Chapter Text
Ellana only knew the Circle. She couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t in the Circle. Couldn’t remember her parents, if she had siblings, anything. The Circle was all she knew.
One day, when she was 13, her and a few of the other kids planned to sneak out. It was something kids in books did all the time, it seemed so cool and if it worked they would all be able to see the outside world. They had all giggled as they planned it, a simple escape that would never work in reality. They didn’t take it seriously. It was like a game to them.
Of course, they all got caught almost immediately. Ellana was caught last, dragged kicking and screaming back to the tower.
“You all know you’ve broken a very big rule, right?” said one of the templars in front of them, large and intimidating. Ellana gulped and looked away, fear making her heart pound nearly out of her chest. She was hoping one of the other kids would be brave, talk back to them.
“Yes sir,” Erik, one of the other kids, gulped out. One of them, the girl next to her who Ellana didn’t know well, was crying.
They were all sitting on their knees in a line, with five or so templars standing in front of them. Ellana didn’t know why. She wanted to go back to her room, close the door and never leave. She wanted to stay in bed forever. She wanted to go back in time.
“And you know we’ll have to punish you, right?” the templar cocked his head, his voice sounding cruel and cold. The girl next to Ellana started crying harder. Ellana wanted her to shut up.
“Y-“ the word was cut off by a sob, “Yes, sir.”
The templars looked across the kids coolly, as though they weren’t all children who were doing something childish and rebellious, but prisoners on death row. Ellana gulped and kept her head down, refusing to look at the men. Her hands were shaking.
“You,” Ellana felt a hand grab the back of her robes and pull her up, “Will be made an example of. Bad children who attempt to escape the Circle will eventually try to escape again.”
Ellana did start crying then. Tears were streaming down her face as she looked at the other children, whose eyes were wide with fear.
“When naughty children act up, they are made tranquil,” the templar said cruelly, was he smiling? Ellana cried harder. The rest of the kids started crying, too.
“Please, don’t make me tranquil,” Ellana begged, “Please, don’t, I’ll never try to sneak out again.”
“Oh?” the templar turned his attention to her, “And we should just let you go after you tried to sneak out? I don’t think so. Unless there’s someone else you think deserves to take the punishment?”
Ellana considered it. She considered picking someone she didn’t know to take the fall, to be made tranquil. Maybe someone older. But she couldn’t bring herself to do so, she couldn’t look them in the eyes and tell them they should be made tranquil.
The rite was preformed the next day.
Ellana was tranquil for five long years, employed outside the Circle at a local bookstore.
Until, one day, he came along.
He seemed like any other man. A Tevinter, browsing the rare books they had at the store. Except he kept looking at her. Even in her tranquil state she knew when people were being shifty.
And she was right. As soon as the store closed and she was locking up, someone covered her mouth with a cloth that smelled so bad, like chemicals. She struggled, but eventually, she went under.
Ellana woke up in a small cell, by herself. She could see beyond the bars, and across from her was another small cell containing another tranquil. A girl, with dark brown hair not unlike Ellana’s and matching dark brown eyes. Of course, she also had the sunbrand tattoo marking her forehead. And beside that, another tranquil. Two rows of cells, most of them containing tranquil.
She sat there by herself for Maker knows how long. She could not feel bored. She could not feel anything. Except, she did feel cold. Shivers kept running through her body. She never had the thought to talk to the other tranquil.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” a voice suddenly rang out in the dreary prison, “Your savior is here. I will cure you all!”
Ellana turned toward the person speaking. As she suspected, it was the Tevinter who was browsing the bookstore.
“You were made tranquil unjustly, but I have the solution,” the man said giddily, “I can cure you! I bribed the Seekers for the cure, and I will cure each and every one of you.”
Within the next few days, people were taken from their cells. When they returned, they were screaming and crying, thrashing around. They were in restraints, and when they were put back into their cells they were restrained in such a way that meant they couldn’t hurt themselves. Soon enough the entire prison was full of screams and cries of agony, pleas for someone to end their suffering. The sunburst brand remained on their foreheads even after the “cure”. It was bizarre to see the brand, but the person wearing it was so unhinged.
Eventually, Ellana’s turn came. And it was horrible.
All of her emotions flooded back to her at once. Suddenly she, too, was screaming, with tears leaking down her face. Happiness, sadness, anger, she felt them all at once. Her skin felt like it was both on fire and submerged in ice. It was agony. She would have preferred to stay tranquil.
It took months for her to calm down enough to form a rational thought, to be unchained without a risk of hurting herself. Some weren’t so lucky. More than a few went entirely insane, were taken out of their cells and never seen again. Those who showed signs of improvement, however, were gradually granted more freedom.
She felt her emotions much more strongly than she did before. What would have been a minor inconvenience before now made her begin to bawl. She became like a beacon to demons, still a mage despite it all.
She, unlike most of them, was able to fight off the demons. Most of the others, however, in their emotional state fell prey to demons. The more of them that went insane or fell prey to demons, the angrier The Man got.
Until eventually, there were only a few of them left. The Man had gone out to get more tranquil, with the same results. Either insane or an abomination.
Ellana was finally able to control her emotions, somewhat. She still felt them more than ever, but at least she could stop herself from crying, now. Enough to form rational thought, think for herself for the first time in years. Her skin still felt too much, becoming too hot or too cold with the slightest temperature change. Ellana suspected she would never truly return to how she was when she was thirteen, but at the same time she barely remembered it anyways.
She had also gotten her magic back. It was more powerful than ever, but she couldn’t control it. She kept accidentally freezing the floor of her cell.
They were allowed to bathe once a week, a cloth and a bucket brought to their cells. Well, the sane ones. They were only fed soup, every day, two meals a day. As far as she could tell, The Man was working alone.
One day, The Man entered her cell.
“You,” he pointed a finger at her, “Have been my most successful subject yet. What makes you so special? How do you control it?”
Ellana was quivering in fear, wanting to squeeze her eyes shut and hide in the corner. Wait for him to leave. Instead, she forced herself to look him in the eye, speak to him through chattering teeth.
“There’s nothing special about me,” Ellana answered, balling her hands into fists.
“There must be something!” he began to pace the room, “So many mages lost, but you, on the other hand, have shown remarkable progress...”
The Man began rambling about Maker knows what, but Ellana’s mind was whirling. He was in her cell. Defenseless. She could kill him right now, use her magic and burn him to a crisp and escape this hellhole, finally see the light of the sun after more than a year.
Raising a quivering hand, Ellana funneled all the magic she could muster into her hand and allowed it to form into a ginormous fireball, bigger than any she had ever made. The Man was panicking, turning around to escape, but she threw the fireball at him, closing her eyes on impact.
She didn’t open them for a while. She thought her heart may beat out of her chest. When she opened her eyes, she was greeted by a singed corpse. Backing away from it, she vomited onto the floor. Steeling herself, she got up and stepped around it.
The prison hallway was a mess. The fireball had been much larger than she intended, destroying the area and killing everyone inside. Ellana had been the sole survivor. She didn’t try to stop the tears from streaming down her dirtied face.
The first thing she did was get the hell out of there. She walked for days, her feet blistering, the pain worse in her post-tranquil state. Just when she thought all hope was lost, she was going to die out here, she stumbled upon a Dalish clan.
They welcomed her, feeding her and clothing her and even helping her style her hair to hide the sunburst brand after she told them her story. She quickly became part of the clan, getting her tattoos to incorporate the brand as though it were part of the tattoo itself, and not a tranquil brand. They taught her how to better control her stronger magic. They felt like home.
And then, she was sent to the Temple of Sacred Ashes.