The wait was proving to be agony. Literally.
Vesryn was realizing how much he had come to rely on Stel's magic to keep him on his feet. With her gone, buried in a catacomb by these people she wanted to see as some kind of distant family, Vesryn was left to fend for himself, and it was not going well. It was only the second day of her three and he was having trouble standing. Astraia had given up her staff for him to use as a walking stick, and he needed it to get around, when he did end up going somewhere. For the most part he kept to himself.
Saraya did not demand to be revealed to these elves, and he could understand why. What would happen? What would they think? Would they bow before him, and by extension her, since these were the only elves left in Thedas that really came even a little close to how their ancestors lived, how Saraya lived? Would they think he was lying, or mad, or insulting them? Some of them seemed the type to look for slights where they didn't exist, and when they looked at him in his current condition, perhaps they would simply see a sickly elf from a human city, slowly dying from the condition of being what he was.
And besides, from what he could tell, even these elves were a mere shadow of what came before them. No immortals, no one that Saraya recognized, no one she desperately wanted to see or have him speak with. There was a deep sadness there, to find this place still so intact, and yet so decayed in other ways. At this point, she wanted what Vesryn wanted: for the pain to end, for their bond to be secure, and for Stel to be alive and well at the end of it. Then they could leave, and return to their task of stopping Corypheus.
"Is there anything I can do?" Astraia asked, sitting cross-legged on the bed provided for her. He'd watched her sleep undisturbed the night before, wondering what that must be like. He'd just about forgotten. "You've been just... stuck wincing ever since the sun came up."
"I'm alright, Astraia. Thank you." He wasn't, not really. He wouldn't be until Stel came back, for a number of reasons. But there wasn't anything Astraia could do, and he knew that troubled her.
A soft knock heralded the arrival of visitors. “It's me." The voice belonged to Cyrus; even through the door he sounded weary, not in the same way as Vesryn was, though surely part of it had the same source. The door slid open, and he stepped inside, closing it over behind him. “We've been summoned. The lady of the house wants to see us." His eyes narrowed slightly, a displeased downturn pulling at his mouth. “Harellan's waiting in the hallway." He paused, hesitating for a moment, before clearing his throat and making eye contact with Vesryn. “Do you, ah... need any help?"
"I can help," Astraia offered quickly, pushing to her feet and getting off the bed. Vesryn thought to protest, but she clearly wanted to, so he didn't stop her.
"Let's go see what she has to say, then." He gave Astraia his arm, forcing a little smile and getting to his feet. Their way forward was going to be slow, but at least with the help he was stable.
Harellan gave them all a short nod when they stepped out into the hallway. His expression was a little drawn; he displayed it less openly than Cyrus did, but it would seem that he was not completely at ease here, either. The hallway he led them through was narrow compared to anything at Skyhold, just large enough for single file in both directions. They passed by a number of busy-looking people as they went, some with marked faces and other without. All the vallaslin here were Mythal's; one or two of them blinked in what might have been confusion at Astraia as they passed.
The majority of them stared openly at Cyrus instead, but none of them spoke. Perhaps they'd been instructed not to. He seemed to grow uncomfortable with it rather quickly, a muscle in his jaw ticking after the fifth such silent encounter, but he didn't say anything, either.
"For the record, she's properly addressed as 'my lady' or 'Your Eminence.' Our titles are just as absurd as anyone else's." He led the way up a winding staircase at a careful pace, though even that didn't change the fact that their destination was several levels up. When they landed, he proceeded directly to the end of a long corridor, where a door already sat open.
"Asvhalla." Harellan broke his own rules of address, leaning in slightly to see her, no doubt. "They're here."
"Please come in." Though affixed with a courtesy, the utterance was nevertheless a command, given by someone who was quite accustomed to being heeded.
The inside of the room revealed it to be a richly-appointed study, though in an entirely different style than anything Vesryn had heretofore seen. The shelves were recessed into the walls, the wood of which had been immaculately polished to a shine. Asvhalla's desk seemed to grow out of the floor, a miniaturized tree trunk supporting a smooth green-veined stone tabletop. Other pieces were a little more conventional, like the chairs she gestured for them to sit at. A tea tray had already been brought in, some kind of unfamiliar spicy scent wafting from the side of the room near the window.
