Chapter Text
Their small group of four - her, Cassandra, Solas, and Varric - arrived at the base camp in the Hinterlands not long after mid-day, and immediately began assessments with Scout Harding on the situation at the Crossroads. The fighting between the mages and templars was heavy there and Mother Giselle refused to help unless the area was secured and the refugees were safe.
Liinnae felt out of place as she listened to the others go over their strategy, go over maps, and discuss the effects of the war; she wasn’t a Circle Mage so she didn’t have any insight into the situation, no knowledge that would be useful. The others were so engrossed in their discussion that no one noticed her slip away.
Not far from the camp she found a clearing on a cliff that offered an unobstructed view of her surroundings.
The Hinterlands was not what she expected. Her clan never went far enough south to journey through Ferelden so all she knew of it came from books and stories. From the stories Liinnae had heard, she imagined all of Ferelden was either boring, white, and snow covered, or boring, brown, and mud covered.
Liinnae leaned against her staff and looked out over the lush green hills spotted with wildflower patches that stretched out in front of her. No. This was not boring in any way. It was far more beautiful than she could have imagined.
Her admiration of her surroundings faded as they wound their way down the path from the base camp to the Crossroads where the refugees were camped. War between the mages and templars left a burning destruction that reeked of death and decay. The closer they got to the fighting itself, the worse it got. What she was seeing here, down in the valley, had no resemblance to the beauty she saw up on the cliff.
The closer they got to the Crossroads, the louder the fighting got. The mages and templars had to be fighting each other right in the middle of the refugees!
Fear knotted itself tightly in her stomach and she had to will herself not to flee back to the camp. Liinnae had only experienced large combat once before and that was at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, and there there were dozens of soldiers who were able to take care of the massive demons that fell from the rift. She spent that entire fight staying out of the way until the demons were dealt with and she was able to close the rift.
This was different. These were people. Regardless of who they were or what their beliefs were, they were actually living, breathing people. And she wouldn’t be able to rely on others to pick up her slack in fights. Liinnae wished she’d paid more attention to the combat magic lessons the Keeper dragged her to. Stupidly, Liinnae thought her books and knowledge would be weapon enough.
She screamed and fell to the ground as an arrow flew by her head, barely missing her.
“Herald!” Solas ran to her. “Are you injured?”
Liinnae shook her head and took his outstretched hand.
“Good,” Varric said as he grabbed a bolt and loaded the crossbow he affectionately called Bianca. “Things are about to get interesting, Kid.”
Interesting wasn’t exactly the word she would have used to describe the fight - metal clanging against metal, the din of painful screams, fireballs and ice walls and lightning raining from what seemed like every direction. Terrifying. Terrifying would be a better word.
Her attempts at assisting her companions and the soldiers fighting off both templar and mage was useless. Her fear mixed with inexperience made remembering even the few combat spells nearly impossible. By the time she could remember the spell to call up fire, or bring down lightning, it was too late, one of the others would have already finished that fight and moved on to the next. Solas would cast barriers before she even realized they were needed, and several times she found herself frozen in ice unable to move, or laid flat on the ground from being bashed by a shield.
The fighting seemed to go on forever. If it wasn’t the templars attacking them, it was the mages, and when those groups were defeated, another group would follow, and then another. Eventually she resorted to just trying to stay out of the way - she was more help if they didn’t have to worry about her always almost dying.
“You alright, Kid?” Varric found her pressed behind a sign post after the last group had fallen.
“Yes, I - I uh…” how would she explain hiding while the others fought? “My...my staff. I dropped my staff.” She hugged her staff to her chest as though it would confirm her terrible lie.
Cassandra called for her from where Mother Giselle was comforting the wounded at the far side of the camp. Liinnae was glad she didn’t have to explain further, or come up with an even more terrible lie to cover up the first terrible lie. Why was she lying in the first place? If she would just tell them she had no idea what she was doing during battle, maybe they would only bring her along when it was time to actually close rifts. It was a little too late to bring it up now.
The angry encounter from Brother Roderick earlier at Haven made her dread meeting Mother Giselle. What if she, too, thought Liinnae was a false prophet trying to lead people astray? What if this was a trap to get rid of Liinnae because the Chantry thought she was a threat?
Before leaving Haven, Liinnae tried to convince Cassandra that she was more qualified to meet with Mother Giselle than she was.
Cassandra raised an eyebrow, “You’re the Herald. It is you who she wants to speak with.” she retorted.
“I don’t even know what that means!” Liinnae was a Dalish elf, she wasn’t Andrastian, she didn’t know how to be the Herald. What if she said something wrong and ruined everything the others had worked so hard for?
“Herald,” Cassandra said reassuringly, “talk with Mother Giselle. It will be alright.”
Liinnae nodded, she wasn’t so sure.
After the heated denouncement of her and the Inquisition by Brother Roderick back in Haven, Liinnae didn’t know what to expect of Mother Giselle but she feared the Mother would be as hostile.
Liinnae observed Mother Giselle as she comforted an injured soldier. The soft way she spoke to the scared man eased her mind and made her hope that this meeting wouldn’t be confrontational.
Once Mother Giselle was done speaking with the injured soldier, Liinnae carefully approached her.
