Estella seemed to be doing a lot of waking up in strange places lately.
When she came to this time, not long after putting Ves to sleep, the first thing she noticed was that the light level around her had dimmed considerably, even compared to the shattered library. She blinked a few times, waiting for her eyes to adjust, then cast them around her as she sat up.
She hadn't seen nearly so many elven ruins as Ves or Cy, to be sure, but it wasn't too hard to tell that this was such a place. Even compared to the few she'd come across in her travels, though, it was—well, in poor shape, to say the least. She might have even said dingy, what with the gloom and the advanced state of nature's reclamation. Long had rains beaten away at the stone here, weathering it down and leaving it streaked in the dull brown of temperate earth. Estella could tell she'd left the tropics, though the weather was muggy enough that some of her hair was beginning to stick to the back of her neck. It felt more like southern summer, though, so she supposed she must be in either Orlais or Ferelden somewhere.
The cave ceiling above her was cracked, parts of it fallen away, letting in little bits of sunlight—just enough that she could tell it was daytime, but she could only be underground. Flexing her fingers, Estella checked herself for injuries, determining quickly that she didn't really have any of note. She was still tired, but the lyrium was fresh in her system yet, energizing her in a way that she usually didn't allow herself to be. Cyrus's perpetual disdain for the substance had rubbed off on her, in some sense, and beyond that she'd never really used her magic much until recently. But she could understand why some people relied on it so much; it was as though the fatigue of the last few days had been chased away.
Standing, Estella moved to the nearest wall, able to barely make out the occasional elven character, but the rest were so badly faded she couldn't make them out, or missing entirely, fallen away with age and decay. No clues as to what exactly this place was, then. And no sign of Saraya. Maybe she'd find something further within.
The way was caved in behind her, a collapse that looked like it had occurred hundreds of years ago by the way the foliage from outside was growing down over the fallen stones. That left only one way to go, and soon it led Estella down deeper into the earth. As far as ruins went, it was rudimentary, the cut of the stone not done with the same precision as she'd seen elsewhere, as though the very tools or magic that carved it out of the earth were inferior. There was evidence of military activity. Old spears, cracked bows, arrows rusted down and made flimsy and useless by time.
When she descended down a flight of stairs, she noticed a tendril spreading along the ground, the end of it almost reaching her. It looked almost like a thin vine or root, but it was blue in color, with a light glow from within like lyrium. It had none of the qualities of it, that much she could tell from a distance. The room she found it in looked to be some sort of meeting area, with a cracked war table in the center, racks of ancient armor and weapons still hung on the walls. The blue tendril led in one direction, down into the darker areas of the ruin. There were other paths, but they were shrouded in a nearly impenetrable darkness that may as well have been physical. There was only one way to proceed, and it was by following the trail.
Not that she really knew what the trail was, exactly. Crouching, Estella furrowed her brows at it, and chanced touching it, just carefully with her fingertips. It had a liquid consistency, warm and thicker than water, but thinner than honey or molasses. She wasn't sure what to make of it, but she could lift her fingers away cleanly, and she did, standing and resuming her walk.
Down, down she went, and soon it became much colder, and much darker. The only light came from the blue liquid substance seeping across the floor, bathing the walls in a darker azure light. Soon there were more, grasping onto the walls, and it was hard not to feel like they were alive, given the energy of some sort pulsating in them as they grew thicker. They gave just enough light for her to see the immediate feature of the room she'd entered at the bottom of the next flight of stairs.
It was a cell, bars of cold iron extending from the ceiling to the floor, the door of it having fallen off its hinges to lay at her feet. The wet blue tendrils weaved over the top of it like snakes, and soon she had to step carefully to avoid getting it on her boots. There was a much brighter blue glow coming from the end of the hall, the last cell on the right. It seemed to be the source of the substance, which gathered in pools where the earth was impacted slightly there. The door to the cell was open.
Estella grimaced, suddenly almost certain of what she was about to encounter. A sense of foreboding gripped her, hitching her step for just a moment, but she swallowed past it and headed for the source of the light.
Her eyes took a moment to adjust, and when they did, they settled on a steel contraption within the cell, suspended from the ceiling by a thick chain, swaying ever so slowly back and forth. It was like a coffin hung from the head end, and protruding from every side of it were razor sharp metal spikes, appearing to pierce right through it to the inside. The bottom of it had to be open or grated or something similar, as there was a steady drip of the glowing blue substance onto the floor beneath it. Looking up towards the top of the contraption made it quite clear to Estella that it was blood, of a sort.
A pair of eyes stared back at her through a thin slit in the torture device. And indeed, it had to be what it was. A type of chamber where a prisoner would be contained, the walls on all sides covered in sharp spikes to prick and bleed the captive any time a movement was made. Saraya's unconscious representation of her condition, perhaps. And it had to be her, staring back at Estella from the inside, with those same eyes of blue light she'd seen when the Envy demon had tried to take her so long ago. They stared at her now, unblinking.
There was a door on the front of the contraption, sealed and restrained by a heavy chain and lock wrapped around the outside. Perhaps most torturous of all, the key was in sight. It lay on a small table in the corner of the room, next to where a crumbling skeleton sat, still clad in decaying armor. Saraya's eyes darted to it only for a moment, before they silently settled back on Estella. It was hard to read anything in eyes of light, but if there was one thing she could pick up, it was fear.
Estella couldn't be sure if it was fear of her current state, or fear of what would come after. Only the latter really made sense; surely fear wasn't quite right, not for a condition she'd clearly been in for so long. People did not fear things remaining exactly the same, whatever else they might feel about it. They feared change. Pursing her lips, she picked up the key, holding it almost too tightly in her fingers. "It's going to be all right, Saraya," she said, trying to infuse some certainty into the words. Something solid, when all of this felt so unreal, looked so phantasmagorical. "Whatever it is."
She spared a glance for the armor-clad skeleton before advancing towards the suspended... thing. She didn't want to know what such a cruel device was called. Stepping around another pool of the blue fluid, Estella took the lock in one hand, letting the back of it rest against her palm, and fit the key into it, turning until the mechanism gave way with a decisive click.
There was a blast of energy that flung the door open, throwing Estella back in the process. The light that erupted from the device was completely blinding, and when it felt like her back should have hit the wall behind her, it just... didn't. For a long moment there was just nothing at all, and then slowly sensations started to return to her. Emotions, powerfully rushing through her, not her own. Saraya's. These would be her dreams, and Estella had to conclude that this was what Ves felt while awake. It was at once invasive and astounding, to be so connected to someone else's experience.
Exultation. Thrill.
She began to hear things, feel things, physical things. The rush of wind, but only pieces of it touching her face. Her hair was pressed down against her head, and there was a rhythmic beat under her legs, a familiar one. She was riding, and riding fast. Her vision returned to her in a rush, but she was forced to see through thin slits of a full helmet. By the weight of it, a tall one. The armor covering her head to toe was unusually heavy, nothing like she would prefer to wear, but she felt strength like never before. Physical strength honed over hundreds of years in her prime, raw magical power at her fingertips that went against everything she knew about her own abilities. It was thick, and heavy in the air, which seemed to part for her as she passed, urging her horse on faster.
It was a chase of some kind. Other riders were beside her, weaving through a thick forest. Nothing so tropical as Arlathan, but somewhere farther south. The other riders were in glittering armor, she had to imagine the same as hers, their horses encased in it as well. A scream rang out from ahead, and she soon rode past a body, a human sliced up the back, dying. She finally noticed the long curved saber in her hand.
The rider next to her on the right turned their head and called out to her, with the same sort of muffled voice like Fenesvir sounded like during their duel. "We have them now!" It was a man's voice, and he charged on ahead of her as though in a challenge to keep up.
The ease of it all, more than anything, jarred her. Made Estella certain that this was nothing of hers. She wore someone else's skin, or at least moved along inside of it, save that she found she could tighten the grip on the saber, could incline herself slightly further forward, urge the horse to still greater speed as she felt... that the other wanted to do. Most likely Saraya—who else could it be?
It was a bizarre sort of sensation, feeling the instinct to correct her posture in little tiny ways to better allow her horse the speed she both wanted and did not want. But she remembered Cyrus's words, about how everything she did here would have real effects on Saraya's mind, and Ves's, and so she thought that perhaps the best thing to do would be to go along with what she could feel being broadcast to her over the connection. What would have happened. Had happened, if this was memory as well as dream.
Her mount surged forward beneath her, matching the pace of the one in front, and slowly overtaking, but just as their noses drew even, one of the others shouted, more excited than alarmed, drawing her attention to what looked to be fleeing soldiers ahead. Estella recognized the armor in a more distant way than the other mind did, from illustrations and diagrams in history texts. Ancient Tevinter soldiers, mounted and running away as fast as they could push their horses.
Even before the group of elves started streaming down the hill they'd just crested, Estella knew exactly what their fate would be. The elf to her left flung lightning from his fingertips; the one to her right joined it with fire, both spells crashing into the retreating line. The flames landed low, spraying up dirt and flinging several horses' legs out from beneath them, toppling their riders. The lightning arced expertly between several metal-garbed riders, shattering no fewer than three barriers in the process.
