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Varric is first to meet her, but he doesn't see her first. He hears her.
It's years before the Breach, before Kirkwall, before Hawke was the Champion, even. They'd come back from the Deep Roads rich as kings (and minus a Hawke) maybe a year ago. Things were only just beginning to heat up again, and Hawke, as always, would be right in the middle of it.
He recognises Hawke's laugh, that loud almost-cackle that usually precedes something exploding. It is a laugh full of mischief and mayhem, and it suits her down to the bone.
It's the second laugh he doesn't recognise, but he has a good ear. This laugh is lilting, more musical, and filled with absolute delight. There's an honest, unrestrained note to it. Perhaps the woman - and, clearly, it belongs to a woman - rarely gets to laugh genuinely.
Curiosity, more than anything, leads him down into the tavern. Hawke and her Merry Band of Misfits at their usual table, along with an elven girl he doesn't recognise. The stranger has taken his usual place at Hawke's right. Fenris sits on Hawke's left and an even-more-wide-eyed-than-usual Merrill sits across from her. Hawke and the stranger have pushed their chairs as close together as space will allow, and are still laughing. Hawke has doubled over in the chair and is leaning on the girl, half in her lap. The girl has her head thrown back, and if her chair leans too much further backwards she's going to fall over.
He registers incredibly pale skin and long black curls before Hawke spots him. She shoots to stand up - almost knocking over table in the process - and waving him over.
"Varric! Come here, there's someone you have to meet!"
He chuckles deeply as he approaches, and the girl calms enough to look at him.
It would take another six years and a hole in the sky for him to figure out exactly why those dark, shifting green eyes had unnerved him so.
Cassandra is the first to see her after the Breach. The fear in the air hangs so heavily you could cut it with a knife. The Divine is dead - along with everyone else. And now she learns an elven girl has just fallen out of a rift, with a strange woman seen behind her. The soldiers haven't touched her, she's lying face-down on the ground, unconscious. She's filthy, her mercenary's coat torn, her hair knotted and dirty. She's tiny. Even by Elven standards, she's small, petite, and it leads Cassandra to wonder at her age.
She's a Mage, that much is clear. She can sense the magic thrumming underneath her skin - the non-Templar soldiers can feel it too. The girl doesn't appear injured, but she's feverish. As much as she'd like to kill her now and have it done with, she needs the prisoner alive for information. So she calls a healer, and wonders how someone so small could cause so much damage.
"What the frig is with those eyes?" Were Sera's first words to the Herald.
It was there very first time anyone had ever just come out and say it plainly. She paused for a long moment still as stone, before throwing her head back and laughing like she hadn't heard a joke in months. She smiled at the other elf in obvious approval, and it surprised none of her companions when she accepted her aid.
"Family trait." Was the answer given.
Vivienne had considered the situation long and hard before extending her invitation. She had half expected the elven girl to turn up still in armour, and armed.
She was... surprisingly wrong.
Clearly the Inquisition had a decent Ambassador, then, because she turned up not in her battle gear, but rather with her hair piled artfully on top of her head, a string of pearls around her neck, and in a simple, yet elegant green gown.
Vivienne watched in surprise as the elf - a Dalish apostate - charmed the Lord and Lady du Revin. She even kept a genial smile on her face as a foolish Marquis challenged her.
She intervened, of course - such rudeness was intolerable. The Herald let the Marquis live.
She offered her pleasantries, and was delighted to discover that the Herald seemed to have a gift for the Game. She easily dodged questions and danced around information. She hadn't met someone this good at verbal sparring in a long time. Eventually Vivienne made her offer, and the Herald accepted with a laughing smile.
It surprised the man calling himself Blackwall to hear his name called. But there is no time for questions. His recruits stand their ground, but this strange elven woman throws herself in front of them.
The fight is over in moments. They hadn't even had to draw their swords.
She is professional when she questions him, but lets her exhaustions show when he has no answers for her.
He can't say what it is, exactly, that makes him offer his services to her. But the old Chevalier's words are ringing in his head and he just knows this is the right thing to do.
She gives him a gentle smile as she accepts his help. He hopes he is right about this.
