In spite of everything, Astraia was focused today.
Block, turn the blade, kick back, retreat, loose a spirit bolt, sidestep and slash. Her training with Harellan looked more like a dance when she was excelling, the bladed staff's comfortable weight in her hands as easy to manipulate as the arcane energy she could summon in such great amounts. She was getting stronger too, able to practice longer, able to string together more and more without wilting and needing rest. The Arbor Wilds had shown her how much committment she needed if she wanted to follow this path. She'd seen up close the price of failure.
Harellan never missed a beat. Every slash she threw he turned aside, every thrust he deflected. Every spell she worked into her defense he blocked or dispelled out of the air. She wasn't really fighting him, she knew, but it still felt good to keep it up as long as she could. She remembered when she'd barely been able to block a single swing, when she could barely hit a target sitting still at close range. She almost had disdain for that version of herself. Tiny and weak, utterly lacking in confidence.
That girl would not have even considered what Cyrus had offered her. Let alone accepted it.
She still didn't know if she believed him, but Cyrus had never lied to her before. She trusted him as much as anyone here, but it was still difficult to wrap her head around. That he could turn himself into such a creature and combat the dragon Corypheus commanded. And that he wanted her of all people to go with him, and fight the dragon. Not any of the other powerful mages the Inquisition could speak of. Her. It felt like an honor, but it also sort of felt like suicide.
How could she say no?
"Damn it," she drew up short when she finally made a mistake, sidestepping when she should have blocked, or dashed back. Harellan's magic blade hovered a moment near her throat, and the round ended the way it always did. Another practice death. She backed off a few steps, expelling and taking in a few breaths to try and get her wind back. "That was good, though. We should go again." Anything to keep her mind focused, and not thinking about the insanity she was willingly giving herself to.
Harellan smiled slightly, then shook his head, stepping back a pace and letting the blade fade away. "Your drive is admirable, but it is equally important to conserve your strength. We don't know when the battle will be upon us." He glanced towards the entrance, brow knit almost as though he expected some piece of it to intrude upon their sanctuary at any moment. It remained quiet, of course, and he exhaled a soft breath. She never did seem to wind him.
"You've been asked to do something quite tremendous." His eyes, bright leaf-green, shifted back to hers. "Is there anything you wish to discuss about it? Or perhaps about what is to come, in general?"
"Tremendous, that's... one word for it." Astraia found that she had to keep moving, even if she reduced herself to very slow steps, pacing side to side, almost unconciously shifting the position of her staff around into various guards. She knew she didn't feel settled on this, like there was something she wanted Harellan to say that would solidify her certainty. He was so good at that, dragging out that confidence from wherever it was buried in the depths of her being.
"I've been asked to—" she cut herself off, taking a step closer and lowering her voice, the only way she could make herself put it to words. "I've been asked to help fight a dragon that no one has been able to even hurt very much, and I'm going to be doing that by riding another dragon. That's..." She struggled for a more eloquent way to describe it than insane. "That's even crazier than anything Khari has done."
And that was saying something.
"Has this sort of thing ever been done before?" she asked. "Killing dragons, sure, for whatever reason people seem to make a hobby of that, but riding them? Are there any records of anything like that?"
Harellan laughed softly, a gentle sound free of ridicule. "It's been known to happen." With a slight shrug, he settled in the grass, apparently unconcerned with her continued movement. "It wasn't commonplace among the ancients, but not vanishingly-rare, either. For perhaps a more readily-analogous example, there are records of such a thing as late as the Second Blight. A lady Grey Warden and a shapeshifting friend of hers, as I understand it. They slew an Archdemon." Where he'd heard such a tale was impossible to say without asking him, but he did seem to have a lot of information that just wasn't readily available to anyone else.
"Perhaps also worth noting is something rather important. While most dragons are very intelligent animals, Cyrus is rather something different. The fact that no one has yet raised an alarm saying they've sighted such a creature around Skyhold is, I think, rather useful testament to his ability to override any instincts that might plague him." Something about saying that must have amused him, because he maintained a crooked half-smile throughout, even though the words themselves were perfectly serious.