When the lines crashed, Estella swung her saber into the first man she saw, cleaving him nearly in two, throwing her free hand out to freeze another trying to fend off one of her companions. The magic flowed as easily as water, as easily as if she'd never struggled with it at all. And though much of her motion was the same with the curved blade, there was a power and surety behind it all utterly foreign to her. It was almost sickening, how simple it was to end a life like this. But these people were long dead, long dust, and she could not resist the flow of the dream. Not when to do so ran so far counter to the foreign exhilaration coursing through her like a deep current.
They cut through this pack, and then wheeled their horses around to find more. Eventually their path took them to a clearing, where the bulk of the battle had obviously taken place. Battle was a kind word for it, at least from the Tevinter perspective. It had been a slaughter, and as she rode among the dead there were almost none that belonged to the elven side. A pair of riders beside her were laughing about something.
A group emerged from another end of the clearing, and there Estella noticed the one among them who was not like the others. The General of these elven forces was still wreathed in an unnatural blue light, glowing from underneath her armor. She carried spear and shield, both of them bloodied, making it obvious that she had fought alongside her soldiers. Even though Estella was not walking in her footsteps, so to speak, she could still feel what the woman felt, or remembered. It was an unnatural sensation, but it was one of relief, even joy, at the sight of so many enemy dead.
Estella struggled to make sense of the disconnection. When she thought she'd been a passenger in Saraya's body, it hadn't seemed all that strange, but now she realized the feelings were being broadcast... differently. From the mind apart from the dream, perhaps. The dreamer herself, and not the representation of her now visible. It was uncanny, incomparable to anything she'd understood before, but... maybe not so different from what Saraya had felt as a visitor to Estella's mind.
The General dismounted at the center of the field, the other riders doing so as well, and Estella had to follow suit, as it seemed they were gathering. None of the others seemed to think Saraya's appearance was strange, but then this was a dream, and oddities were often allowed to pass.
"A great many dead, General Arayani," one said in the elven tongue, smiling broadly at her. "With any luck they will learn from this, and never try again."
Saraya was silent, but the others paused as though to listen to her, before another of them spoke up. "We count only a few losses of our own, General. More wounded, but they will recover long before they are needed again."
A soldier coughed up blood behind Estella, prompting the gazes of the gathered riders. He faced away from them, and tried to crawl away, leaving a smear of blood in the grass behind him. The helmeted soldier next to Estella tilted his head at the dying man, as if in suggestion.
Beneath her own helmet, she grimaced. Even killing people in memory was... unpleasant, at best. But if she didn't do it, someone else would. At least she knew how to make it quick.
Fortunately, there was a short sidearm on her right hip—the opposite side to where she usually kept her off-hand gear, but it seemed she was right-handed at the moment. Gripping the handle, she pulled the blade free smoothly and took the few steps needed to crouch beside the Tevinter man, her strength easily turning him to his back and pinning him there. His eyes were wide with fear. The fear of a monster. Perhaps, to him, she looked like one. Perhaps they all did. Estella grit her teeth, and drew her knife across his throat. He went slack immediately.
As his blood ran out, the world faded into nothing but light around her, the dream carrying her away from this memory, and again she felt nothing for a moment, knew nothing.
Disorientation. Panic.
The world felt wrong. Everything was wrong. Her body was in pain, trying to adapt not unlike a fish pulled from a lake. Struggling just to breathe, and struggling to hide it.
She was in a cave, or... a mountain side. Not unlike where Rom lived in Skyhold, under the weight of a mountain but with a view sometimes above the clouds. By the landscape outside... maybe somewhere in Nevarra? It was hard to say. Looking down, she found herself in snugly-fit robes that had to be of an elven noblewoman or something similar. Far more extravagant than what she'd choose to wear, but everyone seated at the large circular table around her wore the same styles. Despite their efforts, though, everyone looked run down, tired, confused, dismayed. Like all of them had aged fifty years, or just aged at all.
Saraya glowed a magnificent blue still, garbed as elegantly as the rest, her long hair swaying as though a gentle wind blew through the cavern, even though there was little to feel at all. Compared to before, the air tasted toxic, foul. The General's head rested in one of her hands, and eventually another dared to speak.
"It is as we feared. Mythal is slain, and this... Veil has caused unimaginable harm to our people. It has been difficult to get word from Arlathan, but the damage is said to be... catastrophic."
Estella pulled her hands down into her lap beneath the table where they could not be seen, squeezing them together to ground herself against the heady nausea and pain. The obvious strength and easy power of before were gone, severed like a tether being cut. She could still feel some of it, but it had diminished greatly, until she could almost believe she sat here as herself, but for the unfamiliar faces and obvious cues that the time was all wrong.
This had to be just after the fall, just after the sinking of Arlathan. She knew now that her most distant ancestors were probably in a situation not so different from this very one, assuming none of the people here were them. Probably not, but... she, too, fixed her eyes on Saraya. General Arayani.
"You should consider yourself fortunate, Marellanas," one said, looking at Saraya. "Many of us here have lost our families. Yours is here in the south. I should think you would have more motivation to fight than any of us."
"The humans are emboldened by the disaster," an elven woman explained. "They seem to have suffered less. It's possible their magic was responsible for this Veil, but we've never seen anything like it from them before. Regardless, their armies have pushed south after Arlathan's fall. We've only been able to slow them."
"You will stop them, General Arayani." The man who said the words appeared to be the leader, if the increased stature of his chair was any indication. "That is this council's decision. Our house will not falter. Our people will endure." Looking closely, Estella could make out Mythal's symbol pinned against his chest. All of them had it, in fact.
Saraya said nothing. She just nodded, with a grim determination. The light from outside suddenly grew brighter, until it was blinding and wiped out the vision in front of her.
Exhaustion. Hopelessness.
The sound that returned was a familiar one, but one that had only been replicated a single time before in Estella's life: the sound of a pitched battle between two large armies. The crush of armored bodies pounding against one another, desperate cries piercing the air, the thick smell of blood and fluids and the rot of death. The air was suffocating, making it difficult for Estella to lift her weary arms.
She found herself on a hillside, a bow in her hands, arrow already nocked. The landscape around her was a similar dry forest, but now much of it was on fire. Darkness covered the sky, the stars blacked out by thick smoke from burning wood and magical fire roasting bodies in the valley below. An elven formation was trying to hold a line against a massive Tevinter force, here where the road became narrowest. Mages were hurling massive spells overhead on both sides, and judging by the slain elves on either side of Estella with arrows protruding from them, she wasn't safe from anything at the moment.
"Draw!" a elven lieutenant called, somewhere down the line.
Grimly, she drew the arrow back, feeling the fletching brush her cheek. She must have lost her helmet some time ago, whoever this was. Alongside the desperation and fatigue of the battle itself, Estella was beginning to worry. She needed to find a way to get Saraya back into Vesryn's mind, which meant taking her out of here, but it was rapidly becoming clear that only seldom did she end up anywhere remotely in her proximity, and even then never alone. Speaking of herself and that goal too openly in a context with other people, where the memories were too set in place, could damage something for all she knew, and she couldn't afford the risk.
But neither could she afford to get herself killed here, or remain perpetually cycling through memories. For the moment, at least, they all seemed to be on the same track, headed in the same direction. Maybe it would be enough to wait them out, to survive each for as long as it took to burn out its emotional kindling, and hope that an opportunity to break the unceasing chain of memory would present itself.
When the call came to loose the arrow, she did, easing her fingers. The bowstring slapped against her arm at the end of the release, the heavy draw weight making the sting sharp, but the arrow flew as it should, striking a Tevinter soldier between his helmet and pauldrons, at the side of his neck.
It wasn't hard to tell that the battle was steadily going into a defeat, as the attacking Tevinter army was seemingly endless, and the elves couldn't hold the narrow gap forever. There, in the thick of them on the line Estella could see a shining blue light coming from one armored woman, withdrawing from the fight and clutching her side. Blue tendrils of blood ran from it, latching onto the ground as she was forced away.
The worst possible sound reached Estella's ears. Thundering hooves, pounding against the ground behind her on the hill. She turned just in time to see the elf next to her skewered by a spear. It was then that the army's center broke, the flood gates opening and allowing the humans to pour through, turning it into a brutal and chaotic melee in the valley. Full retreat.
A cavalryman had centered on Estella, riding directly for her, but a mage's fireball landed nearby first. The fires blasted outwards, until they were all she could see, and then the sounds and smells of the battle faded.
Desperation. Love.
One smell remained. Ash. They were still covered in it, for the most part. All of the survivors. Estella stood at attention, holding a spear in one hand. She still wore plate, though she was missing a few pieces. Dented or pierced or lost. They were in some kind of mountain base, it seemed, well constructed and fortified. Rest, albeit a temporary one, from battle after battle, defeat after defeat, each driving them farther south. They had a night to themselves, at least.
The General approached from down the hall, alone. Estella stood on one side of a door, no doubt guarding it, across from another guard, just as weary-looking as she felt. There was, without a doubt, a lot of the General's mind, but for the moment she stopped before the door, eyes meeting Estella's expectantly.
It took her a second to interpret the look exactly, but then she remembered the context and decided she must be expected to open the door. Loosening her stance enough to move provoked aches in her body she hadn't quite felt in full while standing locked, and her fingers almost fumbled on the handle before she was able to grasp it properly and pull it open, shifting around it slightly so as to not end up stuck behind.
