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Enansal gasped as another burst of searing pain shot through her left arm. Stars danced across her vision as she tilted forward. She threw out her right arm to brace her inevident fall, barely managing to catch herself on the edge of her desk before she hit the stone floor beneath her.
Whimpering a little, she slowly lowered herself to her knees, cradling the arm to her chest as the Mark emitted spastic arcs of green light. The Creator-damned thing had been paining her as much as the time she first received it, if not more so. She squeezed her eyes shut as pain shot through her arm once more, clenching her fists and desperately wishing for it to just. Stop. Hurting.
After a few more moments of rocking back and forth on the floor and hugging her arm to her chest, the pain slowly subsided, with the green glow of the Mark fading until she was only left staring at the scar-like slash across her palm. She slowly wiggled her fingers, but the episode seemed to have passed. Letting out a heavy sigh, Enansal picked herself off the floor and carefully moved to sit behind her desk.
The Dalish woman stared at the papers strewn across the desktop before her. There were missives requesting Inquisition aid, reports from her advisors and companions about their work across Thedas, letters of thanks from those that had benefited from the work she and her people were doing. Everything upon her desk was nothing more than scraps of paper…but it was also a testament to how she had accomplished in the past year or so. She had believed that defeating Corypheus would have been the end of it. But ever since she had, by some miracle, come back from that encounter alive, her workload had increased significantly.
She was surprised to find that she didn’t mind. She liked what she was doing. While it was true that her remaining in Skyhold had meant that Clan Lavellan was operating without a First, she didn’t feel right simply abandoning the Inquisition to home. Yes, she missed her family deeply, but she could do so much more as the Inquisitor…
Her gaze shifted from the papers on her desk to stare out the great windows to her left. The sun was slowly sinking behind the Frostback Mountains, lending a fiery hue to the sky. She frowned. Yes, she had done so much for Thedas, and she hoped to continue her work, despite what it might mean for her Clan.
Her palm itched, and she again focused her attention on the currently-dormant Mark upon her hand. She recalled that when she had first received it, the unusual magic it bore had slowly been killing her. If not for Solas, she probably would have been dead long ago.
Panic gripped her heart once more. Without Solas there to contain the ancient, erratic magic…The panic became a cold dread, one that filled spread throughout her entire body.
It was entirely possible that she was dying. Enansal looked from the Mark to the paperwork on her desk, and then back again.
She didn’t want to die.
She wanted a chance to see her Clan again.
She wanted to remain at Cullen’s side, especially now that she had lived past her battle with Corypheus.
And she wanted to continue being the Inquisitor. She had done so much for Thedas, and she still had more to do, more to give. She just couldn’t abandon it all.
A sob tore through her throat, and she bowed her head. She still had so much more to do.