The Iron Bull doesn't see her true form first.
The Chargers have found some Venatori on the Wounded Coast and are taking them out. He's expecting the Herald to turn up at any moment.
He isn't expecting the wolf, white as snow and the size of a small bear. It locks its jaws around the throat of a Vint going for his blind side and tears it out.
He turns on the wolf - he has no idea what kind of shit's going on here. But before he can strike a woman with the symbol of the Seekers on her chest gets inbetween them.
"We're with the Inquisition!" She yells by way of explanation, and as weird as this shit is, at least it's on their side.
They kill the Vints and he immediately looks to the wolf. He doesn't find it. Instead, he finds a small figure kneeling in the water, splashing her face. The water around her turns red in the moments before the tide washes it away. He can't make out any of her features as she is she's completely shrouded by her hair. It's long, wildly curly, and blacker than a raven's wings.
After a moment she stands and turns to face him.
Immediately he notices three things.
First, the green light marking her hand.
Second, the blood still staining her lips and teeth, and the sharp elven canines thrown into sharp relief by her smile.
Third, her eyes, which perfectly mirror the chaos going on in the sky behind her.
And suddenly he begins to wonder if maybe this isn't a good idea after all.
Dorian is fighting when he first meets the Herald, and as such he pays little attention to the paticulars.
But nobody could ignore magic like that.
He almost falters when he feels it - she tugs gently on the Veil as she casts. The power flows through her gently and easily. She shapes it with her rage and throws pure destruction from her fingers. The magic within him rises, swirls, demands usage, rising up in answer to the silent call within her.
She fights like she's dancing, footsteps feather-light as she twists and turns to avoid attacks and return them with spells of her own. He's never seen someone fight like this. She takes a step backwards and pulls her hand in like she's physically drawing the fade to her. In the next moment she spins, following through with the movement and flicks the spell at her target. It's as graceful as any of the court dances of Tevinter he's ever seen.
And then a Terror gets too close.
In an instant, her whole demeanour changes. She steps back, more weight on her back foot, brings both hands close to her chest.
And then she lunges.
Her hands are fiery claws tearing at the Terror's flesh, and she's scaling the thing as she tears. He didn't know it was even possible to channel power like that without a conduit like a staff.
She plunges her hand into it's chest. It falls.
When the fight is over, he isn't surprised by her eyes.
Cole is the last to meet her. The Elder One is coming for them, and he has to help. The doors open, and the brightest light he has ever seen strides through them.
He looks past the light, past her hand, and when he realises what he is seeing, all he can do is let out a soft "Oh."
She can help, but she needs help. He will help her.
When Solas sees her the first time, he's looking, but not seeing. She is nothing to him, just the poor fool trapped by his magic, likely with only a few days left. He heals her as best he can, but that is all.
It is the last time he can look at her without seeing her.
She fights in the shape of a wolf, and her magic sings with the Fade like his own. She has spent most her life studying the Fade, and she comes to him with questions and theories. It delights him to discover her clever and inquisitive mind. They trade stories of the Fade, of Spirits of Wisdom, Faith, Hope and Compassion. She'd met a Spirit of Fortune, once. She tells him of two years spent learning from a Spirit of Knowledge. She spoke Elvhen - both the Common and High Tongues - almost as well as he did, with only a slight accent to mar her speech. She was graceful, and beautiful, and as well-spoken as any Lady of Arlathan. When she promises him her protection from Cassandra it is with steely determination in her eyes. He sees it again later as she hands down her judgements. She keeps up with the human nobility with ease, and seems to be able to make anyone see things her way.
He gives her a castle and she sets to restoring it. Not reshaping it to suit her purpose no, but to restore Tarasyl'an Tel'as to its former glory, as best she can with the Veil in place. They make her Inquisitor and she takes to it without hesitation. She fights for the people and helps with whatever she can.
He is not sure when his prayers go from 'protect the mark' to 'protect the Herald' to 'please, protect Evune'.
When she kisses him he cannot stop himself from kissing her back. Though it takes months more for him to say it, it is in the moment her lips meet his that he realises he has fallen in love.
And suddenly, his plans began to fall apart.