She wasn't sure if that was reassuring or not. She also wasn't sure she really believed any of this was happening. Maybe she wouldn't until she was actually in the air, holding on to Cyrus's... what would she be hanging on to? And with what? She was supposed to be casting spells while this was going on, so at least one hand would be kept on her staff. Maybe he'd have spines of some sort that she could grab, and preferably not accidentally impale herself with. Then maybe she could just squeeze with her legs around his—
No, that thought was getting a little too strange to be allowed in her head. She sighed, suddenly ceasing her movement and putting both hands on her staff so she could plant it in the ground and lean on it a little more. This was just something she was going to have to deal with when it came. And she would find a way to do that. It was too important to everyone here, to all the people she'd come to call her friends. Cyrus asked her, when he could have asked someone else. She wasn't sure what to do with that trust, and it terrified her more than a little, but if that fear was the only thing that could break that trust, she would find a way around it.
"Okay." She released another breath. In through the nose, out through her lips. "I'm okay." A single nervous laugh escaped her with the next breath. "Every time I think my life with the Inquisition can't get any stranger, something else happens. I thought everything with Saraya was going to be as unbelievable as it got." Fighting a giant, traveling to the very same spot where Saraya had "died," seeing her fade away like that when they pulled her from Ves. Seeing Stel bring him back to life.
The thought of Ves made a realization hit her. Something about Skygirl taking on new meaning. She forced it aside.
"I don't think I've asked you what you thought about all that. About Saraya." Everyone had mostly been left to their own thoughts on the way back, and afterwards. It wasn't an easy topic for any of them to talk about, for their own separate reasons. "What did you say to her, before she died? I didn't quite catch it."
"Her loss is a great shame." Harellan said this with obvious sincerity, pressing his palm down against the grass and leaning back slightly. The other rubbed absently at the shorn side of his head. "I told her I hoped she found her kin again, and that she would be happy among them. It was a... benediction, more or less. The kind of thing you might say to a friend who was setting out on a very long journey. Or to someone about to slip into Uthenera. It seemed appropriate, for the end of a life so long and full of trials."
He hummed slightly, something more clearly near the tip of his tongue. After a moment, he continued. "What happened after... I suspected it was possible, but I'd never seen anyone actually achieve that. Bringing the dead back to life." Harellan considered that, then amended. "Well, not in that way, at least. Necromancy is usually rather less... kind. I suppose the Inquisition really does get up to quite extraordinary things."
"I was glad to hear Abelas forgive her." She stood straight again, bringing her staff in to rest against her chest. "I forgave her, for what it was worth, but I didn't feel like it was much. Abelas, though... he lived through what she did, and they were even close before. I can't imagine what that must've been like." She didn't say it, but she hoped her brother could have the same someday, from Ves. He'd done terrible things, and looking back what he did had in large part been one of the crucial events that led to Saraya's death, but despite all that... he hadn't set out to hurt her, or Ves. He'd been desperate to help their people, and it led him to do things she knew he regretted with all his heart. She doubted there was much of anything Zeth wanted now more than Ves's forgiveness.
"Everything I've seen and learned since... well, since going to Arlathan I guess, has gotten me thinking." Without thinking she reached a hand up, almost touching her cheek, before she lowered it again. "As Dalish, we marked our faces with the vallaslin to signify our devotion to the gods, as well as passage into adulthood. I don't think very many Dalish at all know what they first meant to the People. I don't know what they'd think of the practice if they did." At first Astraia had understood them as marks of slavery, brands used to identify which of the Evanuris a particular elf belonged to. But in time she'd come to see more, and understand that for many their service was a source of pride. Those that served Mythal in particular, like Abelas, clearly had great reverance for her.
"I think the vallaslin mean more to some of us than others, if they were gained in some special way, or if they remind them of something they want to hold on to. But mine have never done that for me." She got them when she was still too young to understand anything of the world, at a time in her life when she'd been ashamed of her shortcomings and intimidated by each new step. "I don't know who Ghilan'nain was enough to say one way or another if I'd be comfortable devoting myself to her, so..." She hesitated a moment. "You know so much about magic, I was wondering if... if there was a way to be rid of these. The vallaslin."
