The raven.
That frozen morning, in a village they had told her was called Haven, Elentari watched the beast's high flight cutting across the sky above her. The animal was a symbol of power, vision, and communion with the divine. Its flight was an omen—announcing an imminent change, whether glory or a trial too difficult to survive.
Hadn't they spoken of this within her clan? Had Deshanna's prophecies not mentioned this catastrophe? Hadn't it been the reason for the persistent seclusion her own people had imposed on her? Or had it been something else?
Elentari snorted, flooded with frustration at the irony. All her life she had prayed to the gods for freedom, and now she came and received it. How? As a prisoner of treacherous shemlen. That was not the freedom she had prayed for. May Fen'Harel take them all.
The young Dalish woman clenched her fists with rage, felt her jaw tighten, and forced herself to follow the majestic bird's movements with her gaze, trying to let the anger drain away.
The raven represents Dirthamen—the reflection of Falon'din—those twins who walk between worlds, able to travel between the earthly and the spiritual.
The very thought that she herself now seemed bound between the two worlds made her shiver… How had all of this happened? On that day—that day—the day she was supposed to succeed in her mission… Why?
Elentari had awakened the day before only to discover the shemlen believed her responsible for the enormous Breach in the sky. The proof was in the pulsing mark on her left palm, whose origin was unknown to them. All she knew was that she had been sent to spy on a human Conclave in order to gather information for the Clan… and she had failed. She had failed them the one time they had trusted her with a mission. And it filled her with shame.
She didn't want to imagine what they would say when she returned. In the end, her mother had always been right… she wasn't made for adventure. It wasn't her place.
She was overwhelmed. The only certainty she had was that she could do something with that greenish power, and so she had helped her captors and managed to seal a great rift… which meant that now she was no longer a prisoner, but a "necessary" ally.
Her mind was a void before waking—silence without answers. And that enraged her even more. Not knowing. Not remembering. Not having had a choice.
But she didn't have the strength to go back to her people either. She wasn't ready to face her failure…
…Then she looked down at her hand, at that strange green glow. She felt fury. She closed her fist. Then she looked ahead.
Forest.
Forests were familiar to Elentari.
She walked among the trees beyond the village gate, hidden beneath a thick fur cloak the blond shemlen among her captors had given her, while snow swallowed the soles of her reinforced leather boots. She didn't want to be recognized. Word had spread quickly that the only survivor of the Conclave explosion was Dalish. The vallaslin on her face gave her away too easily, and frankly, she felt like a stranger in these frozen lands.
They had told her she was "free," but that wasn't true. She could not return to her people anymore… because even if she did, she was no longer the same. And though her heart ached to run beneath the shelter of the forest—its trees, the wind whispering through leaves, the smell of wet earth after rain—she had already lost it. Now it was only a memory. A longing that dissolved into the shadows of a responsibility she had never asked for.
But it was there.
And that made her sad.
- There you are, child.
Elentari didn't startle. Her hearing had caught the footsteps in the snow a while ago. She turned slowly, expression unshaken. The dwarf with the large crossbow she had seen the day before leaned against a tree a few meters away. He wasn't looking at her with judgment, or pity. Only curiosity.
Varric. That was what he'd said his name was.
- I thought you might give us a scare and disappear into the woods. - he tried to joke.
Elentari didn't answer at once. Her eyes were still full of sky and scattered thoughts.
And fury.
- And if I did? - she replied, her voice calm, but empty. The gods knew that since waking she had imagined that scenario, again and again.
Varric shrugged.
- Cassandra would get in a foul mood. Leliana would find you. And Solas would probably make a comment about how predictable wandering elves are… you know. Dalish like you.
Elentari grimaced.
Solas.
The only elf she had seen since waking—who still had the audacity to mock her people.
- I'm surprised the mage didn't come himself. I've been told I've been the subject of his experiments these past days.
Varric laughed.
- Then I'll tell you the truth, little one. He doesn't seem very interested in talking to you.
It shouldn't matter.
And yet it did.
It irritated her. She had already noticed the mage's contempt. She didn't understand his motives, but there it was—this flat-eared fool had the nerve to look at her with disdain… when they were the cowards, the ones who had chosen to live under shemlen rule.
- Don't worry. I didn't come to drag you back. - the dwarf continued, pulling her from her thoughts. She looked at him. - I just wanted to make sure you weren't going to freeze out here.
Elentari lowered her gaze to her boots, sunk into the snow. She wasn't cold. Not more than usual.
It was something else that made her feel frozen.
- No. - she showed him the fur cloak. - The… Commander? gave me this.
- Oh, Curly. - Varric teased, laughing at a joke only he understood. - Still, you don't have to tell me anything. I figure if I were in your place, I'd want to breathe fresh air too after everything that happened.
Elentari let out a dry, humorless laugh.
- Do you have experience waking up in cells, accused of crimes you don't remember?
Varric smiled.
- You'd be surprised, little one. - he teased, then added - I have experience with people who do.
Elentari watched him with suspicion.
- You're not a soldier. Not a Chantry man.
- Thanks for noticing. I thought I'd managed to fool you.
- Who are you? Other than "Varric Tethras," I mean.
- Storyteller. Writer. And in my spare time, an advisor to people who never asked for advice.
That last line almost made Elentari smile—but she swallowed it. She didn't want to look friendly with people who had subjected her to Mythal-knew-what.
- That last part sounds like a nuisance.
- Oh, it is. - Varric winked.
Elentari couldn't help feeling the man saw too much. As if he were reading her between the lines—reading chapters that hadn't been written yet. Was that a writer's gift? To see the shades inside people's souls, to understand intentions, to know what other minds carried?
She had never known a "writer." Most Dalish couldn't read or write.
- Don't worry. - he continued. - I'm not going to ask questions you don't want to answer. But there's something you do need to know.
Elentari didn't give him the satisfaction of asking what.
Varric told her anyway.
- The village is calling you the Herald of Andraste.
Her stomach dropped like a stone.
No.
- They say they saw you fall from the sky. - Varric gestured with his hands, as if narrating a grand tale. - That Andraste herself sent you to save us from the Breach.
The elf closed her eyes.
A design. An omen.
She had heard it so many times in her clan's whispers. And yet, the simple fact that it was shemlen calling her "chosen" made her skin prickle with discomfort.
- What do you think of it? - Varric asked.
Elentari exhaled slowly.
- That destiny has a very twisted sense of humor.
Varric chuckled under his breath.
- Can't argue with that.
She dragged a hand down her face and thought of the lines of her vallaslin.
- It won't stop them from trying to make me into something I'm not, will it?
- No. - the dwarf admitted. - But it means you have the option to decide who you'll be to them.
Elentari looked at him through narrowed eyes.
- And if I don't want to be anything to them?
- And if you don't have a choice, girl?
Elentari cursed him, silently, for saying it.
Because she knew it was true.
In her life… choices never seemed to belong to her entirely.
She drew a deep breath. She didn't want more questions. She didn't want shemlen projecting their hope, their fear, their faith onto her. She didn't want to be a symbol.
But destiny had already chosen her.
Elentari cast one last glance at the sky. The raven was gone.
- Let's go. - she murmured, starting to walk.
Varric shot her an approving look.
- Good choice.
Elentari stopped for a second. She lowered her gaze, the snow still crunching beneath her feet.
- I didn't make one.
Varric smiled.
- We always make choices, little one. Even when we think we don't.