up his throat in response.

“Hello, Dread Wolf.” His voice is shaky. All of that work for fucking nothing.

“I fear I’ve underestimated you.” Fen’Harel’s voice is closer than before, so Mahanon forces himself to turn. They lock eyes, and the Dread Wolf tilts his head in acknowledgement. Mahanon grits his teeth.

“Don’t feel bad about it.” There’s an open path behind Fen’Harel that clearly leads into the rest of Haven, and Mahanon can hear the sound of an animal snorting. If he can manage to get around the god and take his horse, he could still make it. “It’s an easy thing to do.”

There are no other agents. Fen’Harel has decided to deal with Mahanon on his own. Something sparks in his eyes. “Yes. Something that you allowed me to do, was it not?”

“It worked in my favor, didn’t it?”

“Nearly.” Fen’Harel takes a step forward.

Mahanon shifts his weight to his left foot and watches as the Dread Wolf tracks the motion. The hair on the back of his neck rises in response, and the instinctual fear almost distracts Mahanon from a glaringly obvious question.

He knows why he’s in Haven; why is Fen’Harel?

The answer is simple and freezes the air in Mahanon’s lungs. “You knew I would come here.”

“One could say I made an educated guess.” Another step. Mahanon is running out of time to figure out how to get past the other man.

“They would be wrong, wouldn’t they?” Ellana mentioned to him that the god was good at twisting his words — never outright lying, but stepping around a topic just right to completely omit the truth. Fen’Harel doesn’t make guesses . That map had been left out on purpose, and Mahanon had taken the bait; hook, line, and sinker. A corner of the Dread Wolf’s mouth quirks in a flash of amusement when Mahanon feels the realization settle on his face and he hisses out, “Shit.”

He’s an idiot.

Fen’Harel truly begins his approach with measured steps, and Mahanon tries to analyze them in an attempt to figure out which way to feign and which way to run. When he looks up at the god’s face, the other elf is trying to figure out which choices Mahanon will opt for. He is not enjoying this little dance of wills that’s started between the two of them.

A tendency to move in straight lines, Varric’s voice whispers to him.

Fuck it.

A massive golden barrier manifests between Mahanon and Fen’Harel, and the Dalish man blows it up with such severity that the god is pushed back a few paces even after throwing his own barrier up. Mahanon shoots past him in three consecutive fade steps, grabs the wall that rested behind him, and uses the momentum to throw himself farther forward. A flash of green explodes behind him and streaks next to him, so Mahanon forces himself to fade step again. It’s a lot of mana to use so rapidly, but the roof of the stables is visible as he launches himself down a path leading to the main gate. He’s incredibly grateful for that lyrium potion.

The staircase leading to the main gate is in sight, but something knocks his feet from beneath him, and Mahanon ends up rolling across the dirt. Next to the staircase are broken wooden chunks of what seemed to be a market stall, and Mahanon grabs onto a solid plank and swings it violently as he twists back up. He manages to actually catch the Dread Wolf in the chest.

The wood explodes into a hail of splinters, and the god stumbles slightly at the contact. Mahanon fade steps once more and the gates of Haven are almost in reach when he’s slammed into from behind and taken down to the ground once again. The two men roll as Fen’Harel grabs onto Mahanon and pulls him against his chest, and the Dalish man feels weightless as he’s suddenly pulled up off of the dirt and into the air as he’s flung around in a circle.

While one arm is pinned to the side, his other is still free from where he’d been bracing against the rocky ground. He yanks it up in front of him to line up a solid shot of his elbow at his captor’s nose with a snarled, “Fuck!”

A pale hand shoots out to grab onto his wrist.

It’s long, free of scars, and startlingly pale against his skin; Mahanon’s vision does a weird twisting overlap of the real world and the nightmare he suffered immediately after his abduction. He hesitates on his strike as he tries to bring reality back into focus, and the brief delay leads to his wrist being pinned against his chest.

Mahanon braces himself for pain — a fist to the back of his head, the burn of a drugged rag over his face, anything — but nothing comes. There’s just a line of heat at his back, and it’s so disorienting that he feels dizzy.

Mahanon kicks and squirms and flings back his head in an attempt to break bones — a nose, a jaw, some teeth, anything — but Fen’Harel just tilts his head out of the way and adjusts his grip on his counterpart to keep him trapped. It’s too late when Mahanon realizes that the Dread Wolf is letting him tire himself out.

He’s been wandering the wilderness for four days. He’s cold, he’s exhausted , and he’s a moron who couldn’t think clearly enough to stop himself from sapping the fight out of his own body. He hangs his head in defeat, and tries to find some victory in the fact that the god is breathing almost as heavyily as he is.

“Have you already given up?”

And just like that, the victory is roasted in the flames of irritation.

“Su an’banal i’ma,” Mahanon pants. To the void with you. He doesn’t hear it, but he can feel Fen’Harel let out a huff. “Put me down.”

“So that you may attempt to run again?” Fen’Harel clarifies, and Mahanon lets out a snarl as he tries to lean back and bite the god. He moves his head out of the way calmly. “I find that I would prefer to avoid another chase.”

Mahanon thinks about the mere seconds that it took to be caught. “Some fucking chase.” He wants to spit out some other comment, but his body feels like it’s made of static where it rests against the god. It’s making it hard to think.

The Dread Wolf doesn’t respond, and instead adjusts his grip to hold Mahanon more solidly before he begins walking down the stairs. A combination of fear and confusion jolts through Mahanon’s body, but the new hold on him doesn’t even allow space for him to try to jerk around. “What are you doing?”

“Returning you to Tarasyl’an Te’las.” The stables come into view, and rocks begin to hover in a green glow next to the horse that Fen’Harel left there. The idea of following the animal back to Skyhold on foot attempts to drag Mahanon’s body down into the earth, but Fen’Harel approaches the stairs with Mahanon still in his arms.

The stones don’t sink even a millimeter as the Dread Wolf climbs them. Mahanon could be held in the same light next to the god instead of against his chest. So why-

This is a problem. Bull’s voice flits through his mind as he’s placed in front of the Dread Wolf on the horse. There’s a respectful distance between their hips, but Mahanon’s back rests against the ancient elf. He’s reminded of the look the god gave him before he released his arm weeks ago, and the rest of the fire in his chest dies with a shaky breath.

“You are clever.”

Yellow eyes stare at him from the back of Mahanon’s mind. “A woman told me that once in a back alley.”

Hesitate.

The elf feels sick.

The Dread Wolf wants to ask. Mahanon can almost taste it in the silence that follows. Mahanon hears a whisper.

Welcome, Wisdom.

Spirits can be twisted into demons, but can their natures change entirely? Compassion to faith; purpose to justice; wisdom to curiosity? Can they combine ideals? Break apart into new ones? The god behind him caves, but just slightly.

“Only her?”

Mahanon thinks of the near decade where his only socialization was murder and calling in favors. “You’re clever.” Mahanon can be a vague asshole, too.

Irritation thickens the air, but no remark comes after his comment. Instead, one hand comes to rest high on his hip and pushes slightly so that Mahanon is in a more reclined position. He’s tired, and the Dread Wolf is warm, and Mahanon can feel his thoughts take on a hazy quality. “You will not be able to escape,” Fen’Harel says. “Make this experience less miserable for the both of us and rest.”

“Don’t you have a spell for that?” The god doesn’t deign him with a response; instead, he slows his breathing in a way that makes Mahanon instinctually copy it.

The horse is untied and begins the journey back to Skyhold, and the uneven path adds a rocking quality to the ride. Mahanon doesn’t stand a chance. He can feel Fen’Harel’s hold on him adjust as he begins to slump, and the Dalish man is asleep before Haven can fully disappear from view.

Chapter Text

Mahanon hasn’t known peace since Haven. He woke up post-capture in a bed much more comfortable than the pallet of wood he’d been calling home for months now in a room he’d never seen before, and when he tried to leave, his path was blocked by a very angry ancient elf with yellow eyes.

Ellanis seems incredibly upset that he was put on intense babysitting duty. Mahanon can’t blame him; he would be too, but he would like it noted that he also despises the current setup of his life. He’s become very reluctant roommates with his towering nanny. The room is more than big enough for the both of them, but Mahanon still feels like he’s suffocating every time they’re in the space at the same time. It doesn’t help that he’s not even been able to leave the damn place in the two week long period he’s been stuck in it.

It’s not that the room isn’t nice, because it is. It really is. It’s almost six times the size of the one he’d had at the Inquisition base, it’s full of soft blankets and pillows, and there’s small piles of elegant pottery and stone statues to lighten everything up. There’s a fireplace made of dark stone against one wall that seems to constantly be burning in an attempt to fight off the cool air of early spring.

It’s made up of deep maroons and shades of gold, and the light that leaks in through a stained glass window reflects beautifully on the oil lamps scattered across the space. Unfortunately, Mahanon can’t throw himself out of said window in an escape attempt because he’s so far off of the ground that he can’t see the cobblestone paths below when the snowy clouds of the mountain block out the sun.

Ellanis has set up his bed in one corner of the room and blocked it off from Mahanon’s view with a folding divider made of what seems to be a dark cherry wood. He’s very sneakily left just enough space between it and the wall to allow him to jump in front of Mahanon if the man attempts to run out while he’s sleeping.

It was a fact learned through experience; Mahanon still has a bruise on his back where he hit the floor after Ellanis shoved him away from the door. The decorative carpet he’d landed on — inexplicably soft and a light, creamy beige color — did little to mitigate the damage.

Mahanon has pushed his bed into the opposite corner, and has been trying very hard to avoid sleeping while the other elf is in the room. He knows that somebody currently stands outside of the door to keep him under guard — he’s weirdly grateful that his title as a prisoner has finally been clarified — but the wood is thick enough that they hopefully can’t hear what he does on the other side of it.

The nightmares were an issue when Sarel and Thelhen were in the room, but Mahanon is really struggling with the idea of Ellanis being the one to witness the aftermath of his shitty dreams. It’s all led to him being extremely tired all of the time, and the lack of socialization is starting to drive him crazy.

He’d been alone for so long that he figured he’d be fine stuck away from everybody else, but working with the Inquisition and then sticking around his friends at Skyhold really fucked up the chemistry of his brain. He’s lonely, and he doesn’t know what to do about that. The other day, he almost willingly started a conversation with Ellanis. It’s horrifying. He’s resorting instead to bothering the ancient being in an attempt to irritate him so greatly that he’s moved out of the room and back to his normal lodgings.

It’s weird that all of the sentinels look identical. Did you purposely shave your eyebrows and work out with the same regime, or was it just a preference of Mythal’s?

I accidentally ripped another hole in your blanket.

I had a dream that you turned into a rat and ate all of the food in our storerooms last night; what do you think it means?

Just an hour ago, Mahanon read elvhen poetry badly, and that seemed to piss Ellanis off the most as the man knows that Mahanon can speak the language quite clearly. He’d stormed out of the room in a whirlwind of ancient elvhen cussing and flailing limbs. It felt like a victory at the time, but Mahanon has been sitting on his bed staring at a wall for the last ten minutes feeling just a little sorry for the taller man. It’s not like he wants to be stuck here, either. It’s honestly impressive that he hasn’t gone off the rails and killed Mahanon yet; Creators know he probably would’ve.

The door behind him creaks open, and Mahanon lets out a sighed, “Hey, I’m sorry for-”

It is not Ellanis standing there when he turns around. Fen’Harel is standing in the middle of the door in a parade rest — does the man’s back ever hurt from standing like a stick has been shoved up his ass all the damn time? — with an almost thunderous quality to his eyes. An eyebrow raises.

“Do go on,” he says, and Mahanon’s teeth click embarrassingly loudly when he snaps his mouth shut. “Please. Elaborate on what you planned to gain by prodding at the patience of the only person willing to afflict your childish behavior upon himself.”

Anger flares beneath Mahanon's skin at the words, but he can’t argue the logistics. It’s exactly what he’s been doing. He takes a different stance instead. “Nobody would have to tolerate anything if you’d just left me the fuck alone. Matter of fact, how about you let us both avoid future stress and just let me leave? I think that’s a great plan; probably the best you’ve had in, what, ten years? Two thousand? More?”

Dark eyebrows — that Mahanon can note are a deep ginger color now that the god is standing in acceptable lighting — raise in astonishment before furrowing as a sneer overtakes the Dread Wolf’s face. “And what would you know about plans? What is it Varric says? A tendency to think in straight lines? He would have been better off calling you a pawn; you are clearly incapable of thinking far enough ahead to jump such lengths.”

A chill shoots through Mahanon at the words. How does Fen’Harel know about Varric’s nickname?

Spies, obviously. Everybody already assumes that the Inquisition is full of them, so all members are kept on a pretty strong need-to-know basis. That information wouldn’t make it to just anyone, though, and Mahanon is at least fairly certain that none of the core members of the Inquisition feel the need to switch sides anytime soon.

Do they wish to redeem the Dread Wolf?

Yes.

Do they wish to join the god in his plans of infesting the world with demons?

Mahanon was almost laughed out of a tavern when he asked Bull about it, so probably not.

That doesn’t help, though, because he doesn’t know any of the middle tier members well enough to decide who could be working for the enemy.

Some sort of hesitation flashes across Fen’Harel’s face, and it’s clear that the god didn’t mean for Mahanon to pick up on the implications of his words. Unfortunately for Fen’Harel, he was still speaking under the assumption that Mahanon is as dense as he let the Dread Wolf believe he was.

Unfortunately for Mahanon, the god already took note of his comprehension of unspoken truths, and he now has the possibility of a new nightmare as he can confidently fear the Inquisition crashing and burning because of betrayal. How apt, considering their enemy.

What a wonderful lose-lose situation they’ve found themselves in.

An important distinction lies in the god’s words, though. A tendency to move in straight lines, is what Varric had described. Not think. Did his agent misconstrue the dwarf’s words, or is he attempting to bait Mahanon into revealing some sort of information that he doesn’t register as important? He doesn’t plan to find out, and instead opts for snarling:

“At least mine don’t end with mass graves.” Mahanon watches as a small crack forms in Fen’Harel’s carefully crafted mask as he nearly bares his teeth. It’s a much stronger reaction than he’d been expecting. 

Lyrium stains his hands like the blood of a child, but she’s smiling and so proud, and she said it was the only way-

“You clearly didn’t even design your own castle because it would have crumbled by now if you had any say in it.” It feels weak, and embarrassment streaks through Mahanon’s mind briefly, but it isn’t capable of making it past the barrier of nausea and angst that the memory of a nightmare created. A cool sweat has quickly taken over his body.

“As much as you hate it, I’m sure the hold will be happy to be rid of you soon, as well.” Mahanon’s brows furrow, and the Dread Wolf looks almost pleased about confusing him. “We will be departing tomorrow.”

“We?” The word sounds punched out of Mahanon. “What do you mean we? We will not be going anywhere.”

“Is this not what you have been begging for?” Fen’Harel smiles sarcastically in a way that bares his canines. “All of your tantruming and whining, and now you complain about getting what you want?”

“I want to go home.” Mahanon rages, slamming his hands on the dark sheets of his bed as he shoves himself to his feet. The Dread Wolf doesn’t flinch when he stands, instead turning his body to face the Dalish man fully while purposely keeping his arms clasped behind his back. You’re not a threat.

“And I do not wish to burden myself with you,” Fen’Harel’s tone darkens, “yet I find myself in a position where there is no other option. Are you pleased with yourself? Has this been some sort of pathetic cry for attention? You have mine; are congratulations in order?”

One good escape attempt, and the Dread Wolf decides that Mahanon is a personal problem.

“Over my dead fucking body am I walking around Thedas with the god attempting to destroy it.” He gets up in Fen’Harel’s face to hiss it, and the man’s eyes narrow at him as he glares down at Mahanon.

“I am not a god, and if I have to haul your unconscious one across the continent, I will do so happily. It will spare me the headache your presence causes.” Something wild in Mahanon — something terrified of being trapped again — twists violently, and his breath catches in a small panic. It’s soothed only slightly by the fact that the Dread Wolf looks as displeased at the idea as Mahanon is. “I will not have my resources wasted babysitting a man acting as if he is a spoiled toddler. If you have found some semblance of attachment to anything in this room, I suggest you pack it. I am shocked that you have not yet managed to destroy everything. We will be leaving in the morning.”

“Will I at least be getting a collar to go with my leash, sir?” Mahanon snaps, “I could use a new accessory considering you took everything I owned.”

Something flickers across the Dread Wolf’s face at the title — horror, or something like it, maybe — and a sharp spike of triumph courses through Mahanon’s blood. The god’s face shutters quickly, and he repeats, “We will be leaving in the morning.”

Fen’Harel turns on his heel and walks through the open door, and Mahanon can’t find anything fast enough to throw at his retreating back. The door slams shut behind him.

Mahanon figures out quickly after that he does, in fact, feel like destroying the room, and it doesn’t even begin as a conscious choice. His magic shatters out of him in a rage that sends the furniture around the room flying, and the fireplace roars with such ferocity that the blankets near it catch fire. With a scream that cracks his voice, Mahanon sends energy snapping away from him in golden arcs of searing hot lightning that shatter the wooden frames of the beds and the tables placed around the room.

The bonfire torching the blankets shapes its way around the room as Mahanon lets out a sob, and the flames go out with a hiss as the fade tears sporadically above him to rain down water that tastes like dread. He’s on his knees, and he doesn’t remember getting there, but Mahanon can’t stop himself from sinking further as another cry tears out of him. He wants to see Ellana again. He wants to go back to his compact room in a random dark hallway in the Inquisition’s base. He wants to drink at the nearby tavern with Bull and the Chargers and destroy Cullen at Wicked Grace and talk shit with Dorian while they play chess and stop feeling like he’s bursting into flames every time anybody lays so much as a finger on him and-

He wants to go home.

He wants to go back to Tevinter with his random hovels and his shitty food and his lack of needing to know other people. He wants to kill slavers and destroy Venatori plans. He wants to buy shady materials out of back alleys to make weirdly potent potions, and he wants to go to that stupid fucking restaurant and maybe try out being Mahanon between the slave rebellions. Another wave of ruin wracks his body with the knowledge that even if he made it back to that, everything would still be tainted by the Dread Wolf.

A crash of thunder bangs throughout the room, and the random pottery placed throughout his fancy prison cell shatters into dust. Mahanon can barely see the door crack open through the tears flooding his vision, but he can at least see that whoever has come in isn’t adorned in amber leather and gold. He scrubs at his face roughly in an attempt to get rid of evidence of what he’s been doing, but he hasn’t actually stopped yet. Some sort of pathetic whimper escapes him, and whoever has entered the room carefully bends down to place something a few feet away from him.

They stand and let out an awkward sigh before hesitantly stepping towards him. He can feel his magic still leaking from him and thickening the air, but the person moves closer anyways. He shoves at his face again — humiliation burning bright in his chest and face now — and when he opens his eyes, Ellanis is kneeling in front of him with a solemn but calculating expression. His presence is so distressing that Mahanon almost throws up, but the ancient elf carefully places a hand on his shoulder.

“You will persevere. You are good at that.” Ellanis’ eyebrows furrow as he has to put effort into catching Mahanon’s gaze with his own. He moves his hand to rub calming circles on Mahanon’s upper back, and it’s so disorienting that it shocks most of the devastation out of his system. “And he is not so terrible.”

A hiccuping, wet laugh escapes Mahanon somehow, and a corner of Ellanis’ mouth turns up. “I don’t think I believe you.”

“Truly.” Ellanis tilts his head at him as if sharing a secret. Some of the magic Mahanon spread throughout the room begins to fade. “You and Fen’Harel-”

“Don’t say that we’re similar.” It’s spoken harshly, but only because Mahanon actively refuses to think about it. He’s an elf, he’s a mage, and he is a very active part of most slave rebellions in Tevinter. If the ancient elf’s plan wouldn’t destroy the world and at least half of its inhabitants, Mahanon fears which side he would have picked when presented with the Inquisition and the Elvhen god of rebellion. It’s a pretty clear answer if you just look at his face. He doesn’t like to think about it.

“-will get along better than I think either of you anticipate.” Ellanis frowns at the interruption, and Mahanon hangs his head in apology. There are still small tears trickling from the corners of his eyes, but he’s no longer wailing like his life is ending — even though he still thinks it kind of is — and he’s only breathing a little heavier than normal instead of inhaling such deep lungfuls of air that it makes him gag. Ellanis hums, pats him on the back, and stands to drag over the tray he brought in.

There’s a sandwich, a small bowl of soup, a cup of water, and a single piece of Tevinter honey candy. Mahanon hiccups again, and Ellanis mercifully ignores it as he walks away to take in the true state of their room.

There’s sounds of things dragging and ripping as Mahanon slowly eats the food and drinks the water Ellanis brought him — feeling worse about irritating the ancient elf with every passing minute — and it blends together with the crackling fireplace to make a soothing background noise. Mahanon doesn’t realize he’s starting to fall asleep until he catches himself listing to the side, and he quickly puts his water down when he jolts back awake.

Ellanis coughs from the back of the room, and Mahanon turns slowly to see that the other elf has managed to create two beds — blessedly far away from each other — using the scorched remains of mattresses and the very few blankets that managed to escape Mahanon’s wrath. He’s pointedly staring at a book from a spot near the window that he’s pulled a burnt chair to when Mahanon makes his way over to his bed and throws himself into it.

We leave in the morning.

What an asshole.

—

Mahanon is both infinitely older yet still younger than he truly is as he stares at the compressed sun. There’s a dagger of raw lyrium sitting in his hands that feels endlessly pure yet already soaked with blood not yet spilled; Mahanon knows on some level the ruinous destruction the perfectly crafted blade will bring.

He is the one that created it, after all, and he created it to bring about the end of the world.

Mythal reaches out and gently grabs the dagger from his open hands; she makes sure to graze her fingers just over his as she does so. His breath catches, but his brows furrow as he notes the intentionality of the contact as if he saw it from outside of his body.

“With this,” Mahanon almost whispers — terrified of what horrors he’s created before they’ve even been inflicted, “the proper ritual will sunder every Titan from its spirit. But you must know those severed dreams will certainly be driven mad — a blight of pain and anger.”

His eyes shine as he stares at Mythal. Her vallaslin itches where it’s burned into his face; he can see the twisting vines of the design standing out against something pale in the reflection of her headpiece. It’s changed since he last saw it; looking disturbingly like a crown. She reaches out to carefully swipe away just a few of his tears when they fall.

“It’s awful-” Mahanon’s voice cracks sharply, “-what we’re doing.”

It feels as if he’s made of molten tar; it feels as if his heart has been shoved into the frigid depths of a mountain lake; it feels as if he’s too large for his body, and he is still struggling not to suffocate on the air filling his lungs.

“And the only way to end this war.”

He thinks of the beings they face — of how towering and powerful and desperate they are. Thinks of how his body is built of their blood; about how the weapon that will bring them ruin is made of their own lifeforce. Images of the creatures that live below the earth — so similar in stature and expression that he feels they must have souls despite Mythal’s insistence that they are no more than burrowing animals — flash in his mind. They have already begun to fear the surface in the face of the burning fires his soldiers light at the mouths of their caves.

It must be wrong, what they’re doing, but who is he to question Mythal? She, who breathed life into his carefully crafted body. She, who takes his knowledge and uses it in ways that he has yet to dream of. She, who is so proud of him.

He is good at what she’s summoned him to do. He is wise in the ways of battle and strategy.

He has been given a name.

Not Mithrahn, despite the fact that he is sharp — that he is Wisdom.

Not Radhmaël, despite the fact that he is bringing his people into a new, better era.

Not Solan, despite the fact that he should be their pride; the pride of The People.

Just Solas.

Just Pride.

—

Mahanon wakes up horrified.

Chapter Text

Never meet your heroes.

Mahanon doesn’t remember where he heard the advice, but he’s intimately familiar with the notion. He’s a prime example of why. People have a very clear image of what the Halla of Tevinter is supposed to be in their minds: brave, suave, deadly. Multiple serials in Minrathous added in the descriptors tall, dark, and handsome — sexy, even. He’s supposed to be stoic in the face of his enemies and unbreaking; somebody who internalizes all of his emotions and keeps them hidden under a carefully crafted mask at all times.

Mahanon is decidedly not that. He’s awkward, and he’s touch starved, and — most disappointingly — he’s short. He can’t even count the amount of times he’s cried while trapped at Skyhold, and he’s overwhelmed by his feelings so severely that he can’t even wake up from a nightmare without a violent physical reaction — either throwing his dinner up into a bucket or throwing a knife through empty air at a threat that doesn’t exist. He’s deadly, sure, and if you can get past all the scars, he doesn’t think he’s too hard on the eyes, but that’s about the extent of the similarities between him and his legendary alter ego.

The Shadow Dragons tried recruiting him a few times, but he’d always rejected their offers. They’re actual heroes — big and strong and brave. Mahanon is just vengeful and weirdly powerful and angry. That’s always worked for him, though, and he was in and out of situations quick enough that nobody had to deal with his inability to talk to people. They never had to deal with the fact that he’s awful at hiding his emotions.

They read clearly on his face; they force themselves into tense lines across his body; they make his breathing uneven, and they make his hands shake. It’s one of his biggest flaws, and he can admit that. It hasn’t even necessarily been a problem until now. He cried when he was alone. Eventually, he dealt with his reactions to shitty dreams on his own. Nobody else had to put up with the uncomfortable amount of space his feelings take up in a while.

Ellanis is looking at him like he has two heads; like he’s going to spontaneously combust and take the entirety of Skyhold with him. Mahanon is sitting on his makeshift bed, staring into the fireplace with a shuttered expression, and Ellanis looks scared of him.

Fen’Harel.

He was dreaming as Fen’Harel. He dismissed the connection he made at Haven as some sort of pre-hypothermia induced delusion, but he was right. That stupid statue from the dock town wasn’t plaguing him with nightmares as a defense mechanism for the information inside of it; these shitty dreams — these memories — were what the statue held. Mahanon should’ve let Ellana grab the damned thing. He didn’t want or need to give emotional depth to the Elvhen god of lies, treachery, and rebellion; he was perfectly fine continuing to boil him down to a big, bad, evil guy that needed beating.

But by the fucking Creators, that man’s life has sucked — just based off of what Mahanon’s already seen. He really doesn’t want to see any more, but that doesn’t seem to be in the cards anymore.

He’s distressing Ellanis enough that the man has begun cleaning the room. Everything is getting shoved into neat little piles that he’s slowly feeding to the flames of the fireplace, and the heat roars hotter each time a new wave of panic tries to drown Mahanon. Ellanis jumps with each flare, but seems determined to undo some of Mahanon’s damage; he even found a broom. Mahanon watches as he sweeps up the scattered dust that used to be decor.

He’s so tired of being scared. There’s not really much else for him to do, though.

The hinges of the door whine, and Mahanon is on his feet before it’s fully swung open. Another sentinel stands about a foot into the hallway, and he’s just as bad at hiding his emotions as Mahanon is at that moment. His eyes widen; his mouth hangs open just slightly; his brows furrow as they attempt to rise; he takes in a quiet gasp of air. Shock splays across his face as he takes in the state of the room, and he lets out a slightly strangled cough as he attempts to get himself together again.

“It is time for us to leave,” he says, and Mahanon wonders if contractions existed in Elvhen before it was bastardized to better translate into Common. Ellanis straightens, and the other sentinel steps softly into the room.

Mahanon plants his feet stubbornly, and his magic crackles angrily across his skin. The new sentinel eyes him warily, and Ellanis clenches his jaw as he turns to face the smaller elf. The other sentinel tenses as he prepares to jump at Mahanon, and the man sends a stone fist flying in his direction — twice the size it normally is with the disuse of his magic. The barrier the ancient elf pulls around him shatters, and Mahanon is so shocked about it that Ellanis manages to take him down.

He’s thrown back onto his burnt mattress, and Ellanis lands on his side behind him. He’s quick to grab Mahanon’s arms and pin them behind his back, and he pulls the smaller elf to his feet before he can attempt to twist away. He snarls and tries to anyway, but Ellanis is smart enough to crowd against his back so he can’t turn. One hand keeps a grip on his wrists, and the other lands on his shoulders to guide where Ellanis is pushing him.

“He’s a sou’i’be’an’thanelan?” The other sentinel is standing exactly where Mahanon left him, and the smaller elf’s mind is lagging at the contact — demanding but ultimately harmless — so it takes him until Ellanis pushes him past his counterpart to translate the word. One who wields the energy of the fade, he thinks? He’s positive it’s the name of the specialization Wisdom was teaching him. Ancient Elvhen is so literal that it hurts his head.

“He is many things,” Ellanis responds, tilting his head towards the scorched walls and piles of dust. His grip is made of iron, and the skin beneath his hold crawls. Mahanon hears the other sentinel let out a disbelieving huff. The whisper of dust shifting is the only indication Mahanon has that he’s following them out of the room.

“He is supposed to be a rogue.” The door slams shut behind them, and Ellanis guides them through a dark hallway into a stairwell. “One that benefits from magic. He- They should not be able to do that.”

“Surprise,” Mahanon mutters bitterly, and the other sentinel moves to stand in front of him and Ellanis. “You’re not all that special.”

Anger flashes across the sentinel’s face as he turns, and Mahanon gives him a smile that bares all of his teeth. “How could he have come across the magic of fade mages? Fen’Harel-”

“Underestimated him,” Ellanis cuts the other man off. “I recommend that you stand either much closer or farther away.”

He gives the warning just in time for the other sentinel to avoid the brutal kick Mahanon sends his way. The Dalish man hisses in annoyance, and it cuts out as he’s abruptly sandwiched between two ancient elves. He’s all but carried down what seems like an infinite amount of stairs, and the sentinels take turns manifesting barriers around each other to prevent getting electrocuted or burned when Mahanon’s magic spits angrily at them the entire trek down.

When they reach ground level, Ellanis releases his wrists to instead grab his elbows and trap his arms against his body. The other sentinel backs away from Mahanon rapidly, and Ellanis yanks his head back when Mahanon attempts to crack his jaw with the back of his head. “I would prefer you make this easier for yourself,” he mutters. “We are about to cross the throne room. Will you walk?”

Mahanon’s breathing hard, but he stops just long enough to hear the lack of voices in the room behind the door. He attempts to stomp on Ellanis’ foot as an answer, but the other man slides it back in time with a heavy sigh. The other sentinel opens the door, and Ellanis frog marches Mahanon to the one on the opposite side of the room. He turns both of them to shove it open with his back, and Mahanon is released once they’re on the short staircase leading to the Undercroft.

The other sentinel pushes past him, and he purposely knocks one of Mahanon’s legs out from under him. Ellanis scruffs him like a kitten from the back of his shirt to keep him from falling, and Mahanon grabs the taller elf’s arm to pull himself up and land a solid kick in the middle of the other sentinel’s back. He goes crashing to the ground, and Mahanon hears his nose crack when it meets the icy cobblestone that makes up the floor.

He grins ferally at the sight of blood when the ancient elf whips his head up to glare at him, and Ellanis puts himself in front of the shorter elf when the sentinel shoves himself to his feet angrily. “You should have listened to my warning,” Ellanis rumbles, and the other elf sneers before turning and walking the rest of the way into the Undercroft. “That was a poor decision, gentle greeter.”

Mahanon snorts. “I’ve been tempting death multiple times a week for a third of my life. I never claimed to make good ones.” He thinks of the door behind him.

Ellanis must know, because he moves behind Mahanon quickly to push him the rest of the way down the stairs. The commotion they made has drawn the attention of the majority of room, and Mahanon would’ve frozen where he stood if not for Ellanis herding him towards what Mahanon assumes is an Eluvian. It’s beautiful. Ellana had described them to him once — massive mirrors that you can essentially use to teleport — but she’d never mentioned how soft blues and vibrant violets swirl beneath the glass in an attempt to leak out past it when activated.

Small troops are slowly moving empty crates through the towering mirror — stepping through the glass as if it’s an open door. It is, but the idea of walking through something that should be solid almost gives Mahanon a headache. Fen’Harel stands next to the Eluvian in a parade rest, and the sight of him makes anxiety spark in Mahanon’s chest. He feels the facade of a caring hand brushing tears off of his face and the crushing weight of a genocide — against whom, Mahanon doesn’t know — and his eyes snap away from the god to stare at the mirror again.

“I am surprised you managed to get him down here without rendering him unconscious.” The god’s melodic voice is sharp, and Mahanon can feel his gaze as he looks the shorter elf up and down. It shifts to Ellanis. “I appreciate your efforts in collecting him. It was clearly not an easy matter.”

“It went as I expected it to,” Ellanis rumbles back, and Mahanon can feel a stormy expression take over his face. It still feels like it would hurt just to look at Fen’Harel, so instead, Mahanon is taking in the room. It’s made entirely of stone, and large icicles hang threateningly from the ceiling. Small drops of water slide off of them to create icy puddles below, and at the very end of the room, a gate lays below a stone arch that exposes a breathtaking view of the Frostback Mountains.

Just a few feet to his right, a metal grate about six feet in length and three in width rests in the floor. When he looks a little harder, Mahanon thinks that he might see a bedroll, but it’s too far down to really make out. He’s a little more grateful for the room he’d just destroyed, suddenly.

“I see that you have already decided to make things difficult.” Fen’Harel is speaking to Mahanon, and it’s too soon. The taste of his regret still lingers on Mahanon’s tongue, and a weird mix of pity and irritation turns his stomach. He forces himself to meet the Dread Wolf’s violet stare anyways.

The god is able to tell something is off — he must be if Ellanis can — and something in his eyes shifts beneath the impassive expression he’s wearing.

“Did all of our legends overplay your intelligence that badly?” Mahanon snipes, and the god tenses in response. “What did you think? That I’d wake up a new man and skip down here smiling?”

“I had hoped you would see reason and not make this process more difficult than it needed to be. I see that I was mistaken.” There’s something clinical in his gaze — he’s still looking.  

“I can giggle and twirl my hair if it’ll make this less miserable.” It throws Fen’Harel off balance — his mask cracks just enough that his eyes widen. Mahanon sends it home. “You’ll have to ask nicely, though. Does the Dread Wolf know how to beg, or is that beneath a god?”

“I am-” Fen’Harel almost chokes on his words. Not a god, maybe. Not begging, is another option. A manic glint takes over Mahanon’s eyes, and the Dread Wolf growls, “Do you wish so badly for me to make good on my threat? Can you not handle being refused what you want so tremendously that you need to be unconscious to be tolerable?”

Trepidation tries to rise up in the back of Mahanon’s mind, but he suffocates it violently.

“Can you not handle hearing anything but praises and the word yes? ” Mahanon shoots back, and he can almost see the Dread Wolf’s hackles rise in response.

“You-” It’s snapped loud enough that it catches the attention of some of his agents, but the Dread Wolf’s scathing glare sends them back to their tasks. It burns when it returns to Mahanon. The distance between them had closed at some point; they’re a mere foot apart, at this point. The god hisses, “The world owes a great debt to fate for sending your sister to the conclave. If you had been made Inquisitor, it would surely have been reduced to ashes by now.”

The dead eyes of an elven child staring into nothing; piled bodies drained of blood for banned magic being used in twisted ways; mass graves filled with bones nobody bothered to throw dirt back over. He was too late; he’s always too late.

You have the potential to become salvation, but you may also bring ruin.

Fuck off.

“And you owe her an even greater one — anybody with less compassion would’ve killed you by now.” Mahanon gets up into the Dread Wolf’s face and snarls, “Was that your plan the whole time? Is that what you do? Take the empathy and friendship of people better than you — better than you will ever be — and use it to manipulate them into thinking you care? So you can use them?”

Something like regret — something rooted deeply within the god — begins to build in Fen’Harel’s eyes, but Mahanon watches as it’s smothered with rage. Angry — just like Mahanon. Power begins to leak into the air around them, and Mahanon swallows thickly so it won’t suffocate him.

“You have yet to kill me.” The Dread Wolf’s voice is two-toned and low — dangerous.

“I have yet to fucking try.” Mahanon’s magic is shoving against the borders of his body — desperate to brutalize the foreign power attempting to drown him. Mahanon feels a piece of his chest crack like dropped pottery, and while he can’t hide his emotions, he can hide pain pretty damn well, so he bites back the wounded whine that tries to escape him when it feels like a piece of his soul lashes out of his body.

It’s not visible — not to him, at least — but Fen’Harel’s magic whips away from it, and the man straightens away from him like the air surrounding Mahanon is acidic. He doesn’t step back — unwilling to lose the power struggle between them — but his hands have fallen from behind his back. Mahanon’s magic swells back into him with a feeling akin to the one you get after swallowing something too large, and some untouchable part of him aches.

The Dread Wolf’s brows furrow, and his nostrils flare as if he’s a predator scenting the air, and Mahanon distantly wonders if ancient elves have a better sense of smell as he gears up to continue their argument. Fen’Harel opens his mouth as if to do the same, but a quiet cough pulls both of their attention to the side.

The poor agent standing there jumps a good few inches off of the ground in the face of their combined wrath. Mahanon starts to count down from one hundred in an attempt to calm himself, and a stoic expression once again takes over Fen’Harel’s face. It is something practiced, then. Mahanon finds a small victory in the fact that the god is struggling to calm his breathing down as he turns to face his agent fully.

“Yes?” The word is spoken harshly, and the Dread Wolf clenches his jaw as he attempts to correct his tone. When he speaks again, it’s only a little kinder. “What is it?”

The agent’s eyes flick to Mahanon, and the elf rolls his head back in defeat and turns away from the man completely. He’s working for the actual worst person in existence right now, but he didn’t do anything to Mahanon. Ellanis is standing against a nearby railing — looking as if he just watched the world’s most deadly jousting match — and he tilts his head at the spot next to him. Mahanon storms away from the Elvhen god of treachery and slams himself into the space besides the sentinel.

“What happened to us getting along?” Mahanon mutters, crossing his arms bitterly. Ellanis snorts.

“Neither of you are dead or injured. I would say that is much better than expected.” The ancient elf is watching the Dread Wolf receive the agent’s report as Mahanon glares at the side of his face. The light bouncing off of the mountains illuminates his face so brightly it’s almost blue.

“That’s a low bar.”

“Yes.” Ellanis’ yellow eyes snap back to Mahanon. “And the only one we have.”

Mahanon lets out a small, irritated growl and turns his attention to the god’s operative. The man still looks like he’s prepared to throw himself over the gate at the end of the Undercroft, but he’s stopped shaking. He tenses again when he notices Mahanon watching, and an unimpressed look flickers across the Dread Wolf’s face. The man moves back into a parade rest, and Mahanon scrunches his nose.

“Here.” A heavy bundle is shoved against Mahanon’s chest unceremoniously, and Mahanon grunts at the force of it. Ellanis is watching Fen’Harel again when Mahanon looks at him. He murmurs, “I suggest you change quickly. We will be departing very soon.”

Mahanon looks down at the bagged items that have been forced upon him, then around the room. Ellanis motions to a small area that clearly used to be a cell, and Mahanon narrows his eyes at it. He opens his mouth to argue, but snaps it shut when Ellanis gives him a withering look, instead opting to trudge over to the room.

The bars have rusted severely, and somebody slapped planks of wood over them in an attempt to create a solid wall. Dropping the bundle onto a crumbling stone bench, Mahanon inspects the contents. A change of clothing made of heavy materials sits at the top, and Mahanon sighs deeply at the knowledge that wherever they’re going, it’s also going to be unnecessarily cold. He should’ve taken a closer look at what all of the Dread Wolf’s agents were wearing.

He quickly changes out of his nightclothes and into the outfit he’s been provided with — thick pants, wool socks, a surprisingly soft long sleeved shirt, a heavy jacket to put over it, gloves, and a sturdy pair of boots. They’re all in varying shades of black, and they fit weirdly well, and when Mahanon tugs the jacket on, he sees one of the random patches of fabric he’d given Sarel sewn into the pocket. His eyes well up with tears that he stubbornly refuses to let fall.

There’s a wrapped item at the bottom of the bundle, and Mahanon furrows his brows at it and bites the inside of his cheek as he reaches for it. He unfolds the blanket that surrounded it, and stares silently at a cloak. His cloak. It’s his fucking cloak, and a dark band glints from on top of it. His da-

Faelor’s ring sits on top of his cloak which was hidden below clothes that Sarel made for him, and Mahanon is pathetically grateful that Ellanis clears his throat loudly before he enters the room. It gives him time to scrub the tears off of his face roughly before the man steps into the cell. “We are leaving,” he says, and Mahanon only feels a little bad that the ancient elf has to shove him out of the room and towards the Eluvian. He pulls his cloak — his cloak! — tightly against him as he walks, and Fen’Harel watches him approach with a clenched jaw.

The majority of his agents have passed through the mirror already. Mahanon stops directly in front of it — anxious again, but significantly less than before with the weight of a heavy ring on his finger. He takes a deep breath, and watches in bafflement as Ellanis walks through what should be a solid material. His fingers hover uncertainly over the glass, and an irritated huff sounds out from behind him. An electric current shocks through his body as the Dread Wolf grabs his bicep, and he’s dragged through the mirror alongside the god.

He must blink, because he’s abruptly standing on a precarious stone path that hovers over an empty void that looks to be filled with the fog one might find in an early winter morning. Random walkways branch out from the one he’s standing on — all composed of different materials — that each end in a platform that holds an Eluvian.

No wonder the Inquisition can’t pin the Dread Wolf down — there’s hundreds of mirrors just in the small space that Mahanon can see. His stomach rolls violently with the knowledge of just how badly they’re outmatched with transportation.

Fen’Harel continues to drag him down the main path — the area lit up with a soft violet glow originating from both everywhere and nowhere — then takes them up a road of twisting branches and dark leaves. He pulls Mahanon through another Eluvian, and Mahanon’s steps solidly into at least a foot of snow. The Dread Wolf releases him like he’s burned him as soon as the Eluvian goes dark behind them.

Mahanon puts a good five feet of distance between him and the god, and is so busy focusing on rubbing the hypersensitive feeling out of his arm that he almost misses the way Fen’Harel flicks his hand slightly as he turns away from him. Like he’s diseased.

What a dick.

“We should be able to make it to camp within the hour, sir.” One of the Dread Wolf’s agents hands him a map, and the god barely looks at it before nodding and motioning for her to lead the way. Ellanis takes his spot next to Mahanon again, and snorts at his livid expression.

“Why did we go from snow to more snow?”

Why do we never go anywhere nice? Varric’s voice rumbles in his head, and Mahanon’s mood plummets further with homesickness.

“Shitty weather is in the job description,” a familiar voice says. Mahanon turns his head to find Liara’s unimpressed expression. “And you’ve decided to underline it in mine. Thanks for that.”

Chapter Text

Mahanon has only been by Fen’Harel for a total of fifty-three minutes, and for all that he loves Ellana, he’s going to make good on his threat and kill her friend.

Liara hadn’t been the saving grace he’d hoped she would be. It took all of forty seconds for the Dread Wolf to notice that Mahanon lagged behind him, and she’d nearly jumped out of her skin when the god’s head snapped to the side to find him before he booked it away from the group. There was no reason to be so intense about it. Ellanis had him trapped quite effectively between him and the rest of the Dread Wolf’s agents, and the man clearly had no qualms with manhandling him. It was snowing so heavily at that point that running away would only end in him dying of hypothermia, so there wasn’t any real risk of him escaping.

