And those who slept, the ancient ones, awoke,
For their dreams had been devoured
By a demon that prowled the Fade
As a wolf hunts a herd of deer.
Taking first the weakest and frailest of hopes,
And when there was nothing left,
Destroying the bright and bold
By subtlety and ambush and cruel arts.
-Canticle of Exaltations 1:7
Cyrus picked his foot up, narrowly missing yet another protruding, twisted root planted in the soft, dark earth beneath their feet. The air carried the scent of something primordial, wet peat and riotously-hued flowers and startlingly-green ferns and underbrush, along with water steeped in minerals. The falls nearby was a constant roar in their ears as it crashed down the cliffside to their left into the lagoon below, throwing a fine mist into the air which was slowly sinking into the fabric of his tunic. Tiny droplets had long dusted their less-porous parts; Astraia in front of him had dozens of glittering pinpricks in her hair where they reflected the sunlight overhead. He could see more of the same on his own eyelashes when he blinked, but trying to stay dry was a futile endeavor at this point.
The stones wedged into the soil beneath them were slick, many swathed in a soft green moss, the jungle's own version of verdigris. The unfamiliar terrain made for slow navigation, and Harellan at the front of the column was clearly not selecting their path based on what was easiest to walk. No doubt this was deliberate, so as to avoid whatever defenses had kept the inner reaches of Arlathan concealed for so long. Cyrus was certain that if he'd still been able to sense it, the magic would have blanketed this place in a way not so different than the mist—he swore he could almost taste it at the back of his tongue.
Making their passage all the more treacherous was a certain kind of inborn hostility in their surroundings, one he did not think he was simply imagining. It seemed to be giving Vesryn and Astraia the most trouble and Harellan the least, but that could be for any number of reasons. Even he, however, felt vaguely... unsettled by the place. It was beautiful, aesthetically, saturated in more colors than he suspected he'd ever again see in one place, each hue as brilliant and rich as the last. Not so different from being in the Between, in that way. But everything felt slightly... off. His balance, so instinctive and well-adjusted under normal circumstances, was something he had to work at here, as if he were again a small boy learning to properly control the way his body moved in the space around him. Distance seemed distorted, harder to judge. Time, too, passed in a way that was difficult to track, and he seemed to hardly grow hungry, however long he walked. That, however, was more normal—for him at least. No doubt to anyone else it was just as uncanny as the rest.
Of yet, signs of civilization had been few. A handful of times, they'd passed what once might have been outlying settlements in the forest, crumbled stone not having quite lost all trace of artifice and craft. But these were few, and never more than a single column or corner, the rest no doubt long reclaimed by the earth beneath their feet.
A handful more times they had to stop, for Vesryn's sake. Cyrus had heard that even his short horse ride with Estella before they left Skyhold hadn't gone all that well, and he'd had an entire voyage's time to deteriorate after that. The trek was proving difficult even for the healthy, even one as experienced in forests as Astraia was. Her home in the far west of Thedas no doubt was very different from this place, and she'd packed likely more supplies than she would need, stuffed into a heavy bag she carried across her back. Likely it was to compensate for Vesryn, who carried little but the clothes on his back, which were damp with a mixture of sweat, and the moisture that the forest provided. Still, he did not complain, and with the frequent aid of Estella's magic, they were able to keep moving forward.
Estella walked behind Harellan but in front of Vesryn, checking back on him frequently and occasionally warning Cyrus and Astraia of upcoming obstacles, if they weren't the sort easily-noticed. Despite the circumstances, the environment around them seemed to inspire in her a perceptible wonder; it was not infrequently that she reached out to trail bare fingers along the bark of a tree, or paused half a moment too long to peer further into the forest, if some animal noise caught her attention. The arbors had only grown larger as they passed time walking; by now many of them were so tall that Cyrus was unable to see where they ended, and thicker around than all of them lined up. She looked as though she could have spent hours exploring were matters not so dire, truthfully, to all appearances unbothered by the humidity curling her flyaway hairs or the mist dampening her shirt. Perhaps she could sense what he was no longer able to.
