Chapter Text
Today has been a good day. Not a cloud in the sky, the yards calm and quiet for as most of Skyhold rests and relaxes after entertaining a stream of nobles from Orlais for the week. He managed to get through most of his tasks in peace as the Undercroft was blessedly empty for much of the day. He’s grown used to Dagna’s muttering and racket, will never admit that sometimes it soothes him, but very few other people bothered to bother their work for a change.
Harritt heads there now to finish the last of his pieces that have been cooling in the mountain air, a loaf of warm bread for his cohabitant tucked in a cloth beneath his arm and a small smile hidden beneath mustache. He might even wrap up in time to head to the Herald’s Rest to enjoy a little music and mead before the crowds show up and turn the place into a circus. One can only hope he’ll get there first, and if there’s anything that the Inquisitor has taught him through fire and darkspawn and rifts not stopping her, it’s to believe in a little hope everyone once in awhile.
He’s right at the door when the ground of the main hall shakes a split second before there’s a great boom from beyond the wood. The bundle of bread and his smile fall towards the floor as his heart rises in his throat, the pound of it filled with dread. Harritt yanks the door open, a mistake he thinks later, for who knows what horrors could’ve awaited, but in his panic he doesn’t think to think. There’s a cloud of dark green smoke in the center of the room quickly being sucked out of the open wall of the Undercroft and he catches a heavy scent at the edges of it, something like ash and hard metal and something primal.
“Miss Dagna?” he shouts. “Dagna!”
“Over here.” She appears from a pile of debris by the potions table, dusts rocks and soot from her tattered clothes. There are streaks of something across her face, a few of her hairs burnt at the ends, but she seems to be in one piece.
“What happened?”
“We were working on my new dragon protection rune. I’ve been missing something. I thought maybe adding some wyvern glands might be helpful so she brought me some. I didn’t know the extra potion was sitting there and then, well, kaboom.”
“She? Who else…?” Harritt turns to look around the room. There are new voices coming from the hall no doubt attracted by the sound of the explosion, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone else with them here.
“The Inquisitor. She was here and then-” Dagna gasps, eyes darting to the open sky. “You don’t think she got blown out?”
More like blown up, if the scorch marks on the floor are any indication. They approach the table in the center where most of the damage is. He finds a shredded piece of cloth and fears the worse, a lump forming in his throat. The Herald can’t be gone - the world is still in chaos and they will be lost without her.
“What happened here?” The Commander’s voice calls out from the stairs.
Harritt braces himself and turns around to deliver the news when a small noise stops him. It’s coming from underneath the table and he bends down to look, hope fluttering within his breast. There are golden eyes glaring up at him, familiar but not as they’re set in a face long and broad, ridges of bone and scale instead of skin. He takes a step back as a claw comes into the light, another step as a mouth full of sharp teeth opens and snaps his way.
“Is that-” The drag of steel punctuates Cullen’s words, the echo of many more weapons following suit behind him. There is a dragon in Skyhold, no bigger than a small dog but still full of potential danger, and it is coming his way. “Stand back, Master Harritt.”
“Wait, wait!” Dagna rushes into his place, arms flailing up and shaking.
“Get away from that beast!”
“It’s not a beast.” She turns to face the predator that reaches almost to her hip and even with its short height it should still be a fearsome thing next to her, but now that Harritt’s heart has some time to settle it doesn’t appear so horrible to him now. Its tail twitches low, steps unsure as its looks between them all and down to itself. He spent enough time next to Dennet’s animals to think it looks scared, lost, confused. More shock follows when it looks at up Dagna and makes a whine, like a mutt begging to be let inside. “It’s the Inquisitor.”
“The…?” Cullen drops the tip of his sword but keeps it firmly in grasp. “You can’t be serious.”
“It has to be! She was here and now, well, she’s still here. Unless she got sent to a dimension where there are tiny fully grown dragons and then one got sent through. Or maybe she did explode and-”
“That’s enough.” The Commander pauses for a moment, face almost pained, as if he can’t believe the next words coming out of his mouth would ever need to be spoken. “I…Inquisitor Lavellan? Are you- is it you?”
The dragon lifts its head in his direction, makes another plaintive noise and seems surprised to hear it come from its own throat. It could be just coincidence, wishful thinking or like seeing faces in clouds and rocks when nothing is there, but nobody raises a voice to say otherwise. Their anointed leader getting turned into a dragon is something quite believable in this upturned world, even if nobody can quite believeit.
In the stunned silence that follows a low laugh breaks through and Harritt looks to see Master Tethras among the growing crowd of agents, head shaking. “You just can’t make this shit up.”