The Lady knelt at his side, saying:
"Arise, Aegis of the Faith. You are not forgotten.
Neither man nor Maker shall forget your bravery
So long as I remember."
At this, his wounds healed, and he stood
And gathered up the ashes, and carried them
To the lands of the Alamarri, away from sorrow forever.
-Canticle of Apotheosis 2:17-2:18
Sometimes Vesryn's dreams were still his own.
Saraya had powerful memories, powerful emotions, powerful dreams, and they all surfaced when both of their minds were unsconscious. But Vesryn had made powerful memories as well. Some of them were beautiful. Most of them, he thought.
There was the sight of his beloved sitting next to him, looking absolutely absurd with a white lion's pelt on her head, but enduring it for his sake. The first time he'd really put words to his feelings. Not all of them, of course. Even then he'd known he loved her, that she was altogether different and more special than anyone he'd met, but of course she'd only been ready to hear some of that. The rest had to wait. Vesryn had long since learned the value of patience.
There were docks and the sunset in Val Royeaux, a city he wasn't altogether fond of, but somehow her presence there, the subtle marks she left on that place, made it seem welcoming. There was such relief in him then, after all the stress of trying to help someone he knew she cared for. And the admission that came there, after the seed he'd planted, was more than he ever could have hoped for.
As important as she was to him, Stel was not all he dreamed of. He dreamed of Arlathan, of the sight of something both he and Saraya had thought impossible, still standing and still magnificent even after all this time. He dreamed of Skygirl, with the biggest smile on her face after her new teachers helped her cast a petrify spell for the first time. On herself, accidentally. He dreamed of her tears of joy when her favored halla found his way to her, bearing gifts from her clan. How magnificent she looked atop him. A great future awaited her, and the knowledge that he had helped give her the confidence to face it brought him some small measure of comfort.
He dreamed of striving to better himself next to Khari. She set a blistering pace, one that he wasn't sure he'd been able to keep up with. He dreamed of Cyrus, and all he owed him, all the things he hoped to repay him for. Perhaps he already had. But just once he would've liked to call him brother. He dreamed of his years before the Inquisition, seeing lost places and piecing together lost knowledge, with the quiet company he kept in his head. And even in Denerim, with the family and friends he had there... even there, he had good memories.
With the time he'd been given, Vesryn felt he'd lived a good life.
But Saraya's dreams were not so easily denied.
Fear.
That was the one constant, overpowering feeling, lodged in his chest like an arrowhead. The blood had stopped leaking down from his forehead, but he could still barely see, as much of it had dried over his eyes. There was nothing he wanted to see anyway. He felt his feet dragged along the filthy stone floor, he could feel the coldness of the subterranean walls around him. Strong hands gripped him under his arms, hauling him along to meet his fate.
He hadn't felt fear in so long. He'd thought there was nothing left to fear, honestly. Death would be a welcome relief, a chance to move on from this earth that no longer welcomed him. But they knew that, all too well. And they were determined not to give him what he sought. They were determined to force him to linger. As he was dragged along, he thought of a clear pool and a waterfall, and for a moment he almost smiled.
Roughly he was thrown on the floor, and he forced his eyes open. A ritual chamber of some sort. Four mages stood on the perimeter of a circle around him. Designs were carved into the floor, which was made of metal, not stone like the rest. They looked to be branches, wrapped in vines, leaves sprouting with new life all along their lengths. This place was not originally meant for this, but as with everything in this dark time, the elves had converted it to a dark purpose.
"You will drink." The words came from the mage directly before him. At the center of the circle was a short pedestal. The bowl fixed on top of it was filled with what looked like water. Some part of it was water, Vesryn knew, but there was more. Fear gripped him. This had never been done before. Not like this. Not for this purpose.
"End it."
They were the first words he'd uttered in... how long? He could not even remember. He'd thought to see surprise on their faces, but they regarded him evenly, coldly. He'd expected their hatred to burn, but instead it froze. A colder place than this he had never known. The mage before him regarded him with that impossible ice in his eyes.
"It will never end."
A tremendous pain erupted in his back, and he was lifted forward into the air. All of the mages supplied the magic, and it forced him towards the bowl. Maybe years earlier he would've been able to fight them off, but now... there was no stopping this. His head was forced forward and down, plunging into the bowl, and there it was forced to remain. He screamed, the sound muted and only coming out as bubbles. It was only a matter of time before his body refused to obey him anymore, and he took in the water.
It didn't matter if he drowned on it, after all.