Harellan studied the marks on her face, but his attention seemed almost abstract in some way, like he was looking at them rather than her. "I could do that, if you would like. The vallaslin are not always permanent, among those who use them for their original ends." Pushing off his hand, he flowed smoothly into a stand again, pausing before drawing any closer. "I'll have to touch your face, just so you're aware." He raised one hand; his fingers and palms were uncovered; though he wore bracers, they only covered the backs of his hands.
"Okay." She took a step closer, and let her staff fall away to the ground so it wouldn't be in his way. Reaching up, she made sure to push away the stray hair from her face, in case that was important. Her vallaslin design was not overly elaborate, as Ghilan'nain's rarely were; just a twisting pattern representative of the halla's antlers above her brow and a smaller design upon her chin. She didn't know why, but she closed her eyes, feeling that it was appropriate.
She heard the grass rustle as Harellan approached. "This won't hurt." A moment later, there were fingtertips on her temples, followed by an odd tingling sensation. He drew both hands in towards her nose, then lifted them away for a moment to move them down to her chin. He was clearly careful to keep his motions minimal and deliberate, not entirely unlike the process of healing something, in that way.
"There." He stepped away, conjuring an ice dagger in one hand and then reshaping it so that it was a smooth, flat disc and holding it up and out. "Would you like to see?"
Her eyes fluttered open slowly, taking a moment to focus in the right way so she could see herself in the ice that Harellan had conjured. For such a small change, it really did make her look different, the way her skin was so clear now, the way there was nothing to distract her from the hazel green of her eyes. The moment she'd earned her vallaslin was supposed to signify her passage into adulthood, the exact point in which she stopped being just a small girl scared of her own magic. But she found that it was only now, when they were gone again, that she felt like a new person.
"Thank you, Harellan. For everything."
He seemed to have a sense for the importance of the moment, letting the ice melt back away and folding his arms behind his back. "Of course, Astraia. It was my honor." Harellan paused for a heartbeat, then continued. "When I came here, I expected I was doing so only for the sake of my brother's children. I had encountered some of the People outside of Arlathan before, and so often found myself..." he searched for the word, melancholy settling over his face. "Not disappointed, exactly. Just... resigned. It seemed that there was so little potential for change. You've convinced me that's not always true. Perhaps it is I who should be thanking you."
She'd never really thought about it, but she'd always felt similarly in her youth. Resigned to the idea of living in a state of mourning, carrying on until the bitter end and shedding tears for that which could never be reclaimed. Maybe that was why she'd come alive in this place. Here, more than anywhere in the world she felt, there was hope. Fitting, perhaps, that this site had originally been an ancient elven fortress. Revived, rather than remembered and mourned.
She opened her mouth to say something, but the words were drowned out by a sudden and horrible screech. Her hands instinctively went to her ears and she ducked down, just as the unmistakable sounds of a dragon's wings beating against the air passed overhead. She couldn't forget that sound, not after having it come right at her in the Arbor Wilds. For a moment she thought she would die, that the dragon's corrupted fire would incinerate them both, but it simply raced on by them, heading towards...
"Oh no," she whispered, picking up her staff again and sprinting back towards the path out of their little ravine. She could see the dragon flying away from them, making straight for Skyhold. They couldn't possibly be prepared for it in time. It smashed into one of the towers, destroying most of its upper levels. It was... the Commander's tower. That wasn't good. Astraia hoped he wasn't inside.
The dragon didn't linger there long, instead hovering along the walls, ripping them apart where it could, wrecking their battlements at several points. Those immediately able to fight started loosing arrows or spells back at it, but they caught completely by surprise, and couldn't muster enough fire to even bother it much.
"I need to find Cyrus. Now." Better not to think about it too much. If the dragon was here, Corypheus couldn't be far behind.