The woman herself was garbed in a somewhat more relaxed fashion than she had been before, or at least a less official one, robes of deep green cut to her knees and accompanied by leggings, with leaf-patterned boots on her feet. She wasted little time taking a chair herself, as soon as the rest of them were as settled as they were going to get. "I do apologize for the trek; it seems that some of your number are not in the best of health." It was clear that she meant Vesryn in particular; she didn't make any effort to disguise the curiosity in her gaze. Probably wondering why anyone in less-than-ideal condition had come this far with the rest of them.
The chair came as an immense relief, as Vesryn's legs had been shaking visibly. Like he remembered of his wizened old grandfather in the Denerim Alienage before he passed. He felt like his bones were made of glass, likely to shatter if any wrong moves were made. He handed the staff back to Astraia, who settled into a chair next to him, clearly unsure how exactly she wanted to arrange her hands and legs.
Vesryn suspected that Asvhalla had already figured out why Stel had come, and that she was simply being polite. They were all oddities to these people, their group, but Vesryn's attachment to it wasn't too hard to guess. He lacked the race and likeness to be family of hers, as Cyrus plainly was, and Harellan as well, and his interactions with Stel when compared to Astraia's were a clear separation between friend and something more. Besides that, he was obviously in poor condition, but it wasn't obvious why.
"I imagine you've already guessed our reason for being here, my lady," he said, his voice unusually quiet for him. "Though I'd be surprised if you could guess the specifics. We're all hoping there might be a secret here that could set to rights the rather unique affliction I have." Truly, finding the right words to explain this never did get easier, but he imagined she would want more details than that, so he tried.
"I believe I would've had my own right to enter this place, my lady, if Estella did not use the more obvious family connection." Perhaps he was too harsh on emphasizing the obviousness of it. He pushed it from his mind and continued. "When I was younger, I encountered an ancient ruin far to the south, in Ferelden, my home country. There, through an accident of magic, I acquired the consciousness of an ancient and important elven woman. She is known as Saraya. She lived in the time before the Fall."
Asvhalla, who had poured tea for the group while he spoke, sat back in her chair slightly when he was done, her cup raised to her lips. Taking the small moment necessary to swallow the first sip, she crossed one leg over the other and brought the cup down to rest on the arm of the chair. She moved her eyes to Harellan, arching a brow silently—a clear request for confirmation.
"He's telling the truth. I've my suspicions about what this consciousness was doing in such a place to begin with, but as of yet no evidence to confirm any of it." Harellan rested his own teacup on his knee. "Communication with her is difficult, and all of it requires Vesryn's mediation. As you might expect, the architecture of such a coexistence was always vulnerable, and various circumstances have destabilized it, resulting in the physical symptoms you can no doubt infer as well as a few others."
"Interesting." Clearly, the result of this revelation was not deference. In fact, Asvhalla didn't give much away in terms of reaction at all, maintaining a thoughtful silence at first. "Ferelden... that would have been the Brecilian, then. I believe there were records of some of them being there, yes. It's something we know used to be done, for a particular reason, though I'm not sure what that is. Perhaps the information is somewhere within Vir Dirthara." She hummed, regarding Vesryn with a measuring sort of look.
"So she's here for you. I'd wondered; she didn't seem the sort to want much of us for any of the sorts of reasons I could imagine otherwise." Another short silence, and then: "I don't want to sound grateful for your suffering, but I admit I had never thought to see my son again, nor to meet my grandchildren. I'm sure this all seems so unnecessary to you, but we have guarded these secrets for so long. Even if we could find others like your Saraya, so much is gone that it would be little use. In some ways we are as proud and worthy as we ever were. But the world around us has changed so much—the pieces of it that we have preserved are precious."