The god slowed to a stop, Mahanon attempted to do the same, and Ellanis shoved him to the middle of the group — directly next to the Dread Wolf — to cut off their attempts to start their second power struggle in under an hour. The god managed to get on his nerves anyway.

Mahanon trips on a branch hidden in the snow.

“I would have expected you to have more grace. Are you not a rogue?”

Mahanon slides slightly on an incline due to an icy patch of dirt.

“It astonishes me that you managed to exist in a city in which all buildings are multiple stories tall.”

They walk across a frozen bog, and the ice cracks over a deeper section of it. Mahanon slips towards it and grabs onto Fen’Harel as he goes down so that they both end up in the frigid water beneath.

The Dread Wolf has no comment about that incident — just a crackling rage that fills the air with the taste of lyrium.

It’s safe to say that everybody is in a rotten mood when they finally arrive at the base camp that Fen’Harel’s agents have set up.

It’s a nice layout. They seem to have taken over a small plot of abandoned land that a family used to inhabit. There are the usual tents and cooking fires and torches that are somehow not going out despite the snow beginning to truly come down now, and they’ve all been placed in between a small collection of cottages. The roofs have had slabs of wood slapped over their larger holes, and the stone that the buildings are made of are probably doing wonders to trap heat inside of them. Mahanon can see thick smoke coming out of the chimneys, and desperately craves the warmth the houses offer.

Most of the agents scatter into the wind as soon as they enter the camp. There are some elves and humans dressed in heavy winter gear manning pots over roaring fires in the middle of the camp, and they stand straighter as Fen’Harel comes into sight. Various agents are roaming in and out of houses, and the majority are moving around empty crates, reinforcing tents, and attempting to fix the smaller damages of the houses. A Qunari agent — and that’s a disorienting sight — is repairing a cart off to the side of one of the cottages.

Liara clears her throat awkwardly. Mahanon turns to her — pleading with his eyes for her to not leave him with who is quickly becoming his mortal enemy — and she scratches the side of her head despite her hat and gloves blocking all points of contact.

“I’m just going to, uh.” She jerks her head off to the side, and Mahanon tracks the movement to a group moving around boxes. “Go.”

Mahanon opens his mouth to argue, but he’s cut off.

“Yes,” Fen’Harel says, also turned. “Your assistance is appreciated.”

Don’t leave me, Mahanon mouths, and Liara’s expression becomes pinched. She nods to the Dread Wolf, gives him a pitying look, and leaves. Ellanis might let out a snort behind him, but Mahanon might be hallucinating. He’s cold.

“Your lodgings are this way, sir.” The agent leading them motions for Fen’Harel to follow her, and Mahanon drags his feet after them.

It’s one of the cottages, and Mahanon makes a face as he takes it in. Of course it would be below a god to stay in a tent. He’s not sure why he expected anything different. There’s one placed just a few feet from the cottage’s door, and Mahanon sighs as he looks at what he’ll probably be sleeping in. The dirt has to be hard as stone with the freezing temperatures, and the fabric will probably soak through at some point. If he’s quick, he could probably sneak off before Fen’Harel realizes he’s leaving tonight.

His arms are crossed as he takes in the tent, so he’s off balance and easy to move when Ellanis shoves him into the house alongside the Dread Wolf and his agent. Despite what the god thinks, Mahanon is able to be agile in most scenarios, so he only hops once to steady himself again. He shoots Ellanis a dirty look over his shoulder, and the ancient elf sends him an unimpressed one back. Fen’Harel’s is almost lethal when he turns back around, and he has to move quickly past the sharp chill that shoots up his spine in response.

There’s a pregnant pause, and then the agent says, “Right. I wasn’t aware you were bringing a..” The elf bites the inside of her cheek as she looks at Mahanon, her pale brows furrowing. He can feel her taking in his vallaslin. She tries, “Ally?”

Mahanon laughs — loudly — and the Dread Wolf scowls as he watches. The flames in the cottage’s hearth spit angrily, and Mahanon doesn’t know what causes the flare — Fen’Harel’s irritation or Mahanon’s manic response to the absurdity of the situation. The agent’s face pales at her clear error, and she inhales sharply as she tries to find something to better describe him.

“No.” Mahanon wheezes out, and the other elf flushes red. “I’m-”

“A friend of a friend,” Fen’Harel interrupts, and his agent looks concerned as her pale gaze flicks between the two of them. The way he dances around the truth makes Mahanon sick, and the idea that he somehow still considers himself one of Ellana’s friends infuriates him. The fact that Ellana would agree infuriates him more. The fire roars brighter.

“Okay,” the agent says, rubbing the back of her neck. “Well. I wasn’t aware anybody else was coming with you. There’s a bed in one room, but the only other place to sleep is a couch. Would you like me to move housing around?”

Mahanon can’t help himself but dig, “Yeah. Is this not up to your standards? We can’t have that.”

The poor agent is looking between them again with an expression akin to the one someone might wear when standing over a volcano about to erupt. She’s taken her hat off, and she’s tossing it from hand to hand as she watches Fen’Harel’s reaction — squeezing the fabric hard with each pass. The god has tensed up, and Mahanon can feel his irritation lick at his arms as the fire swells again. Unfortunately for the Dread Wolf, Mahanon is cold, and the heat feels nice.

“No,” Fen’Harel says with a pleasant tone that’s clearly forced. “This will work well for us. You have done well.”

Us?

“Thank you, sir. I’ll take my leave.” She gives Mahanon another uncertain look as she backs towards the door. Ellanis narrows his eyes at the other elves, and then elects to follow the agent out of the cottage.

Traitor.

“Thank you!” Mahanon calls after the woman, and the door clicks shut. He turns to Fen’Harel, “Don’t you-”

The god is much closer than he was the last time Mahanon looked at him. A storm is crackling behind his violet eyes, and his lips twitch as if he wants to snarl at him. Mahanon’s jaw clicks audibly when it snaps shut, and a panicked breath escapes from between his teeth as his eyes widen.

A chill creeps across the room, and the previously roaring fire dims to barely glowing coals. The shadows that follow paint the Dread Wolf in a way that emphasizes the sharpness of his face: the severity of his jaw, the dip in his chin, the intensity of his cheekbones, the broad, flat bridge of his nose that makes him look so distinctly elven.

Elvhen, Mahanon corrects himself as he tries to breathe.

“You seem to be operating under the delusion that this is just some sort of excursion that I have happily dragged you along to. That I have allowed you out of Skyhold out of the goodness of my heart,” the Dread Wolf murmurs. His tone is so low — so powerfully enraged — that Mahanon can almost feel it. “I am happy to clear up this misunderstanding. You are not an ally. You are not a friend. You are not even a guest. You are a piece of cargo that I have been forced to lug around in order to prevent ruin from falling upon Tarasyl’an Te’las.”

Cargo.

Chains around his wrists and ankles — digging deep enough to draw blood; deep enough to scar pale, ugly lines into his dark skin; deep enough to remember. Screaming and crying and the wet, disgusting sounds of people gagging around him as sharp needles shove themselves down to his bones and inject molten lava into the marrow. Some of the noise must be coming from him, but he can’t feel anything through the raw, ruined nerves that line his throat.

He’s cold, and damp with sweat, and the shemlens will be back any second. He needs to-

“I am uncertain as to what blind arrogance led you to playing a hero for those in the slave trade of Tevinter, but attempting to use it here will lead you to nothing but becoming a sleeping body for me to drag across the continent. Is that what you would like?” The Dread Wolf leans close enough that Mahaon can feel his breath on his face; can smell the mint he must have been chewing on earlier; can hear the way the words catch a jagged edge in the god’s throat before he speaks them. “I would prefer to not waste more time and energy on you, but you seem to be under the misconception that I have simply issued a threat. I am more than willing to follow through. Has that been your goal?”

“No,” Mahanon whispers, and some confusion mixes itself into the Dread Wolf’s ire at the easy surrender. He opens his mouth and pauses, eyes flickering across Mahanon’s face.

Cargo. Mahanon’s skin is crawling; his scars itch.

Blind arrogance, though? The wording doesn’t make sense. There are concrete reasons for Mahanon taking up the mantle of a vigilante; a brief history of his life would give more than enough obvious examples. Bull said that Ellana told them about his being taken by traders, so how doesn’t the Dread Wolf-

Ellana wouldn’t even talk to him about his time in Tevinter. Not even about his actions as the Halla. It feels like she couldn’t even bear to think about his enslavement. It was all shaking hands and cold sweats and an avoidance of eye contact. If she wouldn’t talk to him about it, why would she have talked about it with the inner circle? The answer is easy, and Mahanon can feel the weight of it compound with the fury of the god in front of him.

The Iron Bull lied. Ellana hadn’t told any of them shit, and the Dread Wolf has absolutely no idea that he was even able to trigger anything. Not with his words; not with his castle; not with his chains. Mahanon had been at risk of activating a trauma response almost daily in Skyhold because nobody had a damn clue that yes, he was actually a slave, and no, Liara didn’t make that up to cover his alter ego.

Come to think of it, her and Neria are the only ones who’ve even seen him without a shirt — or clothes in general — on, and his scars could be caused by battles if you haven’t witnessed the type of actions that caused them. He’d been covered by a blanket when Fen’Harel had darkened his bedside in the medical bay, as well. He’s been stuck in cold weather since he was abducted, so all of his clothes have been pants and long sleeved shirts.

Does anybody know?

He’s shaking, and the Dread Wolf closes his mouth when he notices. His brows scrunch together slightly, and Mahanon notices for the first time that he has a small scar cut deeply into the flesh above the one on his right. Some of the cold creeps back, and with a small gesture, the fire roars back to life. The calculating look Fen’Harel is aiming at him makes him feel small, but he’s grateful that whatever conclusion he’s coming to has led to warmth being sapped back into his body.

“I would recommend that you be mindful of your actions, then,” the god says cooly, and Mahanon is so on edge that it triggers him again.

A black eye for an almost all-consuming hunger. I suggest you learn your place in this house, knife-ear. You get what I give you.

Three long gashes down his back — scarring the skin deeply for the mistake of imbalanced steps in unfamiliar shoes. You represent my house when I have guests, and I refuse to have an untrained pet mar my name. If I were you, I would learn how to walk like a civilized being. Quickly.

A leering look in an empty, dark hall. I’ve noticed that you do not have those hideous markings like the other ones. I would recommend you wear your hair up to display your face — it’s rare that one of you is.. Unclaimed.

I would recommend. An order given as a suggestion with no space to argue.

Mahanon is filled with pain and vitriol and exhaustion, and he has nowhere to send it because Fen’Harel doesn’t know.

He’s noticeably confused when Mahanon doesn’t shoot anything back at him despite his threat, but he hides it quickly as somebody knocks on the cottage door. He moves around Mahanon to stand closer to whichever agent is about to walk in, and the Dalish man stares into the newly lit fire as the Dread Wolf says, “Enter.”

The door clicks open quietly, and the silent steps of an ex-sentinel pad into the room. Ellanis says, “One of our task forces is available to respond to the trade occurring near Marnus Pell. They are available in the building to our right.”

Mahanon’s ears perk at the discussion of a rebellion, but he’s yet to calm his breathing, and he can hear his blood rushing in his head, so he can’t put as much effort as he wants towards listening to their conversation. They speak quietly, and Mahanon tries to ground himself with the confusing temperatures made by the cold air of the surrounding mountains mixing with the warmth radiating from the hearth.

“Come,” Fen’Harel says, and Mahanon’s attention is pulled to him. “We are going next-door.”

It’s somehow colder than before outside, and Mahanon walks quickly to the neighboring building. Ellanis opens the door to allow the Dread Wolf entry, then motions for Mahanon to go in as well. The room has at least ten agents in it — all elves except for a single human man — all surrounding a massive dining table covered by a map of the area around Marnus Pell. A large red circle has been placed around a fortress near the Nocen Sea. Mahanon puts himself off to the side with crossed arms, and Ellanis tracks him steadily.

Fen’Harel is handed a scroll that he reads through quickly — probably some sort of report. “The metalbow group?” He asks, and Mahanon’s blood runs cold. They’re bastards; slimy, poisonous bastards that couldn’t play fair with a knife to their throats.

“Yes, sir,” an elf replies. “We’ve set up what you suggested previously for teams and strategy here already. We’re waiting to see if you have any changes with the new information.”

The Dread Wolf lets out a hum as his eyes flick between the scroll and the map. “This hold is easy to break into; I have been to it previously. The warrior groups we have arranged should be able to get through the walls swiftly, and there is a hold for prisoners in the lower levels. Depending on when we strike, we may not need to send many agents to deal with their forces. Archers will likely suffice as backup. I believe we can approach this swiftly with a straightforward-”

“Don’t-” The word is snapped out of him before the thought to verbalize it even passes through his mind, and Mahanon cuts himself off with a sharp inhale. Eyes are already turned to him, though, and he lets out an unsteady exhale at the sudden attention. His arms had fallen to his sides at some point, and he shoves one into a pocket while the other drags through his hair. He stops himself from rubbing the back of his head, and instead forces the limb back down to rest on the back of a nearby chair. “That’s a bad idea.”

Fen’Harel has stilled where he stands — hands splayed out to the sides of the map as he leans over it in thought — and his violet eyes narrow when Mahanon accidentally meets them. He looks back down at the map, but he can see the Dread Wolf shift as he stands back to his full height. The agents closest to him tense, and the weight of their judgement sits heavy on Mahanon’s shoulders.

“Who are you,” one snaps, “to question Fen’Harel’s plans? I’ve seen you at Skyhold — sitting around doing nothing. You expect us to think that you could have anything useful to-”

“Who are you to not fucking question a single thing he says?” Mahanon bites back — eager to sink his fangs into somebody who can’t knock him out with a single word. “You know what gets good men killed? Blindly following the orders of-”

“We don’t blindly follow anything!” The human agent snarls, and Mahanon is standing straight now, too — his hands pulled to his sides as he tries to suffocate the snap of lightning his body wants to send at the man. The torches lining the walls flare brightly, and Ellanis eyes them warily from where he stands behind the Dread Wolf. His gaze flicks to the god, who seems to be in no rush to interrupt the building argument as he contemplates the map in front of him.

“Then why did he plan a frontal attack over an ambush?” Mahanon questions. “Why is he sending so many archers and nearly no mages?”

“We don’t need to know why,” the agent to the left of Fen’Harel says in a condescendingly placating tone, “we just need to know that it will work.”

“And how do you know that it’ll work if you don’t know the reasoning for any of it? He could be pulling this out of his ass, and you’d have no clue.” Fen’Harel’s hands raise behind his back as he pulls himself back into a parade rest, and Mahanon only spares a second to glance at the vaguely affronted expression the god wears.

“Fen’Harel led uprisings against gods before you were even a thought,” the human cuts back in, and Mahanon sends him a sardonic grin that shows his canines. An unnecessary amount of irritation flashes through him.

“We aren’t in the times of ancient Arlathan, and we’re not going up against Elvhen gods. We’re going up against shemlens with superiority complexes and tendencies to fight dirty.” Mahanon leans up against the table — closer to the man. “Sound familiar? Friends of yours? Family, maybe?”

Something sparks in the human’s eyes, and something similar sparks in Mahanon’s chest as the agent pushes himself away from the table. His hands itch for his daggers and his chest feels like it’s housing a hornet’s nest as two other agents shift to get between him and the human. Various other agents begin shouting — at him, at their companion, in general — and his blood begins to heat up before the room is silenced with a word.

“Why?”

Fen’Harel’s tone is even, and when Mahanon snaps his head over to look at the god, he’s looking down at the map again with a clenched jaw and crossed arms. He must feel Mahanon watching him, because his eyes snap up to meet the Dalish man’s gaze. The look nearly pins him in place with its intensity.

“What?” Mahanon breathes.

“You claim that this is a poor plan of action.” One of the Dread Wolf’s hands pulls itself off of his chest to rest as a fist under his jaw as he turns his attention back to the map. “Why?”

There’s silence in the room as Mahanon tries to figure out how to argue his case without revealing his alter ego of the Halla of Tevinter.

Oh, I just know that these specific traders specialize in these kinds of traps and have really weird soldiers. Why do I know that? Nothing big; I’ve just destroyed a few of their bases before. Hasn’t everybody?

The human snorts at Mahanon’s silence and opens his mouth to say something, but Fen’Harel snaps, “Enough. Leave us.”

Another silence rings out, but a harsh look sends the Dread Wolf’s agents quickly on their way. Ellanis walks beside the human to guarantee a gap between him and Mahanon, and the Dalish man only realizes his hands were clenched into fists after the shemlen- human leaves the cottage.

“You’re gonna get people killed,” Mahanon rushes, and Fen’Harel’s attention returns to him. He leans against the table in a move so weirdly casual that Mahanon’s brain stalls.

“How?” There’s an undercurrent to the word that Mahanon can’t identify. It feels like he’s being tested.

“This group is from Vyrantium. That settlement is crawling with Venatori agents, and-” Mahanon cuts himself off with a huff, because the second half of his claim is insane and based on only his incredibly brief experiences in the area.

“And?” Fen’Harel prompts, and Mahanon blows a sigh out of his nose.

“I don’t have any evidence, but I think there are Antaam members in it.” The Dread Wolf doesn’t hide his distrust of the statement, and Mahanon crosses his arms. “They fight- weirdly. I don’t know. The bases of their moves when they fight overlap. That wouldn’t make sense for random Tal-Vashoth hunters and street brawlers.”

“That is concerning.” Fen’Harel responds slowly, and Mahanon isn’t able to hide his surprise at not being immediately dismissed. “If true, that is.”

Of course.

“I’m just telling you what I’ve seen. Take it or leave it, but you’re going to be fucked if I’m right and they have Qunari soldier training.” Mahanon motions vaguely to the map in front of him. “And you’ll lose a frontal attack if that’s the case.”

The Dread Wolf hums, resting a hand on the table to lean back over the map. “Is that all?”

“They use traps.” He gets a flat look for the comment, and clenches his jaw. “Obviously, they all use traps, but they’re good at them. A lot of gasses and oils — not so much metal and nets. You would need people good with healing magic and barriers to deal with those.”

Silence fills the cottage once more as Fen’Harel stares down at his work. He takes a deep breath, exhales it slowly, and begins to move around pieces on the map. Mahanon can’t decipher what any of it means, but he can tell that clear changes are being made as he stares at the new format. There’s a sharp wooden triangle in the Dread Wolf’s hand, and he hesitates in placing it. The object hovers over the map, and Mahanon can feel the weight of the god’s gaze before he moves it to the left.

“You have signed the death warrant of many men and women if you’ve lied to me,” Fen’Harel says, and the idea that Mahanon would toy with the lives of slaves makes heat crack brightly throughout the room as the fires of the torches roar. That seems to be enough to answer whatever question the god was posing, because he drops the shape onto the map with finality. A cool magic smothers the flames back into something tame. “We will gather everyone again in the morning. It is late; let us return to our lodgings for the night.”

It is late. The moon is blocked out by heavy clouds that continue to dump snow in heavy waves, so the world outside of the cottage is pitch black in the areas the light of the camp doesn't reach. Mahanon can feel exhaustion creeping throughout his body alongside the chill from his wet clothes catching the cool air of whatever mountains they’re currently in. He’s quiet as he follows the Dread Wolf back to their original cottage. Ellanis stands next to the door, and he gives them a silent nod as they pass into the building.

The couch isn’t in the living room anymore. It’s been dragged into the windowless bedroom and placed further from the door than the bed. There’s a bucket next to it, and he can see Fen’Harel eye it with curiosity. There are clothes laid out on the bed, and Mahanon is too tired to feel weird about being in sleeping clothes next to his people’s god of lies. Fen’Harel allows him the privacy to change behind a closed door, and he watches from a chair near the door as Mahanon goes to lay his soaked clothes out in front of the hearth.

There’s no conversation between them as Mahanon trudges his way back into the bedroom, and he’s asleep as soon as his head makes contact with the pillow that’s been thrown haphazardly onto the couch.

He’s fourteen, and he’s spilled the wine he was bringing to his master across the tablecloth after a guest tripped him. A dark red blotch is leaking through the white material, and the air in Mahanon’s lungs has frozen as his heart stops beating. The teenage boy that caused him to stagger grins behind his hand, and Mahanon barely has time to let out a terrified whimper before he’s flat against the floor.

The world spins around him and nausea racks his stomach as he stares up at torches that are burning bright — too bright — and glittering gold chandeliers. His face throbs, and his left eye burns as his vision darkens. Something drips down his cheek and over his forehead, and a violent pounding feels like it’s shaking his brain. His master is angry and he can hear him shouting, but it all sounds like he’s underwater as fear crawls up and down his body and pain radiates from his face.

The snarling expression of his master comes swimming blurrily into view, and Mahanon doesn’t have time to be scared before he’s grabbed by the hair and dragged towards the table. He barely manages to get a hand up to stop his head from crashing into it, and then a hand grabs the back of his neck and smashes him into the piece of furniture anyway. He can feel a cry pass his lips, and tears join the hot blood dripping from the large cut across his brow — likely caused by a ring — and everything warps painfully around him as he begins sobbing, and-

The bucket is under him when Mahanon wakes up. It’s late into the night now — nobody but guards are awake outside, and even they are silent in the pitch black created by the fires of the camp being extinguished. There’s an impossibly loud ringing in his ears as he heaves again, and he can feel his body trembling under the blanket he’s beneath.

A violent cough racks his body, another gag overwhelms him, and Mahanon’s hearing comes back slowly to the sounds of a hum that cuts out as soon as he notices it. He also notices that he’s not holding the bucket.

He’s not holding the bucket.

When his mind decides to actually make him aware of the situation, Mahanon’s eyes snap up wildly to find the Dread Wolf crouched next to the couch — one hand holding the bucket up to his head, and the other grasping the strands of his hair back so that they don’t fall into his vomit. He’s still not fully awake, and the proximity — the touch on his hair; his hair — makes him flinch violently. Fen’Harel releases him quickly and holds his hand up carefully in front of him. When he seems certain that Mahanon is done with the bucket, he stands slowly and backs away from the couch with predictable steps.

Something unreadable is on the god’s face as he stares at Mahanon — terrified and traumatized — and the ancient elf turns away to place the bucket outside of the room. It’s too dark for Mahanon to truly see anything now that the Dread Wolf isn’t immediately in front of him — better ability to see at night be damned in this frozen tundra where snow blocks the moon — but he can see that his wrists are uncovered due to the sleeves of the shirt he’s been given riding up during his sleep.

He can’t process this — he’s too tired, and it’s too much — so he turns to lay on his back once more. The blanket is soft, and the couch isn’t unbearably firm, and he thinks he hears humming again, but he’s asleep before he can determine if it was the beginning of a dream or not.

Chapter Text

In the morning, Mahanon wakes up alone. The bucket is next to the couch — empty — and the bed has been made up to look as if nobody had been in it at all. The blanket that he thought he had is missing, and Mahanon is almost convinced that the events of last night had all been a really weird dream.

The sour taste of bile still coats the back of his tongue, but nothing in the room would indicate that he hadn’t just gagged in his sleep. His clothes had been tossed haphazardly onto the bed at some point, and Mahanon changes into them quickly. He’s not sure what to do with the ones he slept in, so he opts for folding them and putting them where his winter ones had been thrown to. The bedroom door is slightly ajar when Mahanon approaches it, and the old hinges creak loudly when he pushes it all the way open. It’s almost embarrassing that he slept through them screeching when the Dread Wolf vacated the room earlier.

It must be well into the morning, because the sound of camp life is alive and well outside of the cottage. The sun has returned again and is making itself known through bright rays streaking onto the hearth from the single window of the cottage. It hurts his eyes to look at them, and when he turns his attention to Fen’Harel instead, the god looks unimpressed.

“I see that you have finally decided to grace Thedas with your presence.” He’s still being an asshole — nothing like what Mahanon might have dreamed last night. “I was beginning to hope you had been taken off of my hands.”

“I see that you like to state the obvious,” Mahanon snarks back, “and neither of us would be so lucky.”

The god lets out an irritated scoff, and he scrunches his nose as he looks away from Mahanon. The Dalish man links his fingers and raises his hands above his head in a deep stretch. He turns a bit to the side to also loosen his back — that couch did terrible things to it — and freezes at the sight of two bowls sitting on the kitchen table. He stands there long enough that the Dread Wolf turns back towards him with a deadly glare for the offense of existing in one spot for more than thirty seconds, so he drops his hands back to his sides quickly and approaches the table.

One of the bowls has clearly been empty for a while, and the other has what looks like oatmeal in it. Mahanon steps over and takes a tentative bite, and he can’t help but make a face at the texture. A shudder runs through him. Cold oatmeal is disgusting.

“If you had risen at an acceptable hour, your food would have been palatable. A shame that you seem incapable of doing so.” Mahanon makes a different face, and stubbornly eats another bite of food so his mouth is full when he turns back to the Dread Wolf.

“I thought you would’ve been smart enough to figure out that working nights leads to sleeping late.” Disgust flickers across Fen’Harel’s face, but the stoic expression he usually wears slams itself back into place. The need to be catty apparently outweighs the need to be aloof, because one of the Dread Wolf’s dark brows raises.

“You have not ‘worked nights’ in months now. You must have discovered other excuses for your poor sleeping schedule by now, have you not?”

Mahanon nods solemnly. “Stress. Being kidnapped does something awful to your internal clock.”

Fen’Harel has the gall to look offended. “Kidnapped? Despite your behavior, you are a fully grown adult, and if I had not taken you-”

“Kidnapped me.”

“-back to Skyhold, you would have been victim to an excruciating death.” Irritation is clearly flaring within the Dread Wolf, and Mahanon hesitates to respond when he opens his mouth. The memory of suffocatingly cold magic filling the room startles him, and he bites the inside of his cheek instead. “Perhaps if you had shown even an ounce of gratitude-”

The fear evaporates, and incredulity takes over Mahanon’s features. “For what? Kid-”

“Saving you.” Fen’Harel cuts Mahanon off before he can mention his abduction again, and a flash of cold fills the room despite the hearth roaring brighter. The god shoves himself to his feet, and Mahanon stands straighter in a failed attempt to lessen their height difference. Outrage fills his body, and Mahanon all but slams his bowl back onto the table behind him. “I saved you and-”

“And you didn’t lose a chunk of your agents for letting the Halla die,” Mahanon interrupts, and tension coils through Fen’Harel’s shoulders as his eyes narrow predatorily. The air starts to feel like it’s getting sucked out of the room, but Mahanon isn’t finished. “I was doing you a favor, too. Do you know the stain that your soldiers and those slaves dying would’ve put on your name? How many of your agents would’ve abandoned ship and vanished into the wind? If anybody should be fucking grateful-”

“I could kill you now and Tevinter would be none the wiser,” the Dread Wolf threatens, voice dropping both in tone and volume. Mahanon ignores it.

“I almost died so you could abandon the people relying on you! To chase after Ellana — try to catch her instead — and you couldn’t even manage that.”

Mahanon shouldn’t have disregarded the god’s warning. The chair that had sat between him and the god crashes into the far wall as Fen’Harel shoves it out of his way to stalk towards him. All of the hair on his body rapidly stands on end, and he can hear blood rushing through his head as the god approaches. Mahanon forces the fear trickling down his back to shift into anger, but it’s not enough to keep him from taking a step back.

Attempting to take a step back.

Right into the table.

Fuck.

Fen’Harel doesn’t stop until he’s on top of him — crowding him against the table with a slam of his hand directly next to his bowl. He’s close enough that Mahanon can see his panicked expression reflected in the god’s eyes. He twists his face into a snarl instead as the Dread Wolf leans in and whispers, “The Inquisition assumes that you are dead; Tevinter assumes that you are dead; who is left to miss you if you were to vanish here — in a desolate mountainscape with land too hard to bury you? Left out in the snow to be ravaged by wild dogs?”

There’s a bittersweet taste lingering on his tongue with the knowledge that Tevinter assumes that he died over deciding to abandon it. A much more acidic one follows at the image of Ellana believing that she’s lost him again — permanently, this time. His chest hollows with the idea of her mourning him, but it carves out space for the constantly simmering flame that lives there to swell.

“I will send a bolt of lightning through the roof of this building and cleave your fucking numbers in half,” Mahanon threatens through his teeth.

“You wouldn’t,” Fen’Harel responds — staring at him with a calculating gaze so intense that it burns. Mahanon is trapped, and the anxiety crushing his lungs is activating some sort of animal panic previously hidden in the very back of his mind. Logically, it wouldn’t make sense for Fen’Harel to kill him after putting so much effort into keeping him alive, but logic is quickly losing its battle with an instinctual flight or fight response.

He clenches one of his hands into a fist to hide the trembling of his fingers, and the Dread Wolf’s eyes track the movement. It distracts him enough that neither of them expect Mahanon’s other hand to come up swinging.

It cracks against the Dread Wolf’s jaw, and the taller elf stumbles far enough back that Mahanon can climb backwards onto the table and attempt to shove himself off the other side of it. His ankle is grabbed, and Mahanon is dragged roughly towards the god, but he manages to land a heavy kick against the ancient elf’s unarmored chest that loosens his grip just enough that Mahanon can roll sideways off of the table.

A familiar wave of adrenaline crashes through his body, and he uses it to lift one of the chairs he lands between off of the ground to throw at the Dread Wolf. The god knocks it aside with an enraged snarl, and a vibrant green barrier snaps into place around him before Mahanon can even send the fist made of stone he creates at Fen’Harel’s head. The rocks shatter against the barrier, and Mahanon immediately sends a crack of lightning at the exact same spot. 

It’s more intense than Mahanon expected it to be. He’s been too anxious to leak off his magic with the usual spells he uses to mitigate the extra power — warming himself up or cooling the air around him, keeping him cleaner throughout the day than the dirt and sweat would usually allow, making water last longer than it should. The overcharge manifests now as one bolt becomes a crackling trio of golden arcs that smash into the Dread Wolf’s shield so powerfully that it shudders. Both men freeze up in surprise, but Fen’Harel recovers faster.

A green glow encompasses the elf as his barrier vanishes, and it must be lending the god strength because he grabs the edge of the table and flips the entire thing to the side. “Calm yourself,” he orders through labored breaths, and Mahanon instead opts for hastily pulling the fire of the hearth towards them.

The Dread Wolf twists and throws up a vertical barrier that completely blocks the flames, and while he’s distracted, Mahanon fade steps around him. With a twist of his hands, the Dalish man creates a swirling vortex behind the god. He then slams his hands down, and the ground below Fen’Harel rumbles as it starts shaking violently. He loses his footing and staggers towards the abyss, and Mahanon takes that moment of weakness to spin around and run at the door.

“Enough!” Fen’Harel roars as another green barrier manifests — this time around the entire room. Mahanon lets out a pained wheeze as his spells are suddenly cut off, and the ache they leave behind causes him to trip. A green glow surrounds him before he can hit the floor, and he’s raised off of his feet completely before he’s yanked backwards forcefully. His magic rages at the confinement, and a golden sheen breaks out across his skin before blowing up forcefully. The green magic around him crackles out of existence.

Unfortunately, he has momentum working against him. He manages to turn sideways and smash into the Dread Wolf with his shoulder, and they both hit the ground hard. Mahanon somehow lands on top, and he pins one of Fen’Harel’s arms to the floor with a knee as he sends another brutal swing at the god’s eye. The ancient elf jerks his head back at the last second, and Mahanon’s punch lands instead across the Dread Wolf’s cheek. Blood wells in a sharp line where Faelor’s ring cuts through his glove and catches the pale skin, and the sight of it startles Mahanon badly enough that Fen’Harel is able to grab him by the neck with his free hand.

The world spins around him aggressively, and the breath is knocked out of him as Mahanon is slammed onto his back. The Dread Wolf straddles his waist and folds his legs underneath him to trap Mahanon’s thighs by resting half of his body weight against his shins, and he grabs the next punch Mahanon throws at him with the hand not holding the Dalish man by the throat. The god releases his neck to grab his other hand and wrenches it towards the already trapped one, then presses them against the floor above Mahanon’s head.

He’s moved so both of his wrists are pinned in one hand, and Fen’Harel slams the other next to his head to alleviate some of his weight. “Enough,” he heaves as he stares down at Mahanon.

He’s heavy. He doesn’t know why, but Mahanon assumed with the god’s lithe frame that he would be lighter than he is. Not that he thought about it much. There must be nothing but lean muscle hidden beneath his clothes, because it feels like he’s being crushed.

What the fuck was he thinking?

He wasn’t, and he’s not really able to now, either.

Hysteria is clawing its way up his chest, and Mahanon struggles despite the fact that it's clearly a useless endeavor. A weird combination of feelings flash across Fen’Harel’s face — rage, pity, exhaustion, concern, and something that looks vaguely like a low grade fear. Mahanon must be reading it wrong.

It would be easy to do, because the world is pulsing in and out of focus as anxiety attacks him. His skin is too tight across his bones, and his lungs can’t pull in enough air, and the breaths he’s managing to take in are so ragged that they start to make him gag. Fen’Harel growls something behind the blood thundering in Mahanon’s ears, and he’s jerked suddenly into a sitting position as one of his hands is pulled against the god’s unguarded chest. His other falls behind him to hold some of his weight.

Golden magic sends enraged crackles of electricity across the Dread Wolf’s sternum, but the ancient elf doesn’t so much as flinch as violet eyes bore into Mahanon’s mismatched pair. The god sits back on his heels to give Mahanon space, and he takes a deep breath. Mahanon’s hand follows the rise and fall of his chest, and the black pulsing around the edges of his vision begins to slow as he mimics it.

“Damn it all, Rook,” the Dread Wolf hisses the words like they’re being forced out of him, “Breathe.”

The use of his name — almost his name — is jarring enough that focus snaps back into Mahanon’s life in a way that is almost violent. Fen’Harel looks visibly uncomfortable at the use of it as well — irritation layering heavily on top of the feeling.

“Believe it or not,” Mahanon pants as the world dims and brightens sporadically around him, “I’m trying, you fucking dick.”

“This is a gross overreaction to a threat.” The words are targeted, but Mahanon isn’t sure that they’re aimed at him. Past the shakiness of his own body, he thinks he might feel a small tremble in the Dread Wolf’s hand. At some point, he released Mahanon’s wrist, and instead, his palm is being held against the god with just the side of a pale hand. His chest is still rising and falling evenly, and Mahanon is still copying him. “If I get up, will you run?”

Mahanon reflects on the situation, and decides that no, that doesn’t sound like a good idea. There would be nowhere to actually run to, and he didn’t even consciously make the decision to start all of this shit in the first place.

Strong instincts and trauma — what a laughably terrible combination. This is why he didn’t interact with anybody for almost a decade.

The Dread Wolf is apparently giving him time to think about his answer. He lets out a huff as he leans further backwards — Mahanon’s hand still on his chest so he can follow the god’s breathing pattern. He uses his free arm to wipe his cheek with the back of his hand and makes a face at the blood that smears onto it. Mahanon wonders if he should tell the god that there are bruises forming under the gash and along his jaw. Is there one forming underneath his shirt, as well?

Mahanon takes the time to take stock of his own injuries, and he’s almost embarrassed when he doesn’t find any. His ankle doesn’t hurt, his wrists aren’t sore, and his shoulder smarts a little, but he doesn’t think he was supposed to actually make contact with the god after his brief flight. His chest aches a little bit as he tries to catch his breath, but that seems to be the extent of his damage.

“No,” Mahanon voices, and the Dread Wolf eyes him suspiciously. The Dalish man tries his best to look like he’s being honest — he is — and the god nods slightly as he shifts to begin climbing to his feet. The barrier he held around the room fades out of existence.

Time seems to slow, and Mahanon watches in horror as the cottage door bangs open before Fen’Harel moves off of him completely.

The Dread Wolf freezes where he’s looming over Mahanon. Mahanon freezes where he’s propped himself up against the floor. Papers scatter across the cottage’s wooden floor, and Mahanon’s gaze flicks past Fen’Harel to see one of his agents — the pale elf who directed them to the building yesterday — rooted to the spot right in front of the now open door. Her mouth hangs open in shock, and her eyes are wide enough that they’re at risk of popping out of her head as they roam over what Mahanon is realizing seems to be quite a scandalous position.

He hangs his head, and Fen’Harel whips his to the side — the unmarked side — to send a scathing glare at the agent. “Leave,” he bites out, and the agent jumps.

She bends to try to pick up the papers, and she mutters, “I was delivering reports. They’re for the lyrium. I had no idea that-” She chokes on her own spit, before spluttering out, “I’m, um-”

“Leave,” the Dread Wolf growls as he begins climbing to his feet. His agent decides that it’s an excellent time to follow the order and all but runs from the building. The freezing wind outside sucks the door shut behind her. Both men stare at the spot she stood in, and Mahanon lets his arm give out from under him to crack his head against the wood in hopes that it will concuss him and give him memory loss. It’s worked for Ellana before — twice, too! It shouldn’t be too much of an ask.

Unfortunately, it’s not a far enough drop. He stares miserably at the ceiling.

“No,” he groans, dragging his hands down his face. “Get ahead of that. You can get ahead of that, right? You have that little meeting with your people, and you can say-”

“That ‘little meeting’ happened while you were selfishly deciding to sleep in.” Fen’Harel spits as he fully shoves himself into a standing position. “And-”

“Selfishly deciding-” Mahanon shoves himself onto his elbows with a scowl. “Selfishly deciding to sleep in? You could’ve woken me up!”

“Perhaps I was attempting to appreciate the peace that seems to only exist when you’re not around to-”

“Sounds to me like you were being pretty selfish, then,” Mahanon interrupts, grimacing at the door. “You need to stop her from-”

“What would you have me do, exactly?” Fen’Harel snaps — his lethal glare turning onto Mahanon. A chill crawls up his arms, but it’s a lot easier to dismiss it after having his hand smashed against his captor’s heart.

“Figure it out! Aren’t you supposed to be-” Mahanon cuts himself off so roughly that he chokes on the last word. Wisdom, he was about to say. Aren’t you supposed to be a spirit of Wisdom? He can’t even guess at what the consequences of him having that knowledge would be. Being Ellana’s brother is probably what’s saved his life so far — a friend of a friend, he said — but Fen’Harel has burned the life out of sleeping mages from the other side of Thedas for the error of finding information that was almost useless in the fade. The man is clearly not above torture, and Mahanon doesn’t think his mind would be able to survive whatever the Dread Wolf felt like putting him through to find out where he got that information. He pivots, “-smart?”

“Every minute that we speak I become increasingly baffled that you’ve managed to persevere through the simplicities of life as long as you have.”

“Fuck you, and fuck your fancy words. I’m shocked your stupidity hasn’t killed you yet. Is that really so hard?” Fen’Harel looks baffled now, and Mahanon bares his teeth in a sarcastic grin. “You can do it. I believe in you; stoop down to the level of us mere mortals. Say it with me: I’m shocked- ”

“You are by far the most infuriating creature in all of Thedas, if not the entire world.” Mahanon scrunches his nose at the god and allows his body to fall back to the floor. “I am no miracle worker; I cannot just erase the memory from her mind.”

“You’ve made the entirety of the Inquisition forget the location of Skyhold, but you can’t make one elf forget less than a minute of her life? Bullshit.”

“That is an incredibly powerful spell worked into the foundations of-” Fen’Harel cuts himself off with a growl, clearly annoyed at being baited into giving Mahanon that information. Mahanon snorts, because what the hell is he going to do with it? He’s clearly stuck with the god for the foreseeable future. He can’t even get out of the same room as the Dread Wolf.

Devastation begins to creep into his chest at the hopelessness of his situation.

“Go do godly things then; I don’t know!”

“I am not a god,” Fen’Harel snarls, and Mahanon lets out a loud groan.

“I don’t care if you consider yourself a god or not. They do, and you don’t seem to have any issue using that to your advantage when you want something. Use it now! Decide that you want her to not spread that image around! Pl-”

Absolutely not.

Fen’Harel catches it — of course he catches it — and both of his brows raise as something manic enters his eyes. “What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“Does the Halla know how to beg, or is that below the fabled vigilante of Tevinter?”

There’s nothing within reach that Mahanon could throw at the god, so instead he listens to the world outside of the cottage as he tries to acclimate to the new temperature of the Dread Wolf. 

Disorientingly kind while he’s essentially unconscious; bitchy; rude because he let Mahanon sleep in; bitchy; murderous and threatening and in Mahanon’s business; bitchy; weirdly and angrily concerned; bitchy.

The ancient Elvhen god of lies, treachery, and rebellion is a fucking brat who can’t pick a mood to stay in for more than twenty minutes, and it’s going to give Mahanon a stroke.

“This is going to be a fucking disaster,” Mahanon tells the wooden planks slapped over the hole in the roof he’s staring at. “I think it would be really beneficial to both of our sanities if I stayed at Skyhold from now on.”

The Dread Wolf’s unimpressed face comes into view, and Mahanon shouldn’t be as surprised as he is at the lack of injuries on it. “If you are done throwing your tantrum, we need to begin our journey to the next camp.”

“And if I’m not done throwing my tantrum?” Mahanon can show him a fucking tantrum.

“Then you will need to continue it on the road.” The Dread Wolf holds out a hand for Mahanon to take, and Mahanon eyes it suspiciously. The god lets out a long suffering sigh through his nose and closes his eyes — as if searching for inner strength — then leans down and grabs Mahanon by the front of his shirt. He’s yanked up to his feet, and he almost trips due to Fen’Harel releasing him as soon as he’s upright. “Do you have everything? This trip will take multiple days.”

“Multiple-” Mahanon hates it here, and it’s only been a day. “What ‘everything’ should I have? My sleeping clothes are on the bed, but it’s not like I have a pack to put them in. Or anything else to put in a pack if one were to magically appear in front of me right now.”

“You should be grateful to even have those.” The ice has creeped back over the god, and Mahanon wants to throw something heavy at him to make it crack; he’s getting whiplash. A heavy coat is thrown at him alongside his cloak, and he watches as Fen’Harel begins to equip some of his armor. “Many have suffered colder nights with less.”

There’s something heavy.

“A blanket would’ve been nice.” Fen’Harel’s hands freeze for not even half a second as they reach for his breastplate, but Mahanon catches it. There’s a small tremor running through the god’s fingers as he straps his armor to his chest. Mahanon catches that, too, but doesn't know what to do about that.

“Is that so?”

“You had, like, five. You couldn’t have spared one?”

“Do you wish for me to believe you would have enjoyed waking from your sleep to me standing over you with a blanket?” The god deadpans, staring into the once again tamed fire of the hearth. Mahanon makes a face at the side of his head as he pulls on the coat.

“It just would’ve been nice. Even pieces of cargo-” the word tastes rancid as it passes his lips, and Fen’Harel tenses at its use, “-have cushions around them.”

