a story, then; perhaps I tell it true, perhaps not. but I do tell it:
a skirmish in the forests of Seheron. a contingent of Saarebas and their Arvaarad deployed to rout the Vints. a particular Arvaarad who is weary of battle, who probably isn’t paying as much attention as ey should have been. a strange specter in the fog -- not quite elven, not quite qunari, not quite mortal.
they tell you that if something is lurking in the fog, kill it.
Arvaarad calls Saarebas from the main fray. the figure moves deeper into the fog. Arvaarad is annoyed, and instead of returning Saarebas to battle as ey should, drives them both into the forest after the figure.
“well, well. I knew you’d come,” the figure says from behind them, as fog obscures their vision. “I’m only in the market for the leashed one. leash-holder, you may go.”
twenty minutes later, the karataam finds Arvaarad wandering in the fog, blind and gibbering.
Saarebas finds emself in the hands of Zaarilek, in what ey can only understand as the Fade. perhaps it is the Fade; perhaps it isn’t, and is a place that mortals do not have stories about. perhaps it is a place of gods.
“you remember me,” Zaarilek says, not asking. Saarebas does. ey’d seen Zaarilek in dreams, and had not turned away. Saarebas turned away from nothing.
Saarebas watches Zaarilek every step of the way.
it begins with blue lyrium, refined. it continues with blue lyrium, raw. it begins and continues with Zaarilek’s voice in song, in chant, stoking the fires in Saarebas’ mind where pathways degrade and reroute and form anew. it continues with blood from Avernus, it continues with blood from the Architect. it continues with saar-qamek like nothing the Qunari have used, and here Zaarilek is precise with its measurements, for the balance it is striking is more delicate than a spider’s freshly-spun web. it crescendoes with red lyrium, and the song sharpens and warps, twisting in like a corkscrew, and the pain is beyond pain -- Saarebas’ eyes remain open, but they see nothing now.
Zaarilek smiles almost lovingly as it places the dragon scales over Saarebas’ wide, unseeing eyes. “and behold! I have begun a new song, built upon the fading notes of the old.”
a place that mortals do not have stories about, but will; a place of gods, both old and new. in this place, Talan awaits. Talan, the Truth, once called Saarebas. Talan, the Truth, who cannot see into our world but sees much and more than we ever could, who smiles and sings, who welcomes all to hear eir song.
it is a song of dragons. it is a song of kossith, the firstborn mortals of dragons. it is a song of Titans and Old Gods, of Evanuris and Forgotten Ones. it is a song of Fen’Harel and Corypheus, of the Fade and the Void. it is a song of Razikale-Zaarilek and its children of the ninth age, a song of a new world.
to hear it is to forget the falsehood that is the Maker, and to know divinity. so forget I have told you of it, before you return to your Chantry-haunted earth.
