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The Maker seemed to be leading her life from one nightmare to another.
When moments were quiet, the echoes of screams and crackling embers vibrated in the air around her. Blessedly, those moments had been few.
Certainly she'd grown up reading about the plights of those less fortunate over the ages. After reading accounts of impoverished elves suffering in alienages, she thought she'd understood. Surely just knowing that horrors existed was enough to see they were bad, wasn't it?
It was nothing compared to living it.
She should be grateful for her life, she supposed. But every moment she breathed was another reminder that others no longer did. We couldn't even go back for Fergus, she thought with some resentment, glancing at Morrigan reading Maker knows what next to her campfire distinctly apart from Alistair's.
Deep down, she knew that Morrigan had been right. But it just felt good to have someone nearby to be angry with. If she thought too long on Loghain or Howe's betrayal, she would lose herself to madness even more than perhaps she already had.
What she certainly was grateful for was Alistair's presence. As she had lost her family, he had lost Duncan. He'd never detailed how close their relationship was -- they didn't know each other well enough for any such talk -- but the hurt was written plainly on his face.
And it still was, in those quiet moments. She looked over to his tent by the campfire, staring blankly into its depths, the light dancing streaks of yellow and orange across his face. He glanced up, catching her gaze. Far from trying to pretend she hadn't been pointedly staring, Ellaria smiled warmly, "Finding anything interesting in there?"
"Sadly I am no augur, or else I could perhaps steer us away from whatever disaster awaits us next."
"I'm not even sure the Maker could help us at this point. He hasn't seemed to be feeling generous with favors recently in any case." Alistair laughed -- that had been her goal -- and clucked his tongue at her.
"Now now, as a former Templar it is my duty to be unforgivably offended at such jokes. Keep it up and I may have move this campfire closer to Morrigan's." She gasped, feigning exaggerated shock while struggling to hide a smirk.
"You wouldn't!"
"Dare not test the lengths I will go for a joke, my lady." He flashed her a grin and rose to his feet, unclasping the buckles of his pauldrons and sword belt, resting them in a neat pile beside his tent. "Morrigan's got first watch tonight. I'll take second. You look like you could use the extra sleep." He ducked into his tent, though but a moment later stuck his head out again, "No offense, of course." She graced him one last laugh and he smiled before retreating completely into the canvas.
Very likely, she did look awful. She hadn't had a single night's sleep since Ostagar, unless being unconscious in an old hag's hut for a few days counted. Her body certainly didn't seem to think it had. With some trepidation, she settled into the furs of her bed roll, closing her eyes with no small measure of fear.
Blessedly, sleep took her quickly before the quiet moments could overcome her again.
She awoke to the rhythmic beat of a drum. It vibrated deeply within her chest and shook the stone cavern around her as pebbles and dirt tapped lightly on her head. She sat up, trying to orient herself through the world vibrating around her, the drum beating faster and deeper with each passing second.
As her vision came to focus she spun, trying to find the source of the sound. The stone walls around her seemed to descend to the core of the world, ending where they met a slowly crawling mass of red, orange, and black, like melted steel. At each deep boom of the drum, the world contracted and expanded, and the sheer wrongness of it made Ellaria feel sick to her stomach.
She crept to the edge of the narrow pillar of rock she found herself on. The creeping mass of melted steel far beneath her was the only source of light, casting shadows taller than giants against the cavern walls. It was only then she heard the sound of clanging metal and footsteps marching in unison through the beating drum. The shadows cast shapes of grotesque creatures in pointed armor with dripping maws.
An army.
She watched as thousands upon thousands of darkspawn marched beneath her, driven to consume the unprepared surface. She could see it before her: the black of decay as crops failed, flowers withered and died, forests disappeared into sand. Villages overrun, their terrified people being slaughtered with jagged, rusty swords covered in the dried blood of strangers.
A blast of sickeningly warm air blew her hair back. Ellaria clutched the edge of the pillar to steady herself, feeling the drum's vibration deep in her stomach. She looked east, trying to find the source of the wind. Her answer came in the form of a deafening screech.
The Archdemon.
His black wings hanging off thick bone twisted the air around the cavern. He was the center of the contraction. It was no drum beating within her -- it was each beat of the monstrous creature's heart, calling to her. His black, dead eyes met hers though he was perched on a pillar far from hers. She could see them as though she stood beside him, their oily black centers promising her the sweetest corruption.
He called out again, the screech tearing her apart. She clutched at the rock beneath her, digging her nails across the hard surface, screaming, trying to expel whatever it was, not knowing what she was doing. Her lungs burned, her head full to bursting, and all she could think to do was run off the edge into oblivion below...
It's all right, I've got you.
Alistair's voice pulled her back, his arms around her anchoring her back to the reality of their camp. She was shivering, despite the warmth of the fire beside her, sweat covering her body. When had she wrapped her arms around Alistair? When had she dug her nails into his tabard?
She pulled back from the warmth of his embrace, pulling a cloak around herself. "What...what happened?"
"Seems like you've just had the joyful experience of your first Nightmare. Yours was pretty bad by the looks of it. Mine was too."
"I saw it Alistair. The Archdemon. It...it called to me. And I wanted to go, Alistair. What is that supposed to say?" He sat back beside her, his face softening.
"The darkspawn blood we drink causes it. It allows us to sense them, to fight them." He furrowed his brow, "This is why we know this is a true Blight -- precisely because we hear the call of the Archdemon, just as they do." He placed a hand on her shoulder, its warmth travelling straight to her core. "It says nothing about you. We all feel it."
She nodded, placing her hand on top of his and squeezing lightly. "Is this every night?"
"No, thank the Maker for that. You can push them out over time, but I still get them from time to time. So if you see me thrashing about and calling for my mummy, try not to judge too harshly." He smiled and stood, his hand sliding from her shoulder. As he crossed the campground back to his tent, she stopped him.
"Should that happen, I'll be there for you too." She expected a smile, a laugh. But for a moment, he hesitated, his breath hitched in his throat.
"I'll hold you to it." He replied, voice deeper than the joking tone he always seemed to use before.
When he was gone, Ellaria curled back into her bed roll. And for once, she wasn't afraid of the quiet moments.