Silence reigns between them as they finish putting on their gear, and Mahanon bites the inside of his cheek as he debates if he should push it further or not. On one hand, there’s a high chance that another fight will break out between him and the Dread Wolf, and it will all be incredibly embarrassing. On the other hand, he might actually be able to get a blanket out of this conversation. Maybe even a pillow. Perhaps some sort of confirmation that he hasn’t gone insane.

“Tevinter can hit freezing temperatures at night in some cities.” The fact is random enough that it pulls Fen’Harel’s attention to him, and Mahanon clears his throat awkwardly before he continues, “Without heat. Or a house. The cold might bring up some bad memories. Nightmares, maybe. You probably don’t want to deal with those.”

Silence. Thick enough that it almost suffocates him. Mahanon’s face begins to burn, and he opens his mouth to try to backtrack. He pushed too far; this was stupid and embarrassing; he must have imagined last night; what was he thinking? The Dread Wolf’s brows furrow as he takes a hard look at him, but then he nods. A short, jerky motion with his chin, but an acknowledgement nonetheless.

“I will take that into consideration,” he murmurs. Violet eyes flick to Mahanon’s hair; to his face; to his wrists; to the place he thought the god put the mysteriously empty bucket last night. They turn away as the Dread Wolf finishes putting on his armor and starts to collect the scattered reports off of the floor.

Mahanon was almost convinced it was a dream.

Almost.

Chapter Text

It is, indeed, a multi-day trip to the next camp. Three days, if Fen’Harel’s intel is accurate. Apparently they’re heading to a vein of lyrium that the Dread Wolf’s agents found about seven months after their original one was blown to shit, and they’ve picked what seems to be the worst possible time of the year to do so.

Mahanon has been around cold weather before; he wasn’t lying when he told the Dread Wolf that freezing temperatures could bring up some shitty memories for him. There are some cities in Tevinter near the Nevarra border — to the west of the Silent Plains — where it gets so cold during the winters that almost all of the humidity is sucked out of the air. It makes it almost impossible to breathe, and it makes it completely impossible to be outside for more than even a few minutes without getting frostbite.

Or for more than half an hour without dying.

He’s broken a few bones slipping on ice and has gotten his fair share of bloody noses due to the freezing temperatures ripping the moisture out of his skin, but it doesn’t really snow in those cities around this time of year. There’s the occasional inch or two of flurries, but it’s too dry for any large storms to form. It’s a brutal sweet spot to exist in, but it’s better than the alternative.

The alternative being the shit show that Fen’Harel and his merry band of misfits are dragging Mahanon through currently.

It’s cold.

It’s so cold.

Mahanon is so cold, and he’s soaked because this damned lyrium vein is crammed into a corner of the world where the wind hurts his face but doesn’t dry out the air enough to prevent blizzards.

Ancient elves must have some sort of tolerance to awful weather, because Fen’Harel has been walking through the winter storm like they’re taking a scenic hike in the Hinterlands. Ellanis seems to be mostly unaffected by the weather as well. No tripping; no slipping; no shivering; no teeth chattering. Mahanon could swear that the Dread Wolf’s boots don’t have soles on them, but the man has been treading over sharp spikes of ice as if he’s in shoes that have an inch thick layer of rubber under them. That would be insane.

But the god himself is fucking insane; they haven’t even taken a break. They’ve been pushing through this gods-forsaken blizzard for a day and a half, and Mahanon is about to crack. He’s had no choice but to begin burning off his magic reserves again. If he hadn’t been heating the air around this doomed party, they’d all be frozen bodies littered across the mountainscape they’re stuck in by now.

Fen’Harel hasn’t even seemed to have thought about that. They’ve had three meals since leaving, but all of them have been eaten while walking, and while Mahanon’s magic can stretch water for hours longer than it should go, the Dread Wolf’s agents haven’t had a chance to take a swig from their reserves more than five times since they departed from the first camp. He’s becoming the receiver of more and more dirty looks the longer he goes without being notably dehydrated.

The last thirty-two hours have been awful.

The snow comes down in inch-thick waves, and each flake that flies down is heavy enough that Mahanon can feel it stick itself to his cloak. And his gloves. And his scarf in an attempt to suffocate him. One, notably, made it all the way into his eye, and Mahanon had seriously considered throwing himself down a nearby ravine to avoid continuing the journey that the Dread Wolf is forcing upon him. Maybe that’s the whole point of bringing him along — Fen’Harel doesn’t want to do the dirty work involved with killing Mahanon himself.

There are sleds being dragged alongside the group by a green glow, and Mahanon has been eyeing them longingly the entire trek. Fen’Harel has stuck him in the middle of the group — smashed directly between Ellanis and the god himself — so an opportunity to attempt to throw himself on one so he can sleep has not offered itself up, unfortunately. Some of the agents are taking turns lagging behind just so they can take a twenty-minute nap before their leader notices them flagging.

It’s not working. Everybody besides the immortal beings in the group are clearly exhausted, and Mahanon is all but steaming in rage at the dismissal of the rest of the party’s needs.

What’s really getting to him is the fact that there are camp supplies resting on one of the sleds — tents and pots and wood that is refusing to dampen with the snow. He’s seen every single mortal agent but the human one — suck up — eying the pile dreamily, and each passing minute that Fen’Harel doesn’t so much as turn around to check on his followers grates roughly at his nerves. Mahanon’s never led a team, but even he knows that you’re supposed to care at least a little bit about the health and safety of your fellow members.

Evelyn — the pale elf from the cottage that refuses to look Mahanon in the eye — trips for the third time, and Mahanon decides that enough is enough.

He stops moving.

Ellanis moves to bump into him from behind to keep him going, but Mahanon shifts out of the way before contact is made with a grace that the other elf clearly forgot that he is capable of. He shifts into a defensive stance when the ancient elf turns around with a surprised expression, and Ellanis lets out a long sigh. “Do not.”

“Oh, I am.” Some of the agents slow at Mahanon’s inaction, and it’s a large enough shift in the group that Fen’Harel turns to figure out what’s going on. His expression darkens under the hood of the cloak he’s wearing — one made of a dark wolf’s pelt with the skull of the creature resting over the god’s face. Mahanon hopes that it was some sort of gift that he couldn’t refuse instead of Fen’Harel being that obsessed with his image, but the Dread Wolf seems vain enough that he might have commissioned it. A storm intense enough to rival the winter one they’re stuck in begins to build behind violet eyes, and Mahanon lifts his chin stubbornly as Fen’Harel all but charges him.

“This is not-” The eyes of his agents weigh heavily on the Dread Wolf, so he storms past Mahanon and drags him further away from the group by the bicep. It’s easier for him to do than Mahanon is comfortable with. When they’re out of earshot — which isn’t very far thanks to the howling winds attempting to deafen them — he hisses, “This is not the time for one of your tantrums.”

Mahanon motions wildly around him. “This is a perfect time for one of my tantrums, actually. How dramatic will it have to be for us to set up camp? I’m not above throwing myself to the ground.”

“We are only halfway to our destination. If we stop now-”

“Then you won’t arrive at this stupid lyrium vein with only half of your agents still breathing,” Mahanon cuts in. “I’ve been keeping us all warm for hours, and I don’t even think you’ve noticed. We should all have frostbite by now. Do you have some sort of weather tolerance magic that we don’t know about?”

“Weather toler-” the Dread Wolf lets out an irritated huff. “The weather is not severe enough to warrant stopping.”

“You know what is severe enough?” Mahanon asks despite the fact that the weather is, in fact, severe enough. He throws an arm out towards the group — who are all staring at them — and Fen’Harel tracks it briefly before snapping his gaze back onto Mahanon. “The basic need for rest. We haven’t eaten in hours; we haven’t had water for longer, and we haven’t slept in over a day, and no, your people laying down when they think you aren’t looking doesn’t count. You brought camp supplies; make camp.”

Fen’Harel looks offended at being given an order, and Mahanon gives him a blank stare. “I will not risk this lyrium being destroyed so that you may take a nap.”

“I don’t need to take a nap. We-” Mahanon motions to the group again, and they jump at the brief return of the Dread Wolf’s attention, “-need to eat, sleep, and drink water. Or we will pass out, and you’ll have nobody.”

“The Inquisition may very well be on their way to-”

“They don’t know about this stupid vein!” He probably shouldn’t have admitted that — he might be wrong, too — but he needs a break almost as much as he needs air at this point. “Why would they leave it alone if they knew about it? Do you think Ellana is trying to round everybody up to blow to bits in a massive explosion? So she can kill everyone? Have you gone insane?”

Clearly, Mahanon has. The icy expression Fen’Harel is wearing matches the temperature of the mountains, but Mahanon refuses to break eye contact. At least, he does until he hears the human agent mutter something that makes the rest of the group glare at him while he laughs. He moves to whirl around on the shem- human, but the Dread Wolf quickly steps in his way. He turns his glare onto the god instead.

“I am going to snap,” Mahanon threatens darkly. “I am going to snap in a way that is thought out, and you are going to find out why just the thought of me sends piece of shit shemlens running in the opposite direction of the slave trade. You are going to find out just how many of the rumors about me are facts, and you’re going to have nightmares about it for months.”

Silence rings out between them — interrupted intermittently by the sound of the trees shaking with the roaring wind — as the Dread Wolf sees inklings of the Halla for the first time. Yes, he’s seen Mahanon fighting, and yes, he’s seen Mahanon use his magic, but those have only been in times of desperation, poor health, low power, and panic. He’s never seen Mahanon, though. Not the one with time to strategize and prepare for battle. Not the one vicious enough to build a mythical quality around an alias using nothing more than rage and bloodlust. Not the one he’s given nothing but hours to plan.

Mahanon can feel his magic leaking slowly out of him and into the space between him and the god — seeping through stinging cracks breaking somewhere deep within him. His body feels like it’s too small for him to fit in properly, and steam curls off of his hands with the intensity of the rage building beneath his skin. Fen’Harel grimaces as the air thickens with it. His head turns slightly to take in the sight of his agents behind him, and he lets out an irritated growl as tension builds thicker between them. His eyes flicker over Mahanon’s body, and a wrinkle forms between his brows as the god appears to concentrate on something.

“There is a cave,” he grits out between his teeth as Mahanon is abruptly cooled off and shrunk back into his body in a way that leaves him aching, “an hour's walk from our current location. If I take us there, do you believe that you are capable of behaving like an adult until we arrive?”

“If this takes longer than sixty minutes exactly, you’re going to be responsible for this forest turning to ash.” He means it, dammit. The Dread Wolf must know, because he gives him a slow once over before nodding sharply. He grabs Mahanon by the front of his coat to drag him with as he marches back to the front of the group, and the god all but throws him into the spot next to him as he turns the group to a path off to the right of the one they’ve been traveling on.

Mahanon can feel Fen’Harel’s calculating look as they begin walking, and he attempts to steady himself with the weight of it. Sixty minutes. Three thousand and six hundred seconds. He begins to count.

The cave appears when Mahanon gets to three thousand, one hundred, and twenty-seven. A low simmering anger kicked back up in his chest around five minutes before that, but the flames are reduced to ashes at the sight of a resting spot. Fen’Harel looks almost relieved as they make their way through the mouth of the cavern.

It’s huge, and it must’ve been carved out intentionally. Mahanon could grow ten times and still not have to duck to avoid the smooth, curved ceiling. There are some stone slabs that could have once been benches — now dilapidated almost to ruin — sitting around a groove in the floor where agents are already throwing pieces of wood to set alight.

As soon as life is breathed into the flames, a hanging pot is placed over the pit to throw ingredients to a stew in. Some small metal containers are placed directly against the flames that fill the space with the scent of bread, and clotheslines are strung out to surround the new source of heat. The cave is filled with whispers and creaking metal and fabric shifting as agents of the Dread Wolf make quick work of setting up the camp, and Evelyn manages to glance at Mahanon long enough to give him a pathetically grateful look. It lasts less than a second, and her eyes snap away as if it burned to look at him.

The Dread Wolf pauses in taking off his cloak to give Mahanon a shrewd look when he huffs, but the god is able to track his line of sight quickly enough. His expression sours like he’s taken a bite out of a particularly unripe lemon, and Mahanon finds himself agreeing with the sentiment as he also begins to shed out of his soaked layers. He gets down to his pants and shirt before he admits defeat and acknowledges the fact that even his socks are dripping wet. He needs a whole new set of clothes.

He’s holding his outerwear away from his body in an attempt to keep what he’s in from getting any more soaked, and he manages to catch Ellanis sending him an unimpressed look from the opposite side of the campfire. He glares in response, and he’s distracted enough watching Ellanis raise his hands in defeat that he doesn’t notice Evelyn coming up next to him until she’s taking the clothes from his hands.

He damn near jumps out of his skin, and Evelyn jumps about a foot away from him in response — still holding his clothes. Why does she have his clothes?

“Uh-”

“There’s a free spot over here, sir. Next to Fen’Harel’s clothing.” She’s motioning towards one of the clotheslines. It is, in fact, empty sans the Dread Wolf’s attire, but Mahanon feels like he’s been struck through with an arrow at her words. Word.

Sir.

“Oh, gods. No.” Evelyn looks like she might cry, and Mahanon feels even worse when she flinches in response to him raising his hands in a surrendering motion. “Not sir. I’m not- I’m not your boss. I’m not anybody’s boss. I’m-”

“Rook,” Fen’Harel snaps from somewhere deeper in the cave — clearly displeased that Mahanon didn’t follow him to wherever he wandered off to — and Mahanon makes a face. He didn’t even know the god moved, and hearing his almost-name come from the Dread Wolf’s mouth gives him an uncomfortable feeling. Like he’s unexpectedly discovered a lingering piece of food on a dish he’s washing.

“Rook,” he tells Evelyn, who nods slowly at him in response. He definitely looks crazy. “I’m Rook. Not sir.”

“Okay,” Evelyn squeaks, eyes flickering between Mahanon and the space behind him. “May I hang your clothes?”

“I-” The woman looks like she’s going to have a full on breakdown if Mahanon doesn’t let her do what she’s decided is her job, so he sighs and drops his hands back to his sides. “Sure. Thank you. You don’t have to, but I appreciate it.”

Evelyn gives him a nod that is uncomfortably close to a bow and all but runs from him. Mahanon turns with a scowl towards the mouth of the cave only to find the Dread Wolf wearing a matching expression behind him — violet eyes narrowed as he tracks Evelyn. They snap onto Mahanon with an intensity that all but pins him to the spot he’s standing. Disapproval colors Fen’Harel’s face, and Mahanon feels like his has been set ablaze.

“I told you,” he seethes, “that you needed to get ahead of that whole shit show.”

“And I recall telling you that I am incapable of working miracles.” Fen’Harel looks almost disgusted, and the only reason Mahanon isn’t offended is because he’s sure he’s wearing a matching expression. “And I find it difficult to believe that you would not be opposed to altering the memory of another for the simple mistake of walking in on something they misinterpreted.”

“I’ve never claimed to be a role model,” Mahanon mutters as he watches Evelyn hang his clothes up with shaking hands.

“You do not believe yourself to be a good person?” There’s surprise in Fen’Harel’s voice, and the fact that it’s noticeable is enough for Mahanon to turn back to the god. The look he’s giving Mahanon is intense in a way that he can’t even really decipher — enough so that he almost takes a step back. He gives Fen’Harel a confused look.

“You know what I do in my free time.”

“You help others — break the bonds of their slavery to grant them freedom. You believe they deserve better and act upon that notion in a way that has a high likelihood of ending your life.” Fen’Harel looks confused now as well. “Are those not the actions of a good person? The Halla of Tevinter is heralded as a hero by many.”

The idea makes Mahanon nauseous. The idea that somebody might overhear them makes it worse, and he subtly looks around to make sure that nobody is within earshot.

“I’m good at what I do,” he says slowly, not actually sure why he’s entertaining this conversation, “but what I do is bad.”

“You lessen the numbers of those responsible for the slave trade of Tevinter. Do you not consider that to be something worthy of celebrating?”

“I wouldn’t consider killing people an inherently good thing, no,” Mahanon says dryly. Fen’Harel tilts his head as he considers him.

“The Inquisitor has killed people. Do you hold her in as low of a regard as you do yourself?” Something sharp shoots through Mahanon that knocks the breath out of him.

“Ellana,” he snaps back and watches as the Dread Wolf flinches at her name, “had to do that to survive.”

“And you did not?” Fen’Harel clarifies.

“I did it because I could.” The past tense that slips from his lips startles Mahanon enough that he almost stutters as he catches himself, “I do it because I like it, and I’m good at it, and they deserve it.”

Mahanon knows that his morals don’t necessarily exist in the lightest shades of gray. He isn’t lying when he says he doesn’t think he’s a good person. He likes to see the fear in a slaver’s eyes before he slits their neck. He likes listening to them drown in their own blood. He likes to watch them slump to the floor — incapable of moving and equally incapable of dying quickly from a poisoned gash carved shallowly into their skin. He doesn’t necessarily care that that’s awful, either.

Fen’Harel can’t seem to decide if he’s surprised or not. About Mahanon’s honesty or the contents of the admission itself, the Dalish man isn’t sure. Something analytical has entered the Dread Wolf’s eyes, and the god lets out a short hum in thought.

“You also aid rebellions so those who are trapped are not forced to live as mere shadows of who they could be.” There’s something layered into the words that Mahanon can’t identify.

He thinks about the cold floor he slept on in his childhood — getting heat only off of the bodies of the other slaves he was crammed against in a room no bigger than a closet. Of how he was reduced to his base needs, and about how they weren’t even met. Of the way his skin clung to his bones, and of how he was only allowed to begin filling out after Tevinter nobles began giving him leering stares. A shadow — what an apt way to describe his existence up until the point he became a killer.

“Yeah,” he says, and Fen’Harel opens his mouth to say something, but Mahanon cuts him off as he continues with, “but I’m selfish.”

Fen’Harel’s mouth shuts, then opens again, then shuts again as his mind seems to lag with Mahanon’s confession.

“Selfish?” He questions.

“It’s how I want to help, but it’s not the best way I could. It makes me feel good, and it benefits others, but I’m putting stitches in the wound left over from a poisoned arrow. What looks like the problem is getting fixed, but I’m not getting to the actual root of it.”

“You are removing slavers from Tevinter.”

“For a while.” Mahanon shrugs and tries to figure out what the Dread Wolf is trying to get at. There’s so many emotions crossing his usually stoic face that Mahanon can’t identify a single one of them. “But more will come. I’ll spend my whole life doing this, and then I’ll die, and everything is gonna kick back up again. Maybe even worse to make up for their lost time.”

“What else are you expected to do? The nobility would treat you with the same respect they would offer a slave.”

The nobility has treated him with the respect they give slaves — each and every time they attended a dinner party at his master’s house. There were some, though, that looked uncomfortable. That looked like they knew it was wrong.

“But I could still try. There are some that would listen, and they could talk to other nobles who would talk to other nobles, and some day, they would outnumber the shitty ones.” Something uneasy lodges in Mahanon’s chest as Fen’Harel stares at him. “There’s always a better way. You just have to accept that it’s a lot harder. And that it won’t feel as good.”

The orange light of the campfire flickers across Fen’Harel’s face in a way that makes the confused expression he wears look almost conflicted. His face shutters back to the practiced impassive one, but Mahanon watches as the Dread Wolf’s jaw clenches. His eyes flick across Mahanon’s body and seem to take note of the small trembles wracking it as the chill of his wet clothes begin to seep into Mahanon’s bones.

“I would prefer to avoid dealing with you being ill. A change of clothes is necessary.” The Dread Wolf walks past Mahanon — shoulders almost brushing — and the Dalish man makes a disgruntled sound before following after the god. Ellanis rises to his feet as they pass, and Mahanon can hear his light footsteps trailing after them.

He’s led to a tent — huge and set up deep in the cave away from the others. A single brazier rests outside of it that lights the cream fabric up in shades of orange and yellow. Fen’Harel pushes his way past the closed flaps of the tent, and Mahanon steps in after him hesitantly. It’s larger on the inside than it should be — and square. It seems to be a very small room with a low ceiling, and just trying to think about the mechanics of the magic involved with making this space gives Mahanon a headache.

“Woah,” he breathes, not meaning to.

He lives in Tevinter. He’s seen all sorts of magic both in the waking world and in the fade — primal, arcane, spirit, entropy, fade, blood. Wisdom exposed him to as many spells as she could before she vanished, and Mahanon has spent years practicing magic outside of his specialization just to explore the possibilities of what he could do. He wants to learn as much as he can; see how much is possible and find out if he can push the limits further.

He’s never seen this, though. Never thought it could be done. A change in the size of a room outside of the fade. How is this even possible? He’s barely able to make a room grow even a square foot larger in the fade while he sleeps.

When he turns his attention from the room back to the god that created it, it’s to the sight of Fen’Harel turned half away from his bedroll — one arm extended to Mahanon to offer him a pile of clothes. He’s wearing another look that Mahanon can’t identify the emotions of. He doesn’t spend time trying to decipher it; instead asking, “How did you do this?”

It’s clear that Fen’Harel didn’t expect him to ask anything — or maybe to care enough to ask. But Mahanon is curious. The god shakes the clothes to make Mahanon grab them and tilts his head as he thinks about answering. Mahanon grabs the clothes, and something on his face must show that his interest is genuine, because the Dread Wolf answers.

“It is a physical manipulation of the space around us that is centralized to this tent. The others have similar adjustments.” His eyes search Mahanon’s face as a small grin makes its way onto it. He’s actually going to learn something. About magic. From a god. He doesn’t like the ancient elf, but it’d be stupid not to take a chance to learn about some form of long forgotten magic.

“Yeah, I know. But how? I’ve only ever seen manipulations of volume and area in the fade, and that shit is hard. How did you carry it over past the veil?”

Fen’Harel’s eyes widen briefly as his brows raise. “I was unaware that you were a somniari. You have manipulated areas in the fade before?”

Mahanon flicks his hand to dismiss the topic. “It was barely even a foot, so not really.”

The Dread Wolf is giving him an appraising look and asks, “You specialize in fade magic, do you not?”

“I use it the most, so I guess, yeah.”

“Then you understand the mechanics of creating a rift to carry over energy from the fade.” At Mahanon’s nod, Fen’Harel says, “It is of a similar nature. I create a brief tear to allow energy to cross through the veil, then manipulate the space as if we were in the fade. The magic continues to exist after the rift is closed, and therefore, the area maintains the changes I’ve created. With enough practice, you may be able to achieve similar results.”

A thrill shoots through Mahanon at the idea, and his mouth opens to ask if the god will teach him, but the question dies in his throat. Some weird combination of anger and sadness washes through him because no, the god would not teach him, and no, he would not ask for that knowledge from the Dread Wolf.

“How did you discover fade magic? It is quite an old specialization. I was not aware of anybody with a strong enough understanding of the concepts to teach others.”

“A spirit of Wisdom,” Mahanon murmurs, suddenly finding the pile of clothes in his hands very interesting as his chest aches with her loss. There’s no response from Fen’Harel, and when he looks up, the god is just staring at him. An uncomfortably long silence follows.

“You,” Fen’Harel murmurs, “are a very perplexing individual.”

“That’s not the worst thing somebody has said about me.”

“I never implied that it was.” With that, the Elvhen god of lies, treachery, and rebellion turns away from Mahanon and begins to take off his belt. Mahanon’s eyes widen — likely to the size of dinner plates — and he spins around to face his bedroll. The shifting of fabric fills the space behind him, and Mahanon realizes that he has to change quickly if he doesn’t want the Dread Wolf to beat him.

He peels off his soaked layers and scrubs the remaining cold water off of him with a towel he finds on his bedroll. He’s stepped into his new pants and is grabbing his shirt to pull on when he feels a weight settle over him. The long gashes scarred into his back burn with it, but when Mahanon turns his head to the side to look over his shoulder, it’s to the sight of Fen’Harel’s back as the god unfolds his own shirt leisurely.

His very well defined back. Mahanon thinks he sees some freckles splattered sporadically across it. It begins to disappear beneath a shirt, and Mahanon snaps his head back to face the wall in front of him as he tugs on his own. His face feels like it’s on fire as he shoves on his shoes.

When you took the glowing stone to build your body, did the earth not shake?

Of course the piece of shit would look like that; he created his own damn body. And face.

Fuck. What is wrong with him?

Mahanon is saved by having to process anything by Ellanis entering the tent. Three bowls of soup are balanced on one arm, and the other holds a loaf of bread wrapped in a cloth alongside a dish with butter. Mahanon almost attacks him in his haste to get real food, and Ellanis is smart enough to immediately hand over a bowl as well as half of their bread.

He drops onto his bedroll and immediately begins to tear chunks of his loaf off to dip in the soup, and the two ancient elves follow after him at a much slower pace. Fen’Harel places himself gingerly on his own bedroll, and Ellanis opts to just sit on the floor just shy of between them. He eyes the other elves warily, but relaxes when neither starts snapping at the other.

They eat in silence, and the moment of peace allows exhaustion to begin creeping up on Mahanon — quietly inhabiting the places the cold had carved out. He barely notices himself putting the now empty bowl off to the side as he eats the last of his bread, but the feeling of listing to the side startles him into sitting back up. Ellanis looks amused, and the Dread Wolf looks judgmental, so Mahanon grumbles to himself as he moves to stand so he can bring the remainder of his wet clothes to the campfire.

Both ancient elves give him an unimpressed look at that, and Ellanis sighs as he grabs Mahanon’s bowl and clothes. He kicks Mahanon’s arm out from under him, and the Dalish man admits defeat when his back hits his bedroll. He’s been given a blanket — at least for tonight — so he grabs it and pulls it over his head as he turns onto his side to face the wall. Neither of the other elves in the room speak, but Mahanon can hear one set of near silent footsteps pad out of the tent as the light from the oil lamp goes out.

He falls asleep to the sounds of the campfire crackling and the low voices of the Dread Wolf’s agents.

Devastation is the only thing Mahanon can feel when he opens his eyes and finds the limp body of the sun in his arms. Blood is splattered across her face and torso as her dead eyes stare at the dark sky above them, and a wretched scream pulls itself from his chest.

He told her. He told her what they would do, and she didn’t listen, and now he’s alone.

He can’t see through the tears in his eyes and he’s suffocating and his gode- the sun-

Mythal.

Mythal is dead, and he wasn’t there to help her, and he’s failed. How can he stand against the Evanuris without her? How-

The blue glint of a blade — Mythal’s dagger; their dagger; his dagger — catches his attention, and the cold ruin that was creeping through his body drops and turns to stone as it becomes wrath.

He won’t kill them. Death is too good for them; death is something they will plead for when he is finished. He is going to chain them to the void. Trap them and destroy any chance of them ever feeling the sun warm their skin again. He will finish what they have started and make them wish they had faced him tonight instead of-

Of Mythal.

Another scream tears out of him, and the pillars that surround the grove he discovered her corpse in shatter into dust as a subsonic boom echoes throughout the clearing. Trees are cleaved in half; grass is ripped from the earth to leave scarred trails in the land; the ground itself shakes violently enough to move boulders.

He will deal with the Evanuris for the People.

He will deal with the Evanuris for Mythal.

He will deal with the Evanuris for-

Mahanon can’t see anything, but he can hear the voice of a woman as she speaks to him — old and familiar in a way that activates something in the back of his mind.

“You should not have given your orb to Corypheus, Dread Wolf.”

The disappointment in her voice cuts deep, but Mahanon swallows it as he feels himself respond.

“I was too weak to unlock it after my slumber.” Shame and something lethally cold fill him as he continues, “The failure was mine. I should pay the price, but the People, they need me.”

A cold hand — wearing what feels like a gauntlet — comes to rest against Mahanon’s face. It slides further back to cup his jaw. It sends a wave of ruin through him as he reaches up and grabs limply at the woman’s wrist.

“I am so sorry,” he whispers as he leans forward. Mahanon feels his head rest against the leather armor of the woman in front of him.

“I am sorry as well, old friend,” the woman whispers tearfully, and Mahanon can feel a pit forming in his chest as he breathes deeply. His magic jumps from his body — latching onto hers and tearing it from her soul. Mahanon’s vision returns to him as he lunges to catch the woman’s body as she falls, and it settles as he kneels over her limp form. The light fades from her yellow eyes, and echoes of a familiar devastation wrack through him.

The sun is in his arms; killed once again — turned to stone — for the price of Mahanon’s failure. Mythal’s crumpled form splays across the floor as her power settles beneath Mahanon’s skin. His vision shakes as he stares down at the goddess; his waking mind attempting to make connections he would prefer left untouched.

Thick hair hangs around her face — it was white, Mahanon knows that it was white — and despite her features now being made of stone, he can see that her lips had been painted a dark shade of red. A feathered cloak that matches the shoulder pads of her light armor lays off to the side, and a searing pain cuts through Mahanon’s mind as the world around him trembles.

It is good that you are clever.

You have the potential to become salvation, but you may also bring ruin.

Quick, stubborn, and kind. I think you will do just fine.

What the fuck.

Mahanon shoots into an upright position so quickly it makes him dizzy, and he’s gagging off to the side of his bedroll before he can consciously decide to do so. A bucket is slid beneath his face almost immediately, and a calming hand hovers over his back — not touching, but announcing its presence in an attempt at comfort. It works, but not enough, and Mahanon feels as if the panic racing through his mind is going to make him start convulsing.

“Knock me out,” he pleads, and the hand freezes where it hangs. “Please. Please."

The Dread Wolf complies, and Mahanon feels a hand grab the back of his head before it slams against the ground. A small hum fills the room as Mahanon is sucked into a dreamless sleep.

Chapter Text

Fen’Harel wakes Mahanon up early the next morning with a kick to his foot that is more forceful than necessary, and the god catches the pillow Mahanon lobs at him with ease and an unimpressed expression. “We are leaving,” he says, and Mahanon can make out the vague shapes of his armor through his groggy — but shockingly, not concussion warped — vision. The wolf skull sits ominously over his forehead. “I recommend you change quickly lest you be left behind.”

The Dalish man rubs the sleep out of his eyes as he sits up, and the Dread Wolf drops his clothes onto his lap. A voice that sounds vaguely like Ellanis says something towards the front of the cave, and Fen’Harel walks back into the cavern to respond to him. Mahanon takes the brief time that the Dread Wolf is absent to change into his original set of clothes, and he’s packing up his bedroll when Fen’Harel returns. The phantom weight on his whip scars from last night crawls over his skin like he’s stepped on an anthill, and Mahanon bites the inside of his cheek hard enough for it to bleed in an attempt to get rid of the feeling.

“I was beginning to believe that you were incapable of cleaning up after yourself,” the god says, and Mahanon pauses in rolling up the furs so he can whip his head around to glare at him. The uncomfortable sensation evaporates. “It is good to know that the Inquisitor managed to teach you some manners. I had deemed the task impossible.”

Bitchy. They’re back to bitchy. It’s almost a relief.

“Would you like to find out what kind of manners Tevinter taught me?” Mahanon snaps, and he thinks he might hear a sigh outside of the tent. “They’re a lot more fun, and the first demonstration is on the house.”

“I fear I will have to decline your offer. We are far beyond my first interaction with your less than pleasant nature, and I do not feel like wasting my gold to witness a temper tantrum.” Mahanon’s brows furrow as his mouth drops open slightly in offense, and the Dread Wolf gives him a dry look as he picks up the camp gear he’d already packed up. He leaves before Mahanon can think of a response. The bastard caught him before he’s fully conscious and thinking in complete sentences; that’s cheating, damn it.

He finishes rolling up his furs, and he places the roll under one arm as he carries his clothes in the other. He doesn’t have a pack, so he’s not exactly sure what he’s supposed to do with them. He doesn’t even know where they came from. When he steps out of the tent, Evelyn is waiting for him. Her arms are in the middle of crossing as she shifts from foot to foot, but they drop down to her sides awkwardly when she sees him. She crosses them again, then coughs as if she’s choking on her own spit. Her hands drop again.

“Good morning?” Mahanon tries, and she bites the inside of her cheek as she nods, pale eyes flickering from Mahanon’s face to his body and then to the items he’s holding. In the light of the morning — a calm blue that leaks in from the mouth of the cave that promises a lack of a blizzard — Mahanon can see two jagged, pink lines scarred into her neck and an unevenness to her eyes. It looks like her hair is naturally white; her eyelashes and brows match the color. Mahanon notes with displeasure that she’s taller than him despite the way she tries to take up less space. “Do you need something?”

“Good morning,” Evelyn blurts out, then pales, then turns a bright pink. She motions jerkily to the bedroll and clothes. “I’m here to-”

Mahanon looks down at the items, and Evelyn uses the moment of distraction to snatch them from under his arms. She backs away rapidly — like he’s going to bite her — and gives him another almost-bow before she rushes towards where the rest of the agents are clearing up the camp. A snort sounds out to his left, and he gives Ellanis a baffled look — motioning vaguely towards where Evelyn ran.

“What the fuck?” He asks, and Ellanis looks amused. The ancient elf yanks a stake out of the tent, and it collapses into an easily folded piece of fabric and a few metal bars. More elves hurry over to grab the pieces, and Mahanon is the victim of more awkward not-bows and agents of the Elvhen god of rebellion running away from him. Passionately, he repeats, “What the fuck? What did she do?”

“She merely mentioned a- hm,” Ellanis is clearly trying not to laugh, “compromising scene she stumbled upon recently.”

Mahanon feels like he’s been set on fire, and he knows that he’s turning red. Ellanis doesn’t even have the decency to try not to look entertained. “That was not- No!”

Ellanis hands him a piece of jerky, and Mahanon takes a bite of it savagely — imagining it was the Dread Wolf’s jugular. He told him. “When I said that you would get along with each other better than you’d anticipate, this is not what I had in mind.”

Mahanon chokes, and Ellanis lets him struggle for a bit before handing him a waterskin to drink from. Mahanon has half a mind to spit a mouthful of water out at the ancient elf. “We were fighting.”

“Yes, I had assumed so.” Ellanis sends him a wry look, and Mahanon glares at him.

“And you didn’t feel like — I don’t know — mentioning that?”

Ellanis shrugs, and Mahanon seriously considers electrocuting him. “That would have led to more questions that you and Fen’Harel would likely prefer unasked.”

Mahanon scowls at his boots as he tears off another chunk of the jerky. He’s not wrong, necessarily. It would be damn near impossible to explain away the fight without his alias being exposed, and he refuses to let anybody think that the Halla is working with the Dread Wolf. That would lead to his title of a captive being exposed, and that would lead to a fight to help him leave, and the blood of an indeterminable amount of people would be on his hands.

Ellanis is right, but Mahanon doesn’t have to be happy about it. “We literally just fought in front of everybody.”

“And as a result, you got what you wanted, did you not? That is not a particularly easy feat.”

“I-” Mahanon thinks about it, then hisses, “shit.” Ellanis nods solemnly as he takes a bite of his own jerky, and he kindly allows Mahanon time to mentally spiral.

“How did you convince him?” He asks after a few minutes of silence.

“I threatened to set the forest on fire,” Mahanon sulks, and Ellanis lets out a low hum. “You should try it next time.”

“I believe that I will leave the responsibility of arguing with the Dread Wolf on your shoulders,” Ellanis says, not even pretending to think about it. “I do not have the luxury of the few benefits that go along with being his captive. The ones you have, in particular.”

“So you admit that I’m a captive.” Ellanis raises a brow.

“I have never stated otherwise.”

“And what ‘benefits’ are you talking about? That I specifically have?”

“You are aggravating,” Ellanis starts, and Mahanon huffs.

“Thanks,” he deadpans, but Ellanis isn’t finished.

“And demanding. And stubborn.” The ancient elf gives him an unimpressed look. “Your self preservation instincts also need vast improvement if you would like to live at least another decade.”

“Are you going somewhere with this, or are you just telling me how you really feel? Can I go next?”

“Where I am going with this,” Ellanis murmurs, much quieter suddenly as his yellow eyes track Fen’Harel, “is that you are the only one foolish enough to argue with the Dread Wolf. I imagine he has not come across somebody as hard headed as you are — as exasperating as you are — in centuries.”

“Are you calling me a brat right now?”

“I am calling you interesting,” Ellanis says, his gaze roaming over the Dalish man’s face as he considers Mahanon. “You are difficult, and you are hard to figure out. I have been stuck as your keeper for nearly three months now, and very little of my knowledge of you is more than an educated guess. Fen’Harel enjoys challenges, and you enjoy being challenging. You are irritating but entertaining. It is possibly the reason you are still alive. It is likely the reason he listens to your arguments — believes your threats. He has killed others for less offensive behaviors than the ones you continue to display.”

You are a very perplexing individual.

“I don’t want to be entertaining,” Mahanon mutters. The Dread Wolf must feel his glare, because the god turns from where he stands at the mouth of the cave to look at him with an irritated expression. Ellanis hums.

“If it is any consolation, I do not believe that he wants you to be entertaining, either.”

“And I’m Ellana’s brother.” Ellanis looks confused at the statement.

“I am aware.”

“Which is probably the actual reason I’m still breathing. She has a habit of using that to save me from shit.”

Ellanis tilts his head. “How do you figure?”

“If he wants any chance at repairing his relationship with anybody in the Inquisition — with Ellana, specifically — he can’t kill me.”

“Do you think they were involved with one another?” Ellanis asks — completely unexpectedly — and Mahanon almost chokes on the last of his jerky. He takes a swig of water to wash it down quickly while he gives the ancient elf a wide eyed look.

“Are you gossiping with me right now?” Ellanis shrugs, looking back towards the front of the cave. Back at the god he serves.

“I am merely curious.”

“Liar. I knew you liked drama.” Mahanon gets a strong sideways look at that, and he snorts. “No. They weren’t together. He called me ‘a friend of a friend.’  He would’ve said some other half truth if they were in a relationship. ‘Dear to somebody I care for’ or something similar, most likely.”

And he would’ve eaten Ellana alive. She’d told him once while they were both shit faced off of something sweet that the Chargers had made.

They were sitting around a campfire somewhere in the Hinterlands. An ancient Elvhen tomb was allegedly buried nearby in some ruins, and they’d decided to set up camp about two hours after it got dark. Some sizable stones were dragged around the flames for them to sit on, and Dorian and Bull had turned in for the night by the time they were truly drunk — blessedly far away from the fire and the siblings’ tents.

“And he’s handsome,” Ellana slurred, slowly turning red as the alcohol warmed her. “He is, but just-” a hiccup, “-so intense. Even his eyes, Mahanon, and they’re purple. Isn’t that cool?”

“I feel like you shouldn’t be saying this about your mortal enemy,” Mahanon snorted, and Ellana suddenly looked sad.

“He’s my friend,” she whined.

“Just your friend. Despite your deepest and darkest desires, apparently.” Ellana giggled, and Mahanon rolled his eyes. “And he’s trying to destroy the world.”

“He’s doing what he thinks is the right thing. We just have to prove him wrong. And I moved on quickly! It only lasted, like, a month, and I love Cullen, so it worked out. I think I’m just too- I don’t know.”

“Nice?” Mahanon offered, “Not actively evil and out to release an army of demons upon Thedas?”

Ellana let out an undignified snort. She had to put a notable amount of effort into trying to find a better word — the booze slowing her mind considerably. Lightweight. “Gentle, maybe. Or soft. Probably too trusting, too. I don’t think I pushed back against anything he said, and he could be an asshole.”

“Why would you?” Mahanon watched the amber liquid in his glass swish around as he tilted the cup from side to side. “He was your friend, and you didn’t know any better.”

“He is my friend,” Ellana emphasized. “And you would’ve.”

“You’re not me.”

“Exactly. You can be mean. You can argue. I can’t, really. Cullen does it for me most of the time.” Ellana listed forward with a grin, and Mahanon had to push her back into a sitting position with a gentle hand on her shoulder. “You guys probably would’ve liked each other. Him and Dorian got along okay at the end of everything. He helped him fix his opinion on the slave trade and stuff.”

That tracks. Leader of the Elvhen slave rebellions and everything.

“And it would be funny. With your whole-” she motioned at her own vallaslin, “- thing. You and your ‘patron’ working together. Our keeper would lose it. Maybe after everything is over with. I could introduce you two.”

“I think I’ll pass,” Mahanon said dryly. “I’d like to keep a sizable distance between me and the Elvhen god of treachery, thanks.”

He must’ve jinxed himself.

Dumbass.

“Truly, I could not imagine them together,” Ellanis drags him back into the present, and Mahanon looks at him curiously.

“Why?”

There’s mirth in Ellanis’ eyes when he responds, “She is too nice.”

Mahanon’s laugh is loud enough to catch the attention of the Dread Wolf, and the god makes a face at him before heading over. Mahanon cuts himself off with a sigh, and Fen’Harel gives him a withering look as he approaches. It becomes something much more irritated when the conversations of his agents quiet as he nears. He throws something at Mahanon’s chest, and the Dalish man barely manages to catch his new hat before it hits the ground. The eyes of the Dread Wolf’s agents rest heavily on them, but only for a second. The god is quick to whip around with a lethal glare that sends them running to finish loading the sleds.

“This is not helping things,” Mahanon complains, and Fen’Harel’s scowl worsens.

“I am tired of hearing your grievances regarding the weather and the sensitivity of your ears. Wear it and retire the complaints, or I will show you how cold a person is capable of becoming before succumbing to hypothermia.” Fen’Harel whirls around and stalks back to the front of the cave, and Mahanon sends a nasty look at his back. Unfortunately, the god seems to have meant that threat, so Mahanon shoves the hat on and is almost irritated about how comfortable it is.

Ellanis pushes him towards the mouth of the cave where the packed sleds and agents of the Dread Wolf are waiting, and Mahanon elbows him in return. He moves, though, because he doesn’t feel like being manhandled at the moment, and both he and Ellanis know that the sentinel isn’t above forcibly moving him.

He’s victim to an oppressive amount of awkward stares as he’s once again put between the two ancient elves, and he takes note of the glower the human agent is giving him. It worsens when the human catches him looking, and Mahanon bares his teeth in response. Ellanis lets out a cough, Fen’Harel turns to catch the two men in the midst of their silent standoff, and a bright crackle of green magic turns both of their attention to the god. Mahanon is far from impressed with the look he’s receiving, but when he glances back at the agent, the man has turned his gaze to his feet.

Silence reigns over the group as they begin their second leg of the journey.

The lyrium vein is massive. It cuts a sharp line of electric blue through the side of the mountain they’ve been wandering across — so bright against its white backdrop that it almost hurts to look at. Mahanon would be in awe of the sight if he wasn’t so fucking tired.

He hadn’t been able to argue his way into another break; Fen’Harel had forced the party to continue on through another full day and night to reach the site. A part of him is happy that he can finally take a second to breathe as they enter the camp, but another part of him — the smarter part of him — feels like he can’t breathe at all with the knowledge that they’re here to harvest lyrium for Fen’Harel’s mission.

They’re here to collect lyrium so they can end the world.

It sours Mahanon’s already rotten attitude, and he can feel Ellanis eyeing him warily. Fen’Harel must be able to sense it as well, because he turns his head slightly to glance at Mahanon from the corner of his eye. The Dalish man scowls at the god, and he hums in response.

