The Dread Wolf
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The Dread Wolf Ch. 03 free porn video
The Herald
When I open my eyes, I’m not in Dorian’s guestroom anymore. I’m cuddled beneath blankets in a tent that flaps in a lazy night breeze. The scents of open fields and Dalish cooking linger in the fabric of things, and as my eyes adjust to the starlight, I can see familiar shapes – the curves of the embroidery and the metallic threads that gleam in the light. The halla are all bedded down, most with their chins turned to rest on their white backs, sleeping while one keeps watch, turning its head to me as I sit up within the tent.
Its slender ears turn towards me, its dark eyes taking in my familiar sight. A puff of air pushes out of its nose, fogging in the chilly night. My skin prickles only now, only upon seeing that, and I pull on my clothes – my light green leggings that leave my toes and heels uncovered, a long gray tunic, and a wool cloak over the rest. It’s a beautiful night as I walk out into it, passing by the halla on watch and caressing along its cheek. It grunts happily – I’ve always loved our halla – and if I weren’t being trained to be the First to our Keeper, I would have chosen to mind the animals.
We’re camped far north in the Free Marches right now, though I expect our southern journey will begin soon, given the approach of winter. Another jet of fogged breath blasts from the halla’s slitted nose, and it suddenly turns its head towards the trees, its ears erect, muscles tense. I turn to look too, my garnet eyes wide, and though I don’t see anything, I can feel that something is in there, tucked into the darkness.
The halla receives another pet before I strike off nervously towards the woods. ‘Hello?’ I call out softly, swallowing down a tense throat. I’m not even sure why I’m walking into the woods alone – I should be waking our scouts and hunters. Who am I to do this? Some little mageling only in her 15th year. Still… I want to go. I want to see what’s in the dark. The lack of light is no deterrent, and whatever dwells there will be discovered. I will know it.
I’m well into the tree line now, and the sounds of the evening seem loud and crisp to my ears. My bare feet crackle the fallen leaves on the ground, but I keep going, watching with wide eyes, listening, trying to feel if there is any magic here. It feels like there is, all around, but I can’t find a source. I’m jittery and excited, and I can feel my pulse lift. Every beat of my heart feels like a countdown towards something inevitable, until, at last, I just see movement from the corner of my right eye.
The back of a hand strikes my cheek, and I grit my teeth as my head is flung in the same direction, caught by surprise. In my slight disorientation, my assailant grabs my long white hair and shoves my back against a tree. When I open my eyes, I can see that it’s Melandris, daughter of our Keeper. She snarls in my face, furious, and I stare wide-eyed. My cloak scrapes at the dry bark, sending chips down into the leaf litter, but she doesn’t let go.
‘You stole everything from me!’ she hisses, her beautiful lilac eyes narrowing with hate.
My cheeks flush and my eyes water. ‘Mel, no, I didn’t mean to…’
She firms up her grip on my hair, making me cry out with pain. ‘We took you in. Clan Lavellan took you in, and Mother liked you better. Better than her own daughter, and made you First!’ Melandris seethes.
What can I say to that? She hadn’t come into her magic yet when I was taken on as a foster when we were twelve.
Her throat works, swallowing, and her hands move, gripping my shoulders, her fingernails digging in even through the wool and linen. ‘I have dreams, Ellena! Horrible dreams! I wake up, and my bedding is singed! I don’t know what’s going on!’ She pushes away from me and grips her head in frustration, the marks of her Vallaslin glinting silver in the moonlight, standing out from her tanned skin. ‘There isn’t room enough in the clan for more mages! I’ll be sent away!’
I push away from the tree, feeling dread pool in my stomach. I know what will happen, but even so I move over to her, taking her hands in mine. ‘Mel, it’ll be okay. We’ll find an answer. We can work on your dreams together.’ She’s been like a sister to me for three years, and it breaks my heart to see her suffer. For some mages, like me, coming into their magic is an easy process. For others it’s torturous. And for all Dalish, there is the terrible reality that a clan can only tolerate so many of them.
She shakes her head and pulls her hands away from mine. ‘No… no! You ruined everything. I wish you’d never come here! I wish you’d died!’
Her venom pierces my heart, and I look down in shame. We both turn, however, to the sound of hoof beats rumbling through the woods. A score of riders race through the trees, their horses snorting, pushed hard. I back away, but Mel, too upset, doesn’t flee in time. Their large, gloved hands take her, pulling her up into the saddle. She screams and struggles, but it’s no use. The riders, humans, chuckle, as if her fear is quaint, and something is tossed to my feet before they ride away.
