Chapter Text
“Haron, you need not do this.” Telanna pleaded with her friend. Her hand pushed back against the cold armor encasing Haron, the symbol that kept him bound and closed off from them. A symbol, her friend was not yet ready to let go. “Whatever happens at the Temple, you do not need to sacrifice more of yourself.”
“I will not offer less to you and the Inquisitor than I did the Templars,” one hand holding his head up, biting down on his teeth. Throbbing, biting, nauseated without squinting, he would not stand to be left in this condition. Thedas deserved all that he could give. “Now was too important. Orlais can’t be left to deal with a Avvar God and the Blight.”
“We promised you that you were allowed to start over, away from your life with the Templars,” the mage looked into Haron’s eyes, needing him to know that it was not a promise meant to be broken. She extends her hand to hold those of her friend steady. “Your duty doesn’t need to keep you bound.”
“But does it have to be now?” Haron pondered, his eyes shaking. ”Telanna, I want to start over and you’ve all given me the opportunity to. But I cannot risk all our lives to do so.”
Their camp was some way south of the Frostback Basin. Far enough away from the eyes of the Hakkonite lurkers and ears of Avvar locals. It was a damp marsh, too eager to swallow their boots with every step they took. Yet it was still comforting in a way, no Inquisition tied to their legs. The sounds of Haron and Telanna arguing has become a comforting unopened memory to Ameridan.
“These mushrooms growing here seem to bond well,” Orinna was humming a low tone at the bottom of her voice, her hands busy shaking her grenade into an uniform mass. “I wonder if the thin veil has anything to do with that.”
Watching Orinna work made Ameridan smile, the bustling arguing of his companions was not something he’d often get. Too often they’d be split apart with the other templars. No matter how much their friendship was valued and sword blows traded for one another, the distance across the forest could always be felt.
“Do you think that pitch grenade would work?”
The Alchemist answers that question with her slanted brows. “Have my recipes ever failed you?”
She lets the mixture be poured into a flask, left to ferment and fully cure before use. There was excitement at the thought of using her new creation, excitement enough for her fists to box the air, “we’ll rush in. Throw a couple of them and they’d know nothing when we strike.”
“Of course.”
The excitability in the Alchemist’s voice should have been to quell their leader’s worries for their upcoming battle instead it was only enough to fake a chuckle out of him.
“We’ll get through things tomorrow. You know that right?” Her excitement simmered to a sincere reassurance, needing her friend to lighten the mood for their group.
“That’s not what I’m worried about. Unity has said it could seal the dragon if needed,” their Inquisitor had weary and worn out eyes unfit for the title, as it now had another burden to carry. “But this threat had come at such a dire time.”
“Think of it like this. We’ve hunted bigger dragons before. It’d be beyond satisfying to kill a god,” Orinna pops back a toothy grin that demands the dreary swamp to warm up for her.
She bounced a flask between her hands, eyes fluttering back and forth until she saw their willowy mage approach and knowing it's her signal to pick up her feet. “But you don’t need to hear it from me.”
There was a momentary smile exchanged between the two women before Telanna took a seat. She rested her aching head over her beloved’s shoulders. “Haron has been doubting his decision to cut himself off from lyrium.”
“He’s a devoted warrior. I’ve always admired the dedication he shows, even if he doesn’t see it himself,” Ameridan brushes his fingers over the long locks of his love. Eager to soothe the agony that she chose to withstand for him. “But what of yourself?”
Telanna’s eyes twitched when her words came out empty, the rumblings of spirits gathering around them pressed against the walls of her mind, eager for a peak inside, throbbing at the temple of her mind.
“I’ve been managing the night terrors. But I can feel it.”
Her eyes looked into the campfire for a moment. There was an ancient biting sensation that she felt, as if a dragon would form out of fire, its breath wanting to burn their connection to ash. The Dreamer’s eyes began watering, “I can feel Hakkon breaking into this world.”
“I should not have asked you to come with me,” Ameridan’s hand balls up into a fist, Telanna was always by her side in battle but there was nothing he could do to protect her from a threat that digs at her mentally. Where would one even fight against a creature haunting the privacy of one’s thoughts.
Telanna wraps her hand in her beloved’s fist of rocks, the thumb caresses his knuckles in the hopes to calm his balled up worries away. “I’ve told you before. We would not let you face down a god without me by your side.”
“Yet I’ve allowed a demon to haunt you,” his jaw clenched at the helplessness he now creeped into his bones. “You could have been safe with our people at Halamshiral, reminding people of our alliance. Not risking death with me.”
The weary Dreamer just shook her head, reassuring that Ameridan holds none of the blame.
“Whatever attacks the demon has perpetrated will just make me angry. The demon will face all our wraith.” She pressed a kiss onto his paling cheeks, “I can fight angry, but I would not allow myself to sit out of a fight that you’ve chosen to carry. We go together.”
“You always make me wonder why people devote their energy to this aging fool,” his eyes growing a bit more tired with every battle he took up for Thedas.
“Need I remind you? You’re the man that drew a spirit of Unity to himself,” She looks at their fire for warmth once more, her certainty shunning the demon away. “Without your shouts for an alliance between our People, we would have gotten nowhere.” Her hold on Ameridan’s hand tightens, “Thedas needs you and most of all, I need you.”
“Yet I’m just one man, hoping people would listen to him in this world that would keep dividing us.”
“Do you remember our first time meeting each other?” Telanna clings to her Beloved tighter. “You were a brash knight hoping for adventure and the glory of a dragon hunt.”
Ameridan lets out a light chuckle. “It was an oddity at the beginning to see an enchanter from the Dales being part of the Chantry’s army.”
“Yet it was our longing for adventure that drew us closer together.”
“Drakon was ready to kick my face in when I mocked his raggedy mustache and then you stepped in between us.”
“That was just a man, my Beloved. We have grown wiser than the days we would start unnecessary fights with emperors.”
“Your assurance still means the world to me,” Ameridan forced out a grin, certain that their dark hour would pass. “We shall fight this avvar dragon, and then we shall drive back the darkspawn together.”