"Is it much further until we'll see where they live?" She spoke to Harellan, their arrow-sure guide through the wilderness.
Harellan glanced back, then, his face hard to read. As always, however, he managed a smile for Stellulam, one that reached his eyes despite its subtlety. "It won't be too long, now." He didn't elaborate, however, merely returning his attention to the path before them and choosing their route down the steep, slick slope.
They made it down without incident, which might well have been a near thing for Vesryn especially, and from there the trail grew a little easier, though Cyrus found that it was harder to pay attention to the journey itself. Several times, he found himself unable to recall the exact orientation of their path, gripped by an odd sense of vertigo. It felt like he should turn around, for some reason, like he ought not to be here.
"The wards are in effect here." Harellan spoke to the group at large. "The disorientation will pass, but don't stray from the path. It's the only safe one through here."
“Do I want to know what happens if we do?" Cyrus asked the question mostly rhetorically, doubling down his focus on following in Astraia's tracks.
Rhetorical or not, Harellan answered it seriously. "At best you'll wander back out without much recollection of anything you saw. At worst..." He shrugged. "You'll die."
“Charming."
"Someone stop me if I start wandering away, please." Astraia planted her staff in the ground with every step, frequently looking up and down and back up again. Checking her footing often, while also being incapable of ignoring the surroundings. She had a way of gawking as well, a little more blatantly than Estella was, and with something that came closer to intimidation. Everything here made her look very small, from the large pack on her back, to the trees towering over her, to the size of her companions in front of and behind her. Even Estella was several inches taller than her.
"Don't worry, Skygirl," Vesryn reassured her. His breathing was understandably more strained than the rest. He often reached his hands out, but not for wonder or desire to feel the forest. Just plain necessity. "I've got four eyes on you."
He paused briefly, stretching and working out some kind of pain in his back. Something occurred to him, no doubt a feeling that struck him in the particular moment. "She thinks she recognizes this place." He didn't have to specify who she was. "Maybe. Everything's changed. She hasn't been in this forest for... well, a very long time. I wonder what it used to look like."
"Records indicate that it was once..." Harellan paused, as though trying to decide how to explain it. "Before the creation of the Veil, the forest was much more mutable. From the descriptions I've read, it was the same at the base of it, but everything was... more, than it is now, and it was much more easily-shaped. Also, there was no need to hide the settlements within it so thoroughly." When they came upon a fork in the path, he took the left without hesitation. "Of course, there were also many more people, and the environment was a bit less... contentious. Arlathan guards its secrets and its people jealously, now."
"The... creation? Of the Veil? I thought it had always existed." Estella's tone was almost sheepish, as though she were embarrassed for not knowing better than that. "If there wasn't such a thing, then what was the Fade?"
"There wasn't one." Their guide glanced once over his shoulder, as if gauging the reaction of the group. Cyrus had already known this fact, and therefore didn't have much of one, personally. "What people now understand as a second realm apart from the world around us was in fact once integrated with it. They were separated around the time of the fall. It was not the Imperium that brought about the demise of Elvhenan, but that single act, for it destroyed everything we had known." He shook his head slightly as he walked, picking carefully through a cluster of ferns. "The humans were merely an afterthought, a coup de grâce on what was already being strangled by its own hand."
He walked in thoughtful silence for a while after that, before humming slightly. "What you now call the Fade clung as tightly as it could to this place, which was so steeped in it. The Veil is thinnest here of anywhere in the world, which makes the shaping of powerful protective magics possible. It also affects those who live here, in some ways, and allows us to keep some customs of our forebears that are no longer possible in other places. The city is not so different from being in the Between, actually. You will see."