“Our housing is over here,” he murmurs, and Mahanon all but stomps after him as he leads them towards a small house sitting off to the side of the vein. Ellanis trails after them, and he steps into the house quietly behind Mahanon. Fen’Harel walks straight to the other room, and Mahanon begins to follow him — hoping to claim whatever bed might be in there. He almost trips as his attention is grabbed by something resting on the table in the living room.

It’s a bag.

One made of a black canvas material that seems impossible to stain with blood. One with pockets on the sides to hold weapons that Mahanon never places in them.

It’s his bag, and he turns towards the sound of Fen’Harel hissing something, and he doesn’t come back into his body until he’s on top of somebody and swinging.

Pale, freckled hands are too slow to come up and block Mahanon’s fist from connecting solidly with an already crooked nose, and green eyes widen in terror as Mahanon moves to throw an even heavier blow at one of them. It lands. He’s saying something — Mahanon can see his thin lips moving — but Mahanon can’t hear anything over the blood rushing through his head; over the heartbeat thundering through his body; over the rage.

A set of hands gets under his arms in an attempt to drag him off of the body below him, but a searing crack of lightning sends whoever it was flying against the far wall. Mahanon thinks that he’s yelling — he doesn’t know what; doesn’t even know if it’s words — but his hands are wrapped around a pale neck as bloodlust courses through his veins. Somebody is approaching him from the side, and the veil breaks open above them as a brutal strike of energy rips out of it and slams into the ground. It misses the person, but only because they’re suddenly on his other side. Mahanon processes that they must’ve fade stepped not even a second before they slam into him.

They both go flying to the side, and Mahanon is crushed against the ground as they roll and his attacker lands on top of him. The world spins as he’s turned, and his back slams against somebody’s chest as arms wrap around him to pin him to it. He thrashes wildly as he snarls at the ginger man still laid out on the floor, and he can feel it cut into a wrecked sob.

“I fucking- I trusted you. She trusts you you fucking traitor. I’m going to- I’m gonna-” Kill you. It’s like he’s hearing himself speak without actively saying any words. Ellanis stumbles into view — bleeding from a cut on his head that’s steadily sealing itself shut with crackling blue magic — and he crouches in front of Mahanon to break his line of sight. He turns to face the other elf, and Mahanon can’t hear what he says, but he can see movement within the room.

He turns back to Mahanon, and he can see the ancient elf’s lips move as he says something. He vaguely registers that the low hum he’s hearing is likely the god behind him speaking as well, but none of it can distract him from watching light flood into the room as the front door is opened.

Revas has the nerve to have tears in his eyes as he stares at Mahanon from the doorway. Green magic explodes in front of the city elf to slam the door and lock him out of the house.

Chapter Text

They have to keep him trapped for over three hours.

Every way that Mahanon manages to thrash around is stopped by another hand or the weight of a much heavier body. Almost immediately, he’d managed to smash the back of his head against Fen’Harel’s nose, and one of the god’s arms had to slide up from his chest to grab his forehead and keep his head pinned against the hollow of the Dread Wolf’s throat — resting his chin over the Dalish man’s head. When he’d kicked out at Ellanis, the sentinel moved from his crouch to straddle Mahanon’s shins and keep his legs pressed against the wooden floor. When he managed to jerk his hands violently enough to summon a ripping hot flame, the ancient elf in front of him grabbed them and held them next to his legs.

His magic has been steadily leaking out of him in a way that leaves his entire body aching — so strong that it could suffocate all three of them. The room shimmers green periodically to cut through it and bring oxygen back into the air, and when it calms, it fades back into a barrier that coats the insides of the house. Mahanon had assumed that it was to keep his magic from escaping into the mountains and strangling unsuspecting agents of the Dread Wolf, but when the ringing in his ears simmered down into a low hum, he was able to hear himself.

It was horrible — embarrassing; ear splitting screams occasionally choked by sobs and gags. The front of his shirt was soaked with tears, and his shoulder was damp with the blood that had dripped down Fen’Harel’s pale arm from his nose. The god was apparently too busy keeping them breathing — and keeping the house silent — to focus on healing magic.

And he was humming again — intermittently interrupting the tune with hushed words and soothing sounds. Ellanis tried to model breathing techniques while squeezing Mahanon’s hands in an attempt to divert his attention from his distress to the pressure.

It took them not falling for his third fake out to realize that this was clearly a practiced ritual. The way he’s restrained by warm bodies with painless holds instead of freezing magic; the effortlessness of Fen’Harel’s magic minimizing Mahanon’s; the calming strategies both are deploying; the patience of the Dread Wolf despite Mahanon’s attack — something he’s clearly had no problem responding to with equal violence considering their fight not even three days ago.

Most mages would just need their staffs or other physical conduits taken from them in order to prevent a magical meltdown — no restraints necessary. Mahanon thinks of how Wisdom taught him to manipulate the fade in the way ancient elves did, and wonders how often the two surrounding him had to use these strategies with the people of Elvhenan. How many elves did they have to regulate like this for Ellanis to remember every step thousands of years into the future? Is that why he woke up in the chains he did when he first arrived at Skyhold? It’s a disorienting enough thought that it begins to calm Mahanon down — his magic seeping back into his body slowly.

Fen’Harel lets out a breath that Mahanon didn’t know he was holding. “I assume that we are equally displeased with our proximity, and I would prefer being able to put a sizable distance between us again.” Ellanis shoots an irritated look over Mahanon’s shoulder that the god clearly ignores if his bitchy tone is any indicator. “If I were to release you, would you be able to find it within yourself to behave?”

Mahanon thinks about it — tries to think about it. His thoughts have gone syrupy with the hours of constant contact. That’s probably half of the point of the holds if he’s right about them being a routine.

He trusted Revas. He let Mahanon sit in silence — filled it before Mahanon even realized he was beginning to spiral in the face of how overwhelming the Inquisition was- is.

Is. He’s going to get back to it.

Mahanon told him things that he hadn’t told anybody else. How conversations sometimes felt painful when the last one he’d had before Ellana called on him for aid was his da- was Faelor lying to him; giving him false hope of seeing him again before disappearing into the ether as if he’d never existed. How it feels like something is both inflating and crushing his lungs when he’s in a room he isn’t facing the door of. Mahanon told him about how he can’t ever truly trust a human and about how he can barely sleep at night without summoning demons through reliving his past and that he’s scared to build a relationship with anybody because they always lie.

They always leave.

All the while, the person he thought could’ve been his friend was already gone; was never really there; was just a face that a traitor wears to manipulate people into giving him things to report back to the Dread Wolf with; was lying.

Again.

A chill shoots through him at the idea of Fen’Harel knowing even one of the things that Mahanon’s told the city elf, but confusion follows after it rapidly. The god didn’t even know that he was a slave. He’s a liar — a good one, according to the core members of the Inquisition and Dalish legends — but the confusion Mahanon remembers from the first night they were stuck together was shown when the god figured Mahanon wouldn’t remember it. It was genuine. His history should’ve been the first thing Revas told the Dread Wolf about.

Why didn’t he?

It makes the headache slamming against the confines of Mahanon’s skull worsen, and he can’t even move to bring a hand up to his temples so he can try to get rid of it. It makes him respond honestly to Fen’Harel’s question. “I don’t know.”

The god hums, and Ellanis lets out a disappointed huff. Mahanon can see something sad in the ancient elf’s yellow eyes now that his vision is clearing, and it twists something in his gut — subduing him a little further.

“Will I be able to minimize your temper tantrums before they become unnecessary problems?” Fen’Harel asks, and Mahanon clenches his jaw. His magic reserves feel low enough that if he weren’t stuck in such a shit show he’d be able to relax. “He is long gone by this point.”

Mahanon hates that the words untangle something in his chest. He spits out, “I don’t know, could you?” The exhaustion coloring his words cuts the bite of them in half. That’s probably the only evidence that the Dread Wolf needs to know that the real answer is, yes. The hand on his forehead slides away, and Fen’Harel leans back to remove his head from above Mahanon’s. The god’s other arm unwraps itself from his chest, and Mahanon feels like he can breathe again. Ellanis eyes him warily before he shifts to the side so he’s sitting next to Mahanon’s legs instead of on top of them.

Fen’Harel slides backwards so he has space to stand up, and Ellanis follows his example. Mahanon stares at the warped wood beneath him for a few seconds before moving to stand as well. Ellanis holds a hand out to assist, and Mahanon almost slaps it away, but he’s forced to grab it when he stumbles as soon as he gets to his feet. Ellanis kindly doesn’t comment, but Fen’Harel snorts. It earns him a lethal glare that he doesn’t so much as blink at as he looks at his arm in disgust.

The pale skin is drenched in blood, and so is the sleeve of the god’s shirt. The stain seems to have pooled at his elbow where it had rested against Mahanon’s shoulder. Mahanon glances at the god’s face, and feels like his stomach falls as he sees the way the flat bridge of the Fen’Harel’s nose now crooks to the right.

He broke it. He broke the Dread Wolf’s nose.

The god seems to have noticed at the same time, because his hand rises to touch the injury lightly. A vicious scowl twists his face as he snaps his gaze onto Mahanon, and a flare of panic shoots through him. Mahanon raises his hands placatingly, and a flash of green magic burns brightly enough to nearly blind the Dalish man. When his sight returns, it’s to a searing red and orange afterimage that takes up the majority of his vision. When that begins to fade, Mahanon can see that the Dread Wolf’s nose has returned to its original shape and that his clothes are free of blood.

The spot where his blood soaked his shoulder feels weirdly dry, and when Mahanon glances at it, he can see that his clothes have been cleaned as well.

Mahanon blinks rapidly in an attempt to fully return his sight. It doesn’t work. “Was that really necessary?”

“You do not need to approve of my methods. If I had wanted your opinion on them, I would have asked.” Fen’Harel sneers at him, and Mahanon scowls back.

“What, can’t handle a bit of constructive criticism?”

Fen’Harel looks him up and down with a grimace. “I find it difficult to believe that anything you have a hand in is constructive. A far more accurate description of your actions would be detrimental.”

“Detrimental?” Mahanon hisses. Ellanis sighs from behind him, but he refuses to break eye contact with the god.

“Disastrous, if you would prefer.” Violet eyes narrow at him, and Mahanon stands straighter. “Devastating. Destructive. Need I go on?”

Mahanon looks behind him dramatically, and Ellanis is trying to give him a warning look when they make eye contact. He ignores it, and turns back to the Dread Wolf. “I’m destructive? Please, remind me. Who is trying to tear down the veil and ‘destroy’ the entire fucking wo-”

“I am restoring what has been lost,” Fen’Harel bites, and Mahanon lets out a wild laugh — inhibitions shot to hell from being held for so long.

“And what happens to everything — everyone — who came about after you decided to take a nap?” Something wild sparks between them, and Mahanon can hear Ellanis take a few steps to the side. “Have you even thought about that? What happens to the humans and the Qunari and the dwarves? Do you fucking hate Bull and Varric that badly?”

Something uncertain creeps into Fen’Harel’s eyes, and he pauses in whatever he was about to shout back. His tone is unsettled when he says, “There are ways to minimize-”

“What ways?” Mahanon interrupts, throwing his arms out angrily. “What ways to minimize what? Do you even know? They want to fucking save you from yourself. They think that you’re their friend, and you’re planning on killing them. I can’t even imagine how painful-”

“I do not plan to kill them,” Fen’Harel thunders, and Mahanon flinches as magic crackles in the air. The god looks genuinely upset at the thought, and it’s frustrating.

“You not explicitly planning on something doesn’t mean that it won’t happen,” Mahanon hisses. “Isn’t that why this whole shit show is happening in the first place? You’re immortal and still haven’t learned that there are consequences to your actions?”

Something vicious streaks across the Dread Wolf’s face, and Mahanon barely manages to put a barrier up around him before he’s fried. Ellanis shouts from off to the side, but he doesn’t step in between them fast enough to keep Mahanon from sending his own chain of lightning at the god. The sentinel rapidly sends a wave of icy blue magic towards both of them, and while Fen’Harel just bears it with a grimace, Mahanon ends up sliding back a few feet trying to block it. Ellanis looks uncomfortable in the face of their combined wrath, but he doesn’t move.

“There are agents waiting to report their findings and begin the process of moving the lyrium,” he tells the Dread Wolf, and Mahanon scowls. “This is an unproductive fight that will lead nowhere but more unnecessary injuries. Let us leave before one of you escalates this situation further.”

Tense silence follows the order that lasts long enough that fear begins to trickle down Mahanon’s back. Fen’Harel watches him as if he’s a rabbit and the god is- Well. A wolf, ironically. Eventually, he storms past Ellanis and Mahanon and exits the house, and the two eye each other uneasily before following after the trickster god.

They find the Dread Wolf directly outside of the door — clearly unwilling to actually abandon Mahanon into Ellanis’ care. He’s glowering at an agent who’s attempting to give a report to the god, but the poor man is clearly too nervous to spit out any useful information. It’s another human — the fact that there are multiple within the Dread Wolf’s ranks is something Mahanon doesn’t think he’ll ever understand — and his dark eyes snap onto the Dalish man as he trails after Ellanis. 

Something akin to relief flashes across the human’s face, and Mahanon lets the affronted look Fen’Harel gives the side of the agent’s head lift his spirits. It doesn’t last. The man immediately begins to give him the report.

“The lyrium has all been secured, and our mining is well under way.” The human is visibly sweating despite the frigid air around them — his dark hair is sticking to his forehead like he just jumped out of a bath. “Everything should be collected by the time the moon rises, sir.”

“That is Rook,” Fen’Harel all but snarls, “and you do not report to him.” The human is too scared to look at the god. Mahanon tries to swallow the bile threatening to rise up his throat. Rumors travel quickly in the Dread Wolf’s army.

“What’s your name?” Mahanon asks the man.

He hesitates before responding. The air thickens, and he spits out, “Sathrian, sir.”

“It’s Rook. Just Rook; not sir, or any of that shit. Please.” Sathrian looks like he’s about to pass out, and Mahanon probably makes it worse when his brows draw together. “Your name is Sathrian?”

“Yes, s- uh. Yes.”

“That’s an elven name.” Sathrian rubs the back of his neck awkwardly as he nods. Mahanon can feel Fen’Harel’s glare burning a hole into his temple. He does his best to pretend he doesn’t feel it.

“My mom’s an elf.” Sathrian motions towards the lyrium vein. “She’s working down there.”

“Your dad was human?” Mahanon guesses, and the human — elf? Half elf? Half human? — nods. His decision to serve the Dread Wolf makes a lot more sense, suddenly. He seems slightly more relaxed so Mahanon motions towards the god and tries, “You can give your report to him. He doesn’t bite.”

The agent looks at him incredulously, and Mahanon grimaces as the air somehow becomes more hostile between him and Fen’Harel. He’s not helping.

Mahanon adds, “If you’re useful.”

Sathrian swallows thickly, then turns to the Dread Wolf to repeat himself. “The lyr-”

“I heard,” Fen’Harel snaps, and the agent jumps. “You are dismissed.”

Sathrian runs back to wherever his post is. Mahanon must look as nauseous as he feels when the god whirls on him because all he gets from him is a wordless growl before Fen’Harel stalks in the same direction his agent ran. Mahanon is grabbed by the bicep and dragged alongside the Dread Wolf until he manages to regain his balance and yank his arm out of the god’s grasp. Ellanis moves to sandwich Mahanon between him and Fen’Harel again, and the Dalish man lets out an irritated huff that goes ignored.

It takes less than a minute for Fen’Harel to slam his stoic mask back into place — straightening and grasping his hands together behind his back — as they follow the man-made trail that leads to the lyrium vein, and something about the ease with which he does it makes Mahanon’s skin crawl. The feeling gets worse the farther along the trail they get, and it feels like he’s going to vibrate out of his skin when they finally come upon a seemingly endless fleet of carts full of glowing stones.

The agents are all surrounded by a green shimmer that filters the air around them and seems to prevent physical contact with the ore that they’re handling, and Mahanon bites the inside of his cheek in vague confusion. Is there something toxic in the air that he’s not aware of? Fen’Harel seems to realize at the same time as Ellanis that Mahanon is not, in fact, surrounded by the same magic, and Mahanon jumps as both whirl around to face him — hands outstretched as if to catch him.

They both look as disoriented as he feels when they see that not only is he standing, but alive and breathing as well. He’s getting a few bug-eyed looks from some of the agents, and it makes the buzzing feeling get notably worse. Ellanis looks worried and a little confused, but Fen’Harel’s brows furrow and eyes sharpen as he takes in Mahanon with a calculating look so intense that it burns.

“Are you feeling unwell?” He asks, and Mahanon makes a face. “Any nausea? Chills? Difficulty breathing?”

“What? No.” Mahanon glances at the agents working with the lyrium — all of which are now watching this little interrogation — and Fen’Harel sends them back to their tasks by just turning towards them. He looks back at Mahanon.

“No chest pain? Some report a ripping sensation within their organs.” Fen’Harel looks almost suspicious now, and Mahanon squints back at him as he crosses his arms defensively.

“Report that about what, exactly?”

“You should be experiencing a multitude of-”

“Lyrium poisoning,” Ellanis says simply, and Mahanon could kiss him for the straightforward answer. Those seem to be few and far between with his current company. “You should be going through intense lyrium poisoning. Contact with its raw form is fatal to mages. You should be dead.”

“Oh.” The thought turns Mahanon’s stomach violently, and he does his best to stop his brain from telling him it's due to the lyrium poisoning that he notably is not suffering from. He’s not great right now — his skin is crawling and his mind is buzzing and his bones itch, somehow — but he’s definitely not dying. He’s almost done that quite a few times now — in a variety of ways. He knows how it feels, and this isn’t that. “Wait, you could’ve just killed me?”

“Unintentionally,” Fen’Harel murmurs as he circles Mahanon slowly. The weight of his magic creeps over Mahanon, and it’s only when his own cracks angrily back against it that he notices that his reserves have been filled again. The Dread Wolf’s energy rears back, and the god straightens as if he’d been slapped. Mahanon is expecting some sort of anger in response, but the ancient elf is looking at him as if he’s a particularly difficult puzzle. “We would have managed to heal you before you were truly gone.”

“That’s not very comforting.”

“Likely because I was not trying to be,” Fen’Harel snarks, and Mahanon sends a baffled look at Ellanis. The sentinel just shrugs in response, but he’s also giving Mahanon an uncomfortably analyzing look.

It’s clear that the Dread Wolf has further questions, but he’s interrupted by an agent approaching with a cart. It’s dragged to a stop in front of the god, and the agent removes its lid after he gives the woman a nod.

It feels like the world stops when Mahanon sees what’s inside of it.

It’s difficult to spot amidst the heavy fabrics and hissing red magic that surrounds it, but right in the middle of the crate rests a familiar weapon. Mahanon can feel the weight of it as he stares at the blade — at the dagger. He can feel the blood that coats his hands below it and the guilt of a mass extinction event, and he almost gags at the feeling. He can feel the blood drain from his face, and Ellanis is looking at him with concern, but luckily, the Dread Wolf is too focused on his weapon to notice the way Mahanon shakes.

It’s been corrupted somehow. The blazing blue color it had once been is tainted with violent streaks of red, and it’s been twisted into something that resembles a statue. Of what, Mahanon doesn’t know, because somebody has been filing it down to its original shape.

Fen’Harel looks nearly hypnotized as he stares at the blade, and the reason he needs the lyrium becomes blatant when he grabs a hand sized chunk from a nearby box. The stone is dragged across the blade, and red energy snaps around the lyrium as a miniscule amount of the taint is removed from the dagger. Barely even a millimeter is erased, and the entire piece of lyrium vanishes. The dagger absorbed it.

Mahanon’s heartbeat rattles his entire chest as he stares at the blade that Fen’Harel will use to end the world.

Chapter Text

Mahanon understands now why Fen’Harel is absent for so long when he travels out to missions involving lyrium.

He’s been sitting in the mine for just under a day now with the god as he methodically strikes his blade with lyrium to shape and purify the dagger. The red magic spitting from the weapon vanishes just a breath after each drag, and it’s looking more and more like the design Mahanon’s held in his dreams the longer the hours stretch on.

He has to destroy it.

Some part of him — the part that parades as the Dread Wolf while he sleeps — rattles against the bars of its cage at the thought, but it’s too important of a component in Fen’Harel’s mission. The way Mahanon’s chest rips angrily at the thought of the blade's destruction hints at it possibly being the most important piece.

The blood he feels on his hands; the guilt that tries to drown him; the wrath that overwhelms him when somebody mentions one of the Evanuris. Death is too good for them, he’d thought in his sleep. They will never feel the warmth of the sun again; never feel the wind on their face or the cool of a stream. They will be forced to exist and wish for an end that will never come.

The dagger drags it all violently to the surface — forcing Mahanon to focus on breathing evenly to prevent drawing the attention of the Dread Wolf. If he noticed Mahanon teetering on the edge of something vicious, he would wonder what the cause was. If he wondered what the cause was, he would see the way Mahanon is desperately avoiding looking at his blade. If he saw the way Mahanon is averting his gaze, he would have questions, and if he had questions, Mahanon would be fucked.

Ellanis has noticed something is wrong; he’s been watching Mahanon from the corners of his eyes and frowning when he thinks the Dalish man isn’t paying attention. Unfortunately for both of them, Mahanon is always paying attention. The ancient elf is probably assuming that his smaller counterpart is actually experiencing lyrium poisoning, and Mahanon morbidly wishes that his issue was that simple. That problem would be done and over with much faster.

Mahanon only begins to become concerned about it when the sentinel’s yellow gaze begins to flick between him and the Dread Wolf. It’s like he’s asking the god to notice Mahanon’s struggle, which, one, what the fuck, and two, what would even be gained from that observation? Bullying? Ellanis opens his mouth to say something, and Mahanon shoves himself to his feet so abruptly that it startles the ancient elves he’s stuck with.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Mahanon mutters as he stomps in the direction of the nearby outhouse. As expected, Ellanis follows. Apparently, Fen’Harel’s babysitting duties are put on pause in the face of thei- his dagger. His dagger. The blade belonging to the Dread Wolf, who Mahanon most certainly is not.

The sentinel waits until what Mahanon assumes is them being out of earshot to say anything. 

“You are acting strangely.” The sound of water dripping from the stalactites lining the ceiling echoes around the cavern they’ve found themselves in. Ellanis has stopped moving, and Mahanon gets a vague feeling of déjà vu as he turns to face the ancient elf. He looks concerned — apprehensive, even — as he shifts his weight from side to side methodically.

“Thanks,” Mahanon bites back sarcastically, and Ellanis’ face shifts into an expression that almost looks stubborn.

“Something is wrong, and you are going to tell me what.”

“And I’m going to-” Mahanon splutters, almost baffled at the ancient elf’s nerve, “or what?”

“Or I will continue to question you about it until you tell me what I want to know in a distraught bid for peace.” Ellanis’ eyes harden, and Mahanon squints at him.

“You wouldn’t.”

“I have had more than enough exposure to somebody who has mastered the art of pestering others to be able to efficiently employ the same strategies,” the sentinel says flatly. “Do you require a demonstration?”

“Absolutely not.” Mahanon gets annoyed at himself when he bothers Ellanis. He can’t even begin to imagine what kind of karmic retribution the other elf is willing to release. “And nothing is wrong.”

Ellanis’ brows — or, the spaces that his brows would be if he had any — rise as he asks, “Would you like to continue this conversation within range of Fen’Harel?”

“No!” Mahanon’s hands shoot out like he could somehow stop the sentinel from returning to the trickster god, and Ellanis is clearly pleased at catching him in his lie. “No, you don’t need to do that.”

“Then I would recommend answering it now.” Ellanis crosses his arms, and Mahanon does the same — glaring at the sentinel.

“Why are you even asking?”

“I am concerned that you are experiencing lyrium poisoning.”

“I’m not,” Mahanon snaps, and Ellanis almost seems to flinch. “Can we move on now?”

The sentinel lets out a slow breath — as if trying to calm himself down — before he bluntly says, “I do not want you to die.”

Mahanon’s brain stalls at the statement — whatever words he was about to say dying on his tongue as he stares at the other elf in disbelief. A moment of silence passes before he clears his throat and says, “Well, yeah. You’d be a pretty shitty nanny if-”

“I do not worry as your guard,” Ellanis interrupts, and Mahanon’s mouth snaps shut again. “I do not worry as an agent of Fen’Harel. I worry as myself; I am concerned for your well-being as Ellanis.”

“Um?” Mahanon sounds like the word was choked out of him, but Ellanis continues.

“You are abrasive and irritating, but you have grown on me.” Ellanis scowls. “Like mold. Or a particularly stubborn fungus. You are amusing and care for others despite your best interests. You have unintentionally forced me to build positive relationships with modern elves through bonding over you being difficult. I respect you, and I believe we could have been friends if the circumstances of our meeting and interactions were different.”

Something in Mahanon’s chest breaks, and he can feel the anger sap out of his body. All he can respond with is a soft, “Oh.”

“I want to help. Please let-” Ellanis’ voice cracks, and Mahanon inhales so sharply in response that it hurts. The ancient elf clears his throat. “Please let me help.”

“I-” Mahanon drags his hands up and down his face and ignores that they’re damp afterwards. “I can’t.”

“I do not understand.” Ellanis’ tone borders on desperate, and Mahanon sighs.

“Our circumstances aren’t different.” I wish I could trust you. I wish I could tell you, damn it all. Auburn hair and green eyes burn as they flash in his mind. “I can’t risk anything. Not even with the Inquisition.”

There’s sadness in Ellanis’ eyes when he responds, “Okay.”

Hearing such a simple response from the other elf is disorienting enough that Mahanon clarifies, “Okay?”

“Yes.” A moment of silence passes. “I will not inform Fen’Harel that you are hiding something.”

“Even if he orders you to report any information that you have about me?”

Another bout of silence fills the mine. Ellanis stares at the floor beneath him with narrowed eyes.

“I am uncertain,” he answers honestly, and Mahanon feels nauseous.

“You could always switch sides.” Mahanon offers miserably, and Ellanis snorts.

“As could you, but you will not. You wish to exist in your world as much as I wish to exist in mine.”

Mahanon sighs and scrubs his face again as he begins the trek back towards the Dread Wolf. Ellanis follows him silently — making no comment about his lack of finding the outhouse.

Fen’Harel is too absorbed in purifying his dagger to notice their mood change. Mahanon would thank somebody, but he has no interest in praising any deadbeat deities.

Two days into Fen’Harel using up the viable pieces of lyrium, Mahanon begins to go stir crazy. It isn’t anything that should be new — Skyhold suffocated him significantly worse than the Inquisition — but something about actually being out of the castle makes sitting around worse. He’s started trying to piss off the Dread Wolf just to feel something; his silence turned into occasional coughing, his coughing turned into spotty humming, and his humming turned into verbalizing almost every thought that crossed his mind. He made his usually silent footsteps loud while pacing, he chewed with his mouth open, and he even started exercising again.

He’s in the middle of an hour-long session of push-ups, sit-ups, and various other obnoxiously loud strength building activities when Fen’Harel finally breaks.

“Are you truly incapable of being anything but aggravating?” The god spits without warning, and Mahanon pauses in the middle of his push-up to glare at the Dread Wolf.

“Right now, I’m ‘incapable’ of being anything but bored,” Mahanon snaps back, and Fen’Harel scowls at him. “Believe it or not, watching you smash rocks against a knife is about as entertaining as watching paint dry.”

The Dread Wolf gives him a sarcastic smile. “You have experience with such activities, do you? I should not be surprised; any hobby requiring more intelligence would likely be too difficult for you to manage.”

A heavy sigh echoes throughout the cavern as Mahanon shifts to sit on the stone floor below him, and a dangerous glint enters Fen’Harel’s eyes. He’s tempted to throw a rock — a particularly heavy one — at the god’s head, but a warning look from Ellanis stops him. Clearly, the Dread Wolf is pissy, and Mahanon would probably end up knocked painfully on his ass.

Unfortunately, Mahanon is pissy too.

“You’d think with such a winning personality, your looks would fucking make up for it.” It’s rude enough for the Dread Wolf to let his dagger fall to his legs so he can shoot Mahanon an enraged expression. The Dalish man knows that he actually got under the god’s skin with that one — he built his own body, after all, and he probably knows that he did so well. Mahanon does his best not to think about it.

“You’re stooping to looks?” Fen’Harel clarifies, and Mahanon shrugs. The god immediately meets him on the level he’s dropped down to. “You have a haircut that seems as if it was given to you with a piece of shattered glass in a dark room, and you are commenting on my appearance?”

“At least I have hair.” Fen’Harel’s mouth drops open slightly in response before thunder crackles behind his violet eyes. Mahanon watches the Dread Wolf’s hackles rise and prepares himself to become the victim of a truly scathing comment, but Ellanis interrupts their spat.

“I could take him to finish packing up the camp.”

Fen’Harel looks wary at the thought, but just the idea of getting out into the fresh air of the mountains has Mahanon on his feet.

“I will make you wish for a god to pray to if you keep me trapped in this damn mine,” Mahanon threatens, and Fen’Harel’s expression sours.

“I will not argue against getting a break from him,” the god tells Ellanis without so much as looking at Mahanon. The Dalish man scoffs, and Ellanis is quick to drag him away by the bicep.

“I will maintain close guard,” Ellanis shoots over his shoulder, and Mahanon hears a noncommittal hum follow them out of the mine.

Mahanon almost cries at the sight of daylight — despite the fact that the sun is so close to setting —  and Ellanis pats his shoulder as he releases him. His arm feels like there’s electricity crackling through it, but Mahanon ignores it easily enough as he follows Ellanis towards where people are moving around crates and bags.

Lyrium has been packed into some of the boxes; a gentle green glow encases them to prevent the agents that handle them getting lyrium poisoning. Other boxes are full of cookware and extra weapons, and various other supplies have been organized into neat piles on the ground for agents to pack away carefully.

“I don’t work for him,” Mahanon says immediately, and Ellanis nods as he watches the other agents. Two Qunari women work at carrying a cart to a dry spot in order to try to repair it. “I’m not packing up his camp.”

“I had assumed so.” A yellow gaze flicks to him before returning to the camp. “You made your lack of allegiance quite clear at Tarasyl’an Te’las. We are simply observing.”

Mahanon hums, chewing the inside of his cheek idly as he watches flurries of snow fall lightly onto the camp. The sunlight reflects harshly enough against the white backdrop of the mountains that Mahanon has to squint. “When do we get to leave?”

“We will be departing tomorrow morning. Agents will remain to finish clearing the area and transporting the lyrium.”

“Please tell me there’s a random Eluvian hidden somewhere in these woods and that we don’t need to walk all the way back to the last one.” It’s a long shot, but a man can have hope.

“Unfortunately, I cannot do that.”

A small piece of Mahanon’s soul dies. Ellanis gives him a pitying look.

“I’m not walking through all three of those days.”

“I have complete faith in your ability to argue your way into setting up camp.”

Mahanon crosses his arms in thought. “Do you think we could just go back to that one cave?”

Ellanis shrugs, and Mahanon lets out an irritated huff. “I would not be opposed to that idea. I, however, am not in charge of our travel plans.”

“Right.” Mahanon crosses his arms and shifts his weight side to side for about a minute before he lets out a loud groan and drags a hand down his face. “Why does it have to be an argument? He was living with mortals for years. He should understand the need for sleep.”

“Fen’Harel-”

“Doesn’t need to explain himself to you,” a familiar irritating voice sneers, and Mahanon sighs before turning to face the human agent the Dread Wolf decided to bring with them on this journey. “He knows what he’s-”

“Who was talking to you?” Mahanon interrupts with a scowl, and the human narrows his eyes. “Are you really so lonely that the only socialization you can get is barging into other people’s conversations?”

The human storms at him, and Mahanon stands straighter. He can see Ellanis doing the same from the corner of his eye, but he keeps his gaze locked on the agent in front of him. “I don’t need to be invited into something you’re projecting to the entire fucking camp.”

There’s nobody else paying attention to them even with the addition of their new aggressive companion, and Mahanon can feel his brows raise as he throws his arms to the side. “I’m not projecting shit!”

“This conversation did not involve you, nor was it being conveyed at a loud enough volume to be easily overheard. I would recommend you leave.” Ellanis’ voice sounds out from behind him, and Mahanon watches the human agent falter as he glances at the ancient elf. He turns back to Mahanon, and his expression twists again angrily.

“You’re going to ignore an order from Fen’Harel’s second in command?” Mahanon questions, and the human turns bright red as he leans in closer to Mahanon.

“You think that you’re his second? Are you delusional?”

“Are you?” Mahanon bites back, pushing the human out of his space with a solid shove to his chest. He staggers back a few steps, but catches his footing before he falls. “I’m talking about Ellanis, you dumbass. What is your problem?”

“You know what my problem is?”

“That would be why I fucking asked, yeah.” Ellanis has started creeping closer to Mahanon — his magic brushes cooly against the Dalish man’s skin in what is probably an attempt to calm him down.

“You look like the Inquisitor, do you know that?” It feels like the air has been punched from Mahanon’s lungs. The human looks at him smugly. “I have a sister who defected. You know what she told me? That the Inquisitor had a brother that showed up for a couple months just to disappear. What did you do during that time?”

“Leave us. Now,” Ellanis tries, and the shem- the human just leans more into Mahanon’s space.

“I think,” he whispers, motioning towards Mahanon’s face, “that you were so desperate for validation that you left and scarred your face.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mahanon responds. The human doesn’t register the flat tone he uses as the threat that it is.

“Oh, I think I do. I think you defected — I think you betrayed your sister — just so you could be the Dread Wolf’s bit-”

Mahanon’s fist connects so solidly with the man’s nose that a crack rings out through the camp, and he doesn’t give the agent time to react. He kicks the side of the other man’s knee so it gives out, then hooks his foot behind the other leg’s ankle and drags it towards him. The human goes down and smashes his head against the stones below them, and Mahanon pins one of his arms to his chest with one boot and slams his other onto the human’s open hand to hold it against the ground. There’s a sickening crunch as fingers break.

Mahanon might be short, but he’s spent his life training to kill people. He has lean muscle hiding beneath his clothes; he’s heavy. The human is stuck and disoriented, and Mahanon leans down to snarl, “I don’t give a shit what rumors you’ve heard, but I can tell you facts. I could kill you here. I could make it painful. I can make you wish for it to be over, just for me to stretch it a few more hours. I don’t know what you thought you would be gaining by coming over here and pulling some bullshit macho act, but if you ever fucking say anything about the Inquisitor again, I swear to any and all gods watching that I’ll-”

“Incoming,” Ellanis intones just before Mahanon is grabbed by the biceps from behind and dragged off of the human. He’s pulled against a chest and lifted briefly in the air, and his snarl goes ignored as Fen’Harel backs them both away from the body on the ground.

The human groans, and one of the agents that gathered during the fight — if you could even call it that — steps forward to help him. “Leave him,” the Dread Wolf snaps, and some of the fight is sapped out of Mahanon. “He picked a battle he should not have, and he lost. He will handle the consequences of his actions on his own.”

Ellanis makes a disgusted face down at the beaten agent, and Fen’Harel pushes Mahanon in the direction of the house he’d attacked Revas in. They make it about halfway before he says, “He started it.”

“Are you twelve?” Fen’Harel snaps. “Younger, perhaps?”

“I’m sorry, was I just supposed to-”

“You are supposed to stop your sentence there,” Fen’Harel seethes. “You are supposed to handle yourself like you are an adult.”

“If he can’t handle fights, he shouldn’t start them.” Mahanon responds, and Fen’Harel laughs sarcastically. He opens the house’s door and drags Mahanon inside behind him. Ellanis trails after them warily.

“You are going into the bedroom, and you will remain there until we depart in the morning.” Fen’Harel points to the room Revas had walked out of a few days prior, and Mahanon glares at him.

“Are you putting me in time out?” He hisses.

“Am I helping you into the room, or are you going in willingly?” Fen’Harel steps into Mahanon’s space again, and the Dalish man storms past him and into the bedroom. The door rattles in its frame behind him.

“Fuck you!” He knows that the Dread Wolf heard him, but he gets no response. The sound of a door slamming shut echoes through the house, and a moment of silence follows.

“You had good form,” Ellanis tells him through the door, and Mahanon snorts. “It is close enough to sunset that you may as well try to sleep. Fen’Harel will likely be back soon, and I believe we would all avoid a headache if you were to avoid interaction.”

The sentinel is right. It’s late enough in the day that Mahanon might manage to sleep until the next morning, and he’s tired enough from his workout and toppling over the agent to try.

The bed actually looks soft, and Mahanon hopes that the Dread Wolf feels stupid knowing that he could have claimed it if he hadn’t trapped Mahanon in here like some princess in a fairytale. He doesn’t bother removing any of his clothes before crawling in, and he’s able to fall asleep fairly quickly.

The war is over. The blood of an entire species weighs down Mahanon’s soul, but the war is over, and instead of relinquishing command to the People as they’ve promised, the sun stands next to Command upon a pedestal.

“Our people need our leadership,” Command sneers, towering above him in a looping gold crown. “If you are unwilling, leave.”

Mahanon looks to Mythal for help — she brought him here, she promised him they would be free, she would understand. He didn’t do all of this for nothing.

He couldn’t have.

“Our people must rebuild,” she says, staring Mahanon down. “And we must help unite them.”

Something sharp cracks through Mahanon’s mind; through his chest; through his soul.

She lied.

“So we did not fight for freedom,” Mahanon murmurs bitterly, staring her down in return, “but to conquer this land and our own.”

“We fought to win, and now the Evanuris are as gods. I do not answer to Mythal’s annoying lapdog.” Command — Elgar’nan — scowls down at him, and he looks to Mythal for support. He is her ally. They were supposed to be equals.

Defend me, please.

“The people are afraid.” She doesn’t correct Command, and something cold crawls across Mahanon’s skin. Disgust, maybe. “They must believe in something.”

“They need strength.”

“And wisdom,” Mythal cuts in quickly, staring down at Mahanon and nodding slightly. Her face looks odd with the silver crown she has decided to don.

“They need gods who can protect them.”

Something ugly shoots through him, and Mahanon can’t help himself but to sneer at Command.

“We are not gods, you-”

Mahanon’s back slams into a pile of rocks, and he groans as he looks at the sky above him. The green sky above him. Pale blue crackles around the edges of his vision, but it doesn’t seem to manifest into his surroundings.

He sits up with a hand on his head and glances around at the area in the fade that he’s been spat out in. It’s mostly empty. The impressions of trees sway in the distance, and a sound similar to a stream sporadically bounces around the area, but it’s clearly not a place that has been visited often. It’s completely undeveloped.

He lets out a quiet huff before shoving himself fully to his feet. It’s been a while since he’s been able to just roam around in the fade; nightmares and these weird ass visions have been occupying his nights more often than not. He needs to check his surroundings for demons, but after, he might as well take the chance to explore.

A sense of something uncomfortable layers over his mind, but he can’t quite identify it. Disgruntlement, maybe? He feels like somebody just tried to enter a room while he was bathing. It’s difficult to dismiss as he begins to look around.

Chapter Text

“We fought to win, and now the Evanuris are as gods. I do not answer to Mythal’s annoying lapdog.”

“The people are afraid. They must believe in something.”

“They need strength.”

“And wisdom.”

“They need gods who can protect them.”

He’s so tired.

“We are not gods! You-”

Mahanon nearly breaks his nose falling face-first into a failed attempt at a pile of leaves.

“And wisdom.”

“They need gods who can protect them.”

“We are not gods! You-”

Mahanon smacks his head into a pillar when he suddenly finds himself walking in some green-tinted ruins.

“We are not gods! You-”

Mahanon’s ankle would’ve broken in the hole he twists it in if the trees that surround him weren’t shimmering as if they’re reflections on the surface of a lake.

“You-”

Whatever is sending him rocketing into the fade finally takes mercy on him, and Mahanon opens his eyes to the sight of clouds circling over him in a teal sky.

“Motherfucker.”

He snarls it loudly enough that it echoes throughout the meadow he’s found himself in, and a pang of fear shoots through him as he hears the burbling of a small stream. A quick glance around him helps dismiss the feeling; everything is too fake for him to have been sucked back into the memory of being destroyed and forcefully remade.

A groan sounds off to his left, and Mahanon doesn’t even look at the rage demon he’s accidentally summoned as he slams his hand against the ground and all but evaporates the creature with a violent crack of golden light.

Five nights.

That stupid fucking statue has been trying to show him this memory for five nights.

It seems like it’s getting as desperate as he is — cutting it down to a single word in an attempt to just get through the damn thing — but they’re struggling, and Mahanon is about to lose it. Mahanon lets out a few more choice words as he shoves himself up on his elbows to look around more, and his eyes narrow as the very tail end of something slinks into the false forest that surrounds him. He’s on his feet almost immediately, and he races to where he saw the figure disappear into the treeline.

It’s gone by then, of course, and Mahanon almost screams. That statue has been trying to show him this memory for five nights, and Mahanon has ended up chasing a shadow for three of them. It sits in the very corner of his vision each time he’s forced out of the memory and into the fade, and so far it’s managed to avoid every attack Mahanon sends its way — fire, lightning, ice, fade stones, earthquakes, arcane bolts, bones. Mahanon has laid out about fifty traps during his attempts to catch the fucker, and it's managed to not only keep away from them, but Mahanon has found some dispelled.

It’s unlike any demon that Mahanon has met before, and he’s been waking up every morning with the looming threat of a migraine. It never stops him from giving chase, though, and he’s not going to quit the habit tonight.

The sound of a stick breaking — a loud crack that deepens unnaturally the longer it echoes — sounds off within the woods, and Mahanon chases after it. He sticks to the shadows as he nears where the sound originated from, and he lets out a frustrated hiss when the clearing he ends up in is empty. He looks around in a desperate search for clues — footprints, broken twigs, crushed foliage, anything — but comes up short. The forest holds its breath as he spins in a slow circle, and shivers crawl up Mahanon’s back as the hair on the back of his neck raises. He tries to whirl around — to see what seems to have been stalking him during his search for it — but a sonic boom explodes behind him, and Mahanon is sent spiraling towards the trees in front of him.

The fade distorts reality, but it still hurts when his head cracks against the trunk of a misplaced evergreen.

Mahanon groans as he sits up — pressing a hand against his forehead in an attempt to alleviate the sharp pain that has decided to stab his brain — and Fen’Harel shifts where he lays in the bed. No light is creeping into the room from the massive windows lining the outer walls, and when Mahanon looks outside, the pale light of the moon barely illuminates the surrounding mountains. It’s too late in the night — or too early in the morning — for Mahanon to be conscious, but the pounding in his head only worsens when he lays back down on the couch with a huff.

He can see his heartbeat when he closes his eyes; faint flashes of a color somewhere between red and orange that coincide with the throbbing of his headache. He bites the inside of his cheek to see if a different kind of pain would distract his mind enough to minimize the building migraine, but when the taste of iron coats his tongue, he feels an almost imperceptible weight press against his lungs.

“Go to bed.” The Dread Wolf’s voice is gravelly with sleep, and when Mahanon opens his eyes, he can see that Fen’Harel has turned his head to squint at him. His violet eyes look almost gray with the lack of light, but the irritation in them is still recognizable.