"Mother!" the call came from a young boy's voice inside, and before Saraya could move she was forced to hug the child that came out, sinking to her knees to do so. He couldn't have been more than seven, eight years old. Possibly born just before the Fall. The feeling that rushed over Estella was one of all-encompassing love, and with it an incredible sadness and despair. No doubt from what had happened earlier, and before that, and before that.
Saraya did not respond to her child. Perhaps she could not, as she had yet to say anything in any of these dreams. When they broke the hug, they went inside.
"You're hurt," said a man in the room. Young, handsome, with a full head of dark curls, and robes signifying a noble status. "Well, you missed a spot, you're still bleeding."
Another pause of silence, and then the boy spoke again. "Are we going home soon?" The silence that followed was uncomfortable and long, likely a pause to think before Saraya could say whatever she had said in the past. The man with her sighed quietly.
"I believe in you, my love. I know you. You'll find a way out of this, for all of us."
Oh.
Estella knew what the statues in the Loneliness demon's domain had represented now. And from the fact that the child—Saraya's son—was so small in both, she had a feeling she knew what befell them. A sadness gripped her, for once entirely her own, and her hand trembled where she still held the door.
"Hey. Hurry up and close it," a nearby voice hissed, making her jump. The other guard, no doubt wondering why she hadn't already. Estella swallowed, nodded jerkily, and shut the door carefully, so as not to make any sound. The memory faded into light, and as quickly as it had come, it was gone.
Guilt. Shame.
What replaced it was a crisp, cool night. The air was clear and fresh, with no sounds or smells of battle. A secluded clearing at the edge of a pool, probably in Orlais somewhere. The moon hung brightly in the sky, enough to light the area around them without the need for any magical assistance.
Her magic felt a little more familiar again, but still more powerful than she was used to. More than that her body felt more like what she knew. Human again. There was a staff in her hands, bladed at one end, and she looked down to see white robes, reinforced with plates of armor that were spiked at the edges, perhaps meant to be intimidating. An all too familiar sight, that of the ancient Tevinter battle mage, what the Venatori had modeled their designs after.
There were ten of them, it seemed, gathered around and waiting for something. The one with the largest headdress was undoubtedly the leader, an older man who was almost certainly a magister of the Imperium. Several of the younger mages looked bored, but those who plainly had more experience stood at the ready, eyes sweeping constantly over the treeline.
One of the younger men tapped her on the shoulder, speaking in a low voice. "Think she'll actually be here?"
Estella couldn't think of any relevant she other than the obvious one, though filling in the information accordingly produced more questions than answers. Was Saraya negotiating some kind of truce? There was no historical record of that happening; the war had been one of nearly complete annihilation and conquest, cementing Tevinter's place as the second great Thedosian empire, a title it would not quite cede until the Second Blight and the ascension of Orlais under Drakon I.
She stammered for a reasonable answer, and decided on a noncommittal one. "The others seem to think so," she pointed out, tilting her head at the warier members of the group. It was clear they really expected something, so she didn't think it was a poor response.
Estella could see her long before any of the others reacted. They didn't seem to take note of the glowing blue light shining through the trees until Saraya had actually reached the edge of the treeline, at which point they raised their weapons carefully in her direction. But she, it seemed, had come unarmed. Not that it made her any less dangerous, given the magical talents she undoubtedly had.
The magister smiled, and lifted his arms slightly in greeting. "You are General Arayani, yes?" He spoke the elven tongue well. "We are pleased you could come, and come alone."
Indeed, there didn't seem to be anyone else with her. She stepped forward into the clearing, shoulders slumped, the guilt radiating off of her in waves that only Estella could actually feel, but the others could no doubt see it plainly enough.
The magister nodded, in response to words that hadn't been spoken. "All will be as you say. We seek a swift end to the conflict. Your army will be given every chance to lay down their arms and surrender once the trap is sprung, and your family's continued safety will be guaranteed by the Imperium."
Wait.
What?
Estella's eyes darted between Saraya and the Magister, trying to find some kind of explanation for that particular series of words that didn't involve what she thought it involved. A swift end, the opportunity for surrender, and the guarantee of her family's safety. But that implied that there was as yet none of those things—that the conflict wasn't over. An official treaty of that kind would have required far more people be present from both sides. And it wouldn't have flooded her with this guilt. But that meant—
"You've done the right thing, General," the magister assured her. He reached to touch her shoulder, but she recoiled away. He paused, but took no offense to it. "With luck, your people will remember you for the lives you refused to throw away. I know the Imperium will."
The moon seemed to grow brighter and brighter above them, until its scathing light drowned the scene of betrayal before Estella's eyes.
Horror. Revulsion.
This scene Estella already knew, but the context was only just becoming more clear. She found herself standing in a marshy field, where a fog had descended over the scene of a slaughter. The blood lost had only added to the wetness of the ground, mixing in the with the pools of water and the patches of mud. Everywhere she looked, elves were dead, cut down by arrows or blades or magic. By the looks of things, they hadn't stood a chance.
In Estella's hand was the same bladed staff as before, only now the blade was dripping with blood, as were her robes and armor. Judging by the lack of pain when she moved, she wasn't wounded, meaning all of it belonged to others. The dead that were scattered around her, no doubt. Some still clung to life, moaning and writhing in pain before a spear or a knife ended their suffering.
Nearby, Estella heard laughter of all things, and she found a pair of Tevinter soldiers poking through the bodies, searching for survivors. "Did you hear them?" one asked. He quietly imitated a battle cry. "Death before slavery!"
"Idiots," the other agreed, driving his spear down into an elven woman's back.
She didn't find it much different from the elven soldiers laughing earlier, to be completely honest, but with Saraya not in sight, she felt a little more comfortable expressing her disgust. "Show some respect," she hissed, her fingers curling into her palms. "You wouldn't want to be slaves either." The fresh context for the scene, the new awareness of just how and why it had come about, made it somehow more terrible to look upon. Saraya's heartrending grief the last time it was before her took on an edge of something else. Guilt wasn't a strong enough word, she didn't think.
"Uh, yes, my lady. Forgive us." She was clearly someone of rank, a well known apprentice to their leader, perhaps, and an intimidating figure as well given the amount of killing she'd obviously done herself. The two Tevinter soldiers moved off in the other direction.
It was near the center of the slain that she found Saraya, surrounded by a host of Tevinter soldiers and mages. She was kneeling, hands bound behind her back, a pair of guards needed to keep hold of her arms. She made no sound at all, but her grief and pain were obvious purely in body language, even if Estella hadn't been able to feel it for herself.
Bolts of what seemed to be lightning magic or something similar lashed off from her as she struggled, but it was likely something to do with the dream, as the Tevinter soldiers paid it no heed, and the magister from before actually laughed softly. "We haven't killed you, General, because there is much you still can offer us. Our end of the bargain has been upheld in full. Every chance to surrender was given, and refused. Your family's continued safety is assured... for now. We have work to do." He gestured to the soldiers holding her. "Get her up. I want us ready to move again by tomorrow."
The soldiers hauled Saraya to her feet, and it seemed she had ceased resisting. They dragged her by her arms over the bodies of her soldiers, and the fog thickened until Estella could see nothing, and feel nothing.
Rage. Hate.
It bristled in Estella, but it was not her own. Nor, did she sense, did it belong to the body she seemed to be inhabiting for this part of the dreams. No, it belonged to Saraya, and could be felt from a mile off. Estella found herself in a lavish bedroom of some sort, the air balmy and comfortable. Back in the north somewhere, it would seem. The smell of blood freshly spilled, however, tainted it. She was in armor and robes again, possibly still the same mage from the battle, but she didn't feel as powerful as before, and carried a short sword in her hand in place of a staff.
There were at seven other Tevinter soldiers in the room with her, armed to the teeth and wearing steel masked helmets, save for herself and one other. The mages of the group, perhaps. Saraya's son was at the feet of one of the soldiers. He looked to have aged six or seven years, though it was hard to say how long that actually was with the elves having elongated lifespans at this time. If Saraya had worked with Tevinter for that long... the number of crushing victories she could've helped them win was difficult to imagine. It was difficult to imagine how any southern elves would survive such a thing.
But it was plain to see she was helping them no longer. Her son was dead, a pool of blood spreading beneath him at the feet of the man that had killed him.
"Wasn't much of a fighter, was he?" one of them asked, and Estella realized he was speaking to her. Looking down, she found her sword dripping with blood. Saraya's husband lay at her feet, eyes staring blankly up at the ceiling. And there were others, more of her family. A sister perhaps, or an aunt. Relatives that the Imperium had kept safe, as prisoners. Until now, for whatever reason. Perhaps there was nothing more they needed from her.
The blade slipped from her fingers; she felt numbness spreading up the limb. Her own, of course, unless perhaps whoever she inhabited still had enough humanity left to look upon the slaughter of innocent people and feel the horror of it. It struck the man's corpse first, leaving a smear on his shirt before sliding to the floor with a clatter. Even knowing it was a dream did little to defuse the revulsion she felt, because it was also a memory.
