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“Look lively, the Warden-Commander said he’d put up a fight.”
“I heard he’s a true hunter. Puts down snares and traps for anyone who gets too close to wherever he’s holed up.”
There was quiet as the group absorbed the information and considered it’s implications, looking around at the towering foliage all around them warily.
“He really doesn’t want to be found, does he?”
“We need to find him. The Wardens need to.”
The men nodded grimly to themselves as they walked deeper into the forest. The person they had been sent to look for, to ideally bring back, had clearly been searched for before. There were swords planted firmly at the roots of trees, discarded refuse from packs and camps that had been looted, clear warnings even to a blind man.
The rumours made everyone with common sense uneasy; the man had grown as wild and untameable as a red lion, that he had killed countless search parties that had dared to try and reason with or capture him, that he had been driven mad in his isolation, that the creatures of the forest heeded his every command. Some of the more paranoid or outlandish whispers suggested a darker purpose to the hidden snares and noose traps rather than simple deterrents, or that the elf was no simple mortal, but the embodiment of the primal, wrathful forests untouched by man.
Whether any of the rumours were true or not was another matter.
The search party adjusted the grips on their weapons as they crept further towards the heart of the forest in search of the elusive Dalish elf they had once called the Hero of Ferelden.
Warden-Commander Alistair looked at his old friend, rather than out the window towards the violent green streak amongst the snow-heavy clouds. The elf was pacing from one end of his office to the other, face drawn in something Alistair was unnerved to compare to a snarl, the faint gleam of teeth just visible. Perhaps that was because of the scars on his cheek, marks left by claws long ago.
The Dalish elf paced on silent feet until a wall interrupted just as he hit his stride, forcing him to turn around and try again endlessly. Like a dog in a cage aching to be released. Alistair couldn’t help but watch the repetitive process.
Theron was a tightly-wound ball of restless energy just waiting to explode. He had been just as difficult to find as the Sacred Ashes, and twice as hard to actually get back to the keep without him doing his best to escape back to the wilds. It was only the outright threat of a mage at his back that had quieted him just enough to submit to an armed escort. Only a stick, with no carrot for his troubles.
He still wore plain leather armour, a tightly-strung bow and quiver full of rattling arrows on his back. As always, he looked too wild to be contained in a richly furnished office, or in any building. He was as wild as the forests he had been born in, and the years after… What had happened only made him even wilder, downright uncontrollable. No building should contain a Dalish ranger. Certainly not Theron Mahariel.
“They need the Hero of Ferelden.” Alistair repeated calmly, as if he hadn’t heard the near-growl of a response the first time around. “All those people, they’ll die if someone doesn’t do something.”
Theron halted midstride like an alerted stag, grey-streaked braids swinging as he turned his head to stare at Alistair, grey gazes meeting and boring into each other.
“I’m not a hero.” The ranger answered in a low voice, something dark and dangerous, voice hoarse with disuse. He probably hadn’t talked to anyone but himself in months. “Heroes only exist in children’s tales. I never asked for that title. I don’t want to be the saviour of the world again. I’ve been through enough.” His sentences were clipped, tone harsh and bitter. “I’ve lost more than you can ever know, Alistair. The people are mistaken when they think I can summon the energy to fight whatever that is.” He gestured sharply to the nearest window without looking towards it. “You are.” He added quietly, rocking his weight from foot to foot in a way that made Alistair wonder if he was about to bolt from the room. He wouldn’t be surprised.
“So you’re just going to sit back and watch that hole in the sky grow bigger with every hour, then?” Alistair retorted, leaning over his desk and planting his hands down amid the letters from Orlais.
“It seems you are instructing your Wardens to do the same, are you not?” Theron nodded once, bitterly, at the guilty expression that flitted over the human’s face. “I am a hunter. I stop and listen, read the signs. You are a flock of birds preparing to find safer nests.”
“We can’t do anything beyond try to kill demons and darkspawn. Whatever’s happening out there, that hole and what’s happening with the mages and Templars, it’s barely started, and the Grey Wardens cannot be of help.”
“Neither can the so-called Hero of Ferelden.” The Dalish elf retorted, looking towards the window at last as snow began to fall.
Ferelden would burn soon, and the two who had fought a decade ago to save her would turn their backs. Nothing short of divine intervention could work now.
“The Blight has broken me, lethallin.” Theron sighed, reaching up to rub at his shadowed eyes roughly. The anger and tension drained from him suddenly, made him look like nothing more than a world-weary and battered Dalish elf that had wandered into civilisation completely by mistake. “Nightmares with no end that seem so real, about what I endured ten years ago. If I save the world again, it will consume me and break what has already been broken. I will die if I try to save this country again, I can feel it.” He sighed, and then looked up at the Warden-Commander with a smile that showed a hint more teeth than a normal smile would. “I beg of you, lethallin, don’t ask me to do this. Don’t force me. Leave me be, and never do this again.”
Alistair’s eyes widened in surprise at the admission, but before he could ask what Theron meant he had slipped out of the office on silent feet.