“It would be ‘go to the couch’ for me, technically.” Fen’Harel closes his eyes and lets out a loud sigh as he turns his head toward the ceiling. “I guess that doesn’t sound as nice, and it’s definitely less comfortable.”

“And the fault of that rests entirely on you, as I recall,” the god murmurs slowly — clearly still half asleep. He’s not wrong.

The Dread Wolf has set himself back up in his old quarters. The furniture and decor that inhabit the room are now more reminiscent of ancient Arlathan than the Free Marches, but Ellana wasn’t lying when she said her room during the Inquisition’s prime was massive. Despite the fact that Fen’Harel’s bed is large enough to fit at least three people comfortably, the room had plenty of space for him to set up another bed — one that’s only large enough to fit a single person, but still.

Mahanon has rejected it entirely, and instead set himself up at the couch that used to be directly next to the stairs; when Mahanon had claimed it as his bed, Fen’Harel was quick to place it on the other side of the room. You are irritating enough when I prevent you from leaping over the railing, the god had said. I cannot even begin to imagine how insufferable you would be if I had to bring you back up the stairs.

It clearly annoys the god that Mahanon refuses to use the bed — which is always a win in his book — but he mostly avoids it because the idea of using it makes Mahanon’s skin crawl. Something about it feels permanent, somehow. Like he’s committing to the idea of being trapped at Skyhold if he sleeps in it.

It was different when he was roomed with Sarel and Thelhen. Yes, it was a real bed, but it was a bed set up for anybody that wandered into Skyhold to join the Dread Wolf’s army; a bed that’s likely already occupied by another warm body; a bed made out of shitty materials that made him wake up with an ache in his back every morning; it was just a bed.

The one set up next to his couch is by no means comfortable, but it’s tolerable. There are multiple blankets and two pillows. It would give Mahanon a fighting chance at waking up feeling refreshed. It was requested personally by the Dread Wolf to be brought to his room, and if Mahanon slept in it, he would start thinking of it as his. It would be his bed in Fen’Harel’s room, which would unintentionally make it Mahanon’s as well.

He will not claim a space in the Dread Wolf’s home.

“I know that you struggle to form coherent thoughts,” Fen’Harel interrupts his inner monologue, “but do so quietly. You are sucking the air from the room, and I am trying to sleep.”

Mahanon’s eyes widen and he props himself up on his elbow to look at the god. That was almost modern language. Somebody must be having a stroke — Mahanon isn’t sure if it’s him or the Dread Wolf. Fen’Harel must feel his stare, because he snaps a glare in Mahanon’s direction that has him dropping back onto the couch. He turns on his side to face the back of it, and the weight of the Dread Wolf’s attention leaves him as he hears the god turn to face away from him.

Silence fills the room, and Mahanon grimaces as his headache demands his attention again. Tension creeps into the space between him and Fen’Harel, and the god lets out a small snarl. The blankets that cover him shift loudly as the Dread Wolf sits up, and Mahanon refuses to face him — staring straight ahead instead.

“Rook,” he snaps, and Mahanon scowls and turns to face him.

His mind lags briefly as he takes in the state of the god. Fen’Harel is always the last to fall asleep and the first to wake up — intentionally, Mahanon assumes — so Mahanon has never been made aware of the fact that the man sleeps shirtless. The Dread Wolf made sure that the front of his body was as well defined as his back, and Mahanon tries not to notice that the sporadically placed freckles that he saw on the god’s back trail over his chest and down his sides.

“I’m trying,” he snaps back, and Fen’Harel gives him a dirty look.

“Clearly,” the god bites, “not hard enough.”

“Do you think I want to be talking to you right now?” Mahanon’s voice raises, and he flinches as the volume makes his head throb. Fen’Harel’s brows draw together, and Mahanon hisses, “I can’t.”

“How have you managed to give yourself a headache while asleep?”

Mahanon thinks about his head slamming into the tree and bites the inside of his cheek. Fen’Harel stares at him with a raised brow, clearly expecting an answer. Mahanon can already hear his smartass comments — I fear any more irreparable damage to your mind; your capacity for succeeding at everyday tasks is already concerningly low — so he opts to respond with a simple, “I’m not sleeping well.”

Fen’Harel squints his eyes as he gives Mahanon a calculating look. It’s obvious to both of them that Mahanon is hiding something — he’s not exactly the best liar while half awake and in pain — but the god drops back down to the bed. Mahanon tentatively lays back down as well, and Fen’Harel huffs.

“You are a somniari, are you not?”

Mahanon furrows his brows and glances over at Fen’Harel. He almost jumps when he sees the god’s eyes locked on him. “Haven’t we already talked about this?”

“When did you first discover the fade?” The Dread Wolf looks just slightly more alert when he asks, but there’s still a bleariness in his eyes that hints at the question coming from genuine curiosity.

“When I was, like, thirteen maybe?”

Fen’Harel hums quietly and silence follows. After a few moments, he asks, “That is later than expected, isn’t it? I have been told that the expected age range is from nine to twelve years old.”

“My magic probably developed earlier, but I was a bit too occupied to notice.”

“Occupied?”

Cold rushes through Mahanon at his slip up, and he bites his lip as he stares up at the ceiling. Fen’Harel waits for a response, and Mahanon hesitates as he considers his options. 

He’s been caught out — unintentionally and entirely of his own doing. He could dismiss the conversation entirely, but that might lead to the Dread Wolf snooping around Tevinter in an attempt to sate his curiosity. With the size of his network, he could probably find some information, and with Mahanon’s luck, it would be something he doesn’t necessarily want Fen’Harel to know.

He could lie — or attempt to — but it puts a bad taste in his mouth. He doesn’t have much practice with bending the truth, and the idea of twisting his words reminds him too much of the Dread Wolf.

He could also just tell the truth. He’s tired, and his head hurts, and it would probably be the fastest way to end the conversation. Anything he says could probably just be assumed, anyways.

He almost wishes that Revas betrayed him fully — told his life story to the Dread Wolf. He could’ve avoided this conversation entirely.

“That’s when I was, uh,” Mahanon clears his throat awkwardly and grimaces when his head pounds with it. “That’s when I was caught.”

Silence reigns throughout the room. Mahanon doesn’t even hear the god breathe.

“At nine?” He finally murmurs, and Mahanon sucks his teeth uncomfortably. It’s not really the response that he was expecting — he doesn’t know what he was expecting — and he’s not sure how to respond. “When did you escape?”

“When I was seventeen,” Mahanon says, and predicts the god’s next question. “I killed him.”

“And took up the mantle of the Halla.”

“Yeah,” Mahanon tells the stars he can see through the window, and Fen’Harel hums. “When did you? Discover the fade, I mean.”

He knows the answer, so he isn’t sure why he asks. As some sort of test, maybe? There’s no reason to assume that the god wouldn’t get more irritated at Mahanon questioning him; much less that he’s going to answer.

There’s no response from Fen’Harel, but he’s still staring at Mahanon when he glances at the god. There’s a complicated look on his face, and Mahanon squints his eyes at it.

“What?” He asks, and Fen’Harel furrows his brows slightly.

“You are the first to ask me that question.”

“What?” Mahanon repeats. “The first? How?”

Fen’Harel raises his brows a bit. “The sentinels all knew me previously.”

“And your agents are, what, too scared to ask?” Mahanon is being sarcastic, but Fen’Harel nods. Silence follows, and Mahanon begins to turn back over. He’s not sure why he thought he’d actually get an answer.

“I have always known the fade.” Mahanon freezes — staring half at the room and half at the back of the couch. “That is where I originate from.”

Mahanon shifts to look at the god again. He watches Mahanon intensely, clearly looking for a reaction.

He told the truth.

“‘Where you originate from?’”

“Yes,” the god answers simply, and Mahanon knows he’s not going to get any more answers from him.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Why did you tell me that you were a slave?”

Mahanon doesn’t know. Apparently, the Dread Wolf doesn’t either.

“It is late, Rook.” Hearing his nickname still disorients him; it feels too personal. He wonders if it’s as uncomfortable for Fen’Harel as it is for him — wonders why he’s started to use it. “We are leaving again tomorrow. Go back to sleep.”

Mahanon groans, “We just got back.” He hasn’t even been able to see anybody again; the god has him locked away in his tower like some sort of stereotypical villain, and the Dread Wolf left Liara at the lyrium vein to finish transporting materials.

“And now I am called elsewhere. How tragic for you.” A familiar bitchiness has returned to Fen’Harel’s tone, and Mahanon scowls.

“Considering my migraine hasn’t suddenly disappeared, I don’t know how I’m supposed to-”

“Ashir.”

Mahanon is knocked into a dreamless sleep.

Chapter Text

Fen’Harel makes sure that his feelings about their late night — or early morning — sharing circle are known. Immediately. Explicitly.

Mahanon doesn’t even get a moment of peace. The start of his day involves a cup of ice cold water dumped on his face that invades his lungs when he gasps and sits up. Fen’Harel watches the ensuing coughing fit with a bland expression that manages to flatten further when Mahanon makes eye contact with the god.

“What,” he heaves, “the fuck was that for?”

“We are leaving,” Fen’Harel says, “and I have mentioned repeatedly now that your sleeping habits need correction. I am as displeased as you are that the responsibility has managed to fall into my hands.”

“You’re displeased? I can show you fucking displeased,” Mahanon seethes. A violet gaze meets his glare evenly as Mahanon motions dramatically to his face and chest. “You expect this to put me in the mood for traveling?”

“You should be grateful,” Fen’Harel sniffs. “It has clearly been some time since you last bathed. Are you accustomed to your own stench and therefore unaware of it, or do you assume that the smell is originating from elsewhere?”

Mahanon’s mouth drops in offense as his brows furrow. The trickster god is a lying asshole. Mahanon’s been using his extra reserves to keep himself clean while trapped with the Dread Wolf. He learned how to do it with Wisdom; they’re probably using the same damn spell. He knows he doesn’t fucking smell.

“I was assuming it was coming from you.” Fen’Harel straightens, and Mahanon wrinkles his nose. “I’ve been stuck with you for almost two weeks now. How many times have you taken a bath this entire time?”

Zero. Both are stubbornly continuing to use magic to avoid having to do so. Mahanon isn’t exactly thrilled at the idea of bathing with a babysitter, and the Dread Wolf seems to hold the same convictions. Unfortunately, one of them is going to have to cave soon — magic can only do so much, and the threat of becoming grimy is looming ominously over their heads.

“You are by far the most aggravating being I have ever had the misfortune of laying my eyes upon,” Fen’Harel sneers, and Mahanon swings his legs off of the couch to stand up with a lazy grin.

“I don’t buy for a second that you don’t stare lovingly at yourself in the mirror.”

Fen’Harel’s scowl deepens. “You-”

“Oh, wait. Let me put that into words you can understand.” Mahanon clears his throat dramatically — tipping his head back to look down his nose at the god. It doesn’t work — the Dread Wolf irritatingly towers above him even from a distance — but he commits to his poor decisions as he flattens his tone and drops his voice. “Do you truly believe that I have not been forced to bear witness to you appreciating your lack of beauty in every reflective surface that we have passed?”

“That is not how I-” Fen’Harel cuts himself off, looking truly baffled at Mahanon’s nerve. He should know better by now than to expect more from the Dalish man. It usually only takes a day of exposure to him to figure out that he can be an ass; almost two weeks should have been more than enough for the Dread Wolf to learn that leaving Mahanon at Skyhold when he goes on his little quests is in his best interest. With a huff, Fen’Harel continues, “I would mimic the way you speak, but-”

“But what? You fear that the repercussions of copying my language would do detrimental things to your intelligence?”

Mahanon can see Fen’Harel drag his tongue over his teeth — are the Dread Wolf’s canines kind of sharp, or is he going insane? — in a move almost identical to the one Mahanon has seen from parents before they lay into their kid, and he crosses his arms stubbornly. The trickster god in front of him snarls and turns around abruptly, and pride floods Mahanon’s veins with the win . He’s irritated the Elvhen god of rebellion, and hope flashes through him as he imagines another one of his people’s gods abandoning him.

It’s dashed quickly.

“You have until I finish collecting my things to be ready for travel,” Fen’Harel hisses. A violet glare is thrown over the god’s shoulder, and Mahanon freezes up with the weight of it. “I do not care if that means you end up traveling through the Frostback Mountains shirtless. I recommend you begin moving.”

Mahanon doesn’t need to be told twice. He vaults over the back of his- the couch to where he’s stored his things and lands on his knees to tear into his bag faster.

The Dread Wolf is moving around the room with ruthless speed and efficiency.

A sack has been haphazardly tossed next to his things, and Mahanon squints at it as he rips off his soaked shirt. He uses the back of it to dry his face and some of his hair before grabbing into his bag to get his clothes, but he comes up empty handed. The thick clothes he wore during their mountain expedition have gone missing. He feels vaguely violated at the idea of somebody — definitely the Dread Wolf — going through his things, but he wastes no time lunging to the sack next to his things.

Most of the clothes that are in it are lighter than his last ones, and Mahanon can’t identify what they’re made out of. There’s a pair of blue-gray pants that will go up to about his ribcage with an extra triangular piece of fabric to protect the front of his hips, a pale long sleeved shirt with lighter stripes that run across the chest that appears to only button halfway up the top, dark leather boots with silver armor protecting the shins that will probably go past his knees, and a jacket-vest-thing that looks like it will only stay on if he can manage to strap an unnecessary amount of intricate belts across his stomach. It’s a distinctly elven outfit, and Mahanon is wary about how well it fits.

He’s struggling to fasten the last belt in place when Fen’Harel snaps, “I am finished packing. We are leaving.”

Mahanon glares at him over the back of the couch, and the Dread Wolf scowls at him in response. Damp sleep clothes are thrown into his pack, and Mahanon slings it over one of his shoulders as he stands. Fen’Harel pauses in his path towards him, and Mahanon tries not to feel self conscious as he tracks the god’s gaze to the deep scar that mars his chest where the shirt hangs open — a lucky shot from a slaver the year Mahanon became the Halla.

Something tense begins to fill the air between them, and Mahanon is quick to cut through it.

“Have you decided to drop your dream of ending the world in favor of becoming a coat stand, or-” Mahanon is cut off when the heavy black coat Fen’Harel was holding is thrown at his face, and he barely manages to catch it before it drops to the ground. He makes a face at the god as he pulls it on, and is unable to catch the hat and gloves that are thrown at him. They bounce off of his head and land at his feet, and Mahanon glares down at them.

“You have managed to make it so you are not traveling topless, but I suggest you grab those quickly if you would like to keep your ears and fingers while we travel through the mountains.”

Asshole.

“Where are we even going?” Mahanon doesn’t look at the god as he leans down to get his remaining winter gear, and when he stands back up, the Dread Wolf is waiting impatiently for him by the stairs.

“That is irrelevant to you.” The god makes him exit the room first, and Mahanon ignores the way the hair on the back of his neck raises as he walks down the stairs ahead of the Dread Wolf.

“Why are we actually traveling and not taking an Eluvian?”

“I will repeat what I’ve already told you; it is irrelevant,” Fen’Harel says, and he pushes Mahanon when the man tries to stop and turn to face him. He catches his balance before he tumbles down the seemingly endless flight of stairs.

“That could’ve killed me, you know.”

“Neither of us would be so lucky,” Fen’Harel responds dryly, and Mahanon rolls his eyes. He lets a few seconds pass in silence before speaking up again.

“This would be a lot less miserable for both of us if you just answered my questions.”

“I have answered far more than my share already,” the god snaps, and small bursts of anger pop under Mahanon’s skin at the venom in his words.

“Maker fucking forbid you be straightforward with anything. Would you burst into flames? Is that the problem?” Mahanon doesn’t risk trying to turn around again — he would probably end up with broken bones after a harder shove.

Silence reigns between them before Fen’Harel asks, “I thought you were Dalish. You believe in the Maker?”

“No,” Mahanon snaps. He tries to up his pace to create some distance between him and the Dread Wolf, but the god just increases his speed as well. “I am Dalish. It’s just a saying. You pick things up when you spend time with other people. You would know that if you weren’t such a rude, self isolating dick.”

Fen’Harel scoffs behind him, and Mahanon desperately wishes that the damn room wasn’t so high up. His thighs threaten to start burning, so he slows down again.

“You believe in the Elvhen gods, then.” Disdain fills Fen’Harel’s tone, and Mahanon scowls at the wall in front of him.

“What happened to not answering shit? Is that something special that only you’re allowed to do?” The judgement of the Dread Wolf hangs between them, and Mahanon sighs heavily. “No.”

Silence reigns between them again.

Why are there so many damn stairs?

“No?”

“Not since I was nine,” Mahanon says, then winces. Right; the god can confidently put those dots together now. As a distraction, he bites, “Which seems like a good idea considering you.”

“Considering me?”

“Yeah considering you. If every god is as annoying,”

“Annoying?”

“Indecisive,”

“Indecisive?”

“And bitchy as you are, I’m fine with them staying-” trapped trips over his tongue, and he inhales sharply to keep it from spilling past his lips. “Wherever they’ve disappeared to.”

“Bitchy?” Fen’Harel hisses, and Mahanon is grateful that the god is irritated enough to miss his verbal stumble.

“Yes, bitchy,” Mahanon snaps, turning his head to the side to glare at the Dread Wolf. He fights off the temptation to hold a hand near the railing to prevent him from falling and breaking his neck if he slips. “Is there something you’d like better? Hot and cold? Bratty?”

“You are calling me a brat?” Fen’Harel stares at him incredulously, and Mahanon wrinkles his nose at him.

“If the shoe fits.” Mahanon jumps down the final stairs and slams open the door at the bottom — effectively ending a conversation with the last word for a second time today. A frustrated growl echoes in the stairwell before Fen’Harel emerges from it behind him — his carefully impassive expression slammed back into place and his arms grasped behind his back.

The eyes of an uncomfortable amount of agents rest on them as Fen’Harel stalks past him towards the stables, and Mahanon eyes his cloak when he sees it draped over the stall door of an Anderfel Courser. The black material cuts a harsh line against the pale wood of the structure, and the sight of it sends nerves skittering up and down Mahanon’s arms.

It’s never hurt him. It has, in fact, saved his life on numerous accounts, but looking at it brings back the image of a woman in a back alley. Of the sun working a shady stall in a damp area of Tevinter. Of her blood coating his hands and the life leaving her eyes as his magic turns her to stone. Of her shitty, stressful, vaguely worded prophecy.

He thinks of the icy blue magic that has prevented him from getting burned, shocked, and stabbed, and he decides to put the cloak on anyway.

Fen’Harel walks off to talk to a stable hand about the state of their horses, and Mahanon watches in pity as the blood drains out of the young elf’s face. He turns back to his horse — at least, he’s assuming the pinto behind his cloak is his horse — and tilts his head as he tries to figure out how the hell he’s going to be getting on and off of the mount during their trek to wherever they’re going. It’s somewhere hot — Mahanon’s clothes are too breathable for them to be traveling into more cold weather — but Mahanon has absolutely no idea where they’re going beyond that.

He’s about to approach the horse when someone shrieks from behind him. He jumps at the sound, and he’s mid-turn when a solid weight slams into the side of his body. He doesn’t fall — despite what recent manhandling would have you believe, he’s not usually able to be thrown around by anybody who weighs less than a Qunari — but he slides a few inches with the force of the impact. Arms wrap around his chest, and he grabs onto the gangly limbs squeezing him to bring his attacker in front of him.

Sarel’s face is broken into a wide smile as they stare back at him — face flushed red with emotion. Tears are threatening to fall from the corners of their dark eyes, and their braid falls awkwardly across their forehead. Mahanon quickly releases their arms, and they dive back into another hug — shoving their face into the side of his neck. He hesitantly wraps his arms around them in return.

“Holy shit!” They yell into his shoulder before putting their hands on his shoulders and shoving him away so they can see his face. “Holy shit! I thought you were dead, man, and then Ellanis came and asked about your measurements, and I needed to make you a coat, and you’re wearing the coat right now! Does it fit okay?”

Mahanon opens his mouth to confirm that it fits ridiculously well and ask why Sarel knows his proportions so accurately, but the teen rolls right over him.

“Then Liara sent a letter saying that you were fine right before all these rumors started swirling all over the place, and you’re alive!” Sarel grabs him in a tight hug again, and Mahanon politely doesn’t let on that they’re choking the life out of him.

“Was that a concern?” He wheezes, and Sarel nods against his chest.

“I mean there was no way I was going to hear from you again even if you actually got out, and you’re still alive, so you know how to stay alive in shitty situations — Tevinter sucks — but then Ellanis started acting all weird , and I thought he found your body or something.” Sarel tells his shirt, and Mahanon winces when their voice cracks. He pats their back in an attempt to soothe them.

As if he’d been summoned by the use of his name, Ellanis turns the corner leading to Skyhold’s gate. He pauses as he takes in Mahanon’s current state of captivity, and the Dalish man can see the sentinel’s shoulder rise and fall with an amused huff.

Help me, he mouths, and a corner of Ellanis’ lips turns up as the ancient elf approaches them. He walks clear past the pair and approaches a horse at the very end of the stables.

Traitor.

“Are you supposed to be over here? Isn’t weapons training happening right now?” Mahanon asks, and Sarel freezes. They lean back to look Mahanon in the face as they confidently lie.

“No.” They say it with a smile. Mahanon gives a sarcastic one back.

“Your dad is going to murder you.”

“Not if he doesn’t find out!” Sarel is clearly making a plea, and Mahanon starts to let them know that he doesn’t even think he’s going to be here long enough to snitch when he’s interrupted.

“Is there a problem here?” Sarel goes tense at the Dread Wolf’s steely tone.

“Um?” The teen squeaks, and Mahanon throws an unimpressed look at the god over their head.

“No.” The Dalish man shakes the child in his hold until they let go and stand up straight in front of him. He might be going insane, but Mahanon thinks that they grew a little in his absence. The teenager must be able to feel the weight of Fen’Harel’s glower — he sure can — so he sends a scowl back at the god. “Fix your face; they’re a kid.”

Sarel looks scandalized and turns halfway to face the god when they hiss, “I’m not a kid.”

“Only a kid has to say that they’re not a kid,” Mahanon tells them, and they wrinkle their nose at him.

“Ah. I apologize for my misunderstanding, then,” Fen’Harel tells Sarel, and Mahanon thinks he might go into shock. The god ignores his baffled look as he takes in the teenager, tilting his head. “Are you not supposed to be in training at this time?”

Sarel swallows nervously, flicking their eyes to Mahanon for backup. He’s too busy glaring at the Dread Wolf to give his support. “Uh, yes, sir! I’m just going to-” Sarel lunges in for another tight hug, then releases Mahanon with enough force that they trip while backing up. “I’ll be on my way now! Bye! I missed you!”

Fen’Harel watches the teen sprint past him towards the training yard, and Mahanon waits for them to be out of earshot before he shouts, “You know how to apologize?”

The Dread Wolf gives him a bland look. “I am not uncivilized.”

“You could have fucking fooled me,” Mahanon snaps, and Fen’Harel narrows his eyes at him.

“We are departing. I recommend getting on your horse unless you would like to walk to our destination.” The god whips around to approach his own mount, and Mahanon scowls at his back. He glances at the pinto and chews the inside of his cheek with furrowed brows.

“How?” He asks himself, and an amused snort behind him startles him.

“You do not have experience with riding?” Ellanis asks, and Mahanon squints at the sentinel as the ancient elf moves to stand next to him.

“There’s not a lot of space for horses in Tevinter.” Ellanis hums in response, and Fen’Harel snaps something from Skyhold’s gate. “If I slam my head against something and pass out, do you think he’ll leave me here?”

“No,” Ellanis says simply, and Mahanon sighs. “I could lift you up to it?”

Mahanon considers feeling embarrassed by it, but the irritation that swells with another snap from the Dread Wolf crushes it. “Yeah, fine.”

Ellanis makes the situation quick and painless, and Mahanon trails after the sentinel after he climbs back onto his own horse.

“Do you know where we’re going?”

“No.”

Mahanon squints at the back of the sentinel’s head. “Are you lying?”

“No.”

“Would you tell me if you were?”

“No.”

“Wonderful.”

Fen’Harel glares at Mahanon as the two approach, and the Dalish man has to try very hard not to stick his tongue out at the god.

“The lack of speed you possess continues to astound me,” the Dread Wolf snarks, and Mahanon glares at the god.

“I lack a filter, too. Do you wanna see how fast I can ‘astound’ you again?”

Ellanis sighs as he passes them, and the gate of Skyhold creaks loudly as it raises.

Mahanon already misses the couch.

Chapter Text

They’re going to The Western Approach.

If you disregard the slave industry and the oppression and the self-imposed isolation, one could say that Mahanon may have been spoiled in Tevinter. There aren’t any beaches. He’s only been to the desert once — with Ellana in search of some ancient Elvhen artifact that they hadn’t managed to find — but it was enough for him to decide that he hates sand.

Hates it.

It invades your lungs and your hair and sticks to your sweat to make the most crunchy, overstimulating feeling you can think of coat your entire body. Eventually, you cave and take a bath in a desperate attempt to feel like you’re made out of skin again and not the bark of a diseased tree, but it all comes back an hour later — at best. They’re still at least two weeks out, and his eyes are already stinging.

Of course, nobody has actually told him that they’re going to The Western Approach, but it isn’t that hard to put together. Mahanon’s clothes are long but light — built to prevent sunburn while minimizing the risk of overheating — and his Elvhen vest-coat-whatever- thing has multiple slings and pockets to hold waterskins.

And they’re travelling.

The Inquisition — while thus far unable to pinpoint exactly where the Dread Wolf’s Eluvians are — employs a few mages that are able to sense large bursts of magical energy from locations up to a week’s worth of travel away. It’s cool, and Mahanon is incredibly grateful that he’s only able to pick up on magic in his immediate area — apparently, their sensitivities give the mages headaches.

The Eluvians — as one could expect — use enough magic while active to draw the attention of the Inquisition’s contacts, and Mahanon has been dragged across all of Thedas tracking leads that start with Ellana getting a letter that drips with arcane magic.

These leads, however, have never taken them to The Western Approach — and it’s easy to put together that it’s due to the short distance between the desert and the Inquisition’s new base. Mahanon knows that Ellana has a mage set up somewhere near Lake Celestine. Allegedly, they can pick up the use of an Eluvian in every corner of the dust bowl that makes up a large chunk of southwestern Orlais.

The Dread Wolf seems to know about this too — which makes Mahanon’s skin crawl — and therefore, Mahanon is stuck reconnecting with his incredibly traumatizing roots as they wander through The Dales. 

It’s nice to see the wildlife, at least, and it’s almost soothing to listen to the animals that rush away from them. They haven’t crossed paths with any Dalish clans yet, and Mahanon is sure that if Fen’Harel has his way, they won’t be seeing any at all. Ellana had mentioned that the god possesses a distinct dislike of their people.

Mahanon is sure that he’s done wonders to improve that bias.

They’ve set up camp for the night, and he’s trying to find entertainment in identifying the animals — both predators and prey — that creep around the edges of their clearing curiously. Fen’Harel gives him a dirty look from where he’s speaking with his agents, and Mahanon throws a hand up in defeat before turning to face the opposite direction. He hasn’t even done anything. Yet.

The dagger is out of his reach — hidden somewhere that only Fen’Harel and a handful of the sentinels know the location of. A migraine tries to form every time he attempts to think of a way to destroy the blade, so he’s decided that it’s probably not worth thinking about in the waking world. Headaches — notably — only decide to follow him out of his dreams if he manages to injure himself while wandering the fade.

He’s also no closer to finishing the most recent memory that the statue wants to show him, and he’s made even less progress with catching the thing that’s taken up stalking him.

It’s been a bad week.

Ellanis is sitting on the opposite side of the campfire from him, and Mahanon watches in vague interest as the ancient elf steadily sharpens his greatsword. His daggers sit off to the side — already cared for.

“You should give me one of those.”

Ellanis pauses, barely lifting his eyes to give Mahanon a bland look.

“No.”

“Why not?” Evelyn asks from beside him, and Mahanon nods at her. She’s been almost as attached to him as Ellanis is recently. If he needs food, she’s there. If he needs clothes, she’s there. If he sneezes, she makes sure to bless him. She’s designated herself as some sort of subordinate of his, and while it makes his stomach roll, he can’t seem to shake her.

“Yeah, why not?”

“I do not believe that you are to be trusted around blades.”

Mahanon makes a face at the sentinel in response. Not to be trusted. It’s worded as if he would injure himself instead of take any knife he’s given and stab it into the first organ of Fen’Harel’s that he could reach.

Maybe Ellanis is smart for not giving him a weapon.

“I’m going to the bathroom.” He shoves himself to his feet, and Evelyn stands with him.

“No you are not.”

“So I should just pee my pants?” Evelyn grimaces, but Ellanis just stares at him evenly.

“You put words in my mouth.”

Mahanon shrugs. “That’s our other option.”

Ellanis sighs heavily before placing his hands on either side of his hips to push himself up.

“I can take him,” Evelyn offers, and Mahanon raises a brow as a stare-off immediately forms between him and the sentinel. A few moments of silence pass before Mahanon crosses his arms and narrows his eyes. Eventually, the ancient elf moves his hands back to his weapon and sharpening stone.

“If you take too long, I will come look for you.” Ellanis gives Evelyn a scrutinizing look that makes her squirm. “The forest is dangerous at night.”

“Fine.”

Mahanon immediately sets off towards the treeline, and Evelyn almost trips as she follows him — barely managing to grab her bow before she loses sight of him. They walk in silence for a few moments before the other elf coughs awkwardly and murmurs, “He’s very, uh. Intense.”

Mahanon slows down to face Evelyn — walking backwards but still managing to avoid the surrounding trees. She’s flushed bright red, and one of her hands rubs the back of her neck. He chokes the laugh that threatens to rise from his throat.

“Intense?” He asks carefully, and Evelyn reddens further, somehow.

“Do you not think so?” She squeaks — pale eyes looking everywhere but directly at him.

“Oh, I do. It sucks, right?” Evelyn stares at her feet instead of responding, and Mahanon bites his bottom lip as he turns back around. They walk in silence a while longer before Evelyn speaks again.

“I know- I mean I saw- I, uh,” Evelyn chokes, and Mahanon raises his brows. He kindly doesn’t turn around as she struggles. “You and Fen’Harel. Um. But not him, right?”

Mahanon trips, and Evelyn hisses a quiet curse as she moves to catch him. He manages to catch his footing before falling, and she raises her hands when he whips his head around to face her. She looks like she’s going to pass out.

“Gods- Maker- No.”

“Okay.” Evelyn makes sure he’s steady before lowering her hands, then murmurs to herself, “Okay.”

“Yeah. Okay. I think I’m gonna walk a bit that way to- you know.”

“Right. Sorry. Yes.” Mahanon begins to walk away, but jumps when Evelyn touches his back. She hands him a vial. “It’s soap. You don’t need water. For, uh, after.”

“Thanks.” The word sounds like it’s strangled out of him, and Mahanon is quick to pick a direction and walk away quickly in an attempt to escape the conversation.

You and Fen’Harel. It’s not like he’s forgotten that it was Evelyn’s fault that he’s been dragged through the rumor mill in a way that’s devastating to his image, but he tries to move past it. It doesn’t help, though, that she watches everything that happens between them. And they’ve been better the last few days. No massive fights; no threats to the other’s life; no physical altercations. Just bitching at each other. It’s done horrible things to dispel the gossip surrounding them, and Mahanon wants to tear his hair out about it.

Everything around him is trees and bushes and various other plants, so he only has to walk about three minutes away from Evelyn to find a spot to relieve himself. He does so quickly — grateful for the lessons of what leaves not to use that had been drilled into his head as a child — and is pleasantly surprised by the floral scent of the soap Evelyn had given him. He pushes his way through some bushes on his way back to the younger elf and watches as a rabbit explodes out of the bottom of one to rush its way through the underbrush away from him.

A sparrow calls out above his head, and another copies its song from somewhere deeper in the woods. As leaves crunch beneath his feet, Mahanon hums the tune to himself quietly, and-

His heartbeat slows suddenly — his skin prickling as energy bubbles up and bursts throughout his body. A familiar calm settles over him; his breathing evens out; his mismatched eyes slide over the scenery surrounding him — searching for something he doesn’t know to look for — without turning his head, and the tips of his ears feel as if they’ve been victims to a static shock. Not even a second passes before something a whisper away from imperceptible shifts in the air, and Mahanon immediately drags his left foot behind him — his shoulder following directly above it. His head wrenches back alongside the movement of his body, and one of two twin daggers lunges past the space his carotid artery had occupied just a millisecond ago.

His vision is briefly filled by red leather and black cloth as a Venatori rogue rushes past him, and he quickly jerks his head back again as they spin to slice at his neck — no hesitation with their immediate need for a new strategy. They’re good.

Shit.

Mahanon jumps back as another lunge is made — this time at his stomach — and he hisses a curse when his hands fall to his hips and grab at empty air. The birds and the sound of leaves rustling in the wind above become muffled as if underwater while the footsteps — the shifting fabric of armor moving, the breathing — of the Venatori rogue becomes excruciatingly loud.

It’s painful, but beneficial; he wouldn’t have been able to duck and avoid the swipe of a shortsword aimed at his head by a different cultist if he hadn’t been able to hear the faint clink of their armor boots when the rogue shifted their weight to his left.

A third pair of footsteps sounds out behind him, and Mahanon snarls out a vicious, “What the fuck?"

The agent with the shortsword lunges at him, and Mahanon swings to the right to escape the blade, then shifts left again to avoid the swing of a greatsword. The blade cleaves the space next to him brutally enough that it gets stuck in the dirt, and Mahanon is quick to kick out with his full weight and slam the heel of his boot against the side of the cultist’s elbow. The joint shatters with a sickening crack, and Mahanon grabs the top of the warrior’s breastplate to spin them in front of him — dragging them both backwards diagonally from the other two cultists.

There’s a crunch in the underbrush behind him, and he barely manages to swing the Venatori agent around again to take the blade intended for his head cleanly through their throat. A fourth agent pauses — staring at his fallen comrade — and Mahanon reaches around the dead cultist’s throat and grabs the blade. It slices his hand as the rogue pulls it back, but he manages to get a grip on the hilt before it escapes his reach. The agent — the apparently blessedly new agent — doesn’t release the dagger in time, so Mahanon is able to drag them towards him and throw them at the agent with the shortsword mid-swing as he drops the other’s body.

Both crash violently in the wet grass below, and Mahanon steps around them quickly as he jerks first his left then his right shoulder back to avoid stabs from the first rogue. He ducks then swings his head back to avoid fast swings of the agent’s blades, and he grabs a wrist of the cultist during their next attack. He gets a sharp slice across the top of his arm in retaliation, but the pain is mitigated quickly by the adrenaline rushing through Mahanon’s body. Wrapping an arm around the one he’s captured, Mahanon yanks the agent towards him. He kicks the legs out from under them and twists so they slam against the ground chest first.

Mahanon sinks the dagger he stole through the back of the cultist’s neck, and he can feel a vertebra crunch as the blade crushes through it. He’s quick to pick up the rogue’s blades as their body goes limp, and Mahanon throws one immediately between the eyes of the cultist with the shortsword as they charge at him. The agent crashes face-first into the dirt, and the other is in the middle of staggering to their feet when Mahanon sends his remaining dagger through their chest.

The cultist stills — staring down at the blade stuck between their ribs. Their hands shake as they bring one up to touch the dagger, and they barely manage to glance up at Mahanon before they slump back to the ground.

The bush to his right rustles lightly, and Mahanon dashes to the dropped shortsword. He lays the blade flat against his forearm and supports the arm with his other as he drops into a defensive stance. His hopes of it being an agent of Fen’Harel are dashed as a Venatori warrior lumbers out of the thicket, and he resists the urge to hang his head in disappointment.

“Can’t you go and attack somebody else?” He hisses, taking a few steps around the warrior to see how accurately they track him. “The group is back behind me. I think a few could benefit from some target practice.”

“The Dread Wolf shouldn’t be sticking his nose in other people's business,” the warrior starts, and Mahanon doesn’t know if he’s ever been so grateful to hear an evil monologue. It lets him catch his breath and look his opponent up and down. “That vein was ours for the taking. Those slaves are ours to do with as we please. He will know the pain of something being taken from him.”

That gives Mahanon pause, and he furrows his brows as he stares at the warrior. “What?”

The Venatori agent hesitates, sounding uncertain now as he asks, “You’re Rook, right?”

“Yes?”

“Good.”

The cultist rushes him, and Mahanon swears as he dives out of the way. A great axe slams into the ground where he’d stood, and Mahanon makes a face as blood splatters across him from the now bisected rogue he’d been next to. The weapon rips out of the body to swing in a wide arc near his head, and Mahanon drops below it before jumping back again. There are no notable weaknesses that he can see — no favored sides, no limp, no shaking of hands. The armor looks new as well — clean and free of any gouge marks or burned fabric. The helmet that the warrior is wearing resembles a fencing mask, and it shines brightly with disuse. There’s no easy strategy he can use to get through the armor.

Distraction it is.

“Aw, you put your best outfit on for me.” Mahanon dances out of the way of another swing — putting distance between him and the warrior. Maybe if he rushes, Mahanon can get a shot at his side? “I’m honored.”

The vanity infused into all Tevinter blood makes the warrior swell with pride. “I made it myself! It is magically enchanted, as well. Your dog should not even be able to get through-”

“Oh shit!”

It’s a cheap trick — pointing behind the man into the thicket. It wasn’t supposed to work, either, but Mahanon is quick to jump on the cultist’s back and rip the helmet off of his head when the idiot turns. He rams his borrowed shortsword directly through the top of the man’s skull, and almost gags as the blood that spurts from the wound tries to get into his mouth. He hops off of the falling body and eyes it as it twitches.

“Why weren’t you all this stupid? That could’ve been so much easier.” Mahanon’s breath is shaking, but he can’t let himself take the gasping lungfuls of air he needs until he’s sure that he’s actually done. “If anybody else is here, please just come out now. You suck at stealth, and it’s wasting everybody’s time.”

There’s the sound of breaking sticks behind him, and Mahanon turns with an enraged snarl to face a trembling Evelyn — her hands held out in front of her as if Mahanon is a rabid dog threatening to bite.

It’s a pretty accurate comparison, actually.

“I came to check on you.” There are tears in the younger elf’s eyes, and Mahanon grimaces at them. He tries to fix his face. “I figured you deserved your privacy, so I gave you some time, but you hadn’t come back yet, and I came to find you and you’re- gods there’s so many bodies.”

“There’s-” not really, he starts to say, then has to remind himself that five bodies would be a lot for normal people. “Yeah.”

“I’m so sorry,” Evelyn whispers, and the tears that were collecting begin to gently roll down her cheeks. “You could have died. I could have killed you. I never should have left you.”

“How would you have killed me?” Mahanon kicks the leg of the warrior below him, and Evelyn flinches. “I feel like there are some clearly responsible parties here, and you’re not one of them.”

“I- I could’ve helped, or called for- called for help, or something?” Evelyn sniffs. She brings a hand up to wipe her tears, and Mahanon watches as her eyes catch on the whistle she’s attached to one of the bands on her arms.

“Shit; wait!”

She doesn’t. A high pitched, piercing sound fills the air, and Mahanon holds his blood covered face in his equally blood covered hands.

“You’re injured!” Evelyn breathes as the sounds of heavy boots crashing through the undergrowth thunder towards them. Mahanon drags his hands up through his hair with a heavy sigh, then pulls his arms behind him casually.

“No, I’m not.” He smiles, and Evelyn takes a small step back before catching herself and sending him an apologetic look. His entire mouth tastes like iron — he should’ve known better than to show bloody teeth to an already frightened elf. Whoops.

White brows furrow as Evelyn looks at him — pale eyes flicking to the arm he’s hiding behind him — and she takes a step back towards him. “I saw-”

“That I’m covered in blood?” Mahanon asks wryly, feeling only a little bad about twisting the truth. The Dread Wolf’s habits must be rubbing off on him. He buries the thought quickly. “That tends to happen during fights. Don’t worry about me; I’m fine.”

He is. He just needs a second to catch his breath and sew himself shut — alone. Like he always has. The cuts are definitely going to leave scars, but they’re not that bad.

Ellanis makes it into the clearing first — sword held tightly in his hands and eyes searching for any threats. He relaxes slightly when he sees them all dead on the ground, but then frowns when his eyes catch on Mahanon. Clearly, he doesn’t appreciate the man’s current state of cleanliness. “What happened?”

“I’m not allowed to pee in peace,” Mahanon responds, then cuts off the cheeky grin he almost throws the sentinel’s way when more agents emerge from the brush behind him. Fen’Harel storms into the clearing alongside them, and the god pauses briefly as he takes in the carnage surrounding Mahanon. His agents stop dead in their tracks at the sight, but the god continues past the bodies and towards Mahanon. “Listen, I’m not really in the mood for-”

“Are you injured?”

It’s not the scathing comment or the start of a frosty lecture that Mahanon was expecting. He feels off balance when he asks, “What?”

“Are you hurt?” The god repeats his question, and Mahanon takes a small step back as the god continues his approach.

“Um?” Another few steps from both of them, and the storm building in Fen’Harel’s violet eyes strengthens at Mahanon’s retreat. “No?”

“Yes,” Evelyn snitches, and Mahanon shoots her a dirty look that she ignores. Fen’Harel’s agents begin trailing back to camp — relieved of duty with the lack of danger.

“I’m fine.”

“He’s cut.”

“I’m not.”

The remaining agents leave — clearly not wanting to witness the building argument.

“Twice.”

“Twice?” Ellanis asks, and Evelyn looks at him as bites the inside of her cheek nervously.

“Maybe three times?”

“Shut up,” Mahanon hisses, and Ellanis gives him an unimpressed look as Evelyn flinches again. Mahanon tries not to feel bad about it.

He fails.

“Where?” Fen’Harel asks, and Mahanon steps agilely around a body behind him without looking. Fen’Harel tracks the footwork with narrowed eyes.

“Nowhere dangerous.”

“His right hand. And arm,” Evelyn reports awkwardly, and Mahanon huffs in irritation — eyeing the god chasing him warily.

“I told you that I’m-”

Fen’Harel is a mage. He fade steps and manifests disgustingly strong barriers and kills mages while they sleep through carefully selected battles in the night. He uses spells that Mahanon couldn’t even dream of — that Wisdom never told him existed — and he can turn people to stone as easily as he can snap his fingers. He is a mage, but he is an ancient Elvhen being first, and Mahanon has first hand experience with the Dread Wolf’s strength. He has not, however, seen his speed.

He doesn’t know if the god lunges or just takes such quick steps that they’re impossible to track, but the space — the meters — he’s put between them are cleared in not even a second. A hand wraps around his bicep — strong as steel, disorientingly painless, and completely preventing any further escape — and Mahanon is pulled toward the god as Fen’Harel grabs his arm out from behind him.