"I'm not the only reason she's here, my lady," he corrected, gently. Not that he felt capable of raising his voice any more than that. "Certainly I'm the reason we're here now, but... I'm sure Estella hopes she can fill a gap that has been missing in her life. She's always had Cyrus, but... never any parents. Grandparents. Things everyone should have." In all likelihood this place would never be able to fill that gap for her, not truly. Her parents were both gone already, and even if this place came to allow her, how would it ever accept her? A half-human bastard child, they saw her as. How many of them would only ever see the human side, and believe that because of it, she was entirely unworthy of their attention?
"As for Saraya... I've collected little of her past. For her own reasons, she is reluctant to share. But I do know that she was a general, a commander of a great many elves. She lived before the fall of Arlathan, and I have to assume that she lived after it, too. I also have no knowledge of what led to her ending up in her current state. But through her, I learned a great deal of the old ways, though I'm hardly capable of replicating them."
He held up his hands, palms facing her. "I'm no mage, sadly. We've speculated for some time if that would help my case. I imagine it couldn't hurt, but sadly there isn't any way to make me one."
"Indeed," she replied, with a small nod. She didn't seem to pity his lack of magic, but it was apparent that she agreed it was a hindrance, either in general or in his circumstances in particular—it was impossible to say which.
She must have been satisfied by his answers, at least for the moment, because her attention moved next to Astraia. Offering her a small smile, Asvhalla used a free hand to gesture to her own face. "I'd heard that vallaslin mean something different outside of this place. Would you mind telling me how you came to have yours? I know only the most general things about the Dalish, myself, and I've never met one before you."
The look of surprise on Astraia's face was almost enough to pull a sympathetic laugh from Vesryn. He knew her well enough to know how she was feeling: absolutely horrified that she of all Dalish was the first of her people that Asvhalla would meet. An accidental representative of her people. She reached up to touch her cheek, but her self-consciousness partly faded when Asvhalla asked for her to explain about herself rather than simply misunderstanding.
"Every Dalish wears them when they become an adult," she explained. "Uh, Your Eminence. I received mine when I was eighteen. Some clans do it differently, or require the youth to pass a trial, but my clan, the Thremael of Tirashan Forest, just require meditation on the gods and our ways, and a purification of the body and skin. Then the Keeper of the clan applies the blood writing. We choose designs of our favored god. Well, except Fen'Harel of course, there are no designs for him."
Asvhalla set her teacup back down on the table, folding her hands together just beneath her chin. "I don't suppose there would be. Fen'Harel was not the sort of person that ever kept slaves. Quite the iconoclast, that one, and quite solitary, for the most part." Her smile grew, until it was something almost wistful. For just a moment, her eyes flickered to Harellan, but then she sighed, almost wry. "I suppose it would make sense that the Dalish practice is as you describe. In the great exodus after the fall, the ones who ventured furthest from the cities had marked faces. And they were signs of devotion, of a sort. Just... perhaps a different one than your people have come to believe."
She lifted her shoulders. "Those who made their way back here after the city was sunk managed to hold onto more, but the price for that is that we've long held onto nearly everything, the good and bad alike."
Astraia was clearly hung up on something Asvhalla had said, though she waited patiently and listened carefully to the rest. "You speak of Fen'Harel like you knew him, Your Eminence." She shifted uncomfortably, perhaps regretting the word choice, but pressed on. "I... learned of what he did, with the Veil, from Harellan. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, though. My people thought the gods were the Creators. Of everything."
Pursing her lips, Asvhalla sighed. "The Evanuris were often referred to as Creators, for their ability to shape the world around them. But they did not make that world from nothing, as I'm told the humans believe their Maker did." She spoke slowly, either because she was trying to make sure she got the words right in the trade tongue or because she wasn't sure how Astraia would take the news. "They lived in a sense very apart from most of their subjects, but rather than gods, the analogue would be... emperors?" She lingered over the word, perhaps not finding it to her satisfaction.
"More than emperors. Less than gods in the sense you mean. And like anyone else, they had friends, and lovers, and enemies." She paused. "And children, to whom their personal effects were bequeathed, family stories passed down through the generations from parent to heir, a preservation of those lineages." She lowered her hands gracefully to her lap. "We are humbled by circumstance, but we have endured. I know of Fen'Harel the person because my ancestors knew, because the progenitor of my lineage was the Dread Wolf's closest friend."