She could feel her grip on her own emotions slipping, perhaps just being battered down under the relentless assault of Saraya's own. Rage and hate were not things Estella was very familiar with, not in herself. She didn't know how to keep them at bay the way she more easily could with despair or shame. "Shut up," she heard herself snarl, in a voice that was hers but not. A tone she'd never used. She turned from the grotesque tableau, crossing her arms to hide her quaking. When was this going to be over?
The other Tevinter soldiers seemed confused to say the least, but they had only a moment to linger on it before there was an explosion of some kind outside of the room, sounds of someone dying violently. Once of the soldiers cursed under their breath, and they all readied their blades, eyes locking on the closed door.
It stayed closed only a moment longer. Saraya blasted it open from the other side with immensely powerful magic, and there she stood in the doorway, glowing luminescent blue and crackling with energy. One of the soldiers shouted and charged. A bolt of magic from Saraya disintegrated him, turning his body to ash so light that it rose into the air as a cloud of dust.
What followed was likely a fantastical version of what had actually occurred, with the dream-Saraya obliterating each Tevinter soldier that tried to attack her. Unfortunately, the battle didn't end before a bolt of magic streaked across Estella's face, the blinding light bringing an end to it, and taking her elsewhere.
Emptiness. Defeat.
Estella found herself back in the Brecilian Forest, but this time in the woods, not a ruin. It was cold now, snow beginning to fall and settle on her shoulders and in her hair. She was crouched low behind a bush, bow in hand, arrow nocked. Her legs carried her steadily, silently forward, and she felt that she had to be, for there were few sounds in the forest now to mask her approach.
Before long she noticed other elves working through the trees, all making a stealthy approach, stalking something. Judging by the blue light in the distance, just visible through the trees, it wasn't hard to guess what, or who. How much time had passed was unclear, but there was for once no sign of any Tevinter mages or soldiers here.
When they reached Saraya, they found her kneeling at the side of a stream, weaponless, the glow emanating from within her body diminished. Weak. Estella could feel it wafting off of her, a crushing weight that she had somehow dragged this far, seeking... something.
She didn't react to the elves sneaking up on her, but Estella knew with certainty that she was aware of them, and choosing not to react. They paused, and an older looking elven scout touched Estella's arm with the top of his hand, holding her back a moment. "Is that..." He let his words trail off with the obvious question.
Estella exhaled, her breath clouding into the wintry air. It was difficult to feel much else under the crushing weight of Saraya's despair, but she managed a nod. She'd known a similar feeling, at least more often than she'd known most of the others. "Yes," she whispered. "It's her."
The elf's expression twisted in anger. "Traitor," he growled, and signaled the others, apparently as the leader of this group. "Take her."
They rushed out from their hiding places, aiming weapons at Saraya, but she made no move to avoid them. Arms seized her, hauling her to her feet and dragging her off. The light from above pierced through, driving out the memory and bringing Estella to the next. It had to be the last.
Sorrow.
The hallway of cells was familiar to Estella, though there was no glowing blood spreading through it, and the light was provided by a mix of torches and simple magelights instead. Estella stood as the lone guard outside of Saraya's cell, where the sound of something carving against flesh came from within. She turned to see the glowing woman seated in a chair in one of the cells, and robed elf bent over her. There were a few more guards inside, but they didn't seem concerned, as Saraya made no attempt to resist.
The symbol of Mythal was being carved into her forehead. Not as blood writing, but as a scar, with a knife. Glowing blood ran in sheets down her face, dripping onto the floor and onto the mage's hands. If she had cried out in pain at the time, she showed no sign of it now, simply allowing it to happen. Thankfully, they seemed to be at the tail end of the act, as the mage soon stood, and paused to listen to something.
"Oh no, this is only the beginning, Marellanas. The council has agreed on something special for you. Know that it will never be enough. Not after what you did." He spat down on her, which she did not react to, before he turned to leave, his guards following him. He glanced back to Estella on his way out. "Clean and heal those quickly. Leave the scarring. Bring her to the ritual chamber when she's ready." He walked away swiftly, cleaning his knife, and left Estella alone with Saraya at last.
She certainly had no intention of forcing Saraya to undergo whatever her ultimate fate was again—in fact she suspected she already knew it. It made sense that something like being trapped in a vial for ages upon ages was a form of punishment rather than glorification. Estella slipped inside the cell, coming to a stop beside Saraya.
There was a moment where she wasn't honestly sure of what she should say. What could she, after all of this? They didn't make words for this kind of thing, for the depth of the pain and suffering she'd been led through like some kind of macabre living museum. Swallowing, she decided she knew at least one thing she could say.
"Saraya." Estella leaned forward, trying to make eye contact. Not the easiest thing, when the other person was still somewhat luminescent. She wanted to take her from these memories and back into Ves's head, so it made sense to try and unmoor her from these memories, or at least remind her that there was more after them. "Saraya, it's Estella." She tried to will her form to shift, but she didn't feel anything, and doubted she'd managed to succeed. "Do you remember me?"
She blinked, looking at Estella and clearly seeing her differently now. It took only a moment after that, and then suddenly everything was changed. They were in the same space, the same cell, but the blood was gone, the walls had become overgrown from hundreds and hundreds of years of passed time, and the bleeding cuts were gone from Saraya's head. The feel of her grief faded from Estella's senses, leaving her with only her own thoughts.
"You're..." Ves's voice sounded out weakly behind her. "You're here. Both of you." He stared at where Saraya sat, still in the cell, despondent, and clearly he didn't understand. Saraya's features were still so difficult to make out, but Ves was obviously trying as hard as he could, leaning back against the wall outside the cell. He looked so weak, but part of that had to be because he could tell something was wrong.
"Can you... can you speak to me?" he asked. Her answer was silence, as it had always been, and eventually he tore his eyes to Estella. "What happened?"
She grimaced. "A lot." Probably not the most helpful answer, but she was trying to be mindful of Saraya's privacy to the extent she could. "Like Cy said... once I freed her, we were both moved through the Fade, through—" She searched for the right words. "Through her mind." But it seemed they'd made it back to where they began. To him. Estella heaved a heavy sigh through her nose.
"I think that means all we have to do now is separate the two of you somehow."
"Here? In this place? It's..." He looked around. He didn't seem familiar with this particular area of the ruin, actually. "It's a prison, this can't be what we're meant to do. It's—"
With surprising strength, Saraya placed a hand on Estella's side, unnaturally warm, and shoved. Not hard enough to knock her over, but hard enough to remove her from the cell, which she swiftly grabbed the door of, slamming it shut. Ves reached to catch Estella as best he could, confusion rampant in him, but then he was approaching the bars, and Saraya was swiftly backing away from them, pressing her back to the cold stone wall behind her and keeping her eyes rooted to the floor.
"Saraya, I don't understand," Ves said, grief seeping into his tone. "This can't be right."
She just pointed to a spot on the floor, where a key still rested, half concealed by the dirt. It looked to be the right shape to fit the lock on the door.
Estella stooped to retrieve the key, but she didn't make to lock the door with it. She didn't intend to do it this way. Not here, so reminiscent of such an awful place, and the awful memory that went with it. "Saraya," she said, approaching the bars and stowing the key in her pocket so she could wrap both hands around the bars. "I saw it. I know what happened. Everything that's hurting you." She swallowed, trying to catch the glowing woman's eyes. "And you know what I think? I think ages rotting here is punishment enough. I think your life isn't over yet, and I think it's a waste to spend it like this. A waste of you."
Before, when she'd been trying to convince her to share more of herself with them, or at least with Ves, she hadn't known what she was asking. But now she did. She understood as well as anyone could without having really lived it just what she was saying, and she still believed it. "I know who you were and what you did. How you felt. But that's not the end. It isn't. And even if what you've got left is just a fraction of the time, a heartbeat compared to everything that was before, you can make something better of it than this. Please. I won't lock you back in here, but I can't drag you out, either. You have to decide to do that yourself."
She stayed against the wall while Estella spoke, her hair like strands of light fluttering around her face and chest. Slowly breathing, or at least mimicking the motion. Ves clearly hadn't been granted the same dreams or visions or memories that Estella had been forced to experience, judging by the confusion and pain of not understanding that lingered for him. What you did.
Finally, Saraya approached the bars, stopping near them. Ves looked like he wanted to reach out for her, but the instant he did she backed away a step, keeping her head down. He clearly didn't know what to do, but settled on taking several steps back of his own, allowing her the space without any risk of touching her. She came to the bars, reached her hand through, and turned her palm up in front of Estella.
For a moment, Estella was torn. That Saraya wanted the key was clear enough; what she would do with it was another matter entirely, and a complete mystery. But... she couldn't make someone else's choices just because she felt strongly about them. She didn't have that right. All she could do was make her case the best way she knew how, and hope that it would work out for the better in the end. Taking one hand from the bars, Estella reached into her pocket for the key, pausing a moment before handing it over. "In my mind, you fought for my sake, even when I didn't believe I was worth it. I believe in you just as much as you believed in me. And he believes in you more than anything. Maybe we're on to something."
Lowering the key, she placed it in Saraya's hand.
Her fingers closed around it, still just as warm. Her eyes lifted then, and it almost seemed like she was smiling. If not with her lips, then with her eyes, still so bright.
Before either of them knew it the key was in the lock, and it turned, sealing her in. The dream collapsed, the task was done, and they were pulled from the Fade, back into their bodies.