"So that's why it feels like this," Astraia said. She lifted her hand up towards herself, like she was running her fingers through a pool. Feeling something Cyrus no longer could, perhaps. Naturally, the knowledge about the Fade was news to her, and she seemed uncertain how to take it at first. With what Harellan said it had done, the Veil was obviously a bad thing. Responsible for the collapse of the people she belonged to, so many centuries ago. And yet everything she'd ever been taught about being a mage said that great dangers lay on the other side. "Why?" she asked. "Why was it created? Who created it?" She almost sounded like she didn't believe him, but the place she stood in was clearly persuading her otherwise.
"Would you believe me if I told you that the Dread Wolf had done it?" Harellan half-smiled, his expression suggesting he knew how fanciful it sounded to say so. "It was created as both prison and seal. In their vainglory, the Evanuris—what the Dalish today consider their gods—came to quarrel, and he who walked always between this world and the void dreamed up the possibility of dividing creation again, and trapping his kin on the other side in eternal slumber."
Cyrus snorted. “And here I thought I dealt poorly with family feuding." The words came out a bit darker than he intended them, drawing Harellan's sharp green eyes for a moment.
"Yes, well... he didn't get them all. Only the leaders of the great houses. Not that it made much difference. The far more devastating blow was the severing of the worlds. Our people's eternal lives and easy command of magic went with the Fade. Now mages are rare even among elves, dreamers rarer still. That alone nearly destroyed what we had been. Nearly destroyed us all." Harellan shook his head, the tone of his voice betraying an unusual bitterness, almost as if he considered this somehow a personal slight. Of course, he did consider himself particularly tied to that history, so perhaps in a way, it was personal, for him.
Stellulam was clearly stunned by the certainty with which he spoke of it all, or perhaps just the content of the words themselves. It was not every day that one had the existence of gods so casually confirmed, nor one's understanding of history so entirely rewritten. She appeared, indeed, as though she were struggling to believe it. "That's..." She looked to Vesryn, almost as if seeking confirmation of everything Harellan had just said. "Why would anyone do something like that? Collapse a whole civilization?"
"I wish I knew," was his answer, sadly unsatisfying. "It's... I knew the world had been somehow different before, that an event had changed it to what we know now, but I didn't know this either. About the Fade, the Fall, Fen'Harel." There was some extra emphasis on the name spoken, and he took a deep breath, lowering himself to a knee. Not physical pain this time it would seem, but an emotion he felt from Saraya.
"She is... very mad, about what you just said, Harellan." He swallowed, reaching out to place his palm against a rock and steady himself. "At Fen'Harel, I think. She knew this, about the Fade and the Veil, just could never get me to understand, but she didn't know who. Or why. Regardless, I think what he did hurt her greatly."
"Dread Wolf..." Astraia placed her back to a tree, frowning. "Our hahren says he spent centuries alone in a corner of the world after the betrayal, hugging himself and giggling madly." She shook her head. "Always thought it sounded silly. How could anyone be that evil?"
Harellan exhaled a short breath. "Yes, well... I don't think that's quite how it went. The way things were back then—there's little point in idealizing it. That way of doing things had flaws, some of them extreme. Some of which have carried on even in its absence. Perhaps he believed that some things were worth rectifying, whatever the cost. I've never met him to say, of course."
Even as they spoke, the forest had been changing before them. The trees were now ancient behemoths almost to a one, likely the product of thousands of years of growth. At least ages. Sunlight still filtered down to the forest floor, but only dimly, and the mist that hung in the air here drifted in and out of shafts of illumination, occasionally throwing rainbows into the air. The temperature had cooled slightly in the shade, the discomfort of their passage fading away into a sense of stillness so complete it was almost unnatural, as though time itself were reluctant to move here.
Eventually, it became clear that they were no longer alone. In the distance, a solitary figure stood among the ferns, facing towards them. Whoever it was, they were clearly both aware of the party's presence and not making any attempt to conceal their own. Indeed, Harellan steered them towards the person, a young-looking elven man. His features grew more distinct as they approached—short, pale hair, solemn grey-green eyes, frame slender and perhaps only slightly taller than Estella. He was dressed quite well, if plainly, save for the elaborate teardrop swirls embroidered in golden thread on the sleeves of his green tunic, which was long in the front and back but split up the sides for movement, with breeches and boots beneath.