“That explains the wolf statues." Cyrus seemed to be taking this with far less surprise than Astraia. It was possible he'd already known some or all of it, given all the time he'd spent with Harellan. “Every single site affiliated with Mythal has them, at least that I've seen."
"So it is." Harellan's agreement was subdued; his gaze had lowered pensively to his cup. "So we are."
Vesryn realized that he should've known this, in a sense. In his studies, Saraya had always regarded the Evanuris as gods. Revered them as such. All elves would have, if they were as powerful as they were written to be. But now remembered how he'd felt when he first laid eyes on the symbol of Mythal that Harellan wore when he arrived at Skyhold, the symbol everywhere in this house. If she was a general, she answered to someone still. Her army served someone's purposes. And judging by the way he felt now, at the news that Asvhalla was directly descended from Mythal, the woman revered as a god since before the time of humans arriving in Thedas...
"I... feel that if Saraya could, she would bow to you, swear her services to you and your family, my lady. I'm quite confident now that it was Mythal herself she commanded an army for." For whatever reason, she didn't wish for Vesryn to do the same, and so he felt no irresistible urge to slide from his chair and onto a knee. He looked to his right. "You alright, Skygirl?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm..." she hesitated, clearly thinking hard about something. She didn't seem distraught, though, which was promising. Then again, Vesryn had known her never to be a very religious sort, in the Dalish sense. Always treated the stories as just stories. Picked Ghilan'nain as her goddess because she was fond of halla and the relatively simplistic design of the vallaslin. "Thank you for telling me. This is... thank you, Your Eminence." She did seem disturbed about something, but chose not to voice it here.
"Not at all," Asvhalla replied softly. She seemed to be picking up on the fact that something was bothering Astraia, without quite knowing what it was and being much too polite to ask. "I'm sorry if it was... sudden. I wasn't sure how much you knew." Her brows furrowed, deepening the lines in her face; she let the silence sit for a while before turning last of all to Cyrus.
At first, all she did was study him, as though trying to memorize his face. Unlike before, she wore a vaguely-lost expression on her own, almost speaking several times but never quite managing it. "Harellan has spoken much of you." In the end, those were the words she chose, her tone soft, but cautious. "Syrillion. It sounds like exactly the sort of name Mahvir would have chosen for his son."
“Am I his son?" Cyrus for his part stared right back at her, countenance unreadable for once. “How many here would ever acknowledge me? Whatever Stellulam does or does not prove, we are not his children. Not to anyone here."
Harellan coughed slightly, an ironic smile just barely turning his mouth. "And yet I've never met anyone more like him than you." He shrugged in Asvhalla's general direction. "I told you, didn't I? If you were expecting warmth, you're much better served speaking to Eliana."
“Which is not her name."
For a moment, Asvhalla wore an expression of undisguised surprise. Given who she'd just professed to be, it was pretty unlikely that anyone ever spoke to her in quite so direct and coarse a manner, but though she frowned, she did not appear to take offense. "I suppose you are right. The truth is, there isn't a place for you here. Not as things are. It's fortunate that she made her intentions clear: a single visit to the Archive we could foreseeably allow. But your birthright will never truly be yours to claim." She closed her eyes and expelled a breath.
"In a different world... well, it's a shame. But never mind. Your paths brought you here, for however short a moment, and I shall count myself fortunate that I have seen the faces of my heir's heirs. Any of us would be misguided to ask for more than that." She stood, smoothing down the front of her robes. Clearly, this was a dismissal, and they were all meant to do the same.
"In a day, we will know what to do next. In the meantime, the city is open to you—the others will respect your status as guests. You need have no fear among us, at least. Until next we speak, farewell."
"Thank you, my lady." Vesryn didn't imagine he'd be able to make much use of the free reign around the city, but he certainly would encourage Astraia to use it. By the looks of things, she needed some time and space to think.
