Lux en Tenebris - pt. 9

Bare your blade and raise it high,
Stand your ground: the dawn will come...  

The song rises over the encampment, a powerful wave that fills the mountain valley and reaches to the starry dome of the sky. The chorus is woven out of countless voices, including that of the young female Templar that was assigned to guard Alexius. He watches her from the shadow of his tent, on the further edge of the Inquisition's sprawling camp: every muscle tense like a bowstring, all of her energy poured into adding her song into the mighty, swelling current of music. The pride and sense of unity with the other singers emanates from her with such force that it almost makes her armour glow. The magister, a dubious outsider who was begrudgingly allowed to stay, can only envy them all. The hope for a future ahead, which has only recently begun to stir inside him, weak and faltering, like the light of a tiny candle in pitch blackness, burns bright and pure within those southerners, as they stand side by side, having survived, against all odds, and lay their hearts bare in a resounding hymn to the coming dawn.

The many individual threads of the song merge into a seamless, harmonious whole, making it hard to recognize separate singers. But Alexius thinks he can hear that single happy, carefree voice - the one that accompanied him on his long journey through the snow, the one that soothed him and encouraged him and defended him, the one that chirped a little song of its own when they first saw the Inquisition's fires. She certainly enjoys singing, that odd little blue-eyed elf who is ready to show compassion to everybody she meets... perhaps even the Elder One. Alexius smirks to himself, imagining how his godlike master would have reacted to being offered a hug.

Presently, the song fades - or perhaps, he is beginning to drift off to sleep. It has been a most trying night - and judging by that dull ache in each one of his bones (it even sends off a pulsing echo to his teeth), he definitely is coming down with something. At least the Seeker deigned to allow him a blanket.

'Hey Lysette! How are you doing?'

'All is well, Your Worship! Thank you again for Haven - I... I was a little too harsh on you back there'.

'It's all right! I heard what your Chant says about "false gods" - if you've been hearing stuff like that since you were a girl, no wonder the Dalish make you uneasy! But hey, we made a great team, fighting off those red fellas at the burning inn and saving Flissa!'

'That we did, Your Worship!.. Do you want to see the prisoner?'

'He is not a prisoner any longer - but yes, please! You can go take a break - don't worry! He is my friend!'

'You say that about everyone, Your Worship'.

'That's because it's true!'

This little exchange right over his ear, followed by the heavy steps of armoured boots as his guard walks off to stretch her legs, makes Alexius open his heavy-lidded eyes. He is instantly greeted with an already familiar pearly grin.

'Gereon,' the Herald says, sitting down next to him. Perhaps it is vain to notice such things - but she pronounces his name with evident pleasure, as if she were savouring the taste of fine vintage wine. And just like wine, it leaves a slight flush on her cheeks.

'Gereon... Are they treating you well?'

'One cannot complain,' he responds politely. 'Especially... under the circumstances'.

'I wasn't disturbing you, was I?' she asks, studying his drowsy countenance.

'No, not at all... I am just... worn out,' he reassures her, wrapping the blanket a little bit tighter around his shoulders.

'I will bring you a healing potion!' she says, with determination in her voice. 'And while I am at it, there is also someone I want you to meet!'

She flits away, light on her feet like a skittish doe, leaving Alexius to mull over her words, frowning. If that someone is who he thinks it is, the girl might be in for a disappointment. What meeting could there possibly be with a man who believed him, Alexius, a better person than he turned out to be, and who was so stunned by how low he had sunk, that he could not bring himself to as much as look him in the eye?

The magister's hunch proves to be correct. Soon enough, the Herald reappears, with a reddish phial in her grasp, and with an exceptionally displeased Dorian in tow.

The elf occupies herself with squatting next to Alexius and uncorking the potion for him - while the two human men glance briefly at each other, and then turn away, Alexius casting his eyes down and Dorian pretending to be interested in a non-existent speck of dirt on the collar of his robe.

