Pride, Wolf and Rebellion

Wolf

She kicked up wisps of ash as she struggled through grey earth.

At least she had the prayer stone. Fen'Asha clutched it and gasped, air finally filling her lungs as she staggered to a proper pace. Her eyes turned over the darkness, her ears heard the water, her mouth dried.

Solas...

She looked up, expecting the emerald lightning to guide her somewhere. She looked at her palm, expecting the emerald gash to speak to her. There was nothing, just the faint glimmer of yellow from behind the water. She found the entrance of the cave. Racing. Running. Roiling.

She refused to slow her pace as she took to the coiling cavern, winding with it as she went up and up away from the waterfall and the yellow glimmers and toward the crest of light that warmed the earth above.

The veil was thin.

"I am sorry."

The spirits were close, touching her as she raced.

"In another time..."

They saw her tears, her distress.

"In another place..."

She wiped her tears, knees weak, straggling to the top, to the earth, to the shimmering moon above, a crystal yellow eye beckoning her across the starry night canvas.

"It...must not be."

She fell, touched her face, lying on her side in the grass. The vallaslin, the slave markings, the insistence.

Fen'Harel, encased and trapped in stone, lay above her. Alert. Apparent against the splash of black.

"Why are you investigating Fen'Harel?"

The voice fuzzy, distorted. She stiffened as it echoed, as he echoed. She wanted to say his name but the letters scrambled inside. She sought solace somehow, clutching at the grass, pulling herself closer to the stone paws on the rising rock.

"Did you resent it? The comparisons to...Fen'Harel?"

Madness, wasn't it? What was she thinking, the damned Inquisitor searching through the grass for a foothold, looking through the black ground for a hand up? What was wrong with her? She helped nations stand, helped slaves rise, helped people live. Could she not pull herself to her feet once more, stand in the distance and the unknown for herself? By herself?

"It is the symbol of the hunter's skill to protect the clan from the Dread Wolf."

She struggled but she stood, knees buckling and telling her to fall again. She ignored their words, their curses. They insisted she tumble, teeter into despair. She insisted otherwise, clutched the prayer stone.

She hated this place. She cursed it and hoisted herself up to the rising rock, to the stone paws at its base. The snout looked down at her, looked toward her.

The horse moved forward. He'd left the horse. He was near.

She pushed past the horse and to the path, taking it as it turned up an embankment. Running, hunting.

Nothing. He was nowhere, a mere echo, a mirage in memory locked in another place and another time. Locked in impossibility.

Her pulse quickened suddenly as she returned to the horse, to the statue and its watchfulness. She leaned against it, once again near its paws and its distinction. She looked to it, waiting for the eyes to come to life and return her gaze. Waiting for her answers, clutching her prayer stone.