Vesryn was realizing how much he had come to rely on Stel's magic to keep him on his feet. With her gone, buried in a catacomb by these people she wanted to see as some kind of distant family, Vesryn was left to fend for himself, and it was not going well. It was only the second day of her three and he was having trouble standing. Astraia had given up her staff for him to use as a walking stick, and he needed it to get around, when he did end up going somewhere. For the most part he kept to himself.
Saraya did not demand to be revealed to these elves, and he could understand why. What would happen? What would they think? Would they bow before him, and by extension her, since these were the only elves left in Thedas that really came even a little close to how their ancestors lived, how Saraya lived? Would they think he was lying, or mad, or insulting them? Some of them seemed the type to look for slights where they didn't exist, and when they looked at him in his current condition, perhaps they would simply see a sickly elf from a human city, slowly dying from the condition of being what he was.
And besides, from what he could tell, even these elves were a mere shadow of what came before them. No immortals, no one that Saraya recognized, no one she desperately wanted to see or have him speak with. There was a deep sadness there, to find this place still so intact, and yet so decayed in other ways. At this point, she wanted what Vesryn wanted: for the pain to end, for their bond to be secure, and for Stel to be alive and well at the end of it. Then they could leave, and return to their task of stopping Corypheus.
"Is there anything I can do?" Astraia asked, sitting cross-legged on the bed provided for her. He'd watched her sleep undisturbed the night before, wondering what that must be like. He'd just about forgotten. "You've been just... stuck wincing ever since the sun came up."
"I'm alright, Astraia. Thank you." He wasn't, not really. He wouldn't be until Stel came back, for a number of reasons. But there wasn't anything Astraia could do, and he knew that troubled her.
A soft knock heralded the arrival of visitors. “It's me." The voice belonged to Cyrus; even through the door he sounded weary, not in the same way as Vesryn was, though surely part of it had the same source. The door slid open, and he stepped inside, closing it over behind him. “We've been summoned. The lady of the house wants to see us." His eyes narrowed slightly, a displeased downturn pulling at his mouth. “Harellan's waiting in the hallway." He paused, hesitating for a moment, before clearing his throat and making eye contact with Vesryn. “Do you, ah... need any help?"
"I can help," Astraia offered quickly, pushing to her feet and getting off the bed. Vesryn thought to protest, but she clearly wanted to, so he didn't stop her.
"Let's go see what she has to say, then." He gave Astraia his arm, forcing a little smile and getting to his feet. Their way forward was going to be slow, but at least with the help he was stable.
Harellan gave them all a short nod when they stepped out into the hallway. His expression was a little drawn; he displayed it less openly than Cyrus did, but it would seem that he was not completely at ease here, either. The hallway he led them through was narrow compared to anything at Skyhold, just large enough for single file in both directions. They passed by a number of busy-looking people as they went, some with marked faces and other without. All the vallaslin here were Mythal's; one or two of them blinked in what might have been confusion at Astraia as they passed.
The majority of them stared openly at Cyrus instead, but none of them spoke. Perhaps they'd been instructed not to. He seemed to grow uncomfortable with it rather quickly, a muscle in his jaw ticking after the fifth such silent encounter, but he didn't say anything, either.
"For the record, she's properly addressed as 'my lady' or 'Your Eminence.' Our titles are just as absurd as anyone else's." He led the way up a winding staircase at a careful pace, though even that didn't change the fact that their destination was several levels up. When they landed, he proceeded directly to the end of a long corridor, where a door already sat open.
"Asvhalla." Harellan broke his own rules of address, leaning in slightly to see her, no doubt. "They're here."
"Please come in." Though affixed with a courtesy, the utterance was nevertheless a command, given by someone who was quite accustomed to being heeded.
The inside of the room revealed it to be a richly-appointed study, though in an entirely different style than anything Vesryn had heretofore seen. The shelves were recessed into the walls, the wood of which had been immaculately polished to a shine. Asvhalla's desk seemed to grow out of the floor, a miniaturized tree trunk supporting a smooth green-veined stone tabletop. Other pieces were a little more conventional, like the chairs she gestured for them to sit at. A tea tray had already been brought in, some kind of unfamiliar spicy scent wafting from the side of the room near the window.