When she came to this time, not long after putting Ves to sleep, the first thing she noticed was that the light level around her had dimmed considerably, even compared to the shattered library. She blinked a few times, waiting for her eyes to adjust, then cast them around her as she sat up.
She hadn't seen nearly so many elven ruins as Ves or Cy, to be sure, but it wasn't too hard to tell that this was such a place. Even compared to the few she'd come across in her travels, though, it was—well, in poor shape, to say the least. She might have even said dingy, what with the gloom and the advanced state of nature's reclamation. Long had rains beaten away at the stone here, weathering it down and leaving it streaked in the dull brown of temperate earth. Estella could tell she'd left the tropics, though the weather was muggy enough that some of her hair was beginning to stick to the back of her neck. It felt more like southern summer, though, so she supposed she must be in either Orlais or Ferelden somewhere.
The cave ceiling above her was cracked, parts of it fallen away, letting in little bits of sunlight—just enough that she could tell it was daytime, but she could only be underground. Flexing her fingers, Estella checked herself for injuries, determining quickly that she didn't really have any of note. She was still tired, but the lyrium was fresh in her system yet, energizing her in a way that she usually didn't allow herself to be. Cyrus's perpetual disdain for the substance had rubbed off on her, in some sense, and beyond that she'd never really used her magic much until recently. But she could understand why some people relied on it so much; it was as though the fatigue of the last few days had been chased away.
Standing, Estella moved to the nearest wall, able to barely make out the occasional elven character, but the rest were so badly faded she couldn't make them out, or missing entirely, fallen away with age and decay. No clues as to what exactly this place was, then. And no sign of Saraya. Maybe she'd find something further within.
The way was caved in behind her, a collapse that looked like it had occurred hundreds of years ago by the way the foliage from outside was growing down over the fallen stones. That left only one way to go, and soon it led Estella down deeper into the earth. As far as ruins went, it was rudimentary, the cut of the stone not done with the same precision as she'd seen elsewhere, as though the very tools or magic that carved it out of the earth were inferior. There was evidence of military activity. Old spears, cracked bows, arrows rusted down and made flimsy and useless by time.
When she descended down a flight of stairs, she noticed a tendril spreading along the ground, the end of it almost reaching her. It looked almost like a thin vine or root, but it was blue in color, with a light glow from within like lyrium. It had none of the qualities of it, that much she could tell from a distance. The room she found it in looked to be some sort of meeting area, with a cracked war table in the center, racks of ancient armor and weapons still hung on the walls. The blue tendril led in one direction, down into the darker areas of the ruin. There were other paths, but they were shrouded in a nearly impenetrable darkness that may as well have been physical. There was only one way to proceed, and it was by following the trail.
Not that she really knew what the trail was, exactly. Crouching, Estella furrowed her brows at it, and chanced touching it, just carefully with her fingertips. It had a liquid consistency, warm and thicker than water, but thinner than honey or molasses. She wasn't sure what to make of it, but she could lift her fingers away cleanly, and she did, standing and resuming her walk.
Down, down she went, and soon it became much colder, and much darker. The only light came from the blue liquid substance seeping across the floor, bathing the walls in a darker azure light. Soon there were more, grasping onto the walls, and it was hard not to feel like they were alive, given the energy of some sort pulsating in them as they grew thicker. They gave just enough light for her to see the immediate feature of the room she'd entered at the bottom of the next flight of stairs.
It was a cell, bars of cold iron extending from the ceiling to the floor, the door of it having fallen off its hinges to lay at her feet. The wet blue tendrils weaved over the top of it like snakes, and soon she had to step carefully to avoid getting it on her boots. There was a much brighter blue glow coming from the end of the hall, the last cell on the right. It seemed to be the source of the substance, which gathered in pools where the earth was impacted slightly there. The door to the cell was open.
Estella grimaced, suddenly almost certain of what she was about to encounter. A sense of foreboding gripped her, hitching her step for just a moment, but she swallowed past it and headed for the source of the light.
Her eyes took a moment to adjust, and when they did, they settled on a steel contraption within the cell, suspended from the ceiling by a thick chain, swaying ever so slowly back and forth. It was like a coffin hung from the head end, and protruding from every side of it were razor sharp metal spikes, appearing to pierce right through it to the inside. The bottom of it had to be open or grated or something similar, as there was a steady drip of the glowing blue substance onto the floor beneath it. Looking up towards the top of the contraption made it quite clear to Estella that it was blood, of a sort.
A pair of eyes stared back at her through a thin slit in the torture device. And indeed, it had to be what it was. A type of chamber where a prisoner would be contained, the walls on all sides covered in sharp spikes to prick and bleed the captive any time a movement was made. Saraya's unconscious representation of her condition, perhaps. And it had to be her, staring back at Estella from the inside, with those same eyes of blue light she'd seen when the Envy demon had tried to take her so long ago. They stared at her now, unblinking.
There was a door on the front of the contraption, sealed and restrained by a heavy chain and lock wrapped around the outside. Perhaps most torturous of all, the key was in sight. It lay on a small table in the corner of the room, next to where a crumbling skeleton sat, still clad in decaying armor. Saraya's eyes darted to it only for a moment, before they silently settled back on Estella. It was hard to read anything in eyes of light, but if there was one thing she could pick up, it was fear.
Estella couldn't be sure if it was fear of her current state, or fear of what would come after. Only the latter really made sense; surely fear wasn't quite right, not for a condition she'd clearly been in for so long. People did not fear things remaining exactly the same, whatever else they might feel about it. They feared change. Pursing her lips, she picked up the key, holding it almost too tightly in her fingers. "It's going to be all right, Saraya," she said, trying to infuse some certainty into the words. Something solid, when all of this felt so unreal, looked so phantasmagorical. "Whatever it is."
She spared a glance for the armor-clad skeleton before advancing towards the suspended... thing. She didn't want to know what such a cruel device was called. Stepping around another pool of the blue fluid, Estella took the lock in one hand, letting the back of it rest against her palm, and fit the key into it, turning until the mechanism gave way with a decisive click.
There was a blast of energy that flung the door open, throwing Estella back in the process. The light that erupted from the device was completely blinding, and when it felt like her back should have hit the wall behind her, it just... didn't. For a long moment there was just nothing at all, and then slowly sensations started to return to her. Emotions, powerfully rushing through her, not her own. Saraya's. These would be her dreams, and Estella had to conclude that this was what Ves felt while awake. It was at once invasive and astounding, to be so connected to someone else's experience.
Exultation. Thrill.
She began to hear things, feel things, physical things. The rush of wind, but only pieces of it touching her face. Her hair was pressed down against her head, and there was a rhythmic beat under her legs, a familiar one. She was riding, and riding fast. Her vision returned to her in a rush, but she was forced to see through thin slits of a full helmet. By the weight of it, a tall one. The armor covering her head to toe was unusually heavy, nothing like she would prefer to wear, but she felt strength like never before. Physical strength honed over hundreds of years in her prime, raw magical power at her fingertips that went against everything she knew about her own abilities. It was thick, and heavy in the air, which seemed to part for her as she passed, urging her horse on faster.
It was a chase of some kind. Other riders were beside her, weaving through a thick forest. Nothing so tropical as Arlathan, but somewhere farther south. The other riders were in glittering armor, she had to imagine the same as hers, their horses encased in it as well. A scream rang out from ahead, and she soon rode past a body, a human sliced up the back, dying. She finally noticed the long curved saber in her hand.
The rider next to her on the right turned their head and called out to her, with the same sort of muffled voice like Fenesvir sounded like during their duel. "We have them now!" It was a man's voice, and he charged on ahead of her as though in a challenge to keep up.
The ease of it all, more than anything, jarred her. Made Estella certain that this was nothing of hers. She wore someone else's skin, or at least moved along inside of it, save that she found she could tighten the grip on the saber, could incline herself slightly further forward, urge the horse to still greater speed as she felt... that the other wanted to do. Most likely Saraya—who else could it be?
It was a bizarre sort of sensation, feeling the instinct to correct her posture in little tiny ways to better allow her horse the speed she both wanted and did not want. But she remembered Cyrus's words, about how everything she did here would have real effects on Saraya's mind, and Ves's, and so she thought that perhaps the best thing to do would be to go along with what she could feel being broadcast to her over the connection. What would have happened. Had happened, if this was memory as well as dream.
Her mount surged forward beneath her, matching the pace of the one in front, and slowly overtaking, but just as their noses drew even, one of the others shouted, more excited than alarmed, drawing her attention to what looked to be fleeing soldiers ahead. Estella recognized the armor in a more distant way than the other mind did, from illustrations and diagrams in history texts. Ancient Tevinter soldiers, mounted and running away as fast as they could push their horses.
Even before the group of elves started streaming down the hill they'd just crested, Estella knew exactly what their fate would be. The elf to her left flung lightning from his fingertips; the one to her right joined it with fire, both spells crashing into the retreating line. The flames landed low, spraying up dirt and flinging several horses' legs out from beneath them, toppling their riders. The lightning arced expertly between several metal-garbed riders, shattering no fewer than three barriers in the process.
