Chapter Text
At first, no one particularly noticed how reckless the Inquisitor had begun getting after the events at the Winter Palace. The Inquisition was disbanded, and the small group that remained existed mostly to hunt down Solas before he could enact his plan. Without the numbers it used to boast, it didn’t have people to watch each other like it used to.
Unsurprisingly, it was Dorian who noticed first, and he wasn’t even in the same country as Falen. Josephine had received a letter from him, stating that he was sending her brother back to her because they were worried of how careless she was being.
“Careless?” Josephine murmured, reading over the letter once again, Sera playing with a dagger on the other side of the table. She and Falen had just returned from a Red Jenny run, and Sera declined the change of clothes Falen had offered her. “That’s the last thing Falen is.”
Sera snorted. “There’s a reason I don’t let her do anything alone, Josie.” At Josephine’s arched eyebrow, she shrugged and continued. “Her face bothers her now, so she takes it out on everything else. S’why I pushed her to come with me for the Jennies.”
“Her face?” Josephine frowned. “She’s never said such a thing to me.”
“’Course not, Fal won’t want to worry you.” She snorted, catching the dagger and sheathing it as she turned to the Antivan. “The shite that happened in the Crossroads - she ever tell you ‘bout it?”
Josephine frowned further. “No, she didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t push. I don’t think she’s talked to her brother about it, either.”
“Of course she’d keep it to herself,” Sera rolled her eyes. “Okay, so Fenny, the Dread Wolf, Solas, prickle-butt, whatever you wanna call him. Long time ago, elfy elves had elfy slaves, Fenny freed them, made the veil, destroyed a lot of shite. Turns out, her tattoos, the valla-something, were slave tattoos. The Creators wanted to be gods, but they weren’t, so they died somewhere in the fade. Fal didn’t take that too well.”
Josephine’s eyes widened. “But…she drank from the Well, did she not? Wouldn’t it have told her this before?”
Sera shrugged, leaning back on the chair. “Dunno. Don’t want voices in my head, don’t know how she deals with it. Mythal was a real lady or somethin’ at least.”
Josephine readied herself to speak again when the sound of breaking glass was heard from the room over. Sera’s chair hit the floor as she jumped out of it, Josephine on her heels.
“Falen? My love, are you alright?” she asked, knocking on the door. Falen didn’t respond. “Falen?”
“Oi, Fal, open up,” Sera said. When she still didn’t answer, Sera dropped to her knees to pick the lock open as Josephine talked at her, trying anything to get a response.
The handle gave as Sera finished, Josephine carefully pushing the thick door open and gasping, quickly covering her mouth with her hand to bite her tongue. Glass from the mirror was everywhere, shattered into pieces smaller than what she could probably see. Falen had tucked herself into the corner, her knuckles covered in blood, small shards sticking out from her skin as she shook. “Love, what happened?”
“I couldn’t stand it anymore,” she whispered, voice steel compared to how badly she was shaking. “I couldn’t stand seeing them.”
“Falen…”
“C’mon, let’s get you up,” Sera said, grabbing Falen’s bicep and hauling her to her feet. She went without resistance, refusing to face either of them. Sera guided her out of the room after Josephine swept some of the glass aside with her feet, the other two women lacking any footwear. “Now what’s this all about? Mirror offend you or somethin’?”
Falen shrugged after sitting down on the chair Josephine had been in, trying to fold in on herself. “I just don’t want to see them.”
“You can’t ignore your face forever, you know.”
Her lips thinned as her eyebrows drew together. “I can try, can’t I?” She didn’t speak as Josephine knelt in front of her, gently removing the shards of glass from her knuckles. “I just wish I didn’t know what they mean.”
“Why haven’t you talked about this? You know I would never judge you for anything,” Josephine said quietly, squeezing Falen’s hand lightly after bandaging her hand.
“It’s not your burden to bear.”
“Falen,” Josephine implored, bringing her hand up to Falen’s jaw. “Dearest, you arenever a burden. Your troubles are my troubles, remember?”
Falen swallowed. “This is a burden that ruins everything we’ve reclaimed. Everything. It’s all wrong, my people are so wrong about our history that the truth stands to destroy them if they knew. Do you have any idea what the shemlen would do if they found out? If the Chantry found out? This would make them feel even more justified in their Exalted Marches, that they ‘woke’ us from worshiping false gods. I wouldn’t put it past them to try and wipe us out a second time.” Josephine’s fingers stroked just under her jaw, trying to ignore the tears welling in Falen’s eyes. “That’s why I never wanted to be Inquisitor. This is why I made every effort to not be the Herald of Andraste, why I wanted no Chantry involvement. I’m not really a person to many of them, and it would make me seem a traitor to the People. I can’t accept that.”
“Pfft,” Sera snorted. Falen managed to level a glare at her. “You think you’re the only one who can handle what prickle-butt said? Maybe he was wrong, maybe it was all stories and bull. Who’s to say that everything there was right? It’s the fade, demons lie, blah blah blah.” She waved a dismissive hand as Falen started to argue. “You made your point, Fal, and you have it. Chantry hates elfy elves, humans don’t trust any elf, and the Dalish don’t know an apple from an orange. So make it a new story, don’t deliver it as some bloody prophet.”
“…what do you mean?” Josephine’s hands slipped to Falen’s shoulders as the mage listened to Sera. “That I tell another tale of Fen’harel and see how they take it?”
“Why not? You’re a First or somethin’, right? You’re used to telling stories. You’re not Varric, but you know shite.”
Falen blinked. “I…could probably do that.”
Sera gave her a crooked grin. “I know you can. You’ve got us, Fal. Say the word and we’ll go put bugs in Fenny’s camps or something.”
“And I will always be here to help you, no matter what,” Josephine added. “Dorian’s letter said he was sending Fenadrel back to us. They’re both worried about you.”
Falen snorted, wiping the unshed tears from her eyes. “Creators, you’d think I have two overprotective brothers.”
“Might as well, the way they go about things,” Sera laughed. “I thought they’d gotten stuck together the way they went about Skyhold.”
“I don’t think they’ve managed that quite yet, Sera. And Drel’s not much the marrying type. But thank you, both of you. I…need some time yet, but I think I’ll be alright.”
“S’what we’re here for,” Sera gave her a light salute as Josephine squeezed her hand again. “Jokes and insulting people we don’t like.”
It would take time to adjust to a new worldview, but Sera was right. She could spin another story; the Dalish had lost so many, it was time to start writing up new ones. And who better than someone who’d worked with and walked alongside Fen’harel, who’d learned the fade from none other than the Dread Wolf?
She was a First, and this is her duty.