The woman herself was garbed in a somewhat more relaxed fashion than she had been before, or at least a less official one, robes of deep green cut to her knees and accompanied by leggings, with leaf-patterned boots on her feet. She wasted little time taking a chair herself, as soon as the rest of them were as settled as they were going to get. "I do apologize for the trek; it seems that some of your number are not in the best of health." It was clear that she meant Vesryn in particular; she didn't make any effort to disguise the curiosity in her gaze. Probably wondering why anyone in less-than-ideal condition had come this far with the rest of them.
The chair came as an immense relief, as Vesryn's legs had been shaking visibly. Like he remembered of his wizened old grandfather in the Denerim Alienage before he passed. He felt like his bones were made of glass, likely to shatter if any wrong moves were made. He handed the staff back to Astraia, who settled into a chair next to him, clearly unsure how exactly she wanted to arrange her hands and legs.
Vesryn suspected that Asvhalla had already figured out why Stel had come, and that she was simply being polite. They were all oddities to these people, their group, but Vesryn's attachment to it wasn't too hard to guess. He lacked the race and likeness to be family of hers, as Cyrus plainly was, and Harellan as well, and his interactions with Stel when compared to Astraia's were a clear separation between friend and something more. Besides that, he was obviously in poor condition, but it wasn't obvious why.
"I imagine you've already guessed our reason for being here, my lady," he said, his voice unusually quiet for him. "Though I'd be surprised if you could guess the specifics. We're all hoping there might be a secret here that could set to rights the rather unique affliction I have." Truly, finding the right words to explain this never did get easier, but he imagined she would want more details than that, so he tried.
"I believe I would've had my own right to enter this place, my lady, if Estella did not use the more obvious family connection." Perhaps he was too harsh on emphasizing the obviousness of it. He pushed it from his mind and continued. "When I was younger, I encountered an ancient ruin far to the south, in Ferelden, my home country. There, through an accident of magic, I acquired the consciousness of an ancient and important elven woman. She is known as Saraya. She lived in the time before the Fall."
Asvhalla, who had poured tea for the group while he spoke, sat back in her chair slightly when he was done, her cup raised to her lips. Taking the small moment necessary to swallow the first sip, she crossed one leg over the other and brought the cup down to rest on the arm of the chair. She moved her eyes to Harellan, arching a brow silently—a clear request for confirmation.
"He's telling the truth. I've my suspicions about what this consciousness was doing in such a place to begin with, but as of yet no evidence to confirm any of it." Harellan rested his own teacup on his knee. "Communication with her is difficult, and all of it requires Vesryn's mediation. As you might expect, the architecture of such a coexistence was always vulnerable, and various circumstances have destabilized it, resulting in the physical symptoms you can no doubt infer as well as a few others."
"Interesting." Clearly, the result of this revelation was not deference. In fact, Asvhalla didn't give much away in terms of reaction at all, maintaining a thoughtful silence at first. "Ferelden... that would have been the Brecilian, then. I believe there were records of some of them being there, yes. It's something we know used to be done, for a particular reason, though I'm not sure what that is. Perhaps the information is somewhere within Vir Dirthara." She hummed, regarding Vesryn with a measuring sort of look.
"So she's here for you. I'd wondered; she didn't seem the sort to want much of us for any of the sorts of reasons I could imagine otherwise." Another short silence, and then: "I don't want to sound grateful for your suffering, but I admit I had never thought to see my son again, nor to meet my grandchildren. I'm sure this all seems so unnecessary to you, but we have guarded these secrets for so long. Even if we could find others like your Saraya, so much is gone that it would be little use. In some ways we are as proud and worthy as we ever were. But the world around us has changed so much—the pieces of it that we have preserved are precious."