When the lines crashed, Estella swung her saber into the first man she saw, cleaving him nearly in two, throwing her free hand out to freeze another trying to fend off one of her companions. The magic flowed as easily as water, as easily as if she'd never struggled with it at all. And though much of her motion was the same with the curved blade, there was a power and surety behind it all utterly foreign to her. It was almost sickening, how simple it was to end a life like this. But these people were long dead, long dust, and she could not resist the flow of the dream. Not when to do so ran so far counter to the foreign exhilaration coursing through her like a deep current.
They cut through this pack, and then wheeled their horses around to find more. Eventually their path took them to a clearing, where the bulk of the battle had obviously taken place. Battle was a kind word for it, at least from the Tevinter perspective. It had been a slaughter, and as she rode among the dead there were almost none that belonged to the elven side. A pair of riders beside her were laughing about something.
A group emerged from another end of the clearing, and there Estella noticed the one among them who was not like the others. The General of these elven forces was still wreathed in an unnatural blue light, glowing from underneath her armor. She carried spear and shield, both of them bloodied, making it obvious that she had fought alongside her soldiers. Even though Estella was not walking in her footsteps, so to speak, she could still feel what the woman felt, or remembered. It was an unnatural sensation, but it was one of relief, even joy, at the sight of so many enemy dead.
Estella struggled to make sense of the disconnection. When she thought she'd been a passenger in Saraya's body, it hadn't seemed all that strange, but now she realized the feelings were being broadcast... differently. From the mind apart from the dream, perhaps. The dreamer herself, and not the representation of her now visible. It was uncanny, incomparable to anything she'd understood before, but... maybe not so different from what Saraya had felt as a visitor to Estella's mind.
The General dismounted at the center of the field, the other riders doing so as well, and Estella had to follow suit, as it seemed they were gathering. None of the others seemed to think Saraya's appearance was strange, but then this was a dream, and oddities were often allowed to pass.
"A great many dead, General Arayani," one said in the elven tongue, smiling broadly at her. "With any luck they will learn from this, and never try again."
Saraya was silent, but the others paused as though to listen to her, before another of them spoke up. "We count only a few losses of our own, General. More wounded, but they will recover long before they are needed again."
A soldier coughed up blood behind Estella, prompting the gazes of the gathered riders. He faced away from them, and tried to crawl away, leaving a smear of blood in the grass behind him. The helmeted soldier next to Estella tilted his head at the dying man, as if in suggestion.
Beneath her own helmet, she grimaced. Even killing people in memory was... unpleasant, at best. But if she didn't do it, someone else would. At least she knew how to make it quick.
Fortunately, there was a short sidearm on her right hip—the opposite side to where she usually kept her off-hand gear, but it seemed she was right-handed at the moment. Gripping the handle, she pulled the blade free smoothly and took the few steps needed to crouch beside the Tevinter man, her strength easily turning him to his back and pinning him there. His eyes were wide with fear. The fear of a monster. Perhaps, to him, she looked like one. Perhaps they all did. Estella grit her teeth, and drew her knife across his throat. He went slack immediately.
As his blood ran out, the world faded into nothing but light around her, the dream carrying her away from this memory, and again she felt nothing for a moment, knew nothing.
Disorientation. Panic.
The world felt wrong. Everything was wrong. Her body was in pain, trying to adapt not unlike a fish pulled from a lake. Struggling just to breathe, and struggling to hide it.
She was in a cave, or... a mountain side. Not unlike where Rom lived in Skyhold, under the weight of a mountain but with a view sometimes above the clouds. By the landscape outside... maybe somewhere in Nevarra? It was hard to say. Looking down, she found herself in snugly-fit robes that had to be of an elven noblewoman or something similar. Far more extravagant than what she'd choose to wear, but everyone seated at the large circular table around her wore the same styles. Despite their efforts, though, everyone looked run down, tired, confused, dismayed. Like all of them had aged fifty years, or just aged at all.
Saraya glowed a magnificent blue still, garbed as elegantly as the rest, her long hair swaying as though a gentle wind blew through the cavern, even though there was little to feel at all. Compared to before, the air tasted toxic, foul. The General's head rested in one of her hands, and eventually another dared to speak.
"It is as we feared. Mythal is slain, and this... Veil has caused unimaginable harm to our people. It has been difficult to get word from Arlathan, but the damage is said to be... catastrophic."
Estella pulled her hands down into her lap beneath the table where they could not be seen, squeezing them together to ground herself against the heady nausea and pain. The obvious strength and easy power of before were gone, severed like a tether being cut. She could still feel some of it, but it had diminished greatly, until she could almost believe she sat here as herself, but for the unfamiliar faces and obvious cues that the time was all wrong.
This had to be just after the fall, just after the sinking of Arlathan. She knew now that her most distant ancestors were probably in a situation not so different from this very one, assuming none of the people here were them. Probably not, but... she, too, fixed her eyes on Saraya. General Arayani.
"You should consider yourself fortunate, Marellanas," one said, looking at Saraya. "Many of us here have lost our families. Yours is here in the south. I should think you would have more motivation to fight than any of us."
"The humans are emboldened by the disaster," an elven woman explained. "They seem to have suffered less. It's possible their magic was responsible for this Veil, but we've never seen anything like it from them before. Regardless, their armies have pushed south after Arlathan's fall. We've only been able to slow them."
"You will stop them, General Arayani." The man who said the words appeared to be the leader, if the increased stature of his chair was any indication. "That is this council's decision. Our house will not falter. Our people will endure." Looking closely, Estella could make out Mythal's symbol pinned against his chest. All of them had it, in fact.
Saraya said nothing. She just nodded, with a grim determination. The light from outside suddenly grew brighter, until it was blinding and wiped out the vision in front of her.
Exhaustion. Hopelessness.
The sound that returned was a familiar one, but one that had only been replicated a single time before in Estella's life: the sound of a pitched battle between two large armies. The crush of armored bodies pounding against one another, desperate cries piercing the air, the thick smell of blood and fluids and the rot of death. The air was suffocating, making it difficult for Estella to lift her weary arms.
She found herself on a hillside, a bow in her hands, arrow already nocked. The landscape around her was a similar dry forest, but now much of it was on fire. Darkness covered the sky, the stars blacked out by thick smoke from burning wood and magical fire roasting bodies in the valley below. An elven formation was trying to hold a line against a massive Tevinter force, here where the road became narrowest. Mages were hurling massive spells overhead on both sides, and judging by the slain elves on either side of Estella with arrows protruding from them, she wasn't safe from anything at the moment.
"Draw!" a elven lieutenant called, somewhere down the line.
Grimly, she drew the arrow back, feeling the fletching brush her cheek. She must have lost her helmet some time ago, whoever this was. Alongside the desperation and fatigue of the battle itself, Estella was beginning to worry. She needed to find a way to get Saraya back into Vesryn's mind, which meant taking her out of here, but it was rapidly becoming clear that only seldom did she end up anywhere remotely in her proximity, and even then never alone. Speaking of herself and that goal too openly in a context with other people, where the memories were too set in place, could damage something for all she knew, and she couldn't afford the risk.
But neither could she afford to get herself killed here, or remain perpetually cycling through memories. For the moment, at least, they all seemed to be on the same track, headed in the same direction. Maybe it would be enough to wait them out, to survive each for as long as it took to burn out its emotional kindling, and hope that an opportunity to break the unceasing chain of memory would present itself.
When the call came to loose the arrow, she did, easing her fingers. The bowstring slapped against her arm at the end of the release, the heavy draw weight making the sting sharp, but the arrow flew as it should, striking a Tevinter soldier between his helmet and pauldrons, at the side of his neck.
It wasn't hard to tell that the battle was steadily going into a defeat, as the attacking Tevinter army was seemingly endless, and the elves couldn't hold the narrow gap forever. There, in the thick of them on the line Estella could see a shining blue light coming from one armored woman, withdrawing from the fight and clutching her side. Blue tendrils of blood ran from it, latching onto the ground as she was forced away.
The worst possible sound reached Estella's ears. Thundering hooves, pounding against the ground behind her on the hill. She turned just in time to see the elf next to her skewered by a spear. It was then that the army's center broke, the flood gates opening and allowing the humans to pour through, turning it into a brutal and chaotic melee in the valley. Full retreat.
A cavalryman had centered on Estella, riding directly for her, but a mage's fireball landed nearby first. The fires blasted outwards, until they were all she could see, and then the sounds and smells of the battle faded.
Desperation. Love.
One smell remained. Ash. They were still covered in it, for the most part. All of the survivors. Estella stood at attention, holding a spear in one hand. She still wore plate, though she was missing a few pieces. Dented or pierced or lost. They were in some kind of mountain base, it seemed, well constructed and fortified. Rest, albeit a temporary one, from battle after battle, defeat after defeat, each driving them farther south. They had a night to themselves, at least.
The General approached from down the hall, alone. Estella stood on one side of a door, no doubt guarding it, across from another guard, just as weary-looking as she felt. There was, without a doubt, a lot of the General's mind, but for the moment she stopped before the door, eyes meeting Estella's expectantly.
It took her a second to interpret the look exactly, but then she remembered the context and decided she must be expected to open the door. Loosening her stance enough to move provoked aches in her body she hadn't quite felt in full while standing locked, and her fingers almost fumbled on the handle before she was able to grasp it properly and pull it open, shifting around it slightly so as to not end up stuck behind.
