She walked through a world of nightmares. Every step she took brought a new horror before her. First came the twisted, desiccated bodies circled around her, frozen into whatever shapes death had caught them in. Not just a few, but hundreds, maybe even thousands as she picked a path through them. Their agony had a uniformity, the terror and pain stretched across their bones so achingly familiar, made all the worse knowing each body had contained its own person, complex and multitudinous, living an entire life, now nothing but a husk of their death.
When she finally stepped past the last ring of them, a pain flared up in her left hand and an eerie green light emanated from the source of the pain. It tore into her nerves, sharp like fire, and simultaneously draining, as if it would consume her. She fell to her knees with a cry, cradling her hand against her until the pain subsided. Relief she had, but she could still feel the echo of it in her flesh. She couldn’t be free of it.
Looking closer, she saw a distinct mark left on her hand where the pain had flared. It was a curious thing. It looked like a tear in her flesh, warped like a scar, but it seemed as if at any moment, it might split open, a hungry mouth where none should be.
“Help!” someone shrieked in the murk ahead of her.
She knew that voice.
“Please! Anyone! Help me!” they called again.
She took off running for her clan mate, for Suviel.
She came upon her in time to see a huge, burly human man snatch Suviel by the hair and drag her back towards him. He locked her in against his chest with one meaty arm and then brought a knife up to her throat. He held his stance, easily resisting Suviel’s frantic struggles, as if he were made of stone. He looked her in the eyes, challenging her to stop him, daring her.
Suviel caught sight of her and cried out, “Fiacha! Help me, Fiacha!”
She rushed forward, not knowing how she was going to save her friend, especially when she had no weapons to hand, but knowing she had to try. But as soon as she reached them, as soon as she threw her hands out to try and wrench the man’s arm away, she found they passed right through both of them. Fiacha looked at them flabbergasted and reached out again. And she passed through again.
Suviel’s pleading eyes were locked on her.
“Fiacha, please!”
The man began to slowly bring the knife to her throat. Fiacha kept trying to grasp at his arm and pull him away, but she was helpless. She was forced to watch the inexorable moment of the blade opening Suviel’s soft skin, the desperate fear in her eyes, the disappointment in Fiacha, too. Would she not do anything for her friend?
Suviel’s body was dumped at her feet, the man just staring at her without coming for her. She had only a moment to begin to process the whole event when new screams reached her ears.
She turned around and other members of her clan were being pursued by humans hunting them. Some had knives like the first, others had torches, while still others only used their hands to wreak havoc, crushing bones and snapping necks. Each time she turned to help, she faced the same helplessness over and over. Her fingers slipped through every time, and she had to witness the extinction of her clan one by one as they called her name and begged for her help.
After everyone she knew lay dead about her, the pain in her hand flared up again. Her stomach roiled with the intensity of it and the scene of brutality laid out for her benefit. What kind of hate was this? What had she done to merit this kind of revenge?
Dazed, she looked around and noticed the edge of a forest had appeared only a few yards away. She stumbled for its cover, though none of the men were pursuing her. They only watched her as she left them behind.
For a breath, Fiacha could almost be lulled into thinking that she had finally come home. There were the tracks the rams and deer had staked out, the tracks the halla liked to wander when given the freedom to roam. The elfroot was plentiful, as were the wild tubers they often gathered for their meals, and the fish glimmered visibly in the streams. Everywhere she looked, everything blossomed and grew to abundance. She breathed in the cool scent of moist earth and decaying bracken.
Had everything been a bad dream?
As soon as she questioned it, the whole of the forest began to rot from within. The trees, vines, shrubs, anything and everything green or alive blackened and shriveled, cracking open, trailing mold. The streams choked with the decay dropping into them and the fish popped to the surface, belly up, already beginning to molder. Rams trotting along in the depths stumbled and bleated cries of misery before they fell, flailing. Flies and worms gathered on them as if they were three days dead.
Bile rose in her throat. Fiacha searched for a way out, any sign of untainted wilderness, but she found no avenue that was not sick and decomposing. She closed her eyes and could only see the mangled bodies of her clan. Sinking down, a sob finally escaped her. Tears poured out of her, a broken vessel.
And then, after an impossible span of time, something shifted.
The air was no longer clogged with rot. It was the fresh air of the forest again, a soft breeze lifting her hair, and birdsong calling out from the depths of the trees. And beside her, a presence.
It was immense, almost titanic, but nonthreatening in spite of that. A chill rolled off of it, but it was the cool of deep stone or the high mountain, simply a part of its nature, not an indication of its mood. It drifted around her, but did not settle into her bones.
Opening her eyes, she was stunned to find only a man next to her, a shaft of sun illuminating him. He was an elf, unmarked by vallaslin, but he didn’t give off the air of the city-dwelling kin she had encountered from time to time. His green and neutral toned clothes were too well-suited to living in the wilderness, wrapped up in thick wool, practical fur lining his vest. His head was devoid of hair, not even a hint of fuzz to suggest that he might shave it off himself.
Feeling her gaze, he looked down at her, fully revealing the sharpness of his features. His eyes had a piercing quality to them, as if they could search out every secret she had ever hid, every thought flitting through her mind. He offered her a warm smile.
“Are you alright?”
“I don’t know,” she stammered.
“An honest answer. Do you know what’s happening?”
“Not at all. Who are you?”
“I am Solas,” he told her, reaching down to pull her to her feet.
“I am Fiacha,” she said in return, savoring the touch of his skin.
“You are in the Fade right now, Fiacha. The things you have been seeing are your fears playing out. The Fade molds itself to your will. If you can shift the focus of your mind, it will remain peaceful as it is now.”
“So you...?”
“I am projecting my will onto our surroundings. If I wished to see something else, I could command it to materialize. But your forest is lovely, and familiar, I believe?” There was just the slightest lilt to his voice.
“It was one of the ones my clan frequented in the Marches.” She looked about and marveled at how much it was like the one in the waking world. “Thank you for setting it to rights.”
“You can do it, too,” he protested. “Here.”
A portion of the trees began to undergo the same decay that had eaten at them before Solas arrived. Her heart picked up speed, panic gripping her as the thought of walking through that nightmare world again.
“Steady your breathing,” Solas advised. “Remember, it is reacting to you. You can return it to the shape you know. Or you can mold it into something else, if you wished. You need not get exact details right. Just the feeling of it.”
Fiacha frowned, completely unsure of herself. But Solas stood there with an expectant expression, as if she were actually capable of what he described. She sighed and shuffled a moment, then squared to face the portion of forest that he allowed to be affected.
The thrill of fear zipped through her, but she recognized it and closed her eyes to slow her breathing. She let the fear writhe around for a moment longer before recognizing that she was safe. Nothing was chasing her. Nothing was tormenting her. She called to mind the comfort she drew from the wild places she had seen with her clan, the homes they had conjured with nothing but a campfire and the shelter of their aravels. She remembered the joy of the stars and the moon on crisp nights that seemed to sharpen the light of them. The tales and songs they shared with their meals.
She opened her eyes again and the blackness was gone. Life flourished before her. In fact, it seemed as though the entire area around them sparkled with fresh energy. It contained a vibrancy she had never known before.
“You have a strong will,” Solas smiled again. “You will manage well.”
He inclined his head to her and began to disappear into the trees.
“Wait!”
He paused.
“Won’t you stay here?” Fiacha asked.
“I’m afraid there are things I must take care of, but I am confident you can fend for yourself. I hope you will join us in the waking world soon.”
Before she could say anything else, he left her to her own company. Gods, why could he have not taken her with him?