Vesryn gasped awake, for a moment unable to breathe. He coughed and sputtered, half expecting a lake's worth of water to come bubbling out of his throat. There was no water. There was no blood, either. His sickness was not of that kind.
He couldn't tell what time of day it was. The darkness made the pains a fraction more tolerable. Stel was not beside him, though, so he had to believe it was daytime. She couldn't always be with them, not when the confrontation with Corypheus seemed so close. He supposed he should have been more worried about that, but he wasn't. She and Romulus would face that together, the Inquisition at their backs. They would find a way to win. Of that he was certain.
For a moment he didn't understand what he was feeling. Saraya was urging him somewhere. Out of the bed, for starters. That was challenge enough, but eventually Vesryn was able to right himself, suppressing the urge to gag, or to collapse altogether. He felt... anxiousness, from her. The kind he recognized as that feeling he might get in his belly, before taking the first step of a long journey.
She wanted to go somewhere far from here, and she needed him to carry her, with what strength he had left in his legs.
Who was he to deny her? He didn't want to die here. A journey of any length would almost certainly be the end of him, but this wasn't how he wanted to go. He wanted the wind in his hair, the sun on his back, a horse underneath him. A weapon in his hands. Armor was a bit much to ask , but clothes at least he could manage.
When he finally tugged his second boot on, he forced open the door out of the bedroom, and was met with the first impossible obstacle: stairs. He leaned against the wall, legs shaking, eyes blurry, and took a single step, trying to lower himself down.
For a moment, he thought he heard whispers, faint and in the distance. And then he fell, tumbling down the steps until he came to rest in a heap at the bottom.
“Shit—Ves!" A couple loud footsteps, and then small, strong hands were on him, gripping his arms firmly and helping him reorient. Khari didn't try to lift him, at first, instead very clearly checking him for major injuries. The heavy breath she let out sounded like relief. “Not gonna ask if you're okay, but, uh—what are you doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing?" He had to fight through a wave of pain after she'd helped him right himself. He wasn't going to wait for them to pass anymore. There wasn't any time for that. "I'm leaving. Help me up."
Getting back to his feet was no easy task, but before long he'd managed it. He didn't bother dusting off his clothes, as he didn't doubt he'd find his way back to the ground a few more times before this was over. "I'm going for a ride. You want to come? I was just on my way to get..." He winced, and then the names almost left him involuntarily. "Estella, Cyrus, Astraia, Harellan. Those four." He blinked, wondering how he was so certain. He'd barely thought this over. "But... you're welcome to come along. I'd like it, really."
Khari wasn't the type to question this sort of thing too much. If a friend of hers wanted to do something, that was fine by her. If it was a difficult something, well—she seemed to like that even better. So though she blinked at him with obvious surprise, it never turned in to any sort of question, and definitely no expression of doubt. Instead, she shrugged, then nodded. “Sure, I'll go. Stel should be back any minute—I can go round up the others in the meantime, I guess. Have Harellan ready the horses, maybe." She paused, then furrowed her brows. “Also, I'm gonna get you my walking stick. Might help with the whole 'stairs' thing." With a brief pat to his shoulder, she was off.
It wasn't more than a few minutes later that Stel returned, either, looking as though she'd been hastening to get there. She found him standing, which looked to relieve her, though nevertheless she didn't stop moving until she was close enough that he could lean on her if the need arose. "I ran into Khari in the hall," she explained. "We're leaving? To where?" That was perhaps more information than the little bear needed, but still an obvious acceptance of the choice.
"I'd tell you if I knew." He couldn't get that much of a sense of this. Right now all he knew was that he needed to collect those closest to him, and the way to do that was to start by going out the door. Saraya was fixated on this. Focused. There wasn't time to make mistakes here.
He took her by the shoulders, lowering his head until his brow touched her forehead. "This is important. I'm not losing my mind, not yet. But this... this may well be the last time. For everything." To ride out, to experience the world, to be with his friends. To be with her.
She raised her hands to his face, smoothing her fingertips along his jaw and nodding slightly against him. "Okay," she murmured. It was obviously not good news, that sense of finality, but it couldn't have been news she wasn't expecting, and she inhaled to brace herself, then continued with a bit more steadiness. "No sense wasting time here, then. Go ahead and lean on me; we'll start down to the bailey while Khari gets the others." She shifted up the extra couple inches it took to brush her lips gently over his, then settled back down on her heels.
It was slow going, but they'd pick up speed once they were mounted. He'd just have to avoid falling off and breaking his neck. Part of him wanted to walk around more, to possibly say goodbye to the people that wouldn't be riding out with him. He didn't know if he'd ever come back through these gates, after all.