"Mother!" the call came from a young boy's voice inside, and before Saraya could move she was forced to hug the child that came out, sinking to her knees to do so. He couldn't have been more than seven, eight years old. Possibly born just before the Fall. The feeling that rushed over Estella was one of all-encompassing love, and with it an incredible sadness and despair. No doubt from what had happened earlier, and before that, and before that.
Saraya did not respond to her child. Perhaps she could not, as she had yet to say anything in any of these dreams. When they broke the hug, they went inside.
"You're hurt," said a man in the room. Young, handsome, with a full head of dark curls, and robes signifying a noble status. "Well, you missed a spot, you're still bleeding."
Another pause of silence, and then the boy spoke again. "Are we going home soon?" The silence that followed was uncomfortable and long, likely a pause to think before Saraya could say whatever she had said in the past. The man with her sighed quietly.
"I believe in you, my love. I know you. You'll find a way out of this, for all of us."
Oh.
Estella knew what the statues in the Loneliness demon's domain had represented now. And from the fact that the child—Saraya's son—was so small in both, she had a feeling she knew what befell them. A sadness gripped her, for once entirely her own, and her hand trembled where she still held the door.
"Hey. Hurry up and close it," a nearby voice hissed, making her jump. The other guard, no doubt wondering why she hadn't already. Estella swallowed, nodded jerkily, and shut the door carefully, so as not to make any sound. The memory faded into light, and as quickly as it had come, it was gone.
Guilt. Shame.
What replaced it was a crisp, cool night. The air was clear and fresh, with no sounds or smells of battle. A secluded clearing at the edge of a pool, probably in Orlais somewhere. The moon hung brightly in the sky, enough to light the area around them without the need for any magical assistance.
Her magic felt a little more familiar again, but still more powerful than she was used to. More than that her body felt more like what she knew. Human again. There was a staff in her hands, bladed at one end, and she looked down to see white robes, reinforced with plates of armor that were spiked at the edges, perhaps meant to be intimidating. An all too familiar sight, that of the ancient Tevinter battle mage, what the Venatori had modeled their designs after.
There were ten of them, it seemed, gathered around and waiting for something. The one with the largest headdress was undoubtedly the leader, an older man who was almost certainly a magister of the Imperium. Several of the younger mages looked bored, but those who plainly had more experience stood at the ready, eyes sweeping constantly over the treeline.
One of the younger men tapped her on the shoulder, speaking in a low voice. "Think she'll actually be here?"
Estella couldn't think of any relevant she other than the obvious one, though filling in the information accordingly produced more questions than answers. Was Saraya negotiating some kind of truce? There was no historical record of that happening; the war had been one of nearly complete annihilation and conquest, cementing Tevinter's place as the second great Thedosian empire, a title it would not quite cede until the Second Blight and the ascension of Orlais under Drakon I.
She stammered for a reasonable answer, and decided on a noncommittal one. "The others seem to think so," she pointed out, tilting her head at the warier members of the group. It was clear they really expected something, so she didn't think it was a poor response.
Estella could see her long before any of the others reacted. They didn't seem to take note of the glowing blue light shining through the trees until Saraya had actually reached the edge of the treeline, at which point they raised their weapons carefully in her direction. But she, it seemed, had come unarmed. Not that it made her any less dangerous, given the magical talents she undoubtedly had.
The magister smiled, and lifted his arms slightly in greeting. "You are General Arayani, yes?" He spoke the elven tongue well. "We are pleased you could come, and come alone."
Indeed, there didn't seem to be anyone else with her. She stepped forward into the clearing, shoulders slumped, the guilt radiating off of her in waves that only Estella could actually feel, but the others could no doubt see it plainly enough.
The magister nodded, in response to words that hadn't been spoken. "All will be as you say. We seek a swift end to the conflict. Your army will be given every chance to lay down their arms and surrender once the trap is sprung, and your family's continued safety will be guaranteed by the Imperium."
Wait.
What?
Estella's eyes darted between Saraya and the Magister, trying to find some kind of explanation for that particular series of words that didn't involve what she thought it involved. A swift end, the opportunity for surrender, and the guarantee of her family's safety. But that implied that there was as yet none of those things—that the conflict wasn't over. An official treaty of that kind would have required far more people be present from both sides. And it wouldn't have flooded her with this guilt. But that meant—
"You've done the right thing, General," the magister assured her. He reached to touch her shoulder, but she recoiled away. He paused, but took no offense to it. "With luck, your people will remember you for the lives you refused to throw away. I know the Imperium will."
The moon seemed to grow brighter and brighter above them, until its scathing light drowned the scene of betrayal before Estella's eyes.
Horror. Revulsion.
This scene Estella already knew, but the context was only just becoming more clear. She found herself standing in a marshy field, where a fog had descended over the scene of a slaughter. The blood lost had only added to the wetness of the ground, mixing in the with the pools of water and the patches of mud. Everywhere she looked, elves were dead, cut down by arrows or blades or magic. By the looks of things, they hadn't stood a chance.
In Estella's hand was the same bladed staff as before, only now the blade was dripping with blood, as were her robes and armor. Judging by the lack of pain when she moved, she wasn't wounded, meaning all of it belonged to others. The dead that were scattered around her, no doubt. Some still clung to life, moaning and writhing in pain before a spear or a knife ended their suffering.
Nearby, Estella heard laughter of all things, and she found a pair of Tevinter soldiers poking through the bodies, searching for survivors. "Did you hear them?" one asked. He quietly imitated a battle cry. "Death before slavery!"
"Idiots," the other agreed, driving his spear down into an elven woman's back.
She didn't find it much different from the elven soldiers laughing earlier, to be completely honest, but with Saraya not in sight, she felt a little more comfortable expressing her disgust. "Show some respect," she hissed, her fingers curling into her palms. "You wouldn't want to be slaves either." The fresh context for the scene, the new awareness of just how and why it had come about, made it somehow more terrible to look upon. Saraya's heartrending grief the last time it was before her took on an edge of something else. Guilt wasn't a strong enough word, she didn't think.
"Uh, yes, my lady. Forgive us." She was clearly someone of rank, a well known apprentice to their leader, perhaps, and an intimidating figure as well given the amount of killing she'd obviously done herself. The two Tevinter soldiers moved off in the other direction.
It was near the center of the slain that she found Saraya, surrounded by a host of Tevinter soldiers and mages. She was kneeling, hands bound behind her back, a pair of guards needed to keep hold of her arms. She made no sound at all, but her grief and pain were obvious purely in body language, even if Estella hadn't been able to feel it for herself.
Bolts of what seemed to be lightning magic or something similar lashed off from her as she struggled, but it was likely something to do with the dream, as the Tevinter soldiers paid it no heed, and the magister from before actually laughed softly. "We haven't killed you, General, because there is much you still can offer us. Our end of the bargain has been upheld in full. Every chance to surrender was given, and refused. Your family's continued safety is assured... for now. We have work to do." He gestured to the soldiers holding her. "Get her up. I want us ready to move again by tomorrow."
The soldiers hauled Saraya to her feet, and it seemed she had ceased resisting. They dragged her by her arms over the bodies of her soldiers, and the fog thickened until Estella could see nothing, and feel nothing.
Rage. Hate.
It bristled in Estella, but it was not her own. Nor, did she sense, did it belong to the body she seemed to be inhabiting for this part of the dreams. No, it belonged to Saraya, and could be felt from a mile off. Estella found herself in a lavish bedroom of some sort, the air balmy and comfortable. Back in the north somewhere, it would seem. The smell of blood freshly spilled, however, tainted it. She was in armor and robes again, possibly still the same mage from the battle, but she didn't feel as powerful as before, and carried a short sword in her hand in place of a staff.
There were at seven other Tevinter soldiers in the room with her, armed to the teeth and wearing steel masked helmets, save for herself and one other. The mages of the group, perhaps. Saraya's son was at the feet of one of the soldiers. He looked to have aged six or seven years, though it was hard to say how long that actually was with the elves having elongated lifespans at this time. If Saraya had worked with Tevinter for that long... the number of crushing victories she could've helped them win was difficult to imagine. It was difficult to imagine how any southern elves would survive such a thing.
But it was plain to see she was helping them no longer. Her son was dead, a pool of blood spreading beneath him at the feet of the man that had killed him.
"Wasn't much of a fighter, was he?" one of them asked, and Estella realized he was speaking to her. Looking down, she found her sword dripping with blood. Saraya's husband lay at her feet, eyes staring blankly up at the ceiling. And there were others, more of her family. A sister perhaps, or an aunt. Relatives that the Imperium had kept safe, as prisoners. Until now, for whatever reason. Perhaps there was nothing more they needed from her.
The blade slipped from her fingers; she felt numbness spreading up the limb. Her own, of course, unless perhaps whoever she inhabited still had enough humanity left to look upon the slaughter of innocent people and feel the horror of it. It struck the man's corpse first, leaving a smear on his shirt before sliding to the floor with a clatter. Even knowing it was a dream did little to defuse the revulsion she felt, because it was also a memory.