His face unexpectedly bore vallaslin, the tree-branch pattern more elaborate than the Dalish markings of Mythal but nevertheless clearly a designation of the same thing. The ink in which they'd been applied was almost metallic, a gold-tinted viridian, and covered only his brow, leaving the rest of his face bare.
When they drew within range, he placed a hand to his heart and bowed. "Milord," he said quietly, the word rolling off his tongue in the tongue of the People. "It has been some time since we spoke in person. Welcome home." He did not shift into the trade tongue; it was perhaps possible that he didn't even know it. Harellan had mentioned not being familiar with it before he left Arlathan, either.
"A rather bold choice of words." Harellan replied in the same, then half-turned so as to be in profile to both the group he led and the elf he'd led them to. "Everyone, this is Zathrand. Zathrand, may I introduce you to my brother's children? Estella and Cyrus Avenarius, and their compatriots Vesryn Cormyth and Astraia Carrith." He switched fluidly between languages to give each in the tongue its addressee would best understand, obviously suspecting that not everyone's grasp on the elven one was quite masterful.
Cyrus offered a small nod when he was introduced, but before knowing what the valence of all this was going to be, volunteered no more than that. He wasn't foolish enough to believe they would be embraced with open arms here, though this fellow did seem to be on good terms with Harellan, so perhaps his concern was premature.
Zathrand shifted his attention to them, almost before Harellan had actually specified who was whom. It was likely not difficult to guess; despite the obvious predominance of their human lineage, Cyrus and Estella did share mot closely in Harellan's own coloration, and they were obviously the matched pair as far as appearances went. For a moment, he was entirely silent, and then a small smile turned his mouth. "I can see it," he said, clearly intrigued by this fact. "I hadn't expected I'd be able to, but I can. Welcome to Arlathan milord, milady. And to Master Vesryn and Miss Astraia as well."
"Oh, um... you don't have to address us so formally," Estella replied, her words slightly halting over a language she did not often have cause to speak. "I think all of us much prefer our names."
Zathrand tilted his head at her, blinking as though this were a very strange proclamation indeed. "Be that as it may, milady... please forgive my obstinacy, but I must insist."
She didn't quite seem to know what to say to that.
Moving his eyes back to Harellan, Zathrand continued, somewhat less warmly, though that seemed to be a matter of the topic and not the person he was speaking to. "It's Ellas, as you specified. I'm not sure why you think he's your best chance, but I can get you through the barrier to him."
Astraia had noted that some of the words exchanged were indeed a greeting towards her, which she returned well enough with a wordless nod of her own. She was perceptive enough to catch on to the elf's demeanor, very much like a servant, and so hadn't bowed or anything like that. Her eyes often went to the others, however, all seeming to follow the conversation a bit better than she could.
"Uh... my Elvish is a bit spotty. Ir abelas..." There was certainly a bit of embarrassment to the admission, that the one Dalish among them would have the least understanding of her own people's tongue.
Cyrus didn't think there was any reason for her to be embarrassed about it—it wasn't as though the Dalish had more than fragments of their own mother language, after all. Still, he could understand that it would present some difficulties in... whatever they were doing next. “Zathrand is being rather formal. Stellulam pointed out that this wasn't necessary, but he seems to disagree. We're now going to pass some sort of barrier that he can disable for us, and meet with someone named Ellas." He glanced at Harellan, inviting elaboration on the last point with an arched brow.