“And you must be the one they are calling the Herald of Andraste,” Mother Giselle greeted her.
Liinnae cringed at the title she so disliked, “Not through any choice of mine.”
Mother Giselle chuckled, “We seldom have much say in our fate.”
She certainly couldn’t argue with that.
Liinnae began to relax once she realized Mother Giselle was actually being friendly to her.
“I know of the Chantry’s denouncements, and I am aware of those behind it,” Mother Giselle said as they began walking. “I won’t lie to you, some of them are grandstanding hoping to increase their chances of becoming the new Divine. Some are simply terrified; so many good people were taken from us.”
Liinnae stopped as she tried to wrap her mind around the Chantry politics that would now play such a large role in her life. Having read about these sorts of power plays was one thing; it was quite another being caught in the middle of it.
Mother Giselle laid a hand on Liinnae’s arm, “Go to them. Convince the remaining Clerics you are no demon to be feared. They have heard only frightful tales of you. Give them something else to believe.”
Liinnae nearly laughed at the thought of her convincing anyone of anything. “You want me to appeal to them?”
“If I thought you were incapable, I wouldn’t suggest it.” Mother Giselle encouraged her in the same soft voice she used with the injured soldier earlier.
“But, will they even listen?”
“Let me put it this way. You needn’t convince them all, you just need some to doubt. Their power is their unified voice.”
Liinnae mulled that over for a moment. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “I appreciate your help. She wished she had the confidence in herself that the Mother did.
Mother Giselle studied Liinnae a moment. “I honestly don’t know if you’ve been touched by fate, or sent to help us, but I hope. Hope is what we need now.”
Liinnae kept going over the conversation with Mother Giselle in her head while she had a look around the refugee camp. She had never seen anything like this. Sure her clan came across refugee camps after the destruction of Kirkwall, but nothing like this. Those camps were mostly made up of people on their way to other countries in Thedas to start over, and most were healthy and uninjured. The worst camps, those with the sick and injured and dying, were closer to Kirkwall far from where her clan traveled.
This refugee camp - her chest tightened into a knot that threatened to fall out in tears. Liinnae closed her eyes and took several deep breaths before the knot loosened. She didn’t want them to see her cry.
The medical tent was packed with sick refugees. A single healer moved swiftly from patient to patient administering healing potions and spells, checking symptoms, or just offering a few words of solace. When was the last time that healer ate? Or slept? And surely there had to be more healers, where were they?
That last question was answered further down the road. The rest of the healers were with those injured by the fighting. Liinnae watched from the other side of the road, she didn’t want to be in the way of the healers doing their job.
Burns seemed to be the most common injury. Most burns were not severe and could be taken care of with a healing poultice and a bandage. The more severe burns, if they were lucky, the healers could end their suffering quickly. The unlucky ones screamed and cried in unbearable agony.
While most common, burns weren’t the only injury. Limbs were nearly sliced clean off, gut wounds so large Liinnae had no idea how they were still alive and how all their internal organs hadn’t fallen out. From the back of the tent came a terrifying shriek. Several healers were holding down a man whose arm was so badly damaged, there was barely anything left save the bone. They were amputating the limb.
She will never be able to get those screams out of her head.
Behind the tent was a different type of agony. There laid the dead, end to end, respectfully covered in sheets. There they would lie until it was their turn on the funeral pyre. Friends and family gathered around the deceased, most too in shock to cry, let alone properly mourn. They just stood there, staring down at the lifeless bodies, their expressions blank.
Liinnae had to walk away, she couldn’t stand there anymore. What she saw at the rest of the camp was just as heart-wrenching. Families, many obviously missing a husband, wife, or child, huddled together around small fires and in tents made from scraps of fabric tied to trees. Children who, were they back home, would normally be playing and laughing with one another, hid behind their mothers in fear.
Fear. It permeated every corner of the camp, thick, heavy, oppressive.
Liinnae couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to lose everything. To be so afraid for her life and the lives of her family that it was safer to risk everything and flee her home, everything she’d ever known. Day after day, cold, hungry, uncertain of what the future held. How did they do it?
Was there any hope these people had that it would get better? That there could be a day when children would no longer have to go to bed on empty stomachs, or pressed against each other for warmth?
A small tug on the sleeve of her robe interrupted her thoughts. Liinnae looked down to see the culprit was a boy who couldn’t have been older than ten years old. His small, shy smile seemed so out of place here. In his hand he clutched a white snowdrop flower.
“Thank you,” he squeaked and held the flower out to her.
Thank you? Whatever could he be thanking her for? “I...I didn’t…” do anything, is what she wanted to say but she couldn’t finish the thought. Something in that boy’s eyes stopped her. It was small, but it was there.
“You and the soldiers saved us from the mages and templars.” the boy put the flower in her hand.
A spark of hope.
“This is lovely, thank you.” she returned his smile and he ran off. She was wrong earlier. There was hope left, buried deep and hidden, but it was there.
That shy boy. Did he see her as just the Herald? Liinnae doubted he even knew who, or what, the Herald was. No. All he knew was that they helped him, helped them, and that help gave him hope. Maybe she wasn’t useless after all.