It’s a bag of gold. The amount for her purchase by one of the local lords.
I remember now. The gold had come to us like a boon, and I hadn’t realized back then that the connection had been so direct. Blood money. They’d bought her. Had our Keeper, her mother, set up the exchange, hiding it as an abduction? Or had the lord offered her the money afterwards to prevent bloodshed? Or had it merely been some human slap in the face, like we’re nothing but chattel to them?
I can only stand there, looking into the woods the way the riding party had gone. A tear slides down my cheek, and I look down at the gold. The bag must have enough in it to keep us provisioned for months, and with winter coming, it’ll be more than enough to keep us comfortable even if times are difficult. In a fit of rage I grab the bag and hurl it into the woods. Time seems to slow, and all falls to silence as the heavy leather purse tumbles through the air towards an elm tree. The moment the purse hits the trunk, there’s a huge explosion that throws me back and off of my feet. Debris, smoke, and ash cloud my vision, and when I land, I’m skidding on dusty stone within a ruined keep.
The vista of mountains surrounds me, and all is charred and steaming. Bodies lay twisted and cooked all around me as I struggle to breathe. My throat hurts and every breath is a wheeze, and I feel hands grip at my clothing, the material different than it was a moment ago. Traveling clothes. Scout armor, of a sort. My vision reels, and familiar hands tend to me, taking the pain away. A lilting, gentle voice, and then the roar of fire. A rotting dragon. Snow and gravel.
Clawlike, cold, stony hands grip my by my hurting throat and lift me from my feet. A face, its skin stretched over cancerous growths of red lyrium, snarls at me. I’m cast down, my body hurting. I’ll die here, but I persist, wasting time, engaging this impossible monster as well as I can. A light above the jagged peaks flares, and then the snows roar down the mountainsides, covering everything, swirling around me in a tempest of light. The monster’s face is broken, and the orb shatters as I send him in pieces to the Fade.
All around me is death and suffering, and I crawl, bleeding and hurting, to sit in my throne as the maelstrom roars and spins just below the dais. Countless faces burn away, rot away, scream in agony, until, at last a single figure marches through it all, up the stairs, to stand before me. The elven woman, fair-skinned and white-haired, without a Vallaslin and with garnet eyes, ages quickly, her years torn from her one by one by the whipping winds. Her skin wrinkles, and her frame wastes away. I watch, horrified as her garnet eyes glaze over with cataracts, and her teeth fall out as she snarls at me.
‘You will abandon him. You will die.’ Her voice screams above the shriek of the storm, and I cross my arms over m
y face in terror. A pair of dry hands grip my wrists and pull them away, and suddenly a skeletal face pushes close in to mine, its breath a cloud of dust. ‘YOU HAVE DISHONORED A GOD! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!’
I bolt up in bed, covered in sweat, shaking. Dorian’s guestroom is dark, though the quiet song of morning birds filters in through the window. My heart is pounding so hard that I feel dizzy, and my vision swims for a while before I begin to get a hold of myself. I thank the fates that I’d vomited before I’d fallen asleep, or else I’d be doing it right now, all over these lovely sheets. That I’m not emptying my stomach lets me shakily pull the covers back, and I move my legs, my right and what remains of my left, to drape over the edge of the bed.
A wash basin rests on the dresser top nearby, so I carefully stand, balancing on my right foot. I brace on the wall, then the dresser as I hop over to it, and then I lean my hip against it as I splash water into my face. My reflection greets me when the water settles enough, and I look tired. I’m not fifteen anymore. My life is more than half done now – the majority of my life is over.
What kind of narcissistic presumption let me accept Solas’ feelings? What can I give him? Another twenty years? Thirty? What is that to him? It’s nothing. How will he handle it when I die? He will be young, eternally, and he will watch me decay, forced to care for some decrepit creature. Will my mind go? Will I soil myself, and cry like an infant? Will I forget who he is? The thought of turning into that makes me brace my elbows on the dresser top, and my hands hide my face as I fight off hysterics. Why hadn’t Solas allowed me to fall? I can’t bear the thought of becoming a burden on anyone. Especially him.