"I'm not the only reason she's here, my lady," he corrected, gently. Not that he felt capable of raising his voice any more than that. "Certainly I'm the reason we're here now, but... I'm sure Estella hopes she can fill a gap that has been missing in her life. She's always had Cyrus, but... never any parents. Grandparents. Things everyone should have." In all likelihood this place would never be able to fill that gap for her, not truly. Her parents were both gone already, and even if this place came to allow her, how would it ever accept her? A half-human bastard child, they saw her as. How many of them would only ever see the human side, and believe that because of it, she was entirely unworthy of their attention?
"As for Saraya... I've collected little of her past. For her own reasons, she is reluctant to share. But I do know that she was a general, a commander of a great many elves. She lived before the fall of Arlathan, and I have to assume that she lived after it, too. I also have no knowledge of what led to her ending up in her current state. But through her, I learned a great deal of the old ways, though I'm hardly capable of replicating them."
He held up his hands, palms facing her. "I'm no mage, sadly. We've speculated for some time if that would help my case. I imagine it couldn't hurt, but sadly there isn't any way to make me one."
"Indeed," she replied, with a small nod. She didn't seem to pity his lack of magic, but it was apparent that she agreed it was a hindrance, either in general or in his circumstances in particular—it was impossible to say which.
She must have been satisfied by his answers, at least for the moment, because her attention moved next to Astraia. Offering her a small smile, Asvhalla used a free hand to gesture to her own face. "I'd heard that vallaslin mean something different outside of this place. Would you mind telling me how you came to have yours? I know only the most general things about the Dalish, myself, and I've never met one before you."
The look of surprise on Astraia's face was almost enough to pull a sympathetic laugh from Vesryn. He knew her well enough to know how she was feeling: absolutely horrified that she of all Dalish was the first of her people that Asvhalla would meet. An accidental representative of her people. She reached up to touch her cheek, but her self-consciousness partly faded when Asvhalla asked for her to explain about herself rather than simply misunderstanding.
"Every Dalish wears them when they become an adult," she explained. "Uh, Your Eminence. I received mine when I was eighteen. Some clans do it differently, or require the youth to pass a trial, but my clan, the Thremael of Tirashan Forest, just require meditation on the gods and our ways, and a purification of the body and skin. Then the Keeper of the clan applies the blood writing. We choose designs of our favored god. Well, except Fen'Harel of course, there are no designs for him."
Asvhalla set her teacup back down on the table, folding her hands together just beneath her chin. "I don't suppose there would be. Fen'Harel was not the sort of person that ever kept slaves. Quite the iconoclast, that one, and quite solitary, for the most part." Her smile grew, until it was something almost wistful. For just a moment, her eyes flickered to Harellan, but then she sighed, almost wry. "I suppose it would make sense that the Dalish practice is as you describe. In the great exodus after the fall, the ones who ventured furthest from the cities had marked faces. And they were signs of devotion, of a sort. Just... perhaps a different one than your people have come to believe."
She lifted her shoulders. "Those who made their way back here after the city was sunk managed to hold onto more, but the price for that is that we've long held onto nearly everything, the good and bad alike."
Astraia was clearly hung up on something Asvhalla had said, though she waited patiently and listened carefully to the rest. "You speak of Fen'Harel like you knew him, Your Eminence." She shifted uncomfortably, perhaps regretting the word choice, but pressed on. "I... learned of what he did, with the Veil, from Harellan. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, though. My people thought the gods were the Creators. Of everything."
Pursing her lips, Asvhalla sighed. "The Evanuris were often referred to as Creators, for their ability to shape the world around them. But they did not make that world from nothing, as I'm told the humans believe their Maker did." She spoke slowly, either because she was trying to make sure she got the words right in the trade tongue or because she wasn't sure how Astraia would take the news. "They lived in a sense very apart from most of their subjects, but rather than gods, the analogue would be... emperors?" She lingered over the word, perhaps not finding it to her satisfaction.
"More than emperors. Less than gods in the sense you mean. And like anyone else, they had friends, and lovers, and enemies." She paused. "And children, to whom their personal effects were bequeathed, family stories passed down through the generations from parent to heir, a preservation of those lineages." She lowered her hands gracefully to her lap. "We are humbled by circumstance, but we have endured. I know of Fen'Harel the person because my ancestors knew, because the progenitor of my lineage was the Dread Wolf's closest friend."