But he could feel that Saraya would not have it. She was intent on this, on leaving now, while they still had the time.
Saraya had powerful memories, powerful emotions, powerful dreams, and they all surfaced when both of their minds were unsconscious. But Vesryn had made powerful memories as well. Some of them were beautiful. Most of them, he thought.
There was the sight of his beloved sitting next to him, looking absolutely absurd with a white lion's pelt on her head, but enduring it for his sake. The first time he'd really put words to his feelings. Not all of them, of course. Even then he'd known he loved her, that she was altogether different and more special than anyone he'd met, but of course she'd only been ready to hear some of that. The rest had to wait. Vesryn had long since learned the value of patience.
There were docks and the sunset in Val Royeaux, a city he wasn't altogether fond of, but somehow her presence there, the subtle marks she left on that place, made it seem welcoming. There was such relief in him then, after all the stress of trying to help someone he knew she cared for. And the admission that came there, after the seed he'd planted, was more than he ever could have hoped for.
As important as she was to him, Stel was not all he dreamed of. He dreamed of Arlathan, of the sight of something both he and Saraya had thought impossible, still standing and still magnificent even after all this time. He dreamed of Skygirl, with the biggest smile on her face after her new teachers helped her cast a petrify spell for the first time. On herself, accidentally. He dreamed of her tears of joy when her favored halla found his way to her, bearing gifts from her clan. How magnificent she looked atop him. A great future awaited her, and the knowledge that he had helped give her the confidence to face it brought him some small measure of comfort.
He dreamed of striving to better himself next to Khari. She set a blistering pace, one that he wasn't sure he'd been able to keep up with. He dreamed of Cyrus, and all he owed him, all the things he hoped to repay him for. Perhaps he already had. But just once he would've liked to call him brother. He dreamed of his years before the Inquisition, seeing lost places and piecing together lost knowledge, with the quiet company he kept in his head. And even in Denerim, with the family and friends he had there... even there, he had good memories.
With the time he'd been given, Vesryn felt he'd lived a good life.
But Saraya's dreams were not so easily denied.
Fear.
That was the one constant, overpowering feeling, lodged in his chest like an arrowhead. The blood had stopped leaking down from his forehead, but he could still barely see, as much of it had dried over his eyes. There was nothing he wanted to see anyway. He felt his feet dragged along the filthy stone floor, he could feel the coldness of the subterranean walls around him. Strong hands gripped him under his arms, hauling him along to meet his fate.
He hadn't felt fear in so long. He'd thought there was nothing left to fear, honestly. Death would be a welcome relief, a chance to move on from this earth that no longer welcomed him. But they knew that, all too well. And they were determined not to give him what he sought. They were determined to force him to linger. As he was dragged along, he thought of a clear pool and a waterfall, and for a moment he almost smiled.
Roughly he was thrown on the floor, and he forced his eyes open. A ritual chamber of some sort. Four mages stood on the perimeter of a circle around him. Designs were carved into the floor, which was made of metal, not stone like the rest. They looked to be branches, wrapped in vines, leaves sprouting with new life all along their lengths. This place was not originally meant for this, but as with everything in this dark time, the elves had converted it to a dark purpose.
"You will drink." The words came from the mage directly before him. At the center of the circle was a short pedestal. The bowl fixed on top of it was filled with what looked like water. Some part of it was water, Vesryn knew, but there was more. Fear gripped him. This had never been done before. Not like this. Not for this purpose.
"End it."
They were the first words he'd uttered in... how long? He could not even remember. He'd thought to see surprise on their faces, but they regarded him evenly, coldly. He'd expected their hatred to burn, but instead it froze. A colder place than this he had never known. The mage before him regarded him with that impossible ice in his eyes.
"It will never end."
A tremendous pain erupted in his back, and he was lifted forward into the air. All of the mages supplied the magic, and it forced him towards the bowl. Maybe years earlier he would've been able to fight them off, but now... there was no stopping this. His head was forced forward and down, plunging into the bowl, and there it was forced to remain. He screamed, the sound muted and only coming out as bubbles. It was only a matter of time before his body refused to obey him anymore, and he took in the water.
It didn't matter if he drowned on it, after all.
Vesryn gasped awake, for a moment unable to breathe. He coughed and sputtered, half expecting a lake's worth of water to come bubbling out of his throat. There was no water. There was no blood, either. His sickness was not of that kind.