The hairs on the nape of my neck stand on end, and immediately afterward I hear the door to the bedroom open quietly, then shut again. I breathe out slowly, then cup another handful of water and wash my face again, rubbing it into my expression to try and ease the despair out of it. There’s a towel nearby, and I enjoy how soft it is on my hot, tingling skin. ‘How long was I asleep?’ I finally ask, remaining by the dresser as I slowly breathe in and out.
Solas’ voice comes from the window, maybe ten feet away from me. Always ten feet away. ‘Three days. Just like the last time.’ I hear the slight creak of the shutter hinges, and then the bird song is a little louder. A pleasant breeze trickles in, smelling of flowers.
A long, slow breath is pulled in through my nose, and I finally stand up straight, turning to look at him. He looks tired, but when my eyes meet his, he smiles gently. The sight of him, unchanged, forever unchanged, makes me feel that pang of guilt all over again, and I flush, looking down, my lips a tight line. I turn away from the dresser, and to my relief he doesn’t move over to help. He watches, of course, but he lets me do this on my own as I move back to the bed to sit and pull off my bed clothes. When had I put those on? I don’t think I did.
The white nightgown is pulled off over my head, sticky with sweat and smelling sour. It’s comforting to let my bare skin dry off in the breeze from the window, and for a few minutes I just sit there, calming down. Solas remains silent, looking outside as he lingers by the sill.
At long last I say ‘I’m dishonoring you. I’ll die and leave you alone.’
Solas tilts his head a little, and I turn to look at him from the corners of my eyes. ‘That is why your dreams ended like that,’ he says softly. I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked that he saw it all – his explorations in dreams are something he’s been quite up front with, right from the start.
I nod, nibbling on the inside of my cheek lightly. ‘It’s not right. I’m… I’m not fit for you.’
His footsteps, soft on his typically bare feet, approach the bed, and he takes a seat next to me, a hand sliding gently over my back. ‘Who would be right for me, Ellena?’ My head lifts a little and I look at him directly, sighing through my nose. I don’t have an answer, so he provides one. ‘Think of who I am, ma vhenan. Do you think I deserve anyone?’
‘You’re a god, Solas.’ It feels bizarre to remind him of that.
He chuckles. ‘It’s not that simple. It never is.’
Again I look at my hands, the fingers laced in my lap.
His caress continues along my back slowly, and he muses ‘you will recall our discussions, back in Haven. I told you how the Dalish used to be, in Arlathan. How magic extended lives indefinitely, how there were spells that took years to recite. That magic isn’t gone – it’s only forgotten. Immortality… it was managed, not inborn, Ellena. We nine saw the world and felt a love for it. The elves were first, created, as we were created, and we decided to watch over them. We taught them the magic of long life. That was one of our many gifts.’ He begins to look guilty, sadness weighing his words down. A moment passes by, and he takes in a slow breath, lifting himself from his melancholy as well as he can. ‘Although those gifts were lost to time, I have not forgotten them. It is your right to have them again.’
My eyes widen, and I sit up a little straighter, not sure what I’m hearing. ‘Solas… I… if you share this secret with me… what of the other elves? What of everyone else in Thedas?’
He looks down, closing his eyes. ‘Ma vhenan, there is a reason it was decided to let the Dalish forget.’ A deep breath, and he continues. ‘What if no one died? Ever? Could a world support that many people? These skills, the knowledge necessary, would soon be jealously guarded by the elite. Commoners would again be allowed to perish, mortal again, while the aristocracy lived forever. A deep, unforgivable schism, far worse than what it’s like here in Tevinter, would arise. All of those in service to the immortals would do anything for the promise of a longer life. Anything.’ He looks at me, pained, and whispers ‘anything at all, no matter how despicable.’
My eyes close, and I swallow. ‘Is… is that why you locked them away?’
Solas sighs. ‘I… Ellena… our beautiful Elvhenan… we had made them into monsters. Do you understand the horror in that? Their beautiful accomplishments – the lore, the architecture, the songs – paled in comparison to the utter cruelty that blighted them. Life meant nothing, not with regards to the underclass. The ever-living would impart the Vallaslin upon their slaves for the glory of their patron gods. I forbade all Vallaslins in my honor. It was disgusting, but the other eight… they… they basked in that wretchedness. The marking of slaves. Blood sport. Sacrifices. Utter depravity and cruelty for a moment’s amusement? That is what the eight had come to expect. To demand.’
Now I realize why he had wanted to remove my Vallaslin, why it had been so terribly important to him.