'Well, don't just sulk!' the Herald urges the younger man, handing the unsealed phial to the older. 'Talk to him! Please! You both want to, I know it!'

'Hardly,' Dorian says, making a point of sounding like he does not care. 'I only agreed to come with you because I was wondering if this little trek through the southern snow had made Alexius any worse for wear. I find him still alive and well, and I am satisfied. I shall now proceed to be indescribably fabulous on the other side of the camp'.

The Herald shakes her head.

'You are not saying everything you want to say. Varric told me that you were very upset when you realized that Al... Gereon had not made it out of Haven with the rest. The Tevinter lost all his sparkles, he said. And you know why it happened? Because Gereon is still your friend! And now that he is my friend as well, I will do my best to help you reconcile!'

Dorian stays silent for a long time - then, at last, he says stiffly,

'Very well. I am not leaving... yet'.

'You were right to shun me, Dorian,' Alexius mouths, fingering the neck of the potion bottle but not raising it to his lips. 'I... I have changed, and not for the better. The man who graded your research and discussed the future of Tevinter over drinks is not the same man who...'

Dorian rolls up his eyes.

'Oh please Gereon! I know you are getting on in years, but you are better than that! You got it all wrong!'

He begins speaking in his usual nonchalant, dismissive manner; but gradually, his voice grows more serious - even though he still cannot quite look straight into Alexius' face.

'After the tragedy with Livia and Felix, you displayed something that is quite an exotic rarity in Tevinter, especially in the glorious House Pavus... Genuine, heartfelt grief. I was startled by the spectacle; perhaps even frightened. And we cannot have the utter perfection that is me being ruined by something like fright, can we? So I... confronted you. Told you to get over it. The rest is history... Though not the kind of history I would prefer to make'.

Alexius starts and looks up at his former apprentice.

'You... You think you pushed me to the Venatori?' he asks hoarsely.

'I never said that,' Dorian retorts. 'But who knows how things would have turned out if I had postponed my drinking and stayed with you just a little while longer? Maybe that Elder One disaster could have been averted if you had an impeccably manicured hand to slap some sense into you! But as it happens, disaster was not averted. Not entirely. And unlike you, I still remember how you turned that tacky dog lord castle into a nightmarish evil lair and started taking people apart for experiments. It is a whole mess of feelings, all coiled together like creepy crawlies under a rock... And I would feel much more comfortable if that rock was not disturbed. I detest creepy crawlies'.

With that, he gives the Herald a very meaningful glare. She, however, is still far from discouraged.

'You know, I have made so many wonderful friends in the Inquisition,' she says earnestly. 'But sometimes it gets just a little bit lonely... Because both Solas and Sera started flailing around like eels on a frying pan when I said how nice it is to be around a fellow elf.  It would have been so lovely to talk to someone...  like me from time to time'.

'You think we would bond over spitting on southern fashion and reciting poetry in Tevene?' Dorian asks, raising an eyebrow.

The Herald smiles hopefully.

'Just a thought'.

Dorian's expression suddenly softens, and he says, the left corner of his mouth sliding up,

'Say, speaking of poetry - do you remember how Felix pinned that dirty limerick to what's-his-name's back when he paid you a business visit?'

Alexius mirrors his apprentice's half-smile, as his gaze grows wistful and distant.

'You put him up to it'.

'I cannot deny the initiative,' Dorian says, 'But Felix put my plan into fruition with outstanding finesse! And he did you a great favour, too! That old vulture was hardly a fitting guest to have around the household'.

'Yes...' Alexius muses, still nursing the potion bottle. 'The man had the audacity to demand that Livia and I use our experimental spells to assist him with finding his "property"... Which happened to be a slave that he had been torturing for years. Your and Felix's prank was the kindest treatment he could have gotten'.

The two men fall silent again, each plunged deep in thought; after a certain while, Dorian flexes his shoulders and extends his hand to his former mentor.

'I... I suppose we could try to do this... talking again thing. For Felix's sake'.

