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The moon was high that night, and so bright it gave the hewn stone of the statue a long shadow. Solas had concealed himself in its penumbra, safe where his dreaming wouldn’t be disturbed. He sought the remnants of a blessed time: good-natured spirits that floated close to the Veil, just within his reach.
The journey to the Emerald Graves was a familiar one. He’d strode the path a thousand times when it had wound out from the great crystal cities of Elvhenan to these lush fields. They had remained vibrant, and in the touch of the long spring grass and the just-born green of leaves, he felt the tingles of living magic, an awareness of the vital energies to be molded into spells.
Lying in the shade of the great wolf, Solas slipped into the embrace of the Fade to seek the creatures in whose image the statue was shaped: the Guardians, loyal wolfish friends and protectors of the Emerald Knights of the Dales. Their time had come long after the great empire of the elves had fallen, but the wolves had retained their magic-infused intelligence and bravery. They had gone without fear into battle with the elven knights, and when they returned from the fray had lain down to lick their wounds and guard their bonded companions—not masters, but equals.
Not even death and time could tear that bond asunder, and as Solas’s dream world bloomed around him, their spirits took shape. At first, the wolves were silent and watchful of a stranger in their midst, but as Solas spoke to them in soft tones, holding his hands open for them to sniff, happy yips filled his ears. Perhaps they sensed another fen.
Solas sank to the mossy ground, folding his legs under him and reaching for the shaggy head of the nearest wolf. It opened its long mouth to bare impressive teeth, but didn’t nip. Its tongue lolled out in blissful approbation as Solas scratched its ears.
Spirits did not have to use words to tell their stories. By Fade touch alone, Solas could envision this wolf sprinting across a meadow as her knight laughed and tried to keep up. No matter how fit and swift, an elf couldn’t match her exuberant gait. She doubled back with a short howl and sprang up to put her massive paws on her knight’s shoulders. He buried his face in her furred neck and murmured how he loved her. Her own love was immeasurable, but shown in her lupine embrace rather than spoken.
Another wolf shared a memory of sitting at attention under the spring buds of a sapling as his elven partner paid it reverence. He had been only a pup when he’d seen it planted in honor of the newly made knight: a symbol of the vital and enduring oath the young man had sworn. While the tree stood in a burial ground, it was growing strong and proud, very much alive.
Knight and guardian came to see it each year as its winter-naked branches burst into color again. They stood in silence before it, honoring the Evanuris, but then the knight would stoop to press a devoted kiss at the top of the wolf’s head. Together, they celebrated the blessing of one more season united.
Solas smiled as that wolf passed by him, permitting an admiring brush of its handsome coat. Both the wolf and its knight may have been long-entombed at Din’an Hanin, but their spirits were as brilliant as ever in the Fade. When Solas felt the weight of his lonely exile, he could find solace in the vibrancy of these beautiful creatures and their hearts’ recollections of how they were once so beloved. It was Solas’s honor to sit among them.
His time in the dream was growing short, but he sought a final memory from a beautiful silver-furred she-wolf. She lay by the fireside as her knight sang, playing a lute. It was a soft melody on a Wintersend night like this one; an ode to the turning of the season—the cold of winter finally banished as new growth brought fruit, warmth, and litters of young pups.
The coming of spring on winter’s icy heels was a reminder that life could endure hardship. The knights and their companions knew that adversity—in battle as well as in cold—and Solas did, too. But on this night, with its luminous moon and the company of steadfast spirits, he could look ahead to the promise of what a new season would bring.