He swallows, and admits ‘the blackness of their magic leaked into the earth, seeping into the living stones. It created monsters of the dead and the living. I… I couldn’t let such a thing reach the surface, so I locked it away, convincing those blighted things to remain in a place of shadows in the only way I could think of. And I convinced the other eight that the dark creatures they’d spawned with their own arrogance were going to make war with them. It worked, and they fled far away to prepare. It was…’ he sighs, sliding his hand over his bald head anxiously, ‘…it was so easy to lock them in.’
My heart sinks. I’d grown up to worship the pantheon, to believe in their goodness and benevolence. But from what Solas says, they weren’t good at all. Nor evil. They were just… living things, and vulnerable to arrogance and conceit just like anyone else. ‘That must have been the hardest decision you’ve ever made.’
Solas nods slowly, breathing out. ‘I knew that locking them away was a death sentence for the Elvhen. Even when the other eight had been present, the ever-living had taken to the sport of war, wagi
ng it on each other like a game. But without their deities present to beg for intervention, war became war in truth. They destroyed all that they had built, and the only survivors were their slaves, mortal long since because they had never been taught the spells of long life. In their ignorance, the elves’ immortality was lost, but the culture of servitude, the only one they had ever known, persisted.’ At last he turns to me, and places a hand on my shoulder. I lift my eyes to meet his, and he impresses upon me ‘Ellena, if I give you this gift, you can never share it. Not with anyone.’
The silence between us is as tense as a bow string, and I nod. He’s right. If such knowledge were to get out, people like Leliana, Vivienne, and the Empress would keep it jealously to themselves. Only the worthy would persist in eternal youth, and they would hold every ounce of power. The rest would stoop to any crime, any evil, any sin, to get a scrap of that immortality.
Solas sighs, relieved, and takes in a breath to say something else when there’s a sudden sharp knock upon the door. We both startle and flinch, then glare at the door, behind which comes Dorian’s voice ‘are you decent? I need to discuss something with you.’
I look at Solas, then sigh and nod, gesturing to the door. He frowns, then lifts a brow, until I realize that I’m completely naked. ‘Oh, right.’ Towards the door, I call out ‘Dorian – one moment.’
Being delayed doesn’t seem to irritate him, because I can hear the delight in his voice. ‘Ellena! You’re awake! I was beginning to grow concerned.’ Solas helps me to dress in my traveling clothes, though we don’t bother with the heavy jerkin, only the white linen tunic. I climb out of bed and somehow make my way on one foot over to a comfortable padded chair near the window as Solas goes to open the door. ‘Ah, hello, old man,’ Dorian chirps, and then he walks over to me. ‘I was half convinced you would sleep forever. I was considering making a paid attraction out of you. Sleeping Beauty, or some such.’
I just give Dorian a look, then glance over his shoulder as Callum waits by the door. There’s a cart on wheels behind him, stacked with linens. Given that I’ve been asleep and sweating for three days, I can’t blame him for being desperate to clean the room. ‘I’m sorry to deprive you of your side show attraction, Dorian. Is there anything to eat?’
The mage chuckles and offers me a hand, and this time I take it. I’m not about to hop all on my own down a hallway and a flight of stairs. Solas walks behind us, keeping an eye on me in case I stumble and slip from Dorian’s grasp. A glance over my shoulder tries to reassure him, but he only gives me a slightly displeased, attentive look. I don’t think he really likes seeing me on my feet – foot – so soon, but I’m not about to linger in bed while awake. At least, not because I’m an invalid.
We make our way to the dining room, and another servant is summoned and told to fetch a small meal. My stomach rumbles at the thought of it, and I feel light headed even from that small amount of exercise. Solas takes a seat next to me, his hand slowly caressing along my wrist. A little tingle of magic helps to wake me up and dull the aching cramps in my empty stomach.
Dorian watches us from the other side of the table, chuckling. ‘So, the two of you. Together. You’re a traditional woman, taking a Dalish man.’
I smirk. If only he knew. I glance at Solas, but he remains prim and politely silent. He only turns his head to watch the servant return with a cart on wheels, much like the kind Callum had, though this one is laden with a bowl of fruit, fresh bread, cheese, cold meats, and pitchers of juice and water. Dorian is still looking at me, so I clear my throat. ‘It’s shocking how things turned out. I hadn’t quite planned on it.’ I glance at Solas, who’s quite happily adorning a plate with little morsels of everything. ‘But I’m glad it happened.’
Pansy
- 02.02.2021
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