Chapter Text
There they all are. His companions. His new friends. Sera and Varric. Cassandra with her signature frown. Blackwall, Vivienne, Leliana, Cullen, Solas, Josie. Even Dorian is there, though Lavellan has only known the mage for no more than a week. But the one he can't take his wide, frightened eyes off of is Bull.
Red magic pulses forward from their bodies in nauseating waves of evil. It's making him weak, draining him of life and power as if the lyrium is inside his body as well. Where there should be eyes staring at him in accusation--You failed us, you let this happen, we are dying, dead, ghosts-- there is nothing but red light, bathing him in their blood and the blood of all the innocents that suffered because he hadn't been able to save them.
Lavellan tries to speak, tries to tell them that he's sorry, that he would have stopped all this from happening but Alexius sent him away, to the future, to when all this had already come to be, he hadn't been there to help them but it wasn't his fault, please believe him! The words die on his tongue though as Bull, shards of red lyrium adorning his massive shoulders like pauldrons, raises a hand and points a finger right at him. Lavellan feels fear and guilt roiling in his stomach like acid.
"You were never meant to be."
The words are but a breath from the Iron Bull's ragged, eaten-up body, but they rock Lavellan to his core and echo deafeningly in his head. He lets out a strangled cry as a sharp pain suddenly jabs at the space between his ribs. He looks down, half expecting to see a dagger stuck in his flesh, but what he finds is far more terrifying: through his shirt he can see something pressing hard against his skin from the inside. As he watches, the pain grows to a crippling crescendo and a large, ragged crystal of red lyrium bursts out through his chest, dripping with blood and pulsing with energy. Lavellan tries to grab at it, pull it out even as his screams rend the thick air around him, but the shard sears the skin of his hands as soon as he touches it. With a wild desperation he looks to his companions for aid, but they are all smiling now. Sick, deathly smiles as the skin on their faces catches fire and melts off.
"You were never meant to be," they all chant. Lavellan drops to his knees as the lyrium starts to grow and spread, consuming him.
"You were never meant to be."
"You were never meant to be."
"You failed."
*****
Lavellan jolts awake with a sharp gasp. He's drenched in a cold sweat, shivering as if he was half-frozen instead of tangled in the thick blankets of his bed. The room is dark around him save for a sliver of pale moonlight shining through the crack of his window, just barely illuminating his shaking hands as he moves to pull the hem of his shirt up. To his immense relief there is no lyrium jutting from his chest cavity, no wounds or scars there save for the old healing ones he's earned since joining the Inquisition. A dream, then.
A nightmare.
He's too worked up to return to sleep anytime soon, his body thrumming with an anxious, almost panicked energy that makes it impossible to even stay in bed any longer. He throws the blankets off and swings his legs over the sides, groping around blindly for his nearby boots before finally managing to locate them and pull them on. As he leaves he wraps a blanket around his slim shoulders and hugs it tight around himself. With no real idea of where he plans on going or what he plans on doing--just knowing that he has to escape the shadowy confines of his room before he goes insane-- Lavellan steals into the darkened corridor and simply starts walking.
The hour is late, that much is easy to tell. No one is still up and about in Haven save for the few guards stuck on watch duty, and even those poor souls are starting to drift off until Lavellan walks past them. They scramble then to straighten their sleep-bent spines and salute him, a respect that is still foreign and strange to the Dalish elf from humble beginnings, but he orders them back at ease with a small wave of his hand. He hurries past them and outside into the cold night air before they can question why he's up and about. The last thing he wants to do is talk about his nightmare, let alone the incident that inspired his terror.
Even giving the report had been an ordeal for the young elf. Cullen, Josephine, Leliana, and Cassandra had sat him and Dorian down when they'd returned from Redcliffe with Alexius in tow. The Tevinter mage had deferred to Lavellan to tell the tale to the counsel, but he'd struggled to fill them in on the details of their ordeal. His tongue had been thick and useless in his mouth, his chest rising and falling rapidly with shallow breaths, and he hadn't been able to look Leliana in the eyes. He just couldn't get past the terrible, awful images that had been burned into his mind, couldn't give voice to the horrors that would come to be should they fail. After a few stuttered, aborted attempts at speaking, Dorian had laid a comforting hand on his shoulder and taken over, leaving Lavellan to bury his face in his hands and try to compose himself. He'd been embarrassed and ashamed of his reaction and the way they'd all looked at him with pity as he excused himself from the War Table.
Solas had tried, gently, to coax the story out of him a few days after their return when he'd noticed how distracted Lavellan was from their shared studies. The older elf had become somewhat of a mentor for the little Dalish mage--after all, without his Keeper by his side, Lavellan felt rather like a ship adrift at sea with no captain-- but the redhead wasn't able to open up even to his new, trusted teacher. He'd simply given Solas some half-baked excuse about being needed at Cullen's training session that day before all but running away from the mage's small quarters, fleeing from the concerned looks the other man gave him.
After that, his other companions had each attempted to talk to him about the incident as well, employing various methods to try and work him down from the agitated state he'd been left in. Their efforts all proved futile; Lavellan appreciated their concern, he did, but how could he face them and tell them that he'd failed? That he could fail? That he's terrified of what would and could come?
Bull is the only one who hasn't approached him, who's kept his distance and allowed Lavellan the solitude he needs but is too afraid to ask for.
He finds himself walking through the grounds of Haven, his feet unconsciously following a trail that's leading him out of the gate and towards the tent Bull sleeps in. The moonlight is brighter outside; there are only a few wispy clouds in the night sky, strewn among the multitude of stars that dots the dark tapestry above him. A part of him, the part that will always be wild and feral and made of the earth--his elven nature--feels better now that he's surrounded by fresh, crisp air and towering trees in the distance. He gazes up at the constellations and out across the frozen lake and can almost pretend that he's back in the forests of his youth, the woods he and his clan had traveled to and from.
He can almost pretend he's free again.
A silhouette, dark against the silver moonlight shining off the ice of the lake, catches his attention, and he lets out a relieved breath as his gaze traces the outline of large, sharp horns and thick, broad shoulders.
Bull.
The Qunari is sitting on a large, flat rock in front of the lake, sharpening his ax and humming a low, quiet tune. Ever since the Chargers had joined the Inquisition, Lavellan has found himself smitten with the cocky, boisterous, deeply intelligent warrior. Bull is a flatterer and a counselor all in one, sometimes even at the same time. He always has a smile for Lavellan, is always eager to go sit and talk with him after his training sessions with Krem, the sessions that Lavellan has taken to eagerly watching. Just because he's curious about different fighting techniques, though, of course.
At least, that's what he tells himself.
The point is, Lavellan feels an easy companionship with the Qunari that extends far beyond any childish fawning over large, defined arms and a strong jaw that the elf may indulge in. He feels a strange kinship with Bull that draws him always towards the warrior and that is currently leading him down to the lakeside to sit himself on the rock beside Bull.
Bull's the only who hasn't tried to get him talk about Redcliffe, and now, Bulls's the only one Lavellan wants to open up to.