They had to finish this now.
Block, turn the blade, kick back, retreat, loose a spirit bolt, sidestep and slash. Her training with Harellan looked more like a dance when she was excelling, the bladed staff's comfortable weight in her hands as easy to manipulate as the arcane energy she could summon in such great amounts. She was getting stronger too, able to practice longer, able to string together more and more without wilting and needing rest. The Arbor Wilds had shown her how much committment she needed if she wanted to follow this path. She'd seen up close the price of failure.
Harellan never missed a beat. Every slash she threw he turned aside, every thrust he deflected. Every spell she worked into her defense he blocked or dispelled out of the air. She wasn't really fighting him, she knew, but it still felt good to keep it up as long as she could. She remembered when she'd barely been able to block a single swing, when she could barely hit a target sitting still at close range. She almost had disdain for that version of herself. Tiny and weak, utterly lacking in confidence.
That girl would not have even considered what Cyrus had offered her. Let alone accepted it.
She still didn't know if she believed him, but Cyrus had never lied to her before. She trusted him as much as anyone here, but it was still difficult to wrap her head around. That he could turn himself into such a creature and combat the dragon Corypheus commanded. And that he wanted her of all people to go with him, and fight the dragon. Not any of the other powerful mages the Inquisition could speak of. Her. It felt like an honor, but it also sort of felt like suicide.
How could she say no?
"Damn it," she drew up short when she finally made a mistake, sidestepping when she should have blocked, or dashed back. Harellan's magic blade hovered a moment near her throat, and the round ended the way it always did. Another practice death. She backed off a few steps, expelling and taking in a few breaths to try and get her wind back. "That was good, though. We should go again." Anything to keep her mind focused, and not thinking about the insanity she was willingly giving herself to.
Harellan smiled slightly, then shook his head, stepping back a pace and letting the blade fade away. "Your drive is admirable, but it is equally important to conserve your strength. We don't know when the battle will be upon us." He glanced towards the entrance, brow knit almost as though he expected some piece of it to intrude upon their sanctuary at any moment. It remained quiet, of course, and he exhaled a soft breath. She never did seem to wind him.
"You've been asked to do something quite tremendous." His eyes, bright leaf-green, shifted back to hers. "Is there anything you wish to discuss about it? Or perhaps about what is to come, in general?"
"Tremendous, that's... one word for it." Astraia found that she had to keep moving, even if she reduced herself to very slow steps, pacing side to side, almost unconciously shifting the position of her staff around into various guards. She knew she didn't feel settled on this, like there was something she wanted Harellan to say that would solidify her certainty. He was so good at that, dragging out that confidence from wherever it was buried in the depths of her being.
"I've been asked to—" she cut herself off, taking a step closer and lowering her voice, the only way she could make herself put it to words. "I've been asked to help fight a dragon that no one has been able to even hurt very much, and I'm going to be doing that by riding another dragon. That's..." She struggled for a more eloquent way to describe it than insane. "That's even crazier than anything Khari has done."
And that was saying something.
"Has this sort of thing ever been done before?" she asked. "Killing dragons, sure, for whatever reason people seem to make a hobby of that, but riding them? Are there any records of anything like that?"
Harellan laughed softly, a gentle sound free of ridicule. "It's been known to happen." With a slight shrug, he settled in the grass, apparently unconcerned with her continued movement. "It wasn't commonplace among the ancients, but not vanishingly-rare, either. For perhaps a more readily-analogous example, there are records of such a thing as late as the Second Blight. A lady Grey Warden and a shapeshifting friend of hers, as I understand it. They slew an Archdemon." Where he'd heard such a tale was impossible to say without asking him, but he did seem to have a lot of information that just wasn't readily available to anyone else.
"Perhaps also worth noting is something rather important. While most dragons are very intelligent animals, Cyrus is rather something different. The fact that no one has yet raised an alarm saying they've sighted such a creature around Skyhold is, I think, rather useful testament to his ability to override any instincts that might plague him." Something about saying that must have amused him, because he maintained a crooked half-smile throughout, even though the words themselves were perfectly serious.