"Champion of the Suledvhen." Harellan shifted his weight. "That is what we are called. The People Who Endured. Fenesvir Ellas is the... I suppose the closest term in this language is 'general.' He commands the soldiers of the city. He's also the most likely person to grant me entrance, despite the fact that I'm not precisely welcome here." He paused there, to purse his lips and make eye contact with each of them in turn. "From this point onwards... please conduct yourselves with care and respect. The lords of the Suledvhen are proud, and they will be looking for reasons to take offense. They will not welcome you. For the sake of our purpose here, follow my lead, or Zathrand's. And remember that no matter how things may appear, there are no allies to be found in there but us. Not at this juncture."
With those words, he turned, falling in step next to the other elf and leading the rest of them deeper into the jungle.
Cyrus grimaced. “Now there's a pleasant thought."
The stones wedged into the soil beneath them were slick, many swathed in a soft green moss, the jungle's own version of verdigris. The unfamiliar terrain made for slow navigation, and Harellan at the front of the column was clearly not selecting their path based on what was easiest to walk. No doubt this was deliberate, so as to avoid whatever defenses had kept the inner reaches of Arlathan concealed for so long. Cyrus was certain that if he'd still been able to sense it, the magic would have blanketed this place in a way not so different than the mist—he swore he could almost taste it at the back of his tongue.
Making their passage all the more treacherous was a certain kind of inborn hostility in their surroundings, one he did not think he was simply imagining. It seemed to be giving Vesryn and Astraia the most trouble and Harellan the least, but that could be for any number of reasons. Even he, however, felt vaguely... unsettled by the place. It was beautiful, aesthetically, saturated in more colors than he suspected he'd ever again see in one place, each hue as brilliant and rich as the last. Not so different from being in the Between, in that way. But everything felt slightly... off. His balance, so instinctive and well-adjusted under normal circumstances, was something he had to work at here, as if he were again a small boy learning to properly control the way his body moved in the space around him. Distance seemed distorted, harder to judge. Time, too, passed in a way that was difficult to track, and he seemed to hardly grow hungry, however long he walked. That, however, was more normal—for him at least. No doubt to anyone else it was just as uncanny as the rest.
Of yet, signs of civilization had been few. A handful of times, they'd passed what once might have been outlying settlements in the forest, crumbled stone not having quite lost all trace of artifice and craft. But these were few, and never more than a single column or corner, the rest no doubt long reclaimed by the earth beneath their feet.
A handful more times they had to stop, for Vesryn's sake. Cyrus had heard that even his short horse ride with Estella before they left Skyhold hadn't gone all that well, and he'd had an entire voyage's time to deteriorate after that. The trek was proving difficult even for the healthy, even one as experienced in forests as Astraia was. Her home in the far west of Thedas no doubt was very different from this place, and she'd packed likely more supplies than she would need, stuffed into a heavy bag she carried across her back. Likely it was to compensate for Vesryn, who carried little but the clothes on his back, which were damp with a mixture of sweat, and the moisture that the forest provided. Still, he did not complain, and with the frequent aid of Estella's magic, they were able to keep moving forward.
Estella walked behind Harellan but in front of Vesryn, checking back on him frequently and occasionally warning Cyrus and Astraia of upcoming obstacles, if they weren't the sort easily-noticed. Despite the circumstances, the environment around them seemed to inspire in her a perceptible wonder; it was not infrequently that she reached out to trail bare fingers along the bark of a tree, or paused half a moment too long to peer further into the forest, if some animal noise caught her attention. The arbors had only grown larger as they passed time walking; by now many of them were so tall that Cyrus was unable to see where they ended, and thicker around than all of them lined up. She looked as though she could have spent hours exploring were matters not so dire, truthfully, to all appearances unbothered by the humidity curling her flyaway hairs or the mist dampening her shirt. Perhaps she could sense what he was no longer able to.
"Is it much further until we'll see where they live?" She spoke to Harellan, their arrow-sure guide through the wilderness.
Harellan glanced back, then, his face hard to read. As always, however, he managed a smile for Stellulam, one that reached his eyes despite its subtlety. "It won't be too long, now." He didn't elaborate, however, merely returning his attention to the path before them and choosing their route down the steep, slick slope.