She could feel her grip on her own emotions slipping, perhaps just being battered down under the relentless assault of Saraya's own. Rage and hate were not things Estella was very familiar with, not in herself. She didn't know how to keep them at bay the way she more easily could with despair or shame. "Shut up," she heard herself snarl, in a voice that was hers but not. A tone she'd never used. She turned from the grotesque tableau, crossing her arms to hide her quaking. When was this going to be over?
The other Tevinter soldiers seemed confused to say the least, but they had only a moment to linger on it before there was an explosion of some kind outside of the room, sounds of someone dying violently. Once of the soldiers cursed under their breath, and they all readied their blades, eyes locking on the closed door.
It stayed closed only a moment longer. Saraya blasted it open from the other side with immensely powerful magic, and there she stood in the doorway, glowing luminescent blue and crackling with energy. One of the soldiers shouted and charged. A bolt of magic from Saraya disintegrated him, turning his body to ash so light that it rose into the air as a cloud of dust.
What followed was likely a fantastical version of what had actually occurred, with the dream-Saraya obliterating each Tevinter soldier that tried to attack her. Unfortunately, the battle didn't end before a bolt of magic streaked across Estella's face, the blinding light bringing an end to it, and taking her elsewhere.
Emptiness. Defeat.
Estella found herself back in the Brecilian Forest, but this time in the woods, not a ruin. It was cold now, snow beginning to fall and settle on her shoulders and in her hair. She was crouched low behind a bush, bow in hand, arrow nocked. Her legs carried her steadily, silently forward, and she felt that she had to be, for there were few sounds in the forest now to mask her approach.
Before long she noticed other elves working through the trees, all making a stealthy approach, stalking something. Judging by the blue light in the distance, just visible through the trees, it wasn't hard to guess what, or who. How much time had passed was unclear, but there was for once no sign of any Tevinter mages or soldiers here.
When they reached Saraya, they found her kneeling at the side of a stream, weaponless, the glow emanating from within her body diminished. Weak. Estella could feel it wafting off of her, a crushing weight that she had somehow dragged this far, seeking... something.
She didn't react to the elves sneaking up on her, but Estella knew with certainty that she was aware of them, and choosing not to react. They paused, and an older looking elven scout touched Estella's arm with the top of his hand, holding her back a moment. "Is that..." He let his words trail off with the obvious question.
Estella exhaled, her breath clouding into the wintry air. It was difficult to feel much else under the crushing weight of Saraya's despair, but she managed a nod. She'd known a similar feeling, at least more often than she'd known most of the others. "Yes," she whispered. "It's her."
The elf's expression twisted in anger. "Traitor," he growled, and signaled the others, apparently as the leader of this group. "Take her."
They rushed out from their hiding places, aiming weapons at Saraya, but she made no move to avoid them. Arms seized her, hauling her to her feet and dragging her off. The light from above pierced through, driving out the memory and bringing Estella to the next. It had to be the last.
Sorrow.
The hallway of cells was familiar to Estella, though there was no glowing blood spreading through it, and the light was provided by a mix of torches and simple magelights instead. Estella stood as the lone guard outside of Saraya's cell, where the sound of something carving against flesh came from within. She turned to see the glowing woman seated in a chair in one of the cells, and robed elf bent over her. There were a few more guards inside, but they didn't seem concerned, as Saraya made no attempt to resist.
The symbol of Mythal was being carved into her forehead. Not as blood writing, but as a scar, with a knife. Glowing blood ran in sheets down her face, dripping onto the floor and onto the mage's hands. If she had cried out in pain at the time, she showed no sign of it now, simply allowing it to happen. Thankfully, they seemed to be at the tail end of the act, as the mage soon stood, and paused to listen to something.
"Oh no, this is only the beginning, Marellanas. The council has agreed on something special for you. Know that it will never be enough. Not after what you did." He spat down on her, which she did not react to, before he turned to leave, his guards following him. He glanced back to Estella on his way out. "Clean and heal those quickly. Leave the scarring. Bring her to the ritual chamber when she's ready." He walked away swiftly, cleaning his knife, and left Estella alone with Saraya at last.
She certainly had no intention of forcing Saraya to undergo whatever her ultimate fate was again—in fact she suspected she already knew it. It made sense that something like being trapped in a vial for ages upon ages was a form of punishment rather than glorification. Estella slipped inside the cell, coming to a stop beside Saraya.
There was a moment where she wasn't honestly sure of what she should say. What could she, after all of this? They didn't make words for this kind of thing, for the depth of the pain and suffering she'd been led through like some kind of macabre living museum. Swallowing, she decided she knew at least one thing she could say.
"Saraya." Estella leaned forward, trying to make eye contact. Not the easiest thing, when the other person was still somewhat luminescent. She wanted to take her from these memories and back into Ves's head, so it made sense to try and unmoor her from these memories, or at least remind her that there was more after them. "Saraya, it's Estella." She tried to will her form to shift, but she didn't feel anything, and doubted she'd managed to succeed. "Do you remember me?"
She blinked, looking at Estella and clearly seeing her differently now. It took only a moment after that, and then suddenly everything was changed. They were in the same space, the same cell, but the blood was gone, the walls had become overgrown from hundreds and hundreds of years of passed time, and the bleeding cuts were gone from Saraya's head. The feel of her grief faded from Estella's senses, leaving her with only her own thoughts.
"You're..." Ves's voice sounded out weakly behind her. "You're here. Both of you." He stared at where Saraya sat, still in the cell, despondent, and clearly he didn't understand. Saraya's features were still so difficult to make out, but Ves was obviously trying as hard as he could, leaning back against the wall outside the cell. He looked so weak, but part of that had to be because he could tell something was wrong.
"Can you... can you speak to me?" he asked. Her answer was silence, as it had always been, and eventually he tore his eyes to Estella. "What happened?"
She grimaced. "A lot." Probably not the most helpful answer, but she was trying to be mindful of Saraya's privacy to the extent she could. "Like Cy said... once I freed her, we were both moved through the Fade, through—" She searched for the right words. "Through her mind." But it seemed they'd made it back to where they began. To him. Estella heaved a heavy sigh through her nose.
"I think that means all we have to do now is separate the two of you somehow."
"Here? In this place? It's..." He looked around. He didn't seem familiar with this particular area of the ruin, actually. "It's a prison, this can't be what we're meant to do. It's—"
With surprising strength, Saraya placed a hand on Estella's side, unnaturally warm, and shoved. Not hard enough to knock her over, but hard enough to remove her from the cell, which she swiftly grabbed the door of, slamming it shut. Ves reached to catch Estella as best he could, confusion rampant in him, but then he was approaching the bars, and Saraya was swiftly backing away from them, pressing her back to the cold stone wall behind her and keeping her eyes rooted to the floor.
"Saraya, I don't understand," Ves said, grief seeping into his tone. "This can't be right."
She just pointed to a spot on the floor, where a key still rested, half concealed by the dirt. It looked to be the right shape to fit the lock on the door.
Estella stooped to retrieve the key, but she didn't make to lock the door with it. She didn't intend to do it this way. Not here, so reminiscent of such an awful place, and the awful memory that went with it. "Saraya," she said, approaching the bars and stowing the key in her pocket so she could wrap both hands around the bars. "I saw it. I know what happened. Everything that's hurting you." She swallowed, trying to catch the glowing woman's eyes. "And you know what I think? I think ages rotting here is punishment enough. I think your life isn't over yet, and I think it's a waste to spend it like this. A waste of you."
Before, when she'd been trying to convince her to share more of herself with them, or at least with Ves, she hadn't known what she was asking. But now she did. She understood as well as anyone could without having really lived it just what she was saying, and she still believed it. "I know who you were and what you did. How you felt. But that's not the end. It isn't. And even if what you've got left is just a fraction of the time, a heartbeat compared to everything that was before, you can make something better of it than this. Please. I won't lock you back in here, but I can't drag you out, either. You have to decide to do that yourself."
She stayed against the wall while Estella spoke, her hair like strands of light fluttering around her face and chest. Slowly breathing, or at least mimicking the motion. Ves clearly hadn't been granted the same dreams or visions or memories that Estella had been forced to experience, judging by the confusion and pain of not understanding that lingered for him. What you did.
Finally, Saraya approached the bars, stopping near them. Ves looked like he wanted to reach out for her, but the instant he did she backed away a step, keeping her head down. He clearly didn't know what to do, but settled on taking several steps back of his own, allowing her the space without any risk of touching her. She came to the bars, reached her hand through, and turned her palm up in front of Estella.
For a moment, Estella was torn. That Saraya wanted the key was clear enough; what she would do with it was another matter entirely, and a complete mystery. But... she couldn't make someone else's choices just because she felt strongly about them. She didn't have that right. All she could do was make her case the best way she knew how, and hope that it would work out for the better in the end. Taking one hand from the bars, Estella reached into her pocket for the key, pausing a moment before handing it over. "In my mind, you fought for my sake, even when I didn't believe I was worth it. I believe in you just as much as you believed in me. And he believes in you more than anything. Maybe we're on to something."
Lowering the key, she placed it in Saraya's hand.
Her fingers closed around it, still just as warm. Her eyes lifted then, and it almost seemed like she was smiling. If not with her lips, then with her eyes, still so bright.
Before either of them knew it the key was in the lock, and it turned, sealing her in. The dream collapsed, the task was done, and they were pulled from the Fade, back into their bodies.