She wasn't sure if that was reassuring or not. She also wasn't sure she really believed any of this was happening. Maybe she wouldn't until she was actually in the air, holding on to Cyrus's... what would she be hanging on to? And with what? She was supposed to be casting spells while this was going on, so at least one hand would be kept on her staff. Maybe he'd have spines of some sort that she could grab, and preferably not accidentally impale herself with. Then maybe she could just squeeze with her legs around his—
No, that thought was getting a little too strange to be allowed in her head. She sighed, suddenly ceasing her movement and putting both hands on her staff so she could plant it in the ground and lean on it a little more. This was just something she was going to have to deal with when it came. And she would find a way to do that. It was too important to everyone here, to all the people she'd come to call her friends. Cyrus asked her, when he could have asked someone else. She wasn't sure what to do with that trust, and it terrified her more than a little, but if that fear was the only thing that could break that trust, she would find a way around it.
"Okay." She released another breath. In through the nose, out through her lips. "I'm okay." A single nervous laugh escaped her with the next breath. "Every time I think my life with the Inquisition can't get any stranger, something else happens. I thought everything with Saraya was going to be as unbelievable as it got." Fighting a giant, traveling to the very same spot where Saraya had "died," seeing her fade away like that when they pulled her from Ves. Seeing Stel bring him back to life.
The thought of Ves made a realization hit her. Something about Skygirl taking on new meaning. She forced it aside.
"I don't think I've asked you what you thought about all that. About Saraya." Everyone had mostly been left to their own thoughts on the way back, and afterwards. It wasn't an easy topic for any of them to talk about, for their own separate reasons. "What did you say to her, before she died? I didn't quite catch it."
"Her loss is a great shame." Harellan said this with obvious sincerity, pressing his palm down against the grass and leaning back slightly. The other rubbed absently at the shorn side of his head. "I told her I hoped she found her kin again, and that she would be happy among them. It was a... benediction, more or less. The kind of thing you might say to a friend who was setting out on a very long journey. Or to someone about to slip into Uthenera. It seemed appropriate, for the end of a life so long and full of trials."
He hummed slightly, something more clearly near the tip of his tongue. After a moment, he continued. "What happened after... I suspected it was possible, but I'd never seen anyone actually achieve that. Bringing the dead back to life." Harellan considered that, then amended. "Well, not in that way, at least. Necromancy is usually rather less... kind. I suppose the Inquisition really does get up to quite extraordinary things."
"I was glad to hear Abelas forgive her." She stood straight again, bringing her staff in to rest against her chest. "I forgave her, for what it was worth, but I didn't feel like it was much. Abelas, though... he lived through what she did, and they were even close before. I can't imagine what that must've been like." She didn't say it, but she hoped her brother could have the same someday, from Ves. He'd done terrible things, and looking back what he did had in large part been one of the crucial events that led to Saraya's death, but despite all that... he hadn't set out to hurt her, or Ves. He'd been desperate to help their people, and it led him to do things she knew he regretted with all his heart. She doubted there was much of anything Zeth wanted now more than Ves's forgiveness.
"Everything I've seen and learned since... well, since going to Arlathan I guess, has gotten me thinking." Without thinking she reached a hand up, almost touching her cheek, before she lowered it again. "As Dalish, we marked our faces with the vallaslin to signify our devotion to the gods, as well as passage into adulthood. I don't think very many Dalish at all know what they first meant to the People. I don't know what they'd think of the practice if they did." At first Astraia had understood them as marks of slavery, brands used to identify which of the Evanuris a particular elf belonged to. But in time she'd come to see more, and understand that for many their service was a source of pride. Those that served Mythal in particular, like Abelas, clearly had great reverance for her.
"I think the vallaslin mean more to some of us than others, if they were gained in some special way, or if they remind them of something they want to hold on to. But mine have never done that for me." She got them when she was still too young to understand anything of the world, at a time in her life when she'd been ashamed of her shortcomings and intimidated by each new step. "I don't know who Ghilan'nain was enough to say one way or another if I'd be comfortable devoting myself to her, so..." She hesitated a moment. "You know so much about magic, I was wondering if... if there was a way to be rid of these. The vallaslin."