They made it down without incident, which might well have been a near thing for Vesryn especially, and from there the trail grew a little easier, though Cyrus found that it was harder to pay attention to the journey itself. Several times, he found himself unable to recall the exact orientation of their path, gripped by an odd sense of vertigo. It felt like he should turn around, for some reason, like he ought not to be here.
"The wards are in effect here." Harellan spoke to the group at large. "The disorientation will pass, but don't stray from the path. It's the only safe one through here."
“Do I want to know what happens if we do?" Cyrus asked the question mostly rhetorically, doubling down his focus on following in Astraia's tracks.
Rhetorical or not, Harellan answered it seriously. "At best you'll wander back out without much recollection of anything you saw. At worst..." He shrugged. "You'll die."
“Charming."
"Someone stop me if I start wandering away, please." Astraia planted her staff in the ground with every step, frequently looking up and down and back up again. Checking her footing often, while also being incapable of ignoring the surroundings. She had a way of gawking as well, a little more blatantly than Estella was, and with something that came closer to intimidation. Everything here made her look very small, from the large pack on her back, to the trees towering over her, to the size of her companions in front of and behind her. Even Estella was several inches taller than her.
"Don't worry, Skygirl," Vesryn reassured her. His breathing was understandably more strained than the rest. He often reached his hands out, but not for wonder or desire to feel the forest. Just plain necessity. "I've got four eyes on you."
He paused briefly, stretching and working out some kind of pain in his back. Something occurred to him, no doubt a feeling that struck him in the particular moment. "She thinks she recognizes this place." He didn't have to specify who she was. "Maybe. Everything's changed. She hasn't been in this forest for... well, a very long time. I wonder what it used to look like."
"Records indicate that it was once..." Harellan paused, as though trying to decide how to explain it. "Before the creation of the Veil, the forest was much more mutable. From the descriptions I've read, it was the same at the base of it, but everything was... more, than it is now, and it was much more easily-shaped. Also, there was no need to hide the settlements within it so thoroughly." When they came upon a fork in the path, he took the left without hesitation. "Of course, there were also many more people, and the environment was a bit less... contentious. Arlathan guards its secrets and its people jealously, now."
"The... creation? Of the Veil? I thought it had always existed." Estella's tone was almost sheepish, as though she were embarrassed for not knowing better than that. "If there wasn't such a thing, then what was the Fade?"
"There wasn't one." Their guide glanced once over his shoulder, as if gauging the reaction of the group. Cyrus had already known this fact, and therefore didn't have much of one, personally. "What people now understand as a second realm apart from the world around us was in fact once integrated with it. They were separated around the time of the fall. It was not the Imperium that brought about the demise of Elvhenan, but that single act, for it destroyed everything we had known." He shook his head slightly as he walked, picking carefully through a cluster of ferns. "The humans were merely an afterthought, a coup de grâce on what was already being strangled by its own hand."
He walked in thoughtful silence for a while after that, before humming slightly. "What you now call the Fade clung as tightly as it could to this place, which was so steeped in it. The Veil is thinnest here of anywhere in the world, which makes the shaping of powerful protective magics possible. It also affects those who live here, in some ways, and allows us to keep some customs of our forebears that are no longer possible in other places. The city is not so different from being in the Between, actually. You will see."
"So that's why it feels like this," Astraia said. She lifted her hand up towards herself, like she was running her fingers through a pool. Feeling something Cyrus no longer could, perhaps. Naturally, the knowledge about the Fade was news to her, and she seemed uncertain how to take it at first. With what Harellan said it had done, the Veil was obviously a bad thing. Responsible for the collapse of the people she belonged to, so many centuries ago. And yet everything she'd ever been taught about being a mage said that great dangers lay on the other side. "Why?" she asked. "Why was it created? Who created it?" She almost sounded like she didn't believe him, but the place she stood in was clearly persuading her otherwise.