He couldn't tell what time of day it was. The darkness made the pains a fraction more tolerable. Stel was not beside him, though, so he had to believe it was daytime. She couldn't always be with them, not when the confrontation with Corypheus seemed so close. He supposed he should have been more worried about that, but he wasn't. She and Romulus would face that together, the Inquisition at their backs. They would find a way to win. Of that he was certain.
For a moment he didn't understand what he was feeling. Saraya was urging him somewhere. Out of the bed, for starters. That was challenge enough, but eventually Vesryn was able to right himself, suppressing the urge to gag, or to collapse altogether. He felt... anxiousness, from her. The kind he recognized as that feeling he might get in his belly, before taking the first step of a long journey.
She wanted to go somewhere far from here, and she needed him to carry her, with what strength he had left in his legs.
Who was he to deny her? He didn't want to die here. A journey of any length would almost certainly be the end of him, but this wasn't how he wanted to go. He wanted the wind in his hair, the sun on his back, a horse underneath him. A weapon in his hands. Armor was a bit much to ask , but clothes at least he could manage.
When he finally tugged his second boot on, he forced open the door out of the bedroom, and was met with the first impossible obstacle: stairs. He leaned against the wall, legs shaking, eyes blurry, and took a single step, trying to lower himself down.
For a moment, he thought he heard whispers, faint and in the distance. And then he fell, tumbling down the steps until he came to rest in a heap at the bottom.
“Shit—Ves!" A couple loud footsteps, and then small, strong hands were on him, gripping his arms firmly and helping him reorient. Khari didn't try to lift him, at first, instead very clearly checking him for major injuries. The heavy breath she let out sounded like relief. “Not gonna ask if you're okay, but, uh—what are you doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing?" He had to fight through a wave of pain after she'd helped him right himself. He wasn't going to wait for them to pass anymore. There wasn't any time for that. "I'm leaving. Help me up."
Getting back to his feet was no easy task, but before long he'd managed it. He didn't bother dusting off his clothes, as he didn't doubt he'd find his way back to the ground a few more times before this was over. "I'm going for a ride. You want to come? I was just on my way to get..." He winced, and then the names almost left him involuntarily. "Estella, Cyrus, Astraia, Harellan. Those four." He blinked, wondering how he was so certain. He'd barely thought this over. "But... you're welcome to come along. I'd like it, really."
Khari wasn't the type to question this sort of thing too much. If a friend of hers wanted to do something, that was fine by her. If it was a difficult something, well—she seemed to like that even better. So though she blinked at him with obvious surprise, it never turned in to any sort of question, and definitely no expression of doubt. Instead, she shrugged, then nodded. “Sure, I'll go. Stel should be back any minute—I can go round up the others in the meantime, I guess. Have Harellan ready the horses, maybe." She paused, then furrowed her brows. “Also, I'm gonna get you my walking stick. Might help with the whole 'stairs' thing." With a brief pat to his shoulder, she was off.
It wasn't more than a few minutes later that Stel returned, either, looking as though she'd been hastening to get there. She found him standing, which looked to relieve her, though nevertheless she didn't stop moving until she was close enough that he could lean on her if the need arose. "I ran into Khari in the hall," she explained. "We're leaving? To where?" That was perhaps more information than the little bear needed, but still an obvious acceptance of the choice.
"I'd tell you if I knew." He couldn't get that much of a sense of this. Right now all he knew was that he needed to collect those closest to him, and the way to do that was to start by going out the door. Saraya was fixated on this. Focused. There wasn't time to make mistakes here.
He took her by the shoulders, lowering his head until his brow touched her forehead. "This is important. I'm not losing my mind, not yet. But this... this may well be the last time. For everything." To ride out, to experience the world, to be with his friends. To be with her.
She raised her hands to his face, smoothing her fingertips along his jaw and nodding slightly against him. "Okay," she murmured. It was obviously not good news, that sense of finality, but it couldn't have been news she wasn't expecting, and she inhaled to brace herself, then continued with a bit more steadiness. "No sense wasting time here, then. Go ahead and lean on me; we'll start down to the bailey while Khari gets the others." She shifted up the extra couple inches it took to brush her lips gently over his, then settled back down on her heels.
It was slow going, but they'd pick up speed once they were mounted. He'd just have to avoid falling off and breaking his neck. Part of him wanted to walk around more, to possibly say goodbye to the people that wouldn't be riding out with him. He didn't know if he'd ever come back through these gates, after all.
But he could feel that Saraya would not have it. She was intent on this, on leaving now, while they still had the time.