'For Felix's sake,' Alexius repeats quietly, and grasps the younger man's hand, gazing intently into his face.

Dorian coughs.

'Right... Well, I suppose that is that then. Find me if you have a dire need to gossip about the quaint local customs. In the meanwhile, I shall seek out the resident dwarven author. If he intends to write me into an opus about the Inquisition, I must make sure that he uses the proper adjectives to describe my profile'.

With that, he makes off, never giving Alexius a second glance. The older man watches him disappear among the countless rows of tents, and remarks, with a subtle, friendly irony,

'Why, for Dorian, that was the equivalent of sobbing into my chest! You truly do work wonders, Herald!'

'Yavanna,' she corrects him. 'You let me call you Gereon, so that means you get to call me Yavanna!'

'Yavanna,' he repeats, wondering if that warm feeling caressing his face comes from the fever he is developing, the proximity to a campfire, or something else. 'Thank you... for this. He is still far from forgiving me for my betrayal - but... But one takes comfort in small things. Especially when shortly before now, one could not find comfort in anything at all'.

'I am so happy to hear you speak this way,' the Herald says, with sincere feeling in her voice. She then nestles closer to Alexius and points upwards. 'Look - the snowstorm has cleared. Do you see that?'

Taking a long, leisurely draught from the healing phial, the magister turns his face towards the pre-dawn sky.

Where once the Fade broiled in a gigantic cloudy vortex, there is now nothing left but a long, faint ribbon of greenish glow. It ripples like light, silken cloth would, changing slightly in hue and transparency with every passing moment - an endless, mesmerizing spectacle of light and colour.

'Solas says the sky will never be the same after the Breach,' the Herald sighs, 'But at least it has grown calm... And all we can see now is just a scar. To remind us what we've lived through, what darkness we were lost in, and to make us look forward to a whole new day in the light. That's what makes scars so beautiful'.

'That is... surprisingly philosophical for someone so young,' Alexius remarks, turning from the glowing skyline back to the elf beside him.

'I was notorious for stocking up books instead of vital supplies whenever my clan bartered with humans or wandering dwarves,' she says, a tiny note of boastfulness in her voice. 'And books are great for making your mind come up with thoughts of its own!.. But...'

Her expression grows slightly anxious.

'I hope my age doesn't bother you... I mean, here I am, trying to bring back hope to people - and if one of these people dismisses me as a child, that would be... a little... uh, disheartening'.

'I am a little past dismissing you, don't you think?' Alexius says - or rather, thinks he says, because by the time his lips finish shaping the sentence, he can barely register the sound of his own voice.

The Herald... Yavanna has shifted even closer to him, her face inches away from his. At this precise moment, the potion must have taken effect, for he feels the ache leave his body - and with it, the darkness that still shrouds his heart seems to completely dissipate, at least for a short while. In this minute, in the here and now, there is no pain in his world, no regret, no weariness - just his tender, openhearted elven friend sitting by his side, her soft smile now more than a smile, her warmth going to his head. If he leans in, if he submits to the impulse because she wants him to - will there be shame in that? Will they forgive him - Livia, Felix, Dorian? Will he forgive himself?

'Lethallan!'

A stranger steps into the circle of firelight - a tall, slender elf in a simple tunic, with a shaved head and a peculiar pendant hanging round his neck... like a jaw bone of some animal. Judging by the hints the Heald dropped in one of her excited accounts of the Inquisition's adventures, this must be Solas. His arrival makes the female elf jolt upright, smoothing her clothes and pressing her legs together, like Alexius' students back at the Minrathous Circle, when he walked into the classroom where they had previously been up to some mischief. She then looks eagerly at Solas, showing that she is ready to hear what he has to say.

'A word,' he gestures to the Herald to follow him away from the tents.

She leaps to her feet, as if pulled upwards by a string. Solas gives Alexius a polite bow, and the two elves walk off, while the human is left to take apart his own mind and find new transgressions to blame himself for.