"Would you believe me if I told you that the Dread Wolf had done it?" Harellan half-smiled, his expression suggesting he knew how fanciful it sounded to say so. "It was created as both prison and seal. In their vainglory, the Evanuris—what the Dalish today consider their gods—came to quarrel, and he who walked always between this world and the void dreamed up the possibility of dividing creation again, and trapping his kin on the other side in eternal slumber."
Cyrus snorted. “And here I thought I dealt poorly with family feuding." The words came out a bit darker than he intended them, drawing Harellan's sharp green eyes for a moment.
"Yes, well... he didn't get them all. Only the leaders of the great houses. Not that it made much difference. The far more devastating blow was the severing of the worlds. Our people's eternal lives and easy command of magic went with the Fade. Now mages are rare even among elves, dreamers rarer still. That alone nearly destroyed what we had been. Nearly destroyed us all." Harellan shook his head, the tone of his voice betraying an unusual bitterness, almost as if he considered this somehow a personal slight. Of course, he did consider himself particularly tied to that history, so perhaps in a way, it was personal, for him.
Stellulam was clearly stunned by the certainty with which he spoke of it all, or perhaps just the content of the words themselves. It was not every day that one had the existence of gods so casually confirmed, nor one's understanding of history so entirely rewritten. She appeared, indeed, as though she were struggling to believe it. "That's..." She looked to Vesryn, almost as if seeking confirmation of everything Harellan had just said. "Why would anyone do something like that? Collapse a whole civilization?"
"I wish I knew," was his answer, sadly unsatisfying. "It's... I knew the world had been somehow different before, that an event had changed it to what we know now, but I didn't know this either. About the Fade, the Fall, Fen'Harel." There was some extra emphasis on the name spoken, and he took a deep breath, lowering himself to a knee. Not physical pain this time it would seem, but an emotion he felt from Saraya.
"She is... very mad, about what you just said, Harellan." He swallowed, reaching out to place his palm against a rock and steady himself. "At Fen'Harel, I think. She knew this, about the Fade and the Veil, just could never get me to understand, but she didn't know who. Or why. Regardless, I think what he did hurt her greatly."
"Dread Wolf..." Astraia placed her back to a tree, frowning. "Our hahren says he spent centuries alone in a corner of the world after the betrayal, hugging himself and giggling madly." She shook her head. "Always thought it sounded silly. How could anyone be that evil?"
Harellan exhaled a short breath. "Yes, well... I don't think that's quite how it went. The way things were back then—there's little point in idealizing it. That way of doing things had flaws, some of them extreme. Some of which have carried on even in its absence. Perhaps he believed that some things were worth rectifying, whatever the cost. I've never met him to say, of course."
Even as they spoke, the forest had been changing before them. The trees were now ancient behemoths almost to a one, likely the product of thousands of years of growth. At least ages. Sunlight still filtered down to the forest floor, but only dimly, and the mist that hung in the air here drifted in and out of shafts of illumination, occasionally throwing rainbows into the air. The temperature had cooled slightly in the shade, the discomfort of their passage fading away into a sense of stillness so complete it was almost unnatural, as though time itself were reluctant to move here.
Eventually, it became clear that they were no longer alone. In the distance, a solitary figure stood among the ferns, facing towards them. Whoever it was, they were clearly both aware of the party's presence and not making any attempt to conceal their own. Indeed, Harellan steered them towards the person, a young-looking elven man. His features grew more distinct as they approached—short, pale hair, solemn grey-green eyes, frame slender and perhaps only slightly taller than Estella. He was dressed quite well, if plainly, save for the elaborate teardrop swirls embroidered in golden thread on the sleeves of his green tunic, which was long in the front and back but split up the sides for movement, with breeches and boots beneath.
His face unexpectedly bore vallaslin, the tree-branch pattern more elaborate than the Dalish markings of Mythal but nevertheless clearly a designation of the same thing. The ink in which they'd been applied was almost metallic, a gold-tinted viridian, and covered only his brow, leaving the rest of his face bare.