Harellan studied the marks on her face, but his attention seemed almost abstract in some way, like he was looking at them rather than her. "I could do that, if you would like. The vallaslin are not always permanent, among those who use them for their original ends." Pushing off his hand, he flowed smoothly into a stand again, pausing before drawing any closer. "I'll have to touch your face, just so you're aware." He raised one hand; his fingers and palms were uncovered; though he wore bracers, they only covered the backs of his hands.
"Okay." She took a step closer, and let her staff fall away to the ground so it wouldn't be in his way. Reaching up, she made sure to push away the stray hair from her face, in case that was important. Her vallaslin design was not overly elaborate, as Ghilan'nain's rarely were; just a twisting pattern representative of the halla's antlers above her brow and a smaller design upon her chin. She didn't know why, but she closed her eyes, feeling that it was appropriate.
She heard the grass rustle as Harellan approached. "This won't hurt." A moment later, there were fingtertips on her temples, followed by an odd tingling sensation. He drew both hands in towards her nose, then lifted them away for a moment to move them down to her chin. He was clearly careful to keep his motions minimal and deliberate, not entirely unlike the process of healing something, in that way.
"There." He stepped away, conjuring an ice dagger in one hand and then reshaping it so that it was a smooth, flat disc and holding it up and out. "Would you like to see?"
Her eyes fluttered open slowly, taking a moment to focus in the right way so she could see herself in the ice that Harellan had conjured. For such a small change, it really did make her look different, the way her skin was so clear now, the way there was nothing to distract her from the hazel green of her eyes. The moment she'd earned her vallaslin was supposed to signify her passage into adulthood, the exact point in which she stopped being just a small girl scared of her own magic. But she found that it was only now, when they were gone again, that she felt like a new person.
"Thank you, Harellan. For everything."
He seemed to have a sense for the importance of the moment, letting the ice melt back away and folding his arms behind his back. "Of course, Astraia. It was my honor." Harellan paused for a heartbeat, then continued. "When I came here, I expected I was doing so only for the sake of my brother's children. I had encountered some of the People outside of Arlathan before, and so often found myself..." he searched for the word, melancholy settling over his face. "Not disappointed, exactly. Just... resigned. It seemed that there was so little potential for change. You've convinced me that's not always true. Perhaps it is I who should be thanking you."
She'd never really thought about it, but she'd always felt similarly in her youth. Resigned to the idea of living in a state of mourning, carrying on until the bitter end and shedding tears for that which could never be reclaimed. Maybe that was why she'd come alive in this place. Here, more than anywhere in the world she felt, there was hope. Fitting, perhaps, that this site had originally been an ancient elven fortress. Revived, rather than remembered and mourned.
She opened her mouth to say something, but the words were drowned out by a sudden and horrible screech. Her hands instinctively went to her ears and she ducked down, just as the unmistakable sounds of a dragon's wings beating against the air passed overhead. She couldn't forget that sound, not after having it come right at her in the Arbor Wilds. For a moment she thought she would die, that the dragon's corrupted fire would incinerate them both, but it simply raced on by them, heading towards...
"Oh no," she whispered, picking up her staff again and sprinting back towards the path out of their little ravine. She could see the dragon flying away from them, making straight for Skyhold. They couldn't possibly be prepared for it in time. It smashed into one of the towers, destroying most of its upper levels. It was... the Commander's tower. That wasn't good. Astraia hoped he wasn't inside.
The dragon didn't linger there long, instead hovering along the walls, ripping them apart where it could, wrecking their battlements at several points. Those immediately able to fight started loosing arrows or spells back at it, but they caught completely by surprise, and couldn't muster enough fire to even bother it much.
"I need to find Cyrus. Now." Better not to think about it too much. If the dragon was here, Corypheus couldn't be far behind.
They had to finish this now.