“That explains the wolf statues." Cyrus seemed to be taking this with far less surprise than Astraia. It was possible he'd already known some or all of it, given all the time he'd spent with Harellan. “Every single site affiliated with Mythal has them, at least that I've seen."
"So it is." Harellan's agreement was subdued; his gaze had lowered pensively to his cup. "So we are."
Vesryn realized that he should've known this, in a sense. In his studies, Saraya had always regarded the Evanuris as gods. Revered them as such. All elves would have, if they were as powerful as they were written to be. But now remembered how he'd felt when he first laid eyes on the symbol of Mythal that Harellan wore when he arrived at Skyhold, the symbol everywhere in this house. If she was a general, she answered to someone still. Her army served someone's purposes. And judging by the way he felt now, at the news that Asvhalla was directly descended from Mythal, the woman revered as a god since before the time of humans arriving in Thedas...
"I... feel that if Saraya could, she would bow to you, swear her services to you and your family, my lady. I'm quite confident now that it was Mythal herself she commanded an army for." For whatever reason, she didn't wish for Vesryn to do the same, and so he felt no irresistible urge to slide from his chair and onto a knee. He looked to his right. "You alright, Skygirl?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm..." she hesitated, clearly thinking hard about something. She didn't seem distraught, though, which was promising. Then again, Vesryn had known her never to be a very religious sort, in the Dalish sense. Always treated the stories as just stories. Picked Ghilan'nain as her goddess because she was fond of halla and the relatively simplistic design of the vallaslin. "Thank you for telling me. This is... thank you, Your Eminence." She did seem disturbed about something, but chose not to voice it here.
"Not at all," Asvhalla replied softly. She seemed to be picking up on the fact that something was bothering Astraia, without quite knowing what it was and being much too polite to ask. "I'm sorry if it was... sudden. I wasn't sure how much you knew." Her brows furrowed, deepening the lines in her face; she let the silence sit for a while before turning last of all to Cyrus.
At first, all she did was study him, as though trying to memorize his face. Unlike before, she wore a vaguely-lost expression on her own, almost speaking several times but never quite managing it. "Harellan has spoken much of you." In the end, those were the words she chose, her tone soft, but cautious. "Syrillion. It sounds like exactly the sort of name Mahvir would have chosen for his son."
“Am I his son?" Cyrus for his part stared right back at her, countenance unreadable for once. “How many here would ever acknowledge me? Whatever Stellulam does or does not prove, we are not his children. Not to anyone here."
Harellan coughed slightly, an ironic smile just barely turning his mouth. "And yet I've never met anyone more like him than you." He shrugged in Asvhalla's general direction. "I told you, didn't I? If you were expecting warmth, you're much better served speaking to Eliana."
“Which is not her name."
For a moment, Asvhalla wore an expression of undisguised surprise. Given who she'd just professed to be, it was pretty unlikely that anyone ever spoke to her in quite so direct and coarse a manner, but though she frowned, she did not appear to take offense. "I suppose you are right. The truth is, there isn't a place for you here. Not as things are. It's fortunate that she made her intentions clear: a single visit to the Archive we could foreseeably allow. But your birthright will never truly be yours to claim." She closed her eyes and expelled a breath.
"In a different world... well, it's a shame. But never mind. Your paths brought you here, for however short a moment, and I shall count myself fortunate that I have seen the faces of my heir's heirs. Any of us would be misguided to ask for more than that." She stood, smoothing down the front of her robes. Clearly, this was a dismissal, and they were all meant to do the same.
"In a day, we will know what to do next. In the meantime, the city is open to you—the others will respect your status as guests. You need have no fear among us, at least. Until next we speak, farewell."
"Thank you, my lady." Vesryn didn't imagine he'd be able to make much use of the free reign around the city, but he certainly would encourage Astraia to use it. By the looks of things, she needed some time and space to think.