He’s still bleeding — obviously — and the wounds look worse than Mahanon remembers them being. The cut across his forearm is bleeding sluggishly but steadily, and the two on his hand have steady streams leaking from them. They’re jagged and deep from the force of the injury, and Mahanon winces as he feels them throb.

Fen’Harel grabs his wrist and holds the hand closer to his face. The god snaps, “You consider this unharmed?”

“I ‘consider this’ fine,” Mahanon bites back — brows furrowing as he takes in the weirdly careful way Fen’Harel’s hand slides from his wrist to the back of his hand. A pale thumb wraps around the side to press down between the two gashes, and blood gushes from the wounds. Mahanon bites the inside of his cheek to keep from flinching.

“You require stitches.”

“I know.”

The Dread Wolf scowls. “And you consider that fine?”

“I’ve had worse!” Mahanon tries to yank his hand out of the god’s grip. He fails.

“Dahn’direlan,” Fen’Harel mutters to himself as he rotates Mahanon’s arm to look at the other cut.

Bee puncher?

“Did you just call me an idiot?” Mahanon narrows his eyes, and Fen’Harel continues to assess his injuries. Light footsteps tread over dead leaves, and Mahanon watches as Evelyn heads back towards camp. Fen’Harel doesn’t turn, and instead gives Mahanon a look. It’s intense and irritated and muffling something he can’t identify, and Mahanon is so tired of being fucking confused.

Could Ellana even read the Dread Wolf — back when he was reduced to just a man? Did he manage to manipulate the Inquisition — lie to its members — just through being complicated?

“What?" He’s exasperated enough that it almost sounds like a whine.

“You did not need your magic,” Fen’Harel murmurs, and Mahanon shrugs. He doesn’t actually need to confirm the god’s assumption; he’d be able to sense any magic in the area if it was used.

“I’d be a pretty shitty vigilante if I couldn’t handle five people without it,” he deadpans, and Fen’Harel tilts his head slightly as he looks down at Mahanon. He hums, and Mahanon takes in the way the light of the moon highlights the flat of his nose and the angles of his cheeks — the sharp line of his jaw. At this distance, more of the god is noticeable; the freckles sprayed across his face, the bags beneath his eyes, the scar that rests over one of his dark auburn brows. Mahanon feels the vallaslin of the sun burning into his skin and notes that the mark lays directly over where a line of it would have rested.

“I’ve underestimated you again,” the god says quietly.

“Don’t worry about it.” Mahanon tries to smile sarcastically, but it turns into a grimace when he remembers the red that currently coats his teeth. “It’s easy to do.”

An almost boyish amusement flashes through Fen’Harel’s eyes. “Yes. Something that you allowed me to do, was it not?”

Mahanon snorts, then feels horrified that he’s made a joke with the Dread Wolf, then almost goes into shock about the fact that the god played along. He doesn’t get time to start spiraling about it, because his arm starts heating up almost painfully as a green glow spreads through it. He’s abruptly reminded that the Dread Wolf has a hold of it when he’s unable to pull it back against his chest. When he looks back up at the god, his eyes are glowing the same green, and his focus is entirely on Mahanon’s limb.

The burning sensation fades with the light, and Fen’Harel twists Mahanon’s arm to assess both sides again. The cuts are gone entirely; very thin scars are all that remain in the spots where they had flayed his skin open. Mahanon stares at them before looking at Fen’Harel with a baffled expression.

“You-” It’s as if some sort of energy shatters around them, and Fen’Harel releases Mahanon’s arm as if it had burned him. He backs up rapidly, confusion shooting through him clearly as he furrows his brows. “You are healed. In the future, I would recommend listening to directions. I will not waste my magic healing preventable injuries.”

“I-” Mahanon cuts himself off as Fen’Harel abruptly turns his back to him and stalks silently in the direction of the camp. He watches the dark leather of the god’s coat blend into the brush that surrounds him, and continues to stare at the spot long after the leaves stop moving. Eventually, he manages to drag his eyes over to Ellanis. “What the fuck was that?”

The sentinel looks equally confused — still eyeing the bushes that the Dread Wolf had disappeared through. He turns his gaze to Mahanon with a frown. “I am uncertain.”

Mahanon crosses his arms over his chest — looking down at his blood soaked clothes.

Then, “Did he just use a fucking contraction?”

Chapter Text

Mahanon wants to talk about it.

He wants to talk about it desperately, because whatever the hell the moment in the clearing was has made his life fucking miserable.

The Dread Wolf has been consistently difficult the entire month that they’ve known each other — you have shown to me a level of unintelligence that I have had yet to encounter; Varric should have realized you could not aspire to be any piece more powerful than a pawn; I would have expected you to have more grace considering you call yourself a rogue; blah blah blah — but he’s ascended to levels Mahanon didn’t think were even possible to reach this last week.

Mahanon hasn’t even done anything. He’s been just as difficult as the god — both returning his energy and instigating fights all on his own — but they’d almost started tolerating each other. In the way that somebody learns to tolerate the ache that forms in their joints whenever cold weather rolls in, mind you, but it was making the whole abduction thing less agonizing.

It’s been giving him a complex, honestly.

He’s the Dread Wolf. The Elvhen god of lies, treachery, and rebellion. A ridiculously overpowered mage so riddled with guilt and regret that it taints the taste of lyrium that lingers on Mahanon’s tongue after every horrible memory he’s forced to endure. He’s trying to end the world, and Mahanon’s mind has still managed to shift the god’s title from ‘mortal enemy’ to ‘major pain in my ass’ without his input or consent.

He’d stab Fen’Harel if given the opportunity, but he’s too scared to think of where in the god’s chest he would actually send the blade.

I would treasure the chance to be wrong again.

He wants to be stopped.

The People, they need me.

I’m sorry, old friend.

Compassion compassion compassion comp-

Fen’Harel releases a branch he pushed out of his way, and the force with which it snaps back at Mahanon’s face leaves a shallow cut across his cheek. With a snarl, Mahanon grabs hold of it and pulls — ripping the thin limb straight off of the tree with a loud crack. Evelyn flinches on his left, and Ellanis dutifully snatches Mahanon’s new makeshift weapon out of his hand when he winds it up for a solid bludgeoning to the back of the Dread Wolf’s head. He’s also quick to grab onto Mahanon’s cloak when the Dalish man tenses up as if to jump at the god in front of him. He refuses to be shaken off, and Mahanon grits his teeth at the unrelenting grip as he tries to breathe slowly.

Evelyn touches his arm gently, and the skin beneath her fingers vibrates until Ellanis carefully adjusts the cloak to block the contact. Mahanon can see Evelyn’s pale eyes flicker towards the sentinel, and whatever look he’s giving her leads to her slowly removing her hand. The ire crawling beneath his skin doesn’t allow him to appreciate it.

It’s been small shit like this all week. He has bruises from not being warned about drops and a few other cuts from being all but shoved into bushes with thorns, but despite how much Fen’Harel seems to currently despise him for the crime of breathing, he won’t leave Mahanon alone.

Mahanon will try to walk away from the god after a particularly scathing argument just to have the Dread Wolf stalk after him. He’ll storm into their stupid shared tent and the god will sit outside of it — making just enough noise to let Mahanon know that he’s there. At one point, he got desperate enough for space that he nearly jumped into a river with a strong enough current to drag him at least a mile away, but the Dread Wolf had grabbed him by the scruff of his neck like he was a misbehaving cat and dragged Mahanon alongside him until the stream was far beyond walking distance.

Evelyn must have no idea how wide the hearing range of ancient elves appears to be, because she leans closer to him and whispers, “He’s probably just upset.”

Mahanon’s eyes snap to the pale elf immediately, and she’s become accustomed enough to Mahanon’s spitfire of an attitude that she holds his glare — a little shakily, but she does it all the same. “Upset?” Mahanon hisses back, actively disregarding the fact that Fen’Harel can hear their conversation and is almost certainly eavesdropping. “You think he’s making me fucking miserable because he’s upset? About what?”

“I mean, he’s-” Evelyn cuts herself off, and Mahanon watches as her gaze flickers to Ellanis before returning to him. Mahanon is left wondering how she would describe the Dread Wolf. “I would be, if I were him.”

Mahanon’s mouth drops as he stares at the other elf. “I was attacked. In the woods. It’s not like I went to some tavern to pick a fight.”

“I would not put that past you,” Ellanis murmurs, and Mahanon sends a blind swing behind him. He misses.

“Not at you,” Evelyn clarifies, shaking her head slightly and sending Ellanis an unimpressed glare. It lasts only a second before her eyes widen and return to Mahanon, but a trickle of pride runs down his spine at her gall. “At myself.”

“Why?” He knows that the Dread Wolf seems to think that being bitchy and unhappy is a fun hobby, but Evelyn doesn’t seem as masochistic as the god. Maybe he read her character wrong.

“They attacked you,” Evelyn emphasizes, and Mahanon stares at her blankly.

“I was alone.”

“So was I. They didn’t come anywhere near me, though.” Pale eyes bore into his mismatched pair — begging Mahanon to accept something she’s entirely misinterpreting. Again.

“You had a weapon.”

“Clearly, you lacking one wasn’t actually a problem.”

“They didn’t know that.”

“They sent five people.”

“Maybe they were coming to you next?”

“I found invisibility flasks, Rook.” The deadpan expression that Evelyn is looking at him with could kill lesser men. Mahanon gives one back. “I don’t know how you figured out they were there, but most people can’t do that. One of them could’ve killed me before any of them attacked you.”

The idea twists his stomach. They haven’t known each other for long, and yes, she’s been a little fearful of him, but she’s been kind. And she’s young. She isn’t a teenager like Sarel, but she’s only twenty-three. Mahanon doesn’t think that he could stomach her dying somehow because of him.

“She is correct,” Ellanis jumps in, and a light blush brushes itself across Evelyn’s cheeks. Mahanon shoots a dirty look over his shoulder at the sentinel, and the elf shrugs — entirely unaffected.

“You’re not helping.”

“Likely because I am not trying to.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“What are my options?”

“Rook, think for two seconds, please. Why would they come after you?”

“Some people hate my winning personality and pray for my downfall.” For example, the Elvhen god in front of them. Ellanis snorts behind him, and Evelyn releases a sigh that sounds like it came from somewhere deep in her soul.

“He blames himself,” Evelyn deadpans, and Mahanon barely manages not to laugh in her face.

It is absolutely the Dread Wolf’s fault that he was almost murdered. After being given a few seconds to think about the Venatori warrior’s words after Fen’Harel stormed off, it was ridiculously easy to piece together.

He will know the pain of something being taken from him.

His vallaslin burns.

He wouldn’t care that I died; he’d care that Ellana’s brother did, isn’t exactly something he can tell Evelyn, so he settles for a snort and a grumbled, “He has an interesting way of showing it.”

“I..” Evelyn trails off, and Mahanon can see the way her attention moves to Fen’Harel. “I don’t think I want to comment on that.”

“Bummer. Ellanis?”

“Absolutely not.”

“You two are fucking boring.”

“I believe a more appropriate assessment would be that our self preservation instincts are vastly better than yours.”

“Just because you think something doesn’t make it true.”

“And yet,” Ellanis says dryly, “I am still correct. Would you like for me to share another fact?”

“I’ll share one: You’ve been around me too much if you’re asking that question.”

“On that, we can both agree.”

Evelyn chokes on a laugh, pales, and then turns a bright red thinking she’s been caught listening to their banter. Mahanon throws her a cheeky grin in an attempt to alleviate her stress — to clarify that she was included in it — but her eyes slide off of him to Ellanis, and then to the ground. When he glances back at the ancient elf, he finds the sentinel staring at Evelyn with furrowed brows. When he turns his questioning gaze to Mahanon, the man just shrugs.

He’s, uh, kind of intense.

Poor girl.

Mahanon has never actually been to the Exalted Plains.

He knows that they’re in the Dales and that Ellana had to spend an unfortunate amount of time traipsing through them during the Inquisition’s prime. He knows that it was the scene of an unnecessarily long civil war, and he knows that it has some pretty cool wildlife.

He knows how the trees look and that the grass stretches up to your knees and how the beaten paths that wind through it are made up of dirt so light that you could mistake it for sand.

He has seen the fade warped version of the area, and he knows that this is where Wisdom disappeared from.

He doesn’t know where specifically she used to live, but just the knowledge that the spirit — his savior, his mentor, his friend, almost family — used to be here makes his chest ache with her loss. It lights a fire under his skin and sends chills down his back, and it’s making him more irritable than usual.

It doesn’t help that the Fen’Harel’s mood has somehow soured further.

The god broke out of his parade rest and has begun prowling through the forest — looking every bit like the wolf he’s supposed to represent. His magic leaks steadily into the air, and Mahanon can feel his seeping out into the space around him to prevent him from choking on it. He had a theory that there were no other mages in the group, but he’s able to confirm it when he throws a concerned glance back at Ellanis. The sentinel is clearly uncomfortable, but the rest of the group doesn’t seem to think that the air is any thicker than it had been previously.

That doesn’t mean that they can’t pick up on the god’s attitude change, and Mahanon is unfortunately picked as the sacrifice to his bad mood.

“You should talk to him,” Evelyn murmurs, and Mahanon shoots her a wide eyed look.

“Why?” He hisses, and Evelyn looks confused.

“He’s upset about something?” It comes out as a question.

“He’s been upset.” Mahanon motions wildly to the surrounding area, and Evelyn bites the inside of her cheek nervously.

“It’s different now, though. There’s something else.” She tilts her head, brows furrowing. “You can’t tell?”

“Of course I can tell. Why do I have to deal with it?”

“It’s not like any of us can do it,” Evelyn hisses back, and Mahanon’s mouth drops in offense at the tone. “You guys are- you know. Isn’t that the whole point of it?”

“Isn’t that-” the point of what? He almost asks, but then remembers the shit show that Evelyn has thrown him and Fen’Harel into. He looks desperately at Ellanis. “You’ve known him longer. He would probably want to hear from-”

The sentinel firmly decides to pass on the opportunity, and Mahanon hisses when he catches his footing right next to the Dread Wolf.

“What?” Fen’Harel snaps, his expression ice cold as he turns to face Mahanon. It freezes further when the god recognizes who he is.

“Your mood is shit,” Mahanon reports, “and I don’t want to be up here as much as you do, but your agents think that you’re upset. And that talking to your- me would help.”

“My you?” Fen’Harel questions, then narrows his eyes.

“If you hadn’t been fucking looming over me this could’ve all been avoided,” Mahanon snaps, and Fen’Harel reels back to stare at him in bewilderment.

“You are blaming this on me? If you were not so insufferable that I could not leave you at Skyhold-”

“It’s your fault I was there to begin with!”

“If I had not brought you back you would have died. Have you forgotten that so easily?”

“And whose fault is it that I was stabbed in the first fucking place?”

Mahanon thought that he was past the point of fearing the Dread Wolf — that he’s put up with the man’s attitude long enough to be able to tolerate whatever is thrown in his direction.

He was wrong.

He’s grown accustomed to the bitchiness and the spite and the unnecessary meanness, but something cold shoots through him as the god’s face darkens — as the air around him becomes frigid and Fen’Harel’s lips twitch like he wants to bare his teeth. His jaw snaps shut with an audible click, and the Dread Wolf’s eyes track the movement coldly. Mahanon tenses so strongly that he’s scared that if he looks down, he would see his feet turning into stone.

He flinches when the Dread Wolf reaches for him, and something in the god’s face falters. The hand Mahanon had been sure was going for his neck grabs the hood of his cloak and drags him alongside the ancient elf — preventing him from freezing up entirely.

Once Fen’Harel is sure that he’ll keep walking, he’s released, and the god puts space between them.

“I-” Violet eyes search Mahanon’s face as Fen’Harel cuts himself off, and Mahanon watches as the god swallows thickly. “A friend of mine died near here. It is impacting me more than I expected it to. We will get a break when I go to pay my respects.”

“I’m- sorry. To hear that.” Mahanon turns to face the trees in front of them — thinking of Wisdom and how he’s made the ice around him thin with the reminder of her abandonment — and something thick hangs in the air between him and the Dread Wolf. From the corner of his eye, Mahanon can see Fen’Harel jaw clench, and the weight of his gaze lands on the rogue periodically.

Eventually, the god glances at the group behind him and murmurs, “Ellanis will lead the rest of the way. I will see you again at camp.”

The sentinel lets Mahanon watch as Fen’Harel takes a turn down a separate path, then bumps into him lightly as he steps to the front of the group.

“That could have gone better.” The words snap Mahanon out of whatever weird mood he was falling into, and he scowls in response. “He will return eventually.”

“He can stay gone.”

“Then you would need to fight me,” Ellanis’ gaze is calculating when he turns it on Mahanon, and the Dalish man wrinkles his nose at him.

“You could give up.”

“We have already discussed that I would not.”

“I could beat you.”

Ellanis tilts his head to the side — considering. “You did not lose during our last battle. I have concerns about the injuries you sustained during your attack, though. You are getting rusty.”

“Hey, now.” Mahanon swats at the sentinel and is a little disoriented when the man doesn’t bother to avoid the attack. His hand doesn’t tingle as badly as he expects it to. “How long has it been since you got in a fight, huh?”

“Too long,” Ellanis says wistfully, and Mahanon raises a brow. The sentinel ignores him as he continues, “But I train regularly. You do not.”

“It’s not like opportunities are lining themselves up,” Mahanon grumbles and kicks a pebble he finds on the dirt path.

Ellanis just hums in response.

It takes a few more hours of walking before they wander out of the woods, and the sight they’re greeted with turns Mahanon’s stomach. Burned patches of land; destroyed homes; carts thrown off the sides of the path that attempt to hide already scavenged skeletons. The worst of it is the ramparts they find — long abandoned but still seeping something vile into the surrounding area. Mahanon eyes them warily as they pass by and listens to the calls of the crows that fly above them. It’s silent otherwise.

But so familiar.

It crawls up Mahanon’s back and makes the back of his eyes itch with memories that he can’t specifically place. He hasn’t been to Orlais, so the ramparts couldn’t be triggering it, and he hasn’t come across anything particularly fucked up that would remind him of home. It’s something hidden — the way the leaves shake with the wind, maybe; or the way the trees bend around themselves. Identical to the woods he’d been walking through for the last few days, but somehow different.

It’s only when they come upon the Dread Wolf’s camp that Mahanon understands why.

A Dalish clan had been set up here. Mahanon knows it. He knows that the stream next to the clearing leads to the nearby river. He knows where each path leads — a forest, an abandoned town, a beach, ancient ruins. He knows that a Hanal’ghilan used to roam the nearby meadows. He knows it — all of it — because Wisdom had told him.

Because Wisdom was here.

There are eyes on him. There have always been eyes on him, but the amount has increased tenfold with the discovery of his barely beaten body surrounded by five corpses in the woods. It makes the dropping of his stomach worse; makes it feel like the tremble of his hands is noticeable even when he shoves them into his pockets. A cold sweat has broken out across his entire body, and he can’t take his eyes off of the treeline that he knows leads to the space that Wisdom claimed — that she had abandoned. His palms sting where the nails he digs into them draw blood.

It calls to him — digs its teeth into his flesh and drags him towards it — but the many eyes of the Dread Wolf’s agents track him, and he doesn’t know how he can slip away.

Everything has already been set up, so there won’t be a time where the agents are all naturally distracted, and the sun is setting, but night is still too far out of his reach to rely on. The Dread Wolf is absent, though, and Mahanon knows that he has no chance in hell of escaping the camp after the god returns.

He’s desperate and tragically low on distractions, so he makes one.

Of all the elements he can work with, fire has always claimed most of Mahanon’s attention. Ice and earth work well enough in a pinch, but flames respond to a change in Mahanon’s mood — are commanded as easily as he can breathe. There’s a campfire in the middle of the tents — isolated enough that it shouldn’t affect any of their other materials when Mahanon causes the fire to rage with a small jerk of his hand.

The flames swell aggressively — spilling over the stones of the pit and feeding greedily on the dry grass surrounding it. Shouts sound off across the camp as the fire roars, and Mahanon makes a break for the treeline. Muscles built from years of running carry him quickly past it, and Mahanon fade steps through the forest as soon as he knows he’s out of sight.

It’s only because he slows to cover his tracks that he notices the forest fall into a hush around him, and even with the warning, he barely manages to drop to the ground in time to avoid being spotted by the Dread Wolf. The god stalks past — looking more upset than he was before — and Mahanon doesn’t even dare to breathe as he nears Mahanon’s shitty hiding spot.

The trickster god — luckily — seems too lost in thought to pay attention to the path Mahanon hadn’t covered yet, and he walks past the rogue without so much as a glance in his direction. Mahanon still waits until the birds begin singing again to start walking. He slows the closer he gets to his destination, and his heart stops when he exits the woods.

There is a river with a cool, gentle current bubbling softly. There are lush hills of green grass and small, inoffensive flowers that fill the air with a calming sweet perfume. There are pale rocks surrounded by almost spherical stones that hold gems within them. There are halla herds running in the distance; rabbits paired off with their young in the ground; sparrows and crows and cardinals singing; nugs squealing as quietly as they are capable of as they chase each other through the underbrush. There are leaves rustling with teasingly warm spring winds and there is a setting sun that bathes the scene in a comfortable golden glow.

There are no scars burned into the surrounding trees from Mahanon’s misfired spells. There are no drag marks in the dirt where the force of Mahanon’s own mistakes launched him to with a young, childish laugh — the only fun he could find during the time surrounding him inking marks of the Dread Wolf into his face. There is not a shimmering green luminosity filling the air or the whispered whine of the arcane threaded into the echo of his rapid breathing.

There are five sharp pillars — marred with runes and crumbled into disrepair — that are tainted with the remnants of sour magic — of contaminant. Of corruption.

A friend of mine died here.

Why didn’t he mention that they were a spirit?

There is silence when Mahanon crumbles slowly to his knees, and there is an absence of peace as the sounds around him are drowned out — as the world in front of him blurs. There is a suffocating agony that fills his body as he stares at the black streak that stains the dirt in the center of the summoning circle, and there is an ache in his chest that cracks open into a throbbing, infected wound as the air in his lungs is choked out of him with a hysterical, broken laugh.

He can’t stop.

There’s barely any air in his lungs; he can’t see through his tears; sharp pain shoots through his hands as the strength with which he grips the grass beneath him rips open the crescent cuts he inflicted upon them earlier; he can’t stop laughing.

Missing, not gone, he had told himself — he had lied.

He can’t keep himself from crawling on his hands and knees — still laughing — to the spot where Wisdom had-

Creators.

He was thirteen when she saved him; he was fifteen when she taught him Elvhen; he was seventeen when she poured her entire being into trying to find out how to keep him alive; he was twenty-four when she went missing; he’s a month shy of twenty-seven and forced to accept that not even he can be honest with himself because Wisdom is-

His mom; his dad; countless slaves he couldn’t reach in time — men, women, children; Faelor; Wisdom.

Gone gone gone gone gone go-

It’s only when he places a palm flat against the blackened dirt that the laughing finally stops — turning into a sob that is all but ripped from his chest. The cuts sting when he slaps one of his hands over his mouth — tears leaking into the wounds as he attempts to stifle the awful sounds tearing their way up his throat. They leak through his fingers, anyway, so his other hand lands on top of the first, and Mahanon falls to the ground — curling up into a tight ball next to the scorched earth.

Next to the outline of Wisdom.

Next to the space where she had died.

He’s not entirely successful in muffling his grief. It’s quieter, yes, but still all that Mahanon can hear over the roaring blood in his head. He’s trembling — almost seizing with the intensity of it — and even though he can’t see, he can’t look away from the scarred earth — from the truth he had refused to accept. That he fought against with claws and fangs that he doesn’t possess.

Time stretches — moving both incredibly slowly and disorientingly quickly — and Mahanon isn’t sure how much has passed when he feels enraged magic crack and spit in his direction. The sun had set — this much he knew — but how long ago, he can’t recall. Sticks crack loudly as somebody grows closer, and Mahanon curls in on himself tighter — pulling his cloak over him completely and gripping the lower half of his face harder to silence the wounded sounds catching in his throat.

The crash of somebody exploding out of the forest manages to slip past the noise filling Mahanon’s head, and he thinks that he may hear a voice begin saying something before cutting itself off. Silence fills the area again, and Mahanon pathetically hopes that he’s left alone.

His hood is pulled carefully off of his head, and Mahanon is too tired to resist when his hands are gently pulled away from his face. Embarrassment flushes through him as tears continue to run down his cheeks — as hiccups rack his body — but the only reaction he gets is a quiet hum. A hand hooks under one of his arms to delicately drag him into sitting up, and when Mahanon lists to the side, he ends up leaning against the Dread Wolf.

“She spoke of you,” the god says quietly, violet gaze flicking away from Wisdom’s outline to look at him. “Without any strong descriptors, and clearly too kindly.”

Mahanon doesn’t respond, and the god hesitates — clearly thrown off by his silence.

“You-” Fen’Harel cuts himself off, giving Mahanon an intense look. “You cared? Truly cared?”

Mahanon is viper quick to respond, his glare lethal and his words snarled. “What the fuck do you think?”

Fen’Harel raises a hand in surrender. “You told me you learned fade magic from a spirit of wisdom. I had assumed that it was a purely transactional relationship. Most modern interactions with those that exist beyond the veil are.”

“That’s a pretty shitty expectation to put on people.” Mahanon winces at the croak that infects his words. His throat feels like it’s lined with shards of glass.

Fen’Harel frowns — still looking at him. “Few are willing to entertain the notion that spirits are individuals.”

“Shouldn’t the god of rebellion have more faith in people?” Mahanon snorts sarcastically and turns back to Wisdom — his swollen eyes burning. “Isn’t that what you’re trying to do now? ‘Rebel against the current state of the world to bring magic back to elves?’ Fat load of good that will do if you can’t even believe in them. Dumb fucking idea, by the way.”

“I am not a god, and the veil is a mistake that must be rectified,” Fen’Harel snaps — his empathy for someone mourning a mutual friend apparently only able to be stretched so far. “How can you argue this here? Where she was dragged through it and twisted-”

“She was doing fine,” Mahanon bites — cutting the god off harshly. The Dread Wolf raises his hackles in response, shoving himself into standing.

“She was trapped.”

Mahanon looks up at the god tiredly. “She had her own space. She had her knowledge. She-”

“She could’ve had more,” Fen’Harel — Wisdom — seethes. “She could’ve been free.”

“Who are you to decide how she got to live?” Mahanon snaps back. “Who are you to decide fucking any of this? She liked it here.”

“She had no other choice,” Fen’Harel says lowly, and Mahanon bares his teeth — tastes iron as the blood he’d smeared over his face coats his mouth.

“She wasn’t trapped. She found me once in Minrathous. She could’ve set up anywhere she wanted to.”

“Have you considered that she may have set herself up outside of the cities because she could not bear to be near modern elves? To be reminded daily of what has been lost?”

Mahanon bristles. “I’m a modern elf.”

“You care for spirits,” the Dread Wolf spits. “You have decided to specialize in the magic of the fade. You do not bend to human expectations. You have chosen a path that others will never commend you for — will despise you for — because you understand that your cause is just — that your actions are necessary. Wisdom could likely only tolerate you because you are far from a modern elf. You are different.”

Mahanon’s laugh is hollow — mean, almost, as he stares up at the god towering over him. Fuck you, he wants to snap, but something in him hesitates — understands that despite the Dread Wolf’s hatred of him, something here is important.

If I could just talk to him, Ellana had whispered one night — trapped in the same tent with him as if they were young again. If I could get through to him, maybe I could change his mind.

And instead the world has sent Mahanon — the opposite of his sister in all the ways that matter. An abrasive spitfire lacking a filter and pure morals struggling in the space the universe should have — needed to — put the cool patience of a quiet stream.

“I’m not,” he says flatly.

“You-”

“Sera’s not,” he continues, and he tries to maintain eye contact with the god despite the way the swelling of his eyes blurs his surroundings. “Ellana knows that you used her; and that you lied; and that you tearing down the veil might kill her, but she still thinks that you’re her friend. That you care. That she can stop you. And you know what?”

There’s silence as the Dread Wolf stares down at him — chest heaving and eyes wild and completely unprepared for when Mahanon leans a little closer and whispers to him as if they’re children sharing secrets.

“She’s Dalish, and she’s not different, either.”

He isn’t deigned with a response. Instead, the Dread Wolf’s face shutters — his hands falling behind his back as he stands in a parade rest. Mahanon turns back to Wisdom’s mark as Fen’Harel takes a step back, and he doesn’t bother watching the god walk away — the sounds of his footsteps buried under the blood roaring in Mahanon’s head again.

He stays like that for a while — knees pulled up to his chest, arms wrapped around his shins to hold them in place; a heavy weight crushing his heart and an imperceptible one calming the rise and fall of his chest. Eventually, his tears dry and his breathing evens out. The sound of a wolf pack howling echoes from deep in the woods — too far away to be concerned about, but something to pay attention to regardless.

Mahanon’s mind begins to fog as the exhaustion of his breakdown truly begins to set in, and he blinks slowly — promising himself that he’s just going to rest his eyes as his head slumps between his legs.

“They need gods that will protect them,” Command rumbles, staring down at Mahanon as if he’s a newfound stain on an elegant set of robes.

Something sour twists in his gut — bubbling up through his lungs; through his skin; through his blood. All of that violence — the death, the manipulation, the twisting against his purpose — for nothing. For a lie that Mythal allowed him to believe, and now she stands there next to Command, begging with her eyes for Mahanon to fall in line with Elgar’nan’s — with their — ideals.

I will always follow where you go.

I know.

Mahanon stomach rolls, and he feels himself crumbling in the face of her plea — devotion crawling up his throat to suffocate his doubt. His face burns — pain looping through the vines twisted across his cheeks and his chin and above his brows. It follows the paths they lead through his body, and it’s wrong.

“We are not gods,” he spits, and the tension in the room thickens — Mythal suddenly off balance with his defiance. “You will learn that.”

Elgar’nan sneers down at him, but something heavy has entered Command’s eyes — reevaluating him in the face of his disobedience. His words follow Mahanon as he storms out of the room — green magic crackling angrily across his skin.

“Every lapdog hides a wolf inside.”

Mahanon is only half conscious as his eyes crack open.

He had been expecting to be ejected back out into the fade — to the sight of a false sky and poor imitations of trees — but instead, he wakes to a gentle rocking; to his body buzzing and warm on one half; to a dark leather coat pressed up against his face. The forest is quiet around him — only the crickets willing to make noise as a predator moves silently past them — and Mahanon can only tell that they’re nearing camp due to the crackling of the campfire growing louder.

A deep murmur rumbles over the sound, and an equally quiet response whispers over Mahanon’s head as the glow of the campfire makes him close his eyes again — the light making his head throb. Fabric shifts nearby, and the hum of the conversation digs its claws into Mahanon and begins dragging him back into sleep. He’s lowered to the ground, a pillow is slid carefully under his head, and a blanket is pulled over him immediately after.

There’s a long pause before a heavy sigh fills the tent, and Mahanon can hear footsteps pad to the other bedroll as he falls asleep.

Chapter Text

Mahanon wakes up with a throat full of glass and a pair of burning, swollen eyes.

The low groan that escapes him makes sure to catch on every jagged edge as it climbs to his mouth, and when Mahanon manages to partially pry open his eyes, they’re already watery. There’s a shuffling sound somewhere in the camp, and the sound of fabric shifting is the only warning Mahanon gets before harsh sunlight leaks into the tent through an opened flap. His arms fly up in front of his face in an attempt to block it with a hiss. The tent is immediately closed back up, but it isn’t quick enough to stop the migraine that Mahanon was trying to ignore from flaring up angrily.

He shifts — propping up on one arm and keeping the other close to his face in case any more light attempts to blind him. Fen’Harel stands in the way of any potential glare — back impossibly straight and one arm held behind it. The other is holding a steaming bowl and the handle of a mug.

“What’s-” The word sounds like it used claws in an attempt to avoid being spoken. Mahanon grimaces and tries to clear his throat — it only makes the sting worse. “What’s that?”

“You sound terrible.” Fen’Harel’s brows furrow as he looks down at Mahanon, and it hurts when Mahanon squints back.

“Thanks,” Mahanon croaks — unable to effectively roll his eyes with their current inflamed state. He considers shooting something back at the god, but his throat feels like it’s on fire, and he’s pretty sure he tastes blood. He settles on glowering at the Dread Wolf instead.

With a huff, Fen’Harel approaches — half tossing the bowl he holds at Mahanon once he’s within reaching distance. The rogue almost drops it, and the Dread Wolf frowns at his fumble. Mahanon looks away from it to inspect his food. It’s some sort of stew — probably rabbit — with a fried egg on top. Fen’Harel pulls a stool close to his bedroll, and Mahanon eyes him warily as he forces his aching body to sit up.

The Dread Wolf raises a brow. “I would assume that the Halla of Tevinter would prefer not to die of asphyxiation due to a swollen throat encountering a poorly chewed potato.”

Mahanon makes a face at him, and Fen’Harel shoves the mug he’s holding into Mahanon’s open hand before he can attempt a smartass comment.

The citizens of Tevinter love anything and everything that can be collected and shown off, so Mahanon has had the chance to experience a lot of types of tea. The one in the mug is a shade of green that he hasn’t seen before, and he’s too stuffed up to smell it properly. A quizzical glance at the Dread Wolf gives him no hints as to what’s in the mug, either; the god just stares at him with a weirdly pitying look.

He finds out why as soon as he takes a sip.

It’s disgusting. Sour and herbaceous and tingly, somehow. His sinuses clear up immediately as he gags, and Fen’Harel nods solemnly as he watches Mahanon struggle. The tea burns like a particularly strong vinegar as it forces itself down into his stomach — attacking the popped blood vessels that formed while he was-

Next to Wisdom. While he was curled up next to Wisdom, who was dead, and had been this whole time.

The sting of the tea begins to subside, and Mahanon scowls when some of the painful throbbing fades with it.

“It is elfroot,” Fen’Harel says, and when Mahanon looks back up at the god, he’s sitting and staring at the cup with a disgusted expression. “I know that it is bitter.”

“It’s fucking vile.” The words are still gravelly, but they’re a little easier to force out.

“On that, we can agree.” Fen’Harel turns his gaze to Mahanon’s eyes, then his throat. “Be that as it may, it is used for alleviating pain and healing minor wounds — both of which you need.”

Embarrassment threatens to flush through him, so Mahanon chugs the tea to drown it. Fen’Harel doesn’t even seem to judge him for it — or for when he gags again immediately after. It takes a second for his stomach to calm down after, but as soon as it settles, he begins to eat the stew.

The Dread Wolf watches him intensely — apparently having been serious when he expressed concerns about Mahanon choking on his breakfast. He wouldn’t say that it isn’t a concern — his throat is still unfortunately almost as swollen as his eyes — but the disgusting tea made some significant improvements. He would probably manage to save himself.

Silence stretches between them as Mahanon eats, and he has to spend an unnecessary amount of effort convincing himself that he isn’t chewing too loudly. After he finishes the bowl, he sets it down on the ground next to him — clearing his throat awkwardly before turning his eyes to the Dread Wolf.

Fen’Harel gives him an assessing look as he stands — violet gaze flicking across his face before the god grimaces.

“You look as if you landed on your face after being thrown from a massive height.”

The livewire is sparked. “And whose fucking fault is that?”

Fen’Harel scowls. “I was going to offer my assistance in fixing your appearance, but I am uncertain now as to if I should bother. You clearly do not want my help.”

“You,” Mahanon deadpans, “want to offer me help?”

“Yes.” Fen’Harel sounds disgusted.

“Why?” Mahanon squints suspiciously at the Dread Wolf. It stings.

“I was,” Fen’Harel clenches his jaw, looking irritated as he continues, “unkind. Last night. You were in mourning — it was an inappropriate time to-”

“Start an argument?”

“If you would call it that,” the Dread Wolf grinds out, and the smugness and bewilderment that flash through Mahanon mix awkwardly — leaving him unbalanced and pissy.

“What the hell would you call it?”

“A disagreement.”

“Right. I forgot you have such a lovely way of phrasing things.” Mahanon eyes the god critically as he also rises to his feet, and Fen’Harel gives him a bland look back. “What’ll it cost me?”

Mahanon is only able to get a glance of Fen’Harel’s unimpressed face. The god moves suddenly and lightning quick, and Mahanon’s sight is taken from him as one large hand presses over his eyes as the other grabs his throat — spinning him and dragging him backwards. With a snarl, Mahanon grabs at the arms in front of him, but his nails aren’t able to break through the leather coat to sink into pale skin.

“What the fuck are you-”

“Calm yourself,” Fen’Harel huffs, shaking Mahanon slightly in his hold. “If I wanted to hurt you, do you truly believe that I would not have done it already?”

“Aren’t you known for playing the long game?” Mahanon snaps back, and a heavy sigh fills the tent.

“No reward is worth putting up with you for this long,” the Dread Wolf mutters, and then the hands holding Mahanon begin to cool as a crisp layer of frost creeps over them. 

It helps — calming the burn enough that Mahanon releases Fen’Harel’s arms. A minute passes, and while Mahanon no longer feels like his eyes and throat are inflamed right up to the point of fatality, he does feel like there’s a hive of bees rioting beneath his skin. A round of shivers claws through his body, and he tries to pull away from the Dread Wolf immediately. The god tightens his hold.

“I understand that you enjoy being dramatic, but this is necessary, and the ice is not that cold.” He sounds sick of Mahanon, and the rogue has to try very hard not to bite the wrist that he knows is directly in front of his face. He bites his tongue instead — trying to prevent another wave of tremors shooting through him. Warm breath puffs over his ear — Fen’Harel having turned his head in an attempt to give both of them space.

It really doesn’t help.

“If somebody made a list of the coldest things you could bitch about, ice would be at the top.”

“Do you know that there are spells capable of creating such freezing temperatures that you would not be able to find them in any naturally occurring weather?” Mahanon hisses as the frost covering the Dread Wolf’s hand drops a few degrees lower. “I am proficient in casting them. Would you like a demonstration?”

“Considering the ‘freezing temperature’ of your personality, I think I’ve had plenty of experience with them,” Mahanon snaps. “Or is that just your natural state? Should I change the list to have ice in second place and your heart in first?”

“Perhaps you bring out the worst in me.” He’s still breathing on Mahanon. “Have you taken time to consider this?”

“By the fucking creators, I hope so. You could not convince me that you somehow get worse than this.” Mahanon fights off a tremor by digging his nails into his own skin, and he does his best not to wince when he accidentally opens the cuts from last night. “How the fuck did Ellana think that you were nice?”

“You and your sister are vastly different individuals.”

“Does your touchiness increase with how much you hate the person? Because Ellana never mentioned it.”

“My touchiness?” Fen’Harel sounds scandalized, and Mahanon scowls.

“Yes; your touchiness.” He jerks around a bit in the Dread Wolf’s hold and motions to the god’s hands when he still doesn’t release him.

“We have not had contact more than ten times.”

“What, are you counting?”

“No, I am not counting. They have just had to happen during such large moments of stupidity that they are able to be tracked.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be good with words?”

Something cracks nearby.

“You expect me to believe that you would have stopped any of your reckless behaviors if I had, what, asked nicely?” The god breathes heavier with irritation, and goosebumps coat Mahanon’s entire body.

“It wouldn’t hurt to try.”

“It is not my fault that your favorite hobbies consist of acting up in ways that lead you to being manhandled."

A throat clears awkwardly from outside of the tent, and Mahanon lets his head fall back to crack against the hollow of the Dread Wolf’s throat dramatically. He can feel the god’s jaw clench where it grazes his forehead.

“Can I come in?” Of course it’s Evelyn. Mahanon has to slap a hand over his mouth to stifle the hysterical laugh that tries to leave him. “I have the clothes that you requested.”

The frost rapidly drops in temperature again, and Fen’Harel pushes his hands more forcefully against Mahanon for a few seconds before removing them entirely. The cold stings across his skin and snaps over his temples and into his hair with a quiet sizzle. The god takes a large step away from him and sends a lethal glare in his direction — as if this is somehow Mahanon’s fault. The rogue sends an equally scorching one back.

“You may,” Fen’Harel eventually responds, and Mahanon swears he can hear Evelyn swear under her breath before a flap of the tent is pulled back again. The sun falls on Mahanon’s face, but the searing pain he was anticipating doesn’t come. His eyes flick to Fen’Harel and find the god watching Evelyn as she awkwardly shuffles into the tent. She’s bright red and back to avoiding eye contact.

“Here.” Her hands shake as she holds out a change of clothes to Mahanon. He takes them quickly, and she stumbles as she backs up — tripping on a pair of boots. His boots.

Mahanon looks down to actually take inventory of himself. His boots are, in fact, missing, and the state of the rest of his clothes leaves a lot to be desired. They’re filthy, for one — covered in dirt and stained green in some places by the grass he crawled through. There are some tears in the fabric, as well, and it looks like the button on his pants has gone missing. He grimaces as he takes a step back.

“Thanks,” he says awkwardly, and Evelyn nods. Her pale eyes flick off of the ground to give him a once-over, and they catch on his broken pants. He doesn’t even want to guess at her assumptions about it.

“Your help is appreciated.” The Dread Wolf’s gratitude is ruined by the way it’s strangled through clenched teeth.

“I’m going to leave now.” Evelyn turns, and Fen’Harel nods. She all but runs back into the camp, and Mahanon sends Fen’Harel a baffled look as he doesn’t follow.

“What, are you planning to watch?”

Evelyn squeaks outside — apparently still within earshot — and Mahanon closes his eyes, holding his head in his hands as he sighs.

“Now who isn’t helping the situation?”

“Is not,” Mahanon snaps. “You don’t say ‘isn’t.’ Don’t talk like me. I’m the only one that uses contractions in this damn tent.”

“How I speak isn’t your concern,” Fen’Harel bites, and Mahanon drags his hands away from his eyes so he can glare at the god. “I spent years with the Inquisition. I suppose I should not be surprised that your ego is large enough to assume that I have picked up pieces of a modern dialect just from forced interaction with you, though. Do you expect me to start speaking with a Tevene accent next?”

“Remind me of how much you’ve interacted with regular people the next time I’m fighting tooth and fucking nail with you about setting up a camp. I’ll probably need a laugh.”

“What are you implying?” Fen’Harel narrows his eyes at him, and Mahanon gives him an unimpressed look.

“I’m implying that for somebody who claims that they aren’t a god, you sure do seem to dismiss the needs of us mere mortals.”

“I am not a god,” the Dread Wolf growls, taking a threatening step towards Mahanon that he doesn’t retreat from. It throws the god off, and his tone is stilted as he continues, “And I do not dismiss-”

“Oh like hell you don’t. We should be setting up camp every night, and we’re lucky if we get one every three days.”

“The Inquisitor went multiple days-”

“Ellana sometimes stretched days between setting up rest points. And she was trying to stop somebody from ending the world. It isn’t like the damn veil is going anywhere.” Mahanon narrows his eyes. “And speaking of ending the world, you know who probably took breaks?”

The room drops to arctic temperatures.

“I am nothing like Corypheus,” the god seethes, and Mahanon crosses his arms with a scowl.

“Are you or are you not trying to tear a giant hole in the veil to completely fuck up the state of our current world to better suit what you think is perfection?”

“I-” Fen’Harel cuts himself off — chest heaving with anger as he glares down at Mahanon. He tries to stand his ground despite the fear trickling down his back — reminded again of the Dread Wolf he faced down a month ago. A day ago.

Stupid.

A fist clenches at the god’s side, and Mahanon eyes it warily. With a snarl, Fen’Harel storms past him and exits the tent. The silence and rise in temperature that follows his departure almost suffocates Mahanon. He stares after the god, mouth dropped open just slightly and brows furrowed. He was expecting another fight. He was ready for another fight. Since when does the Dread Wolf run from arguments? Mahanon was actively going through grief and the damn god felt like starting something — not even twelve hours ago.

No screaming sounds off in the camp — no running footsteps or sounds of fighting, either. Mahanon dresses quickly — leaving his dirty clothes on his bedroll as he walks into the light of what seems to be the middle of the day. Did he sleep in?

Fen’Harel stalks into the closest part of the forest, and Mahanon watches as the bushes he disappeared through shake. Evelyn is sitting off to the side of the camp, and she keeps her gaze firmly on the ground despite the fact that Mahanon knows she can feel him staring at her. The camp is weirdly quiet — seeming to hold its breath in the face of his and Fen’Harel’s spat — and Mahanon drags his hands through his hair with a huff, spinning in a slow circle to take everything in.

Ellanis is in front of him when he stops — arms crossed and a bare brow raised.

“What did you do?”

“Why do you assume that I did something?”

“You always do something.” Ellanis shifts to the side to glance at Evelyn, then snaps his eyes back to Mahanon. “And she is avoiding you.”

Mahanon sighs — resisting the urge to slap a hand over his eyes. “She heard something that she’s taking out of context. Again.”

“I was unaware that you two do that many things that could be misunderstood.”

“We-” There’s a spark of amusement in Ellanis’ eyes, and Mahanon bares his teeth in a sarcastic smile. “Fuck you; we don’t; she has bad timing, and he started a whole fucking revolution that lasted millennia. He clearly has no problem instigating shit.”

Ellanis gives him a flat look. “He made poor decisions.”

Lyrium and regret and shame coat Mahanon’s tongue. “This wouldn’t be the first one.”

“I believe he had intentions of apologizing.”

A sharp laugh escapes him, and Mahanon slaps a hand over his mouth to cut it off. Ellanis looks more unimpressed, somehow. “The Waking Sea is going to fucking dry up before he even so much as considers letting the words ‘I’m sorry’ get anywhere within my vicinity.”

Ellanis frowns, looking to where the Dread Wolf disappeared. “I suppose it was just a close call, then.”

“What was?”

“You two almost began to tolerate each other.”

Mahanon looks to the same treeline and feels vague waves of guilt lick at his fingertips.

“I don’t think he’s capable of that.”

He’s not capable. Not we’re. Ellanis doesn’t call him on it.

“I feel that he may still surprise you.”

Mahanon tears his gaze off of the forest. “I doubt it.”

Ellanis doesn’t say anything when he shoves his way back into the tent.

Chapter Text

Sticks crack loudly behind him, and Mahanon turns to face the bushes that line the clearing at his back — the leaves black in the shadows only midnight can create. A glint of silver flashes through them, and he feels himself relax — tension slipping from his shoulders and his mind quieting.

“I was not certain you would come,” he says, and the sun steps into sight.

Something cold is swimming in her eyes as she responds, “You are the one who walked away. I never turn my back when my friend needs me.”

His magic churns within him — angry and hurt — but devotion suffocates the accusation of lies. His eyes turn to the ground, and Mahanon marvels at the plushness of it somewhere in his hindbrain. His hands clench at his sides — his heart already expecting her doubt.

“The Evanuris seek the magic of the blight.”

Silence reigns between them — as he knew it would. Her gaze is scorching as it searches his face, and he breathes deeply to remain calm. The damage done to the wards he’d placed around the plague still stings — aching like a finger caught in a door or a nail that’s been bent backwards. He swallows thickly as Mythal’s disappointment fills the air.

“Impossible,” she says — as if it’s a fact — and he flinches. “The blight is safely sealed away forever.”

There’s something practiced in his speech now. A carefulness he hadn’t thought necessary when speaking to her when they were spirits; when he was new; when he was hers. Is he no longer? She’s familiar but strange; a guard dog that has begun baring its teeth when those it protects whisper too loudly.

“Though I wish I could believe you,” he says, keeping the shaking of his voice suppressed with centuries of practice, “I have sensed the breaking of the wards.”

Mythal straightens — her pale eyes narrowing before her face falls into a passive expression. Her hands pull behind her to grasp together, and that hindbrain creature flashes brightly with an irritated recognition.

“I will investigate your claims.” Mythal’s crisp tone crushes his lungs, and Mahanon bites his lip against the pressure. “If they forget the danger of the blight, I will endeavor to remind them.”

An animal panic flares in him. If the Evanuris wish to unleash the blight in a pathetic bid at power, very little will be able to change their minds — if anything. They reach for the power of death and corruption, and he doubts they will be peaceful in their attempts. They would kill him for it. They may very well do the same to Mythal if she tries to intervene.

“What if instead you left the Evanuris and remained with me?” He thinks of the Crossroads — of his Lighthouse. Of how he’s carved out rooms just for her to reside in as they battle against the Tyrants that claim to have ascended to godhood.

The ones she’s been passively ruling beside, something hisses to him, that she has accepted the same titles of.

He strangles it.

“Do you not wish for freedom from this struggle?”

Mythal looks at him as if she doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and that smothered part of him screams that she doesn’t. The deaths and the battles for freedom and being twisted — he’s been twisted so far from-

“Be at peace, love,” Mythal murmurs, and his heart feels like it’s beating out of his chest as her magic coats the clearing in an attempt to calm him. Her gaze is heavy as she speaks; her softened expression is too calculated. His mind riots — something is wrong, wrong, wrong, she doesn’t believe you — but he can’t hear it past the thrum of the cool blue surrounding him. “I will stop them.”

“As you must.” His stomach turns, and he feels blood on his hands; on his teeth; beneath his nails; below his skin. “The blight is our mistake.”

My mistake.

Bubbling blisters coat his hands and arms as he stares at the space his dagger had been. Mythal’s body lays limp in the grass behind him — surrounded by crushed pillars and damp grass — and the spot immediately in front of him has been marred black from the fire mine that was worked into the false blade.

The Evanuris knew that he would find her, and his grief made him sloppy enough that he believed in the stupid notion that they had left their murder weapon at the scene of the crime.

He allows the blisters to form — allows some of them to pop — before his own magic coats his body and removes them from his skin. A small blister left a deeper scar than the others — on the inside of his ring finger where it lays against the middle one — and he allows that one to stay as the rest are wiped clean.

He should have never allowed Mythal to confront the Evanuris — not alone. Not about this.

The mark will be a penance for his error — a reminder that avoiding his responsibilities will have fatal consequences.

He will not make that mistake again.

The fade has decided to give up bathing the entire area in a deep emerald tonight; instead opting for a pale green shine that falls over his surroundings like the fire of a torch would when held close to something in the middle of the day. It’s feeling merciful, too — allowing Mahanon to shift the space around him with far more ease than it usually does. He’s been practicing. Most nights since the one Fen’Harel mentioned he might be capable of manipulating spaces in the fade, Mahanon has been attempting to see what changes he can bring about.

He can’t grow or shrink any rooms, but he’s gotten pretty good at bringing about familiar surroundings.

After making sure there are no demons in the area — currently representing a false forest full of evergreens taller than any building in Tevinter — Mahanon breathes deeply and closes his eyes. He pictures the streets of Minrathous — the tall, gothic structures, the black iron fences that line the tops of buildings not equipped with gabled roofs, the low hum of magic that fills the air, and the calm orange glow of the streetlights that line the cobbled roads.

When he opens his eyes, he’s hit with a wave of homesickness so crippling that he’s scared he’ll manage to summon a despair demon. The fade has done what it likes to do; the shine of the streetlamps and the glow he can see in the windows of rooms with fireplaces burn a singular, vibrant green instead of the mixed hues of yellows, oranges, and reds that they should be. It’s raining, as well, despite the lack of clouds in the sky, and while the water makes his surroundings shine, he doesn’t actually get wet.

His face is, though, and he scrubs the tears off of it roughly — wiping his eyes with the back of his hands. He blinks, and the rooftop of the cache he’d raided with Revas materializes completely beneath his feet. Anger crawls up his spine — increased tenfold with the energy of the fade — but Mahanon forces it back down as he vaults over a nearby railing. He takes the five foot drop easily as he lands on a balcony below, and he forgoes the chairs surrounding a small table in favor of sitting on the ground — sliding his legs through the bars of the fence and swinging them lazily.

He leans his face up against the dark iron, and light wind tugs playfully at his hair. It climbs across his arms when he grabs hold of the fence in front of him, and Mahanon grimaces as the pressure reminds him of the fire mine detonating in his hands.

Knife to his throat, he will never even imply that what the Dread Wolf has decided to do is right, but if Mahanon went through all of the shit that the god has, he would also probably want to just go home. It’s a depressing thought, and Mahanon scrunches his nose as the memory of rain that surrounds him shifts into that of a storm.

“That’s a little excessive, don’t you think?” He asks the fade, and the fade, of course, makes pale green lightning crackle across the still clear sky in response. Mahanon nods. “My bad.”

There’s a groan to his right as a nearby balcony is stepped onto, and Mahanon doesn’t bother turning his head. It’ll just disappear before he manages to get a look at it, or he’ll be knocked off of his own balcony and back into the waking world, and that’s always incredibly painful.

The demon — which is still his strongest theory as to what the damned thing is — disappeared for a while, but it’s started showing up sporadically again. It’s a miracle that he actually managed to get through those memories without being interrupted, but pride flares through him briefly with the success. He’s been working mostly on changing the fade spaces that he wanders through at night, but part of the distortion lends itself to concealing his location. It’s become almost a cat and mouse type game — seeing how long it takes for the demon-thing to find him. Clearly, he’s still not very good at hiding.

It hasn’t injured him — barring his getting thrown head-first into a tree, but that seemed to be in response to it almost being spotted. Nothing else bothers him when it’s near, either. It has overall made his exploration of the fade a more pleasant experience, but the way his hair stands on end whenever he hears it kills the vibe just a little bit. Some part of him knows at an instinctual level that he is being followed — hunted, hunted, hunted — by a seemingly apex predator, but Mahanon isn’t actually able to do much about that.

There’s an obviously unspoken agreement that Mahanon can’t look at it, but it doesn’t seem to want to do him any harm. That’s a horrible assumption to make about what is probably a demon, mind you, but Mahanon always makes sure that his magic is coating his teeth whenever the creature is near — ready to snap and bite if it’s necessary to win in a fight against it.

He has a bad feeling that there’s no possibility that he would come out as the victor — even with the precaution. He does his best not to think about it.

“I think I’m getting better at this,” he says to the air in front of him. “What about you?”

There’s no response, of course, but he can hear the balcony creak as the demon shifts its weight. There’s no sound following, but Mahanon is half sure that it just sat down.

“Right. Well, I’m sure you know, but this is Minrathous.” Mahanon motions to the city below him with a hand — letting it fall to his dangling knee after. “It’s not a great place, to be honest, but it’s home. A home. I guess.”

More silence, and Mahanon frowns as his brows furrow.

“Probably not that, either. I don’t know. It’s a responsibility, though, that I’m kind of shirking right now. It’s not really my fault, and I’m pretty sure they think I’m dead. Do you think they’ll forgive me?” Mahanon goes to glance at the possibly-a-demon, and barely catches himself as his head starts to turn. He faces the opposite direction. “When I come back, I mean. And I’m not dead.”

Silence reigns again, obviously, and Mahanon sighs, rubbing his knees and nodding to himself. “Right,” he whispers, and leans back — crossing his arms behind his head as he lays down. The way that the false rain trickles down the sharp roof over him is calming, and he tries to breathe with each wave of wind that gusts over him. The demon shifts its weight again, and Mahanon barely stops his eyes from snapping over to it — cutting himself off by looking at the corner of the window he’s below.

He bites the inside of his cheek, then says simply, “If you’re planning to kill me, you should probably just try it now. I can’t imagine you want to wait for me to get better at moving shit around in here.”

Still nothing. He’s not sure why he expected a response to that one.

“What’s with the whole not looking at you thing? Usually demons are all up in your face. Are you ugly, or something? You can’t be worse than a terror demon — those things are fucking nasty.” Mahanon tilts his head. “That’s probably part of the ‘terror’ vibe, actually.”

He jumps when the demon-creature-whatever makes a sound — at least a good couple of inches — and it takes him a few extra seconds to process what it actually was. He could be going insane, but it might have been something amused — a snort or a huff, maybe. He should’ve been paying more attention, damn it. He has to throw a hand over his eyes to keep himself from snapping his head to the side to gawk at the entity. The word pulses lightly around him, and he hisses a cuss as he sits up — propping himself on one of his arms.

“What are yo-”

He’s cut off as he’s ripped back into consciousness, but the question lingers on his tongue.

Mahanon appreciates the Western Approach as much as one would expect him to.

Which is to say: not at all, and if he could send the damned desert to an unreachable, decaying part of the fade for the rest of the planet’s existence, he would do so happily, rapidly, and with the shittiest fruit basket he could get his hands on.

They’ve only been here a day, and Mahanon is already fed up.

It’s scorching hot when the sun is up and disgustingly cold at night. There’s sand everywhere, and it insists on getting everywhere. He’s thirsty all of the time no matter how much water he drinks and how many spells he uses to stretch it out, and when he grits his teeth, something crunches.

And his feelings are hurt, damn it all.

Mahanon is many things — an asshole, a short fuse, a murderer, a touch starved idiot; none of it is great when you look at that list too hard — but dishonest isn’t one of them. Not that he’s really tried. Up until very recently in his life, he hasn’t had any reason to lie through anything but omission, and there’s only so much time you can spend on your own before you're forced to accept truths about yourself you’d prefer to ignore.

That doesn’t mean that Mahanon doesn’t fight tooth and nail against every single one of them, though.

He made it an entire three weeks before he was forced to cave and accept the uncomfortable fact that the Dread Wolf wasn’t somebody he could kill easily anymore. They weren’t friends — they would never be friends — but Mahanon forgot somewhere along the way that they were enemies; that Fen’Harel wants his old friends back; that the god is just forced to tolerate him because he’s Ellana’s brother, and keeping him alive might help her forgive him after he destroys the world.

He’d stopped threatening Mahanon’s life — at least in a way that truly suggested violence. He didn’t mention knocking him on his ass and dragging him around the continent much after the initial warning. He dealt with Mahanon’s behavior about as well as the rogue dealt with the god’s, and it was fun.

Mahanon had fun irritating the Dread Wolf, and the god had gotten in a few quips back that the rogue can appreciate despite them being at his expense. And they bonded. At least, Mahanon thought they did? He told the god that he was a slave, and the Dread Wolf — with very vague wording — told him that he was a spirit.

He thought that they might’ve been getting somewhere — might’ve started getting along just enough to not make this entire shit show miserable.

He forgot that at the end of the line, they’re on opposite sides of the war that the Dread Wolf started, and if — when — it comes down to a fight, Fen’Harel will kill him.

It’s been bumming him the fuck out. The Dread Wolf hasn’t made any moves or comments to indicate that he’s remembered that their final interaction will likely be a fatal one, but Mahanon’s reminder rides alongside the silent treatment he’s been the receiver of.

He meant the Corypheus comment — every damn word of it — but maybe he should’ve phrased it better; approached it less harshly; had better timing.

A wildfire on a summer day that needed a gentle, drizzling rain.

I believe he had intentions of apologizing.

Bullshit, but Creators, he would’ve if Mahanon was his sister. Everything would be better by now if he was his sister. He never should’ve touched that statue — dragged his ass to that Tevinter town — shown up at that fucking lyrium vein near Nessam. It’s not like he even did anything to help; if anything, he’s just managed to make everything worse. What better way to speed up the end of the world than pissing off the person responsible for it?

When he finally opens his eyes, it’s to the sight of a familiar roof, and Mahanon flings the blanket off of him with a snarl. For six nights now, he’s been camping out in Ellanis’ tent. Trying to camp out in Ellanis’ tent. He manages to drag his sorry ass into it, pass out sleeping straight on the ground — he hasn’t been able to convince the sentinel to let him move his bedroll — and grab one of Ellanis’ spare blankets to fight off the hypothermia that likes lurking around the desert at night.

For the past five nights, it’s been for nothing, because somehow, he finds himself waking up in Fen’Harel’s tent the next morning — piled high with blankets and not nearly as sweaty as he should be.

He’s still pulling on his overshirt when he hops out of the tent, and he sends Ellanis a particularly scathing glare when the man approaches him. “Stop fucking bringing me back.”

The sentinel sends him an unimpressed look and crosses his arms — silently judging as Mahanon rips his boot off to dump out a small pile of sand before putting it back on. He opens his mouth to respond, pauses, tilts his head, then closes it with a hum. It pisses Mahanon off more.

“Nothing to say?” He snaps, then scowls at himself. Ellanis almost looks like he pities him, which is ridiculous, because Mahanon is fine. He’s just hot. And overstimulated. Like everybody else around him.

“Not particularly, no.”

The rest of the camp seems to be in full swing when Mahanon looks around, and that’s disorienting, too. He’s been getting almost too much sleep this last week. Not only have they actually set up camp every night, but he’s been waking up naturally — no freezing cold water or pillows to the face or rudely placed kicks. He mentioned how weird it is to Ellanis once, and the elf just looked at him like he was an idiot, so he hasn’t brought it up again.

He catches sight of the Dread Wolf speaking to one of his agents, and his eyes snap back to Ellanis when the god’s violet pair begin shifting towards him. He feels the weight of the Dread Wolf’s gaze, and Ellanis frowns slightly when he bristles in response.

“The water is cold now.”

“By the fucking Maker!” Mahanon jumps a good three feet to his left, and he’s not able to force his hands all the way back down to his sides when he faces Cole. Something sour twists in his gut, and he wants to cry in the face of another member of the Inquisition being here.

“The mountains are starting to erode. They think the rain has dried up, but a storm is coming. The clouds think that they do not remember how to cry anymore.” Cole’s pale eyes widen beneath the brim of his hat. “I am not here to hurt.”

“You will if you’re with the Dread Wolf,” Mahanon murmurs, narrowing his eyes. His fingers itch for his daggers.

“Yes,” Cole says sagely, nodding. “I help both by not helping either.”

When Mahanon looks back at Ellanis, the sentinel seems quite rudely at peace in the odd boy’s presence.

“We are sharp here, but also there; glowing in both places.” Cole tilts his head. “I’m dimmer now, though. Are you, too?”

“I- don’t know? Should I?” Mahanon asks warily. Goosebumps break out across his skin and something spooked climbs up his back. He does his best to ignore it.

“Yes.” Cole opens his mouth as if to continue, but his eyes snap to a space behind Mahanon. The elf steps stiffly to the side — avoiding contact with the Dread Wolf as he approaches without looking.

“It was great seeing you again, Cole.” Mahanon grimaces as he takes a step back. “Probably. Maybe.”

Cole watches the movement closely, and Mahanon’s stomach turns as his eyes glaze over. “The bed can’t be mine, and she wasn’t supposed to be his, too.”

“Oh, joy,” Mahanaon grumbles, turning around completely. “Great talk, Cole. Let’s try to make it at least another six months before we repeat it.”

“We won’t be friends — can’t be. You hate me. I hate. I must. Remember. Do you, that you’ll kill me?”

His entire body goes cold — air freezing solid in his lungs and dropping to his feet. A burn begins to crawl over his face, and the rock that lodges itself in his throat threatens to choke him. Embarrassment leaks down his neck to his chest, and Mahanon stares at the sand beneath him — unsure as to if he wants it to open up and devour him or solidify so he can run.

“No,” Cole says behind him, sounding panicked. “I made it worse. Let me try again.”

“Fenedhis,” Mahanon hisses and storms off — gathering his magic as if fighting off a desire demon and slamming walls around his mind.

There’s a gasp behind him — it’s gone! — and Mahanon fights back the tears that shame tries to bring forth.

“Cole,” Fen’Harel scolds, and it’s really just the icing on the cake.

Fucking Dread Wolf.

Fucking compassion spirits.

Peace, love.

Welcome, Wisdom.

You have the potential-

Fucking Mythal.

A ragged sound — almost a growl — pulls itself from his chest, and the agents of the Dread Wolf decide that they value their lives and jump out of his way as he stalks to the fire set up in the middle of the camp. Evelyn wordlessly hands him a small pack as he marches past the flames, and he does his best not to feel bad when she flinches as he grabs it. There’s a small crop of jagged rocks out in the distance, and Mahanon makes his way there silently.

It takes him twenty minutes to reach the stones, and it takes him another five to climb the largest one — holding the small sack in his teeth as he does so. He spits out the granules of sand coating his mouth as he opens the bag, and his stomach tightens painfully with hunger when he sees the bread and small pieces of fruit Evelyn collected for him.

He eats slowly — roasting alive just a little bit as he sits in the overbearing desert sun. His skin feels tight as he places the now empty bag next to him, and he grimaces when his hand grabs air where a waterskin should’ve been hung on his vest.

The Western Approach seems almost peaceful as he stares out at it — monochromatic with the exception of dry, green bushes that sway with the winds that sporadically sweep through the area. There’s a fortress out in the distance — completely vacant and made of pale, gray stones. It’s at least a two day trip away, and Mahanon has a feeling that it’s their end destination.

There’s a scratching sound as somebody pulls themselves up onto his rock, and Mahanon hangs his head. “Go away, Ellanis. I’m not in the mood.”

There isn’t a response, and Mahanon closes his eyes, sighing deeply. He starts turning when a voice much smoother than the sentinel’s asks, “May I sit?”

He freezes — half facing where the god stands and leaning his weight on the arm he’d put next to him. Silence stretches between them — uncomfortable, but disorientingly lacking in anger. He can’t find it in himself to provide it. He slides his hand into his lap, turning back around. Fen’Harel makes no sound as he approaches, but Mahanon can see him drop down next to him — graceful like a predator, but much heavier than he’d expected. He’s close enough that Mahanon can feel cold air radiating off of him — replacing what should be the feeling of body heat.

“You are scared of me, still.”

Mahanon snorts — shaking his head. “No, I’m not.”

Fen’Harel turns his head to face him, but Mahanon continues to stare at the red mountains in front of him. “You think that I will kill you.”

“I know that you’re gonna kill me,” Mahanon corrects; confusion and a familiar irritation fill the air.

“I have no plans to-”

“I do,” Mahanon says simply — shrugging when the Dread Wolf freezes. “I like my world. Love it, even with all of it’s stupid fucking flaws. I’ll do whatever it takes to stop you, and you’re gonna have to get through me to complete whatever dumbass plans you’ve made.”

Silence fills the air again. There’s something stressed in Fen’Harel’s tone when he says, “You would thrive in a world without the veil.”

“Maybe.” Mahanon tilts his head — biting the inside of his cheek. He flicks his eyes towards the god, and a burning violet gaze catches his. He looks away again. “I don’t feel like I was doing too badly in this one, though. And I would miss the Inquisition too much.”

“I have plans to mitigate the damage.”

“Sure you do.”

Fen’Harel inhales sharply — looking out into the desert as well. Eventually he says, “Your mind cannot be changed.”

Mahanon laughs, and Fen’Harel nods — letting out an amused huff of his own. The god reaches to his side — revealing a bag of his own. He hands Mahanon a covered cup, and the rogue is pleasantly surprised when he opens it to reveal some stew. “I figured you would still be hungry. Your appetite is ridiculously large.”

The clouds think that they do not remember how to cry anymore.

“Ellanis isn’t the one bringing me back to the tent, is he?”

Fen’Harel says nothing and offers him a waterskin.

Mahanon says nothing and accepts it.

Chapter Text

Ellanis is the first to comment on it.

Mahanon thinks that they may have been up on the rocks for almost half an hour before Fen’Harel stands. His bag — as well as Mahanon’s — gets rolled up tightly and shoved into one of the many pockets of his coat, and Mahanon eyes the god’s offered hand for another full minute before huffing and grabbing it. It’s brief contact as he’s pulled quickly to his feet, but Mahanon has to clench his hand hard enough to leave dents where his nails dig in to get rid of the electric feeling that coats his palm and leaks up his forearm.

Upon their return to camp, Fen’Harel immediately goes into their- his tent, and Mahanon lingers at the edge of the base — pretending that he can’t feel the weight of at least ten pairs of eyes on him. They avert when Ellanis approaches him, but Mahanon knows better than to be grateful when he sees the amusement dancing across Ellanis’ face.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Say whatever smartass comment you’ve been cooking up.”

“I fear that I have been in forced proximity to you for far too long to be able to do that.”

“You could try?”

“But I will not.” Mahanon narrows his eyes, and a corner of Ellanis’ lips turns up. He huffs through his nose — closing his eyes and hanging his head.

“Fine. Hit me with it.”

“I was planning to inform you of my concerns.” Mahanon doesn’t take the bait, but Ellanis continues anyway. “That I feared our party was at risk of not surviving this journey in the face of your divorce. Yours would be the first of the Elvhen people in centuries. I imagine the ramifications of it would be disastrous.”

“Divorce?” Mahanon hisses, and Ellanis tilts his head — eyes flashing playfully.

“The general consensus in the camp is that the term ‘break up’ would be too gentle of a descriptor for the event.”

“What the fuck is wrong with all of you?”

“I believe it would be far easier to create a list of what isn’t. I’m sure the majority of our problematic behaviors have formed due to long term exposure to your personality, though.”

Mahanon would be embarrassed about the noise he makes in response if he wasn’t so offended. “My personality is great, I’ll have you know.”

“Is there another that I have yet to be introduced to?”

“Are you done?”

“I am simply grateful that the fight you’ve been engaging in has finished.” Ellanis squints at him. “It has finished, yes?”

Mahanon glares at the sentinel. He doesn’t even pretend to care about it. “Allegedly.”

“I will take that.” Ellanis grabs his shoulder and shakes him slightly. Goosebumps scatter down his arm and up his neck. “Earnestly, though, I am glad the two of you have settled your differences.”

“As much as we can,” Mahanon mumbles, and Ellanis nods.

“That is all we can ask for, is it not?”

Mahanon sighs — looking at the tent Fen’Harel has disappeared into. “I guess.”

Evelyn is the first to talk about it.

She’s been avoiding him again — and he’s sure that his piss poor attitude recently didn’t do much to convince her to stop — but camp is set up again that night.

Mahanon is sitting on a rock he dragged in front of a campfire that’s been set up at the edge of their camp when Evelyn comes over — sitting gingerly on the ground next to him. She stares into the flames as his eyes flick to her face, and Mahanon allows her to go through whatever struggle she’s dealing with as he turns back to the skewer he’s cooking over the fire. Eventually, she turns to face him, and Mahanon tilts his head in her direction — not quite looking, but letting her know he’s paying attention.

“Thank you,” she starts, and Mahanon pauses — brows furrowing and eyes returning to the pale elf’s face. She tenses slightly with his attention, but breathes deeply and continues. “I’m sorry it started an argument, but it’s been nice to actually rest at the end of the day. And we all appreciate that you got everything done before we made it here. It was already bad in the Dales; I couldn’t imagine how awful it would be to travel through the night now.”

Mahanon narrows his eyes and turns back to the fire so Evelyn doesn’t think it’s aimed at her. I’m sorry it started an argument. The agents must think that the shit show that’s been going on for the last week has been about their travel arrangements.

We should be setting up camp every night, and we’re lucky if we get one every three days.

Huh.

“I would’ve said it sooner — a couple of us thought about trying — but you can be kind of, uh,” Evelyn pauses as she bites the inside of her cheek nervously. “Scary?”

I mean absolutely no offense, but you are quite an, uh, imposing? Figure?

He doesn’t have his face blocked; he doesn’t have his horns up; he isn’t covered in blood. Mahanon turns to face her, mouth dropped open just slightly, head tilted, and brows raised. “I’m scary? You work for the Dread Wolf.”

Evelyn rubs the back of her neck sheepishly. “I know! But, I mean, you two are together, right? And some of us thought maybe it’s just, like, a looks thing. Or maybe your whole-” she motions to her face, and Mahanon wrinkles his nose, “-vallaslin? But you’re in shape, so we figured you could handle your own well enough, but five assassins? Invisible assassins? All on your own — no problem! And you only got cut three times.”

“Two, technically,” Mahanon murmurs, looking down at the pale lines marking his palm. “Two of them were from the same thing.”

“And that’s another thing! You act like it was, like, nothing. Anybody else would’ve been freaked out, or, no, probably dead. But if not dead, scared? And you were just like, ‘whatever!’ That’s scary, Rook.”

“I’m sorry?”

“No. You don’t need to-” Evelyn sighs, holding her face in her hands before pulling them through her hair and looking up at him again. This is probably the most of Evelyn’s personality that Mahanon has gotten to see so far — it’s kind of disorienting. “I’m just happy you’re on our side, you know? And you’re nice, so this is all really dumb. I guess I just never really thought about what you did before all of this.”

I’m just happy you’re on our side.

Mahanon’s stomach rolls violently, and he bites his cheek so hard that it bleeds to keep his face from shuttering in response. How many times did Ellana have to keep him from killing agents of the Dread Wolf when he went on missions with her? He clears his throat before whispering, “Right.”

“What did you do?” Evelyn asks, biting her lip and eyeing him just a little warily. “Were you a mercenary?”

His vallaslin burns; his scars itch; he feels the phantom weight of his daggers in his hands, and an aching pain radiates up his finger where his opal ring should be. His chest crushes just a little bit with loss, and his cloak feels weirdly heavy over his shoulders. There are slaves on ships right now, and he’s stuck in a fucking desert. His mood is — quite ruthlessly — ruined again. Bitterly, he mutters, “You could say that.”

His skewer begins to smoke, and Mahanon pulls it away from the flames quickly. He waves it around a bit to cool it off, and he offers Evelyn the first chunk of salted meat. She takes it carefully and nods at him. As she eats, Mahanon’s fingers hover over his own portion. He was just starving, but the image of Evelyn run through with one of his daggers seems to be burned onto the back of his eyelids — attacking him every time he blinks. It’s twisting his stomach, and he has to breathe deeply through his nose to keep from throwing up.

This is why he always stuck to slavers and cultists. He couldn’t give less of a shit about who they are as people — if they’re kind out of their robes; if they feed the homeless men and women that line the streets of Minrathous; if they have family or friends or lovers that they care about — that care about them. At the end of the day, they’re monsters, and Mahanon can kill monsters. Mahanon likes killing monsters.

He doesn’t know what he’s going to do when the day comes; when he lays his life on the line trying to stop the Dread Wolf. When he has to fight to his death — when Fen’Harel breaks his neck or vaporizes him or stabs him or something; whatever’s quickest, he’s sure. Sarel might leave — and Thelhen would probably leave with them — but Evelyn is devoted to the cause. Ellanis is devoted to the cause.

I’m just happy you’re on our side.

I respect you, and I believe we could have been friends if the circumstances of our meeting and interactions were different.

Your mind-

Fuck.

His head slumps into his hand, and he slides the fingers up to cover his eyes. His chest aches, and he can feel himself shaking. Evelyn frowns and furrows her brows.

“Are you alright?”

“No,” he croaks — honest with the homesickness and dread creeping out of his heart and to the tips of his fingers. He was supposed to leave this all in the fade, damn it — a different kind of demon to fight nightly.

“Shit, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to- ugh!” Evelyn stands — wiping the sand and grease from her hands off on her shorts before she raises them in a surrendering motion. “Can I do anything?”

“No,” Mahanon mutters.

“Fenedhis.” Evelyn looks around the camp — vaguely panicked — and her eyes stick on something on the other side. “Ok, just, hold on. Damn it, Evelyn.”

Mahanon snorts wetly as she leaves — clearly not supposed to have heard that last part — but mortification creeps through him as his fingers dampen. He lays his skewer over his lap and brings his other hand up to his face.

The sound of life is still roaming around in camp as people set up tents and move supplies around. A few agents are laughing by the main fire as they cook dinner, and the quiet murmur of other conversations fills the small clearing they’ve found themselves in. Nobody seems to have  noticed his breakdown, and he’s pathetically grateful for the randomly isolated fire he’s found himself at.

They’re people. Every single one of these damn elves have lives and friends . Somebody was kind enough — observant and caring enough — to isolate a fire pit away from the rest of the camp so Mahanon can avoid getting overwhelmed by the sounds and smells and touches of the agents he’s traveling with.

He hates himself for knowing which of them limp; for knowing where the flaws in their fighting styles are and where their armor is most easily pierced and who would be the smartest — Ellanis — or easiest — a teenager named Arianni — to take out first. He hates himself for knowing how to kill them, and he might hate himself more for not knowing if he could, now.

‘Damn it, Evelyn’ indeed.

Pale hands grab his wrists and tug carefully until Mahanon lifts his head and stares miserably into a pair of violet eyes. The god is on a knee in front of him, and the uncomfortable look on the Dread Wolf’s face worsens when he notices the tears Mahanon has definitely smeared all over his cheeks. Fen’Harel’s eyes flick to the side — as if wanting to turn his head — and a storm begins crackling within them when he murmurs, “What happened?”

Mahanon tries to laugh, but he cuts it off quickly when his body attempts to turn it into a sob. He shakes his head. “Nothing.”

“You-” The Dread Wolf looks baffled as he takes in Mahanon’s current state — mouth hanging open and head tilting to the side just slightly. He pulls his hands back and rests them on the leg he’s propped up on. “You mean to tell me that you are crying over nothing? That I have been pulled out of a meeting for nothing?”

The constant burn in Mahanon chest flares to life. “It’s not like I asked for you to come over here. You wouldn’t have been pulled from your stupid fucking meeting if you’d gotten ahead of this shit like I told you to.”

Fen’Harel rears back as if slapped, and his brows furrow as he opens his mouth to snap back. He pauses before he speaks — eyes narrowing as they roam over Mahanon’s face. “You will not distract me with petty remarks from arguments we have already had.” And then, because the god is incapable of not stooping to where Mahanon drops, “And I doubt that you are capable of thinking critically enough to bring anything new to the conversation.”

“Capable of-” Mahanon scowls at the god. “Will you fuck off?”

Fen’Harel has the gall to look offended. “I was attempting to check in on you.”

“I don’t need you checking in on me!” Mahanon shoves himself to his feet and out of the Dread Wolf’s bubble, and the god rises quickly as well. He sneers up at the ancient elf and barely hears his dinner hit the sand below him. “Nobody is fucking listening, and Ellana isn’t here, so there isn’t anybody here that you need to convince that you care. ”

“What does the Inquisitor have to do with any of this?” Fen’Harel asks, and the way that his face screws up as if he’s genuinely confused pisses Mahanon off.

“You only fucking saved me because of her!” Mahanon spits, throwing his arms out. “You can’t stand not having your cake and eating it too — ending the world and getting your friends back; the ones that would still be alive — so you save me to win Ellana back after you fuck everything up. Am I wrong?”

“I saved you as a favor to the slaves you have freed and to spare people I consider friends the grief of losing somebody they care for.” Fen’Harel doesn’t raise his voice, but the lightning Mahanon had seen in his eyes earlier crashes angrily now within its cage. His back straightens and his arms pull behind him. The fire in Mahanon’s chest swells to match the god’s storm, and the roar of it drowns out the voice shouting at him that this is all unprovoked — that they had just calmed back down.

“And now you’re, what, lugging me around to protect your investment?” He’s becoming hysterical for no reason, but the ache in his chest keeps him from being able to stop. This is too soon after seeing Wisdom, damn it all.

“Is that what you think is happening?” The Dread Wolf snaps — a scowl twisting his face.

“What am I supposed to think?” Mahanon’s voice cracks, and Fen’Harel’s eyes widen. He looks conflicted — confused — and his arms drop back down to his sides.

“I don’t-”

“You’re almost real,” a soft voice monotones, and Mahanon flinches violently as Cole all but materializes next to the Dread Wolf. He forgot the damned spirit-boy was here. “And they’re real — it means that everybody could be and can be and is real. It changes everything, but it can’t. I can’t let it. They’re monsters until they’re not, and they’re shadows becoming more.”

The god somehow pales further. “Cole, this is not a hurt you can-”

Mahanon reddens. “Get out of my fucking head.”

Both elves stare at each other — Mahanon with building horror — as their voices overlap. Mahanon can feel his chest heaving more than he can feel the air inflating his lungs — can feel the weight of the Dread Wolf’s gaze crushing his shoulders and making him wish to be something smaller; something more evasive. The god doesn’t bend under the same scrutiny.

“You hurt the same way — sharp on both ends; heavy in both places. You make it worse when you make it better, and make it better when you make it worse. Make it real — make it true. Why do I care? How does he do that?”

“I’m not fucking doing this,” Mahanon seethes, turning and stalking towards a nearby crop of rocks surrounded by bone dry bushes and leaning, pale trees.

“A room with no light; no, an alley with wet walls; no, a dark roof and black iron; no, dark eyes and red ink; no, mamae’s rabbit stew; no, no, no, no, no. When did I learn to eat? Where is home? I want to go home. I want to go home.”

Mahanon hits the scarce treeline just as Cole finishes, and he lets out a wordless snarl as he shoves his way through thorny bushes.

The clearing is still filled with the sounds of quiet conversations and crackling flames and laughing — Mahanon’s fire having been too far on the outskirts of the camp for their argument to be noticed — but he can still hear it when somebody stalks through the dry brush behind him — can hear small rocks scatter when they turn around the same large stone he’s attempting to disappear behind. He wipes his face as he picks up his pace, but the Elvhen god of rebellion has apparently decided that he’s already had enough of Mahanon’s — unfair, you idiot; he didn’t even do anything this time — tantrum.

Mahanon barely sees the flash of green before the god sweeps in front of him — eyes intense and face pulled into something that’s both sad and determined. He reaches out, and Mahanon can’t flinch back fast enough to avoid the hand that grabs the back of his neck — sliding up to just barely sink into his hair. He’s pulled against the god’s chest, and the Dread Wolf’s other arm comes up to wrap around his back to keep him- trapped? Maybe?

He struggles immediately — thrashing around to the best of his ability — but the god keeps a tight hold on him. It’s only when his chin rests over Mahanon’s head carefully that Mahanon realizes that not only is he crying, he’s being hugged. Something wounded escapes from his chest, and he unsuccessfully shoves the god.

“Fucking- let me go.” He tries to punch the Dread Wolf in the side, but he doesn’t so much as flinch. “I hate you.”

“I am aware.” The jaw over his head clenches. “I am not necessarily your fondest acquaintance, either.”

“So why?” He doesn’t elaborate on what he’s talking about — isn’t even sure himself. Why won’t you let me go? Why are you here? Why are you pretending that this matters? All of them are options, and none of them make sense. He doubts the god would answer anyway — asshole. His magic lashes out, and Fen’Harel’s grips it as tightly as he’s holding the rogue’s body.

“I-” The god breathes deeply, and Mahanon’s body buzzes with the rise and fall of his chest. “It is my fault. And I understand.”

“You understand?” Mahanon bares his teeth and only just manages to stop himself from biting the god — he would just damage the Dread Wolf’s coat, anyway.

“Wanting to go home,” Fen’Harel says quietly, and Mahanon inhales sharply. “I would not wish homesickness on anybody. I regret that I am inflicting it upon you.”

He smells like a forest in early fall, Mahanon registers. Then, I regret.

It saps the fight from his body, and Fen’Harel’s arm drops quickly to his lower back to support his weight when his legs attempt to give out. Nails scrape gently across his scalp, and Mahanon's next breath shakes quietly. He’s almost embarrassingly grateful that the god avoids his ears.

“Did she ever show you?” Fen’Harel asks, then clarifies after Mahanon’s confused silence, “Arlathan. As it is intended to be.”

“No,” he mutters and closes his eyes when grief tries to overwhelm him. He distracts himself by tracking the tremors that rush through him — leaning just slightly into the cloudiness that infects his mind with the way each piece of his body is a point of contact.

Some knowledge isn’t meant to be shared, Mahanon, just known.

“Would you like to see it?”

Mahanon freezes, eyes opening to stare at the dark leather in front of him as his brows pull together. Fen’Harel is warm again — body putting off heat instead of a chill with the temperature of the desert dropping as the sun sets. He isn’t able to look up at the god with his head still pushed up against the bottom of Fen’Harel’s jaw. “How?”

“I am capable of pulling others into my dreams.” Fen’Harel loosens his grip, but doesn’t back away fully until Mahanon stays steady on his feet without the god’s support. His gaze burns as he looks down at Mahanon. “You have been sleeping poorly, and it is impacting your mood — making you more irritable than usual.”

“I can think of a few other reasons,” Mahanon mutters, but the Dread Wolf doesn’t take his bait.

“A calm night of sleep may be beneficial to your attitude.”

Mahanon narrows his eyes at the god. “My attitude?”

“Yes,” Fen’Harel sighs, raising a hand to rub at his eyes.

“I’m not the one with an attitude.”

“We are not talking about me.”

“So you agree that you have one?”

“I never said that,” Fen’Harel retorts, then narrows his eyes. “And that would not negate the fact that yours is worse.”

“There’s no way-”

“Do you wish to see it or not?” Fen’Harel snaps, then grimaces. Mahanon bites the inside of his cheek as he considers the god.

“What’s the catch?”

“There is none,” Fen’Harel almost groans, and Mahanon crosses his arms defensively.

“What do you get from this, then?”

“I-” Fen’Harel cuts himself off — arms twitching as if he was going to cross them before he drags them behind his back and clears his throat. “It has been a long time since I have gotten to tell someone what has truly been lost. None have been bold enough to ask about it.”

Welcome, Wisdom.

Mahanon is baffled at the admission — this whole ‘ending the world’ thing is being done to bring all of the magic and wonder from Arlathan back. He assumed that it would be the only thing the god would talk about.

To who, though? And when? Thinking back the entire last month, Mahanon can’t really think of a time that he’s seen Fen’Harel talk to anybody about anything but plans and missions — barring their arguments, that is.

“When’s the last time anybody has been ‘bold enough’ to ask you anything?” Mahanon asks, and silence is his answer. A small pain flickers in the Dread Wolf’s eyes, and something akin to pity buzzes at Mahanon’s fingertips. No wonder this asshole is so miserable — his only friends are hundreds of miles away at any given moment, and very few people are brave enough to talk to their leader. Ellana had told him about it once — wiping away tears and whispering about how lonely she’d been when her companions were sent out on missions. A similar look shines in Fen’Harel’s eyes.

“Ok, I guess. Yeah. Show me.” Fen’Harel looks wary at his permission — untrusting — so Mahanon forces himself to look into the god’s eyes when he says, “I want to see it.”

He doesn’t know what, but something strong flashes across Fen’Harel’s face before he nods. “Let us return, then. I will see you later tonight.”

