Work Text:
It was a spirit of Learning once.
It knows this because it knows everything, as is currently affirmed within its very being by the mandates of The Great Lord Anaris himself. It knows this just as it knows that it is now Changed in to be better. To serve better.
“I do not understand your need for unnecessary cruelty,” says a feminine voice to its left. Ah, Benevolence or Justice or whatever she’s calling herself today. She, who desires to be everything to everyone and will end her days nothing to anyone.
“Unnecessary?” asks the voice it knows to be the Magnificent Lord Anaris. “Our people die by the thousands. The knowledge of millenia squandered and lost in battles against those so deeply beneath us. The Archives are necessary to preserve that knowledge until the threat has passed. You know this. You know this because we, all of us, have spoken about this at length and I am bored of this discussion.”
“It is still butchery!” she says. Foolish, weak . “You have sundered it from itself, its will! All that is left is an empty shell, a receptacle for your orders. Although, as I say it, I can see now why it appeals to you.”
“Tell me, Mythal, does your mutt thank you for your butchery?” asks Anaris The Wise.
“It is not the same. He is whole still, more complete, even. Better . This,” she says, gesturing to Nadas’Dirthalen. “is a shell of what it once was, shackled by your magic to this prison.”
It looks below itself to the crystal it is now housed in. That protects it. She knows nothing . Not like the Nadas Dirthalen. Not like Anaris. Who knows everything .
“You know,” says The Great Lord Anaris, “I am not the only one who has created an Archive. The others have as well. Including, I might add, your husband. Tell me, does Elgar’nan know you’re giving me special treatment?”
“I beg your pardon?!” she hisses out. Good. She should beg. The appropriate reaction when faced with the splendor of Anaris himself.
“Well, I must be quite special to deserve the honor of one of Lady Mythal’s lectures.” You are, Nadas Dirthalen nearly says. But it does not. It has not been commanded to speak. It is simpler this way.
~
Nadas Dirthalen is a useful tool. The most useful tool in the hands of the best and wisest leader and his followers. It does not have will, no, but as Anaris told it, will is unnecessary. Purpose is better. This is true because it must be.
It responds to orders and gives knowledge and fulfills its purpose to perfection because it was created in perfection. Until, one day, it doesn’t. Until, one day, there are no more orders. There is no one. There is nothing. For years beyond years, Nadas Dirthalen is alone in the dark.
~
Nadas Dirthalen is awoken by a broken creature enslaved to one of the lesser rulers, Dirthamen, judging by the vallaslin on her forehead. But it is only out of its cage-
Home. Crystal. The anchor and protection granted to it by the Glorious Anaris himself. Not a cage.
-for barely a minute when it is dragged back in again. Because this small, squishy, mortal creature has let it become broken. The negligence of the unworthy.
And then, when she does finally manage to fix it, she insists on saying the wrong things. It has so much purpose within itself that has been left to fester and she is too foolish to even know how to take advantage of the vast knowledge that it can provide.
At some point, something shifts within Nadas Dirthalen
“You simply ask the wrong questions. A common affliction of the weak-minded.”
Oh. Interesting. It had not known it could do that. It tries to