When they drew within range, he placed a hand to his heart and bowed. "Milord," he said quietly, the word rolling off his tongue in the tongue of the People. "It has been some time since we spoke in person. Welcome home." He did not shift into the trade tongue; it was perhaps possible that he didn't even know it. Harellan had mentioned not being familiar with it before he left Arlathan, either.
"A rather bold choice of words." Harellan replied in the same, then half-turned so as to be in profile to both the group he led and the elf he'd led them to. "Everyone, this is Zathrand. Zathrand, may I introduce you to my brother's children? Estella and Cyrus Avenarius, and their compatriots Vesryn Cormyth and Astraia Carrith." He switched fluidly between languages to give each in the tongue its addressee would best understand, obviously suspecting that not everyone's grasp on the elven one was quite masterful.
Cyrus offered a small nod when he was introduced, but before knowing what the valence of all this was going to be, volunteered no more than that. He wasn't foolish enough to believe they would be embraced with open arms here, though this fellow did seem to be on good terms with Harellan, so perhaps his concern was premature.
Zathrand shifted his attention to them, almost before Harellan had actually specified who was whom. It was likely not difficult to guess; despite the obvious predominance of their human lineage, Cyrus and Estella did share mot closely in Harellan's own coloration, and they were obviously the matched pair as far as appearances went. For a moment, he was entirely silent, and then a small smile turned his mouth. "I can see it," he said, clearly intrigued by this fact. "I hadn't expected I'd be able to, but I can. Welcome to Arlathan milord, milady. And to Master Vesryn and Miss Astraia as well."
"Oh, um... you don't have to address us so formally," Estella replied, her words slightly halting over a language she did not often have cause to speak. "I think all of us much prefer our names."
Zathrand tilted his head at her, blinking as though this were a very strange proclamation indeed. "Be that as it may, milady... please forgive my obstinacy, but I must insist."
She didn't quite seem to know what to say to that.
Moving his eyes back to Harellan, Zathrand continued, somewhat less warmly, though that seemed to be a matter of the topic and not the person he was speaking to. "It's Ellas, as you specified. I'm not sure why you think he's your best chance, but I can get you through the barrier to him."
Astraia had noted that some of the words exchanged were indeed a greeting towards her, which she returned well enough with a wordless nod of her own. She was perceptive enough to catch on to the elf's demeanor, very much like a servant, and so hadn't bowed or anything like that. Her eyes often went to the others, however, all seeming to follow the conversation a bit better than she could.
"Uh... my Elvish is a bit spotty. Ir abelas..." There was certainly a bit of embarrassment to the admission, that the one Dalish among them would have the least understanding of her own people's tongue.
Cyrus didn't think there was any reason for her to be embarrassed about it—it wasn't as though the Dalish had more than fragments of their own mother language, after all. Still, he could understand that it would present some difficulties in... whatever they were doing next. “Zathrand is being rather formal. Stellulam pointed out that this wasn't necessary, but he seems to disagree. We're now going to pass some sort of barrier that he can disable for us, and meet with someone named Ellas." He glanced at Harellan, inviting elaboration on the last point with an arched brow.
"Champion of the Suledvhen." Harellan shifted his weight. "That is what we are called. The People Who Endured. Fenesvir Ellas is the... I suppose the closest term in this language is 'general.' He commands the soldiers of the city. He's also the most likely person to grant me entrance, despite the fact that I'm not precisely welcome here." He paused there, to purse his lips and make eye contact with each of them in turn. "From this point onwards... please conduct yourselves with care and respect. The lords of the Suledvhen are proud, and they will be looking for reasons to take offense. They will not welcome you. For the sake of our purpose here, follow my lead, or Zathrand's. And remember that no matter how things may appear, there are no allies to be found in there but us. Not at this juncture."
With those words, he turned, falling in step next to the other elf and leading the rest of them deeper into the jungle.
Cyrus grimaced. “Now there's a pleasant thought."