The god walks past him — not hesitating or turning when Mahanon doesn’t move as well; confident that Mahanon will follow. He disappears around the large stone Mahanon put between him and the camp, and a stone drops into his stomach as Mahanon stands in the small clearing on his own. Wind rustles the dry trees and bushes around him; sand kicks up into his face and tries to invade his lungs; a pack of hyenas cackle loudly somewhere in the distance; his waterskins hang from his coat, and his magic crackles with the understanding that he could use it to hunt down his own meals.

Damn his compassion, and damn his curiosity.

He heads back to camp.

Chapter Text

Evelyn is sitting at his fire when he finally trudges his way back through the dry treeline he’d stormed off into, and the smile she sends him looks more like an awkward grimace than anything even remotely comforting. She doesn’t run when he approaches, though, which is a significant improvement from last week. There’s a plate on her lap that she offers him when he gets within arm’s reach, and he accepts it with a small nod. On it are new chunks of grilled meat and a small portion of rice. When Mahanon looks down to where his previous dinner should’ve been, the sand has been smoothed over as if nothing had disturbed it to begin with.

“Did I make it worse?” She asks quietly, and Mahanon sits on the rock he’d claimed earlier. “I know you guys just made up. Did I start another argument?”

“No,” Mahanon snorts and takes a small bite from his plate. It’s surprisingly good — seasoned in a way he hadn’t expected it to be so far away from Skyhold. It’s way better than the shitty skewer he was eating earlier — where were they hiding this? “That was all me.”

“I’m sorry for- I don’t know, triggering something, then, I guess.”

Mahanon shakes his head with a grimace. “That was all me, too.”

“I’m glad that he helped,” Evelyn murmurs, tilting her head towards the tent Mahanon assumes Fen’Harel disappeared into — probably to finish up whatever meeting he interrupted. “He did help, right? You blew up, but you seem like you’re doing better than before.”

He thinks of the offer of knowledge nobody has had access to in centuries and of the smell of an evergreen forest; he thinks of the hug, and his mind is still foggy enough that he’s honest — wrinkling his nose and muttering an irritated, “I guess.”

Evelyn eyes him warily before snorting. “It’s good that you’re both so- Creators, what word do I want? Dramatic?”

“Are you calling the Elvhen god of lies, treachery, and rebellion dramatic?” A corner of his lips pulls up into an amused smirk, and Evelyn pales rapidly. “Good for you.”

“I- No! Absolutely not!” She whips her head towards the meeting tent as if expecting Fen’Harel to come barreling out of it with claws and fangs. “Intense, maybe? Yeah. It’s a good thing that you’re both intense.”

“Why?” Mahanon narrows his eyes as he takes another bite of food.

“I don’t think anybody else could handle either one of you.” Mahanon chokes, but it’s silent, so Evelyn carries on with a squint at the fire. “There was a rumor going around before everything started that maybe he was dating the Inquisitor. I always thought it was a little fucked up because it was just like, what, two elves can’t just be friends? And like, now that I’ve actually met him I’m like- I mean, the Inquisitor is nice. Really nice. So nice that she might get it, you know? I know they were friends, so like, maybe she’ll be friends again with him? After everything happens? She’s that nice. I don’t think he would do the same thing. You know, has anybody ever told you that you look like her?”

She finally turns to face him, and Mahanon is almost grateful that he’s red from being suffocated — it counteracts the way the color tries to drain out of his face. He’s saved from responding to her when Ellanis comes swooping in beside him — slamming a heavy hand against his back as if he’s giving Mahanon a friendly pat. It effectively dislodges the food stuck in his throat, and Mahanon takes a heaving breath that has Evelyn looking concerned.

“What is happening over here?” Ellanis asks — yellow eyes narrowed in concern as he stares at the two of them.

“Evelyn called Fen’Harel dramatic,” Mahanon wheezes as he hunches over, and the light blush that dusted Evelyn’s cheeks when Ellanis arrived explodes into a bright red.

“I did not!” She lies through her teeth, and Mahanon sends her a look that’s half pride and half bafflement.

“Did to!”

“I call the night sky black,” Ellanis rumbles, and Evelyn’s blush begins to calm as she stares at the sentinel with wide eyes. He shakes Mahanon by the shoulder, and the electricity shooting through Mahanon from the contact isn’t as strong as he was expecting it to be. “And Rook irritating.”

“I mean-” Evelyn splutters — eyes flicking from the ancient elf in front of her to the tent where the other currently resides, “But he’s-”

“Not fucking smited you where you stand?” Mahanon dips his head between his legs and tries to breathe deeply — still not recovered from his near death experience. “He’s on the opposite side of the damn camp from us. He can’t hear everything.”

The look Ellanis is giving him doesn’t do much to ease his doubt about that, but he decides to ignore it. Evelyn doesn’t notice it, but manages to remain stressed out anyway. “What if he finds out?”

“I’m not a snitch,” Mahanon mutters at the sand below him. Evelyn ignores him completely.

“What would I even do? I can’t fight him- Not that I think he would attack me! Or anything! But I wouldn’t have anywhere to go, and-”

“You were trying to help Rook, were you not?” Mahanon makes a face.

“I mean, yeah.” Evelyn’s voice is shaky as she responds.

“Then you have good reason.” Ellanis’ tone is dry when he continues, “And you are not wrong. I will support you if it comes to an argument.”

“Why the hell don’t you support me?” Mahanon bitches, but when he lifts his head to stare at the sentinel, he’s giving Evelyn an intense look. His fellow rogue is turning a deep shade of cherry red under the taller elf’s gaze, and a hawk-like gleam enters Ellanis’ eyes in response. Mahanon’s brain stops working briefly.

What.

Evelyn — suddenly extremely flustered — turns back to the fire, and Ellanis’ eyes snap to Mahanon immediately. He furrows his brows slightly, glances at Evelyn, returns his gaze to Mahanon, and tilts his head inquisitively. His eyes narrow as Mahanon’s mind takes a second to kick back into gear.

Is he- is he asking Mahanon if he’s interested in her?

Mahanon’s unintentionally disgusted look is answer enough for Ellanis who gives a small nod in response. His eyes stay on Mahanon for a few more moments, then flick to the side as if he’s thinking. When they return, it’s with the gleam of a realization.

Women? The ancient elf mouths with a squint, and Mahanon gives a small shake of his head in return. Yellow eyes snap to the tent Fen’Harel is occupying then back to him, and the back of Mahanon’s neck feels weirdly hot.

No, he mouths back with a grimace, but something in Ellanis’ expression has shifted — seeming to analyze him again with another glance towards the tent. The sentinel hums lowly, and Evelyn turns back to them. The entire thing lasted less than five seconds, but Mahanon is left with the distinct feeling he thinks a bug would get after being pinned to a decorative board.

“You are irritating,” Ellanis says, and Mahanon’s mouth drops in offense. He can track the way Ellanis shifts towards Evelyn and narrows his eyes as he thinks.

“Are you saying that Evelyn isn’t? Because she bullies me a lot.”

“I do not!” Evelyn snaps, and Mahanon sends a sarcastic grin her way.

“She is not,” Ellanis confirms, and Evelyn snaps her mouth shut — becoming impossibly more red. “I would go so far as to say she is pleasant to be around — compared to you, at least.”

The heat radiating off of Evelyn’s face could set fire to the entire camp, and Mahanon decides that now would be a great time to exit the conversation. Something almost appreciative dances in Ellanis’ eyes when he slams his hands on his knees and stands up abruptly.

“The favoritism is insane,” he sniffs. Evelyn looks panicked as Mahanon brushes the sand off of his pants — hands twitching at her sides anxiously as if she wants to grab him and keep him in place. Ellanis tracks the movement silently — tilting his head.

He’s, uh, kind of intense.

“I can tell when I’m not wanted.” Mahanon stands to his full height and stretches with a groan. Evelyn looks about ready to wring his neck as he backs up. “I’ll see you assholes in the morning.”

He walks away quickly and ignores the squeak that Evelyn lets out after he fully turns his back to them.

He doesn’t necessarily want to head to bed this early — the sun having barely set — but there isn’t much else to do now that the only two people he talks to are busy. He would see if he could bother somebody else, but he’s been getting very high doses of the venom that poisons Ellana when her companions are absent.

He isn’t Fen’Harel, but to the god’s agents, he may as well be. Up until that shit show with the Venatori agents, he’d been treated like a weird pet — like some sort of exotic bird with claws you don’t know if they’re capable of using. That is to say: kindly, but from a distance. After finding him in a clearing surrounded by bodies and covered in blood, though, the agents have shoved him up onto levels similar to the Dread Wolf himself.

And he’s definitely not comparable to the Dread Wolf, but they’re not necessarily wrong about him being dangerous. They don’t even know that, though, so Mahanon is lonely and bored for literally no reason.

“I can help,” a gentle voice says, and Mahanon backs away from Cole rapidly with raised hands. The boy frowns in response — pale eyes intense beneath the brim of his hat. “Not like- that. It hurts you when I try to help you like that. I will not try again tonight.”

“Tonight?” Mahanon asks warily, and Cole nods.

“Tonight,” he confirms. He doesn’t seem to understand why that wouldn’t be something Mahanon would like to hear.

He squints at the boy suspiciously. “How?”

“I have this,” Cole says and raises a hand to show that he’s holding a bottle of- something. Alcohol? “It is made by the Iron Bull.”

Definitely alcohol.

“Why didn’t you start with that?” Mahanon mumbles, and Cole brightens when he tilts his head towards Fen’Harel’s tent.

“It is your tent, too,” Cole says gently as they approach, and Mahanon winces. “No, that hurt, too. Is it not?”

“It..” Mahanon trails off, looking up at the top of it as he pulls one of the flaps back. Cole walks in when he motions for the boy to go first. “Technically, it’s his. I don’t even own the bedroll.”

“You own the bag. And the ring.”  Cole starts to look as if he’s somewhere far away again, and Mahanon waves a hand in front of his face. His eyes are wide when they blink at him. “Not tonight.”

“Not tonight,” Mahanon confirms quietly, and Cole hands him the bottle he’s holding. It has maybe a pint of golden liquid in it, and it smells sweet when Mahanon pulls the cork out of the bottle. He’s reminded of a campfire and his sister giggling. Cole looks at him with confusion when Mahanon offers him some.

“It is for you. Why do you want me to take it?”

He’s so new.

It shouldn’t be as big of a realization as it is, but Cole stares at him with wide, pale eyes — confused but so trusting — as he tilts his head, and it rockets the awareness of the fact through Mahanon almost painfully. He’s a spirit — an unfathomably old one if he was capable of possessing a body — but he’s also only just gotten here; only just started living a life outside of the one he had beyond the veil.

“I like to share things that make me happy with others,” Mahanon starts to explain, and understanding flashes through Cole’s eyes.

“You share to share the enjoyment,” he mumbles, nodding. “I would like you to share, I think.”

“Have you drank before?” Mahanon asks, hesitating now to hand off his bottle.

“Yes,” Cole says, and Mahanon squints at him.

“Have you drank alcohol before?” He clarifies, and Cole frowns a little.

“Is there a difference?”

“It-” Mahanon cuts himself off with a sigh, pulling a hand through his hair and the bottle closer to his bottle. “Yes. It impacts how you think. And move. You should have your first drink with somebody you trust.”

“I trust you,” the boy says simply, and Mahanon flinches with the honesty of it.

“We barely even know each other.”

Cole frowns. “Not this way. Why?”

Mahanon’s brows draw together, and Cole tilts his head — the hat stays in place somehow. “I don’t understand,” he says, and Cole nods solemnly.

“I know.” The boy tilts his head the other way — closely resembling a confused mabari pup that Mahanon had stumbled upon once in Minrathous — then he takes a step back and dips it in a small nod. “There are others in the camp that hurt. I can help them, I think.”

“I wasn’t trying to kick you out,” Mahanon says, and Cole nods again.

“Yes. I know.” Pale eyes flick towards the entrance of the tent. “You should rest, though. Solas will be going to bed soon.”

Mahanon is knocked off balance with the use of Fen’Harel’s name — one of his names. His name before he took up the mantle of the Dread Wolf. He’s reminded abruptly that he hasn’t heard the god’s real name since he was taken from the Inquisition — since his memory of it being burned into existence.

It’s weird.

Cole vanishes between one blink and the next, and Mahanon stares at the space the boy had occupied for at least a minute before slowly recorking the bottle in his hand. He wanders over to his bedroll and crouches down next to his pack where it sits against the wall. The bottle is slid carefully into one of the sections made to house a potion, and Mahanon closes the bag back up silently.

Solas. Pride. What a shitty thing to be warped into. What a shitty thing to be named.

He pulls his cloak off and folds it neatly to use as a pillow, and he sheds his shirt to quickly pull on a softer one intended for sleep. He rolls the legs of his pants up just enough to slide out of his boots and shoves his socks into them unceremoniously before crawling into his bedroll and pulling the fur over him.

He hangs in a half asleep state of purgatory for a while — drifting towards sleep then swinging away from it when a flame crackles too harshly; when whispers become too loud. The howling winds of the desert night drop the temperature enough that all that hangs him at the last stage of consciousness are random bouts of shivers and a low-grade anxiety. When he’s pictured Arlathan in its prime, it’s been in snippets of golden arches and a quiet, calming hum. There isn’t much he can conjure of it past that; it’s shocking that he’s even able to come up with anything at all. Wisdom likely let slip just enough for him to picture vague shapes and sounds.

Hanging on the edge of tonight’s dreams feels as if he’s standing on the precipice of something great — something ancient. Hundreds of years have passed since the Elvhen empire fell — dragging memories and history and vital information with it, and here Mahanon is — traumatized, angry, and offered knowledge that the oldest ancestor the Lavellan clan can remember the name of couldn’t have even dreamed of accessing.

The want to learn within him is so strong that it aches, but something self deprecating latches onto it and follows the feeling through his bloodstream. Better elves have killed themselves trying to achieve even an inkling of an understanding of Elvhenan. Entire Dalish clans have been wiped out in the pursuit of that knowledge, and Mahanon is being offered it on a random late-spring night as if it is nothing. As if it isn’t everything his people have been searching for — been trying to uphold — since the fall of Arlathan.

Lonely eyes and a grimace that does nothing to hide them.

None have been bold enough to ask.

Fucking Dread Wolf.

A round of shivers shudders through him, and while Mahanon isn’t awake enough to figure out he should get up and throw his cloak over him as a second blanket, he’s awake enough to scowl and curl in on himself in an attempt to generate more heat. Fabric shifts as somebody quietly enters the tent, and a weight settles gradually over Mahanon like chainmail. Nearly silent footsteps pad over to him carefully, and Mahanon feels something made of a thick fur cover the lower half of his face as it’s draped over him gently.

The footsteps retreat to the other half of the tent, and Mahanon feels himself start warming up as the whisper of fabric moving fills the tent again. It’s calming enough that sleep manages to overtake him.

He hangs around the area. Usually, he likes to wander around while in the fade — finding little buildings or interesting landmarks wherever he’s camped out near —but he doesn’t actually know how Fen’Harel plans to drag him into the god’s dream. He didn’t realize that it was possible; he’s never even met somebody else while in the fade. How does moving a somniari around work?

Mahanon warps the area around him into something calming. He has no real reason to be anxious — Ellana had actually told him about Fen’Harel doing something similar with her once when she was spiraling — but he is. The god seems to have no intention to kill him, but the idea of meeting the Dread Wolf while he sleeps is something he feared for months. It’s hard to just shake off.

He tunes back into the world and finds himself surrounded by lush grass and towering trees. A pond glints off in the distance, and a small group of wisps float into the area — curious about the manipulation. They approach him excitedly — as young spirits tend to do when they get to interact with somebody new — and he holds an arm out calmly with his palm up. The wisps hover around it — one being bold enough to land briefly on his open hand before jumping off to twirl around his shoulders in short bursts of energy.

A second one has decided to swirl lazily around his head, and Mahanon laughs when it drags his hair up into its small electric arms — unable to physically hold anything but manipulating the energy around it to keep a hold of the strands; the beginning of a courage spirit, Mahanon is almost certain. Small now but able to grow into something unfathomably powerful. The wisp spinning around his arm will probably be curiosity, and he would bet that the spirit hovering calmly near his other hand will be hope.

He feeds into the nature and cups his hands as it clearly wants him to; the wisp brightens considerably and rests itself in his palms. He smiles down at it softly, and the last wisp he noticed zips in front of his face to stare at him. He pulls his head back a little in an attempt to make space, but the wisp simply moves with him. His brows furrow as he tries to figure out how to move the spirit without accidentally injuring it, but it flashes twice then shoots off to his right before he has to do anything.

He tracks its path and freezes — eyes locking with a violet pair so intense that he feels pinned to the dirt beneath his feet. He wants to drop his hands — to jerk his head to free his hair and to bat away the spirit circling him excitedly — but he doesn’t, because the wisps have done nothing wrong and don’t deserve to experience something negative to turn them off of their building natures.

The Dread Wolf just watches him for a moment — the weight of his gaze building when the wisps remain as they are; unafraid and encouraged to explore. The strengthening spirit of curiosity flashes inquisitively, and Fen’Harel begins a calm approach towards them. The other wisp crackles like lightning as it bounces around the god, and Mahanon wonders distantly about its future nature as the ones surrounding him don’t allow him to flinch away from the Dread Wolf as he nears. He wonders if the god’s carefulness is for the wisps or for him when he raises his hands placatingly.

He reaches one out slowly, and Mahanon pulls hope closer to his chest instinctively — protective of something both beyond ancient and completely new. Fen’Harel’s eyes soften a whisper off of imperceptibly, and he keeps his hand hanging between them. Hope pulses slowly, and Mahanon hands them over carefully. Fen’Harel watches him as the god’s hand moves back towards his body, and Mahanon watches as his other hand comes up to cup the wisp now in his grasp. It trills lightly — happily — and something squeezes Mahanon’s chest destructively when he looks up at the Dread Wolf’s face.

He murmurs lowly to the wisp in Elvhen so ancient Mahanon has zero chance of being able to translate the words, and it’s quiet — gentle. Barely noticeable crows feet crinkle up next to the god’s eyes, and Mahanon’s breath — weirdly — catches in his chest as Fen’Harel smiles down at the spirit. He feels like he’s watching a gladiator match — an almost failing rebellion — the destruction of an entire city.

Something so powerful and violent that he isn’t able to look away.

Violet eyes flick away from the spirit and find him again, and Mahanon tenses — turning his attention instead to the curious spirit still spinning around him. He sees Fen’Harel stiffen slightly from the corner of his eye, but doesn’t face the god again until he clears his throat — somehow managing to be not awkward despite the weird charge in the air around them. He’s relaxed again when Mahanon looks over.

“I am ready,” he murmurs — clearly not wanting to disturb the peace in the meadow. “If you are?”

When Mahanon clears his throat, it is notably awkward — nervous. Curiosity pushes close to him. “Yeah. Yes. I’m ready.”

“You will need to close your eyes,” Fen’Harel says, and Mahanon’s stomach flips.

“What about them?” He motions towards the wisps, and Fen’Harel’s head tilts in thought.

“They may follow if they wish, but they will probably remain in this area of the fade. It is surprisingly peaceful considering our surroundings.”

“Right.” Mahanon’s tone is stilted, and he flinches at it. The Dread Wolf just watches him curiously. “Ok. Closing my eyes.”

Nothing happens — not to him, at least. He’d been expecting his mind to twist — to be attacked with vertigo or nausea or his stomach dropping to his feet. Instead, the indicator that something has changed is the magic around him — Fen’Harel’s magic. It’s almost overpowering in its intensity — filling the air and coating everything in the surrounding area. It doesn’t go away when Mahanon cracks open his eyes, and it fills his lungs when he takes a sharp breath in.

It’s beautiful — almost beyond words.

Red leafed trees line streets made of white stones — warm balls of magic hover where lamps would now be placed to illuminate the area in a soft golden glow. In the distance, dark mountains topped with undisturbed snow loom peacefully — dotted sporadically with colorful trees and deep green bushes and vibrant flowers. The dirt in the surrounding area is dark against the pale architecture, and Mahanon’s eyes are quickly drawn to the building surrounding him — the one he’s standing in.

They reach heights the properties in Tevinter could only dream of reaching — infinitely large and some of them not even resting on foundations. Those not placed atop gilded understructures hang elegantly in the air — platforms without operators or ropes rising and falling against their sides. They shine gold — their roofs and the detailing on the sides of the buildings made with it. The pale stones that make up the structures reflect light like water would, and Mahanon watches as flashes of magic light them up.

There are people below — images, Mahanon knows; shadows of a memory — that manipulate the fade around them as easily as breathing. It probably is for them. Mahanon can see images of hallas flock around the streets and glowing butterflies appear above a cloaked figure’s hand. A gentle hum sings through the air, and it takes Mahanon a moment to realize that it’s magic — pure, unadulterated magic.

Magic as it’s intended to exist.

It flickers throughout the sky periodically — golden and blue and a shimmering green. It drips in the air that fills Mahanon’s lungs — allowing him to taste the clarity — the raw existence — of his surroundings. Fen’Harel’s magic trails after it, and Mahanon glances over at the god when he realizes he can feel the energy surrounding them flowing over and throughout him — almost emanating from him. Maybe it is.

It’s amazing — perfect, almost; if Mahanon didn’t know that something so atrocious was happening that would lead to the creation of the veil. Something that would lead to this being ripped from the world. Was it happening yet — in this memory Fen’Harel had recreated?

No wonder the god is miserable. This is his home — it feels like home — how could he not want this back after having to breathe in the stale air of modern Thedas?

He’s watching Mahanon closely — carefully — guardedly. There’s a floating pool of water behind him that reflects the way his nails are digging into his palms behind his back.

“It’s amazing,” Mahanon breathes — incapable of being anything but honest about it. Fen’Harel stiffens further — eyes searching Mahanon’s face closely before he relaxes slightly.

“I could-” Fen’Harel’s attention is drawn to a particularly flashy spell below them, and a horrible combination of adoration and devastation flickers across his face. “Do you wish to see more?”

“Yes.” He doesn’t even think before he speaks, and Fen’Harel gives him an intense look before nodding once. His arms fall out from behind his back as he leads Mahanon to the right — through arching double doors with gold detailing. They swing open by themselves when Mahanon approaches, and he spins as they pass through them — watching them close independently as well. Fen’Harel takes them to one of the rising and falling platforms, and Mahanon steps hesitantly onto it despite Fen’Harel’s confidence.

He holds an arm out towards the god as if to support himself when the platform begins to fall, but he snatches it back quickly. Fen’Harel watches him quietly, and Mahanon can feel the hand he places behind the middle of his back to catch him if he falls — the god’s magic leaking out of his skin in a way that lets Mahanon track it. Neither of them mention it, and neither of them speak when they step off of the platform and onto solid ground.

Fen’Harel leads them through twisting streets decorated with bright magic and shining gold — Mahanon trying to take as much in as he can. He’s not sure if he even should — he’s stopping this from coming back; it’s not smart to learn enough to crave it.

The trees are as towering here as they are in the god’s memories — seemingly transferred directly out of the fade and into the earth. Light cracks through their green leaves sporadically to highlight shrubs and other flora as Fen’Harel takes them along a forest path. The hum of magic changes pitches the further they wander into the trees — just as pleasant but deeper than before.

Fen’Harel is wearing a different outfit than he was in the fade — different than the armor he wears during the day. It’s just as elegantly made — Mahanon would hazard a guess that all Elvhen clothing had some element of grace worked into the fabric. It’s still dark in color — made mostly of a black fabric that shines like leather but looks like it feels like silk. White and silver details run across the chest piece and the seams of the pants, and Mahanon thinks that he might see rings adorning the Dread Wolf’s fingers. The jawbone still hangs from a simple cord around the god’s neck.

He looks- good. It makes Mahanon wrinkle his nose and glare at the back of the god’s head.

As if feeling his ire, Fen’Harel turns his head to glance at Mahanon. There’s still a heaviness to his gaze — the intensity from before lingering in the corners and something else filling in the middle.

When he gets back to the Inquisition, Mahanon is making Ellana draw him a ‘Guide to Fen’Harel’s Facial Expressions’ book. With annotations. And color. Maybe with multiple angles.

“This is what I wish to return to the elves,” Fen’Harel murmurs, and Mahanon sighs deeply out of his nose.

“Don’t start another argument.” Please. “I’m really liking this — even if it’s just a ploy to try to recruit me. You know it won’t work; let us just both enjoy this.”

Fen’Harel slows to a stop, and Mahanon does as well. He closes his eyes to collect his thoughts — to prepare for this to all be ruined by a fight because the damned god is a stubborn asshole — and when he opens them, Fen’Harel is much closer than he expected him to be. Where there had been a few feet of space before, there’s now less than one. Fen’Harel towers over him with a conflicted expression, and Mahanon lets out a huff as he readies up for a spat — the livewire in his chest trembling threateningly.

“Rook, I-” Fen’Harel pauses, his brows furrowing. His eyes narrow, and he looks at the ground next to Mahanon. He doesn’t get the chance to ask the god what he’s looking at because the sound reaches him as well.

An ominous crackle surrounds them, and through it, Mahanon can hear the beginnings of a horn. A warning horn.

Fen’Harel’s eyes snap to him, and they are both rocketed out of sleep to the beginning sounds of a fight.

Chapter Text

Mahanon can’t even remember the last time anybody got the jump on him while he was sleeping, but he’s grateful to whoever bastard that was because he’s up and moving before his eyes are even fully open.

His socks and boots have already been tugged on, and he shoves his sleep shirt into his pants to minimize the risk of it getting grabbed. Something harsh and Elvhen spills from Fen’Harel’s lips on the other side of the tent, and the scent of pine overwhelms Mahanon as an illusion spell shatters from where it was held over a chest in the corner of the room. Fen’Harel fade steps to it and rips it open, and Mahanon barely manages to get his hands up before clothes are being thrown at him.

He could identify his armor with his eyes closed — with the light sucked out of the room and with only a second to touch the fabric — and it’s only because of that that he’s able to immediately begin sliding it on. It’s different — feeling almost brand new and re-stained to its original black color — and Mahanon sends Fen'Harel a sharp look as he’s tugging on one of his pauldrons.

“How long have you had this?” He asks as he tightens the pauldron’s buckle before moving onto the next one. His anxiety spikes when a second horn sounds out, and Fen’Harel glances over at him as the god pulls on his breastplate.

“It is none of your concern.”

“None of my-” Mahanon splutters, brows furrowing as he bares his teeth at the Dread Wolf in a scowl. “It’s my shit.”

“This is not the time,” Fen’Harel snaps and tugs on his coat.

“Was there ever going to be a time?” The pauldron’s connect in the back with a looping buckle, and Mahanon struggles to reach it; usually it’s already connected and able to just be slid on, but somebody fucked with his setup.

“No, Rook,” Fen’Harel sneers as he stalks over, and Mahanon doesn’t have enough time to tense up before the god grabs him by the shoulder and spins him around forcefully. He snarls and slaps behind him, but the Dread Wolf avoids his swings easily and grabs him by the straps of his armor to shake him into complacency. “I was wasting space in my lodgings purely to hold over your head information you did not even know you were missing. A display of your immeasurable intelligence was not necessary right now.”

Mahanon swings an elbow backwards, but Fen’Harel finishes the looping buckle in time to grab it and yank him upright. The air shifts behind him, and Mahanon’s cloak is thrown over his head. He connects it to the straps of his armor on his chest and turns to the sight of Fen’Harel scowling down at him — now also wearing a cloak made of thick wolf’s fur.

“Have you been hiding my daggers, too?” He spits the words angrily, but Mahanon’s chest inflates just a little with hope of seeing them again.

“It is only due to your illusion spells that you are able to use this armor. Do you truly believe that the daggers of the Halla of Tevinter would not be identifiable within seconds of being spotted?” Mahanon scowls again because, yes, the god has an unfortunately good point, but he’s so close to having his things back that it aches. This armor — and the set he scrapped after getting his cloak — those daggers, his pack, and his rings are all he’s had to his name. No house, no family, no friends, and no more than three sets of clothes at a time. “Have you fallen on your head recently?”

“Considering how far up my ass you’ve been, I think you would know that better than I would.” Fen’Harel wrinkles his nose, and Mahanon smiles sarcastically at him. “Maybe the head trauma that comes with weeks of getting shoved into hundreds of fucking bushes and hit with tree limbs is finally catching up to me.”

They’re pulled out of their spat by another horn sounding out. There are daggers strapped to the Dread Wolf’s hips, and Mahanon brain lags when they’re ripped from their scabbards and shoved against his chest — does the Dread Wolf know how to fight? Without magic? He doesn’t give himself time to think about it.

Mahanon rolls the daggers around in his hands — over the back of them and back into his palms — to measure their weight, then feels a familiar calm coat over him as he looks back up at Fen’Harel. There’s a sharpness in the god’s gaze that Mahanon doesn’t think he’s actually seen before — similar to the ice he saw their first night together but somehow more frigid. He’s suddenly unsure as to if his life had ever been at risk with the Dread Wolf. Nerves scatter down his back in response, but Fen’Harel moves around him and out of the tent. Mahanon is quick to follow.

Venatori. They’re being attacked by the Venatori.

There’s a ridiculous amount of them, and Mahanon feels something in his chest crack open slightly as he takes in the sight of their small army. Bloodlust begins its steady climb through his veins, and Mahanon has to force his breathing to remain even. The agents who were on watch are steadily letting arrows fly at the cultists, but whenever a barrier breaks, it’s immediately replaced by a new one — the majority of them a vibrant red in color.

“Contain yourself,” Fen’Harel murmurs, and Mahanon squeezes his borrowed daggers so tightly that his hands burn beneath his gloves. His trembling stops. Ellanis appears at his side, and Evelyn crashes over next to him. Mahanon pities their poor timing.

“What the fuck are we going to do?” Evelyn breathes, and Mahanon turns to her with a tilted head and raised brow.

“Fight them?”

“How?”

“With weapons, probably.” Evelyn gives him a scathing look.

“There’s at least a hundred of them!”

“Oh, easily,” Mahanon agrees — nodding — and Ellanis snorts. Evelyn scowls at both of them and almost turns to Fen’Harel for support. She chickens out, but the god saves her anyway.

“I will do my best to prevent harm from falling upon the camp.” Fen’Harel glances at Evelyn, and Mahanon narrows his eyes at the god.

“They’re gonna try to sneak around the back and get our supplies. Are you hiding some sort of duplication spell from the rest of us?”

Silence falls between the four of them as Fen’Harel considers Mahanon carefully, and Mahanon meets his cold stare evenly. Something wild sparks in the Dread Wolf’s gaze, and Mahanon swallows thickly as the god nods.

“I trust that you are able to protect them?”

It takes a second for Mahanon to comprehend that the god is talking to him.

“What, on my own?”

The wild creature is back when Fen’Harel baits him. “What, are you incapable of handling it yourself? I was unaware that you had over exaggerated your abilities to such an extreme-”

“Of course I can fucking handle it.” Hook, line, and sinker. A smirk threatens to flash across the Dread Wolf’s lips, but it’s interrupted by a battle cry sounding out from somewhere within the mass of cultists heading their direction.

Fen’Harel takes a step away — towards the front lines — eyes not leaving Mahanon. “They will be cloaked with invisibility.”

Mahanon snorts. “No shit.”

“I-” the Dread Wolf cuts himself off, looking irritated but amused. “Be safe.”

“Fight well,” Mahanon replies. Evelyn grabs his bicep and drags herself alongside him when he turns and heads towards the storage tent.

“There’s no way we can win this.”

Great. She’s panicking.

“Have some faith. There’s a god on your side.”

“He’s not a god!” Mahanon’s brows raise, and Evelyn gives him a wide eyed look as they approach the tent. More horns sound off around them, and Mahanon grimaces at the sounds. “He says that all the time!”

“Do you worship him?” He asks, and Evelyn lags. He grabs her to keep her moving.

“Um?” She avoids the question, and Mahanon gives her a withering look.

“The answer should be no, but I don’t know how much closer you can get to a god than an incredibly powerful mage that people worship.”

“Do you not?” Evelyn flinches as Venatori warriors let out war cries and begin their charge. Mahanon narrows his eyes at the back of the camp — watching for the barest shift in the sand behind their tents. There’s nothing, so he wrinkles his nose and gives Evelyn a disgusted look.

“Absolutely not.”

“You have his vallaslin, though?” She’s tracking his line of sight, but Mahanon doubts she would be able to notice the changes in their environment that she would need to. He’s only able to do it from an almost decade of needing to keep track of everything around him.

“Yes, which I got when I was young, terrified, and under the assumption that he wasn’t real.” Evelyn’s pale eyes are sad when they return to him, and Mahanon gives her a flat look in return. “Don’t.”

“You still have it, though.”

“I-” Mahanon doesn’t have a good response to that — hasn’t even really put together that he is, in fact, trapped with the only man in the entirety of Thedas who seems to be able to get rid of those pesky little slave marks his people randomly decided to start inking into their skin. “It’s complicated. It’s my mark, not his. I got it for its meaning, not to worship a deity I thought was fake or prone to abandoning his charges.”

Evelyn shuffles in place — looking incredibly conflicted about the whole thing. Mahanon can’t blame her; he’s conflicted about it now, too. Does he want to remove it? Could he even ask Fen’Harel to get rid of it? There hasn’t been any offer, but Mahanon imagines that the god doesn’t want Mahanon wearing his mark as much as Mahanon doesn’t want to have his claim inked into his face. She opens her mouth to say something, but the hair on Mahanon’s arms raises, and he holds up a hand to stop her. She tenses — pulling her bowstring taut as she notches an arrow enchanted with some sort of aquamarine magic.

It’s hard for him to focus with all of the noise polluting the air — horns and spittingly angry spells and screams being cut off abruptly — but something pulls his attention at the very corner of his vision. Mahanon grabs Evelyn’s bow and yanks it towards the shift in the air. Dutifully, she lets the arrow fly.

The power of the concussive shot is increased tenfold by the enchantment worked into the arrow, and the force of its explosion shreds the illusion spell that surrounded the rogues, warriors, and mages that were attempting to sneak up on them. Mahanon takes a deep breath, spins the daggers once more to ground himself with their weight, tunes out Evelyn’s hissed fuck, and throws himself into the fray with wild eyes and a feral grin.

Two of the rogues are downed quickly by arrows that Evelyn lets loose with impressive accuracy, and Mahanon dives over their bodies to slide between the two warriors in the cultists’ group. He cuts a brutal line through the back of one’s knee on his way down, and he’s able to slam the other dagger deep into another rogue’s throat as he comes back up. It glides back out of the cultist easily, and Mahanon doesn’t flinch as his face warms with the blood that splatters across it.

The warrior he injured falls heavily to the sand behind him, and Mahanon doesn’t bother looking back to see the cultist’s pincushioned body. A pillar of flames lights up far to his left as a mage prepares to launch fire his way, but the light cuts quickly as Mahanon lunges for the rogue standing a few feet in front of him — Evelyn dealing with the mage herself. Two arrows fly at him — one sticking itself into his pauldron but another digging into the bottom of his shoulder— but Mahanon descends upon the rogue before they can fire off a third, and they drop with a sharp slice through their neck. Electricity crackles off to his left, and Mahanon hears Evelyn let out a shout as sand kicks towards him — she must be backing up.

He launches one of the Dread Wolf’s daggers in the lightning’s direction, and the mage goes down with a blade through their chest. The creak of a bow sounds off behind him, and Mahanon grabs the rogue’s dead body and drags it in front of him as another arrow flies at him. The body catches this one — and shoves itself against the arrow stuck in him as it does so — and Mahanon watches as Evelyn shoots a clean shot through the archer’s neck.

A battle cry cuts through the noise as another warrior begins a charge from behind him, and time slows as a rogue launches themselves in his direction at the same time. He opts for throwing the rogue's body at his more agile counterpart, and he slides into a roll to avoid the swing of a greatsword. He digs his remaining blade through the wrist of the warrior as he passes, and the blood ripped out of the wound when Mahanon yanks the dagger back coats his teeth.

A blade of ice whizzes past his head as Mahanon jerks to the side, and the mage doesn’t have another chance to attack before Mahanon bodily tackles him. They roll for just a few seconds, but it’s enough for the warrior to get his bearings and heave another swing of his sword towards them. Mahanon yanks his head back in time to avoid decapitation, but the mage isn’t as lucky as he is. The hulking cultist rears back for another blow, but Mahanon manages to throw his dagger through a small opening beneath his helmet when the warrior tilts his head back to aim.

He barely manages to crawl backwards in time to avoid being crushed beneath the weight of the warrior’s body. He’s able to shove the cultist’s head to the side to grab his dagger back, and his attention is pulled back towards Evelyn when a rumbling shout. An arrow has shattered through the remaining warrior’s knee cap, but he continues hobbling towards the lethally unarmored archer. Mahanon hisses as he climbs back to his feet quickly — the arrow lodged into his shoulder tugging at the muscle painfully — and he’s grateful for but incredibly confused about the frozen state of the rogue closest to him.

There’s a tremble in their hands — visible only through the way their daggers shake — and Mahanon narrows his eyes at them. The other rogue in his way to the warrior seems to be equally confused about his companion’s hold up.

“Get him!” His voice is obnoxious — nasally and pretentious sounding even in battle. His counterpart doesn’t listen — instead opting for dropping his daggers and raising his hands. Mahanon can see his eyes through the slit in his hood — locked onto his boots.

“I didn’t sign up for this.”

“What?” Mahanon asks.

“What are you doing?” The other rogue snaps and begins his approach — towards him or the other rogue, Mahanon isn’t sure.

“I knew about Fen’Harel. I had no idea the H-”

The dagger is out of his hand before he can even think about sending it — landing solidly between the man’s eyes and dropping him quickly. His companion lags in response to what he was trying to say — Halla Halla Halla Halla Halla — and Mahanon is quick to step towards him and twist his own dagger up through his jaw. He rips it out and launches it into the exposed back of the last warrior — Evelyn having shot an arrow that dislodged the armor just enough to make a sweet spot — and the cultist hits the sand. The last rogue slumps to the ground with an arrow sent solidly through his chest at the same time.

Mahanon takes his time to look around the bodies and make sure none are moving as he collects his borrowed daggers, and he can feel Evelyn’s eyes on him throughout his search. His shoulder stings with a sharp reminder of his injury, and Mahanon grimaces at the arrow sticking out of him. He grabs it by the base with one hand, and he uses the other to snap it cleanly above his fist — leaving just enough for a medic to be able to work with, but not enough for somebody to shove against or pull out easily.

He hasn’t been given any scabbards of his own, so after Mahanon collects the daggers, he’s stuck just holding them. He turns back towards Evelyn, and his stomach does a painful twist when she flinches. He tries to hold his hands up in a surrendering motion, but he watches blood drip off of his hands into the sand and winces. “I’m on your side?” He tries, and Evelyn lets out a startled laugh.

“You aren’t- even breathing heavy.” Evelyn herself is taking heaving lungfuls of air, and Mahanon suddenly feels self conscious about the very small rise and fall of his chest. He’s able to do this for hours if necessary; a two minute fight isn’t something that’ll take him out — especially with such a small area being covered.

“Sorry?”

“I just- You-” Evelyn drags the hand not holding her bow through her hair — eyes wild as she takes him in. Like she’s seeing him for the first time. “Creators, Rook. What the fuck?”

Mahanon doesn’t know what to say in response to that, so he settles for shrugging and trying not to look too unsettling while covered in blood. His ears are still perked up — listening to the sounds of fighting and trying to sift through them for anything closer than it should be. Past Evelyn is the main battle, and Mahanon can see Fen’Harel standing in the middle of it — tall and proud and with a face twisted into a snarl. His eyes flare up into a violent shade of green, and with a sweep of his hand, an entire row of twenty agents go flying, and another ten turn to stone.

“What the fuck?” Mahanon asks — passionately — and Evelyn tracks his gaze before returning hers to him. She nods empathetically.

“Exactly.”

“I’m not doing that!” His situation isn’t helped when his vision shakes and draws his attention to his right. With a shift and a swift jab upwards, the rogue attempting to sneak up on him crumples lifelessly at his feet.

“You’re doing that, though!” Evelyn hisses, and Mahanon stares down at the body morosely. It’s not that Evelyn’s reaction is something shocking — or new — but it stings coming from her; he usually only gets it from slaves that got a bit too close to him during rebellions.

Creators, how would she be looking at him if he used his magic? Fried all of them to ash while cutting through a handful in less than a minute? He doesn’t want to think about it — thinks it would be too similar of a look to the one she gives the Dread Wolf.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Mahanon can feel a small panic laced into his words, but he can’t shake it. They couldn’t have been friends — they’ll end up enemies — but they could’ve been friendly. They almost were.

“Nothing. I don’t want you to say anything.” Evelyn drags her hand down her face, and Mahanon ignores the small crack forming in his chest. It seals itself slightly when she continues haltingly with, “Just- give me a second. To process all of- that. Fenedhis.”

Mahanon bites the inside of his cheek and lets silence fall between them — keeping his head swiveling for any more ambushes. Evelyn still hasn’t managed to catch her breath, and Mahanon feels simultaneously too big and too small in his skin — different. He hasn’t had to confront it much — never really interacting with slaves and not doing much killing when he was with the Inquisition — but he is. Weirdly powerful; ridiculously angry.

A weapon with poor impulse control, worse emotional regulation skills, and a nigh fucking lethal amount of compassion because he made himself that way.

He could’ve just ran for the hills like the majority of his master’s slaves; could’ve followed Faelor when he tried to vanish; could’ve taken that first almost fatal hit and given up. He didn’t — his bones itched and his needle scars burned and he couldn’t be responsible for not helping he couldn’t — and now he’s here.

Stuck with and failing at hating a god trying to end the world; close to having friends but forced to hold them at arm's length because they’ll turn on each other eventually; covered in blood and unbothered by the taste of iron on his teeth as he’s disappointed that a future regret is rejecting him far quicker than he expected her to.

There’s a thunderous crack as Fen’Harel summons a chain of lightning strong enough to demolish another wave of cultists, and Mahanon feels his face warm as he watches the god twist to throw it the other way — the electricity has to be strong to throw heat all the way over to him. Evelyn watches him warily, then coughs awkwardly.

“How did you guys, uh, meet?”

It’s so out of left field that Mahanon just stares at her for a second — snapping out of his shock when she pales slightly in response to his silent look. He has to step around this whole thing carefully, damn it all. He’s so tired of having to watch how he speaks about the Dread Wolf around other people. He misses Sarel and Liara.

“While I was bleeding out,” he says, and Evelyn’s face twists in some combination of concern and resignation. “I’m not too sure he was happy about saving me, either.”

“Why?”

“I’m annoying.” Evelyn actually snorts at that, and a small weight lifts itself from Mahanon’s chest.

She opens her mouth to respond, but her eyes catch on something behind Mahanon that has her pale rapidly. Her hand shoots to her quiver and she takes aim, and Mahanon ducks and swings to the left — turning around as he does so. Her arrows fly true but bounces off a shield of another party attacking their backlines, and Mahanon breathes out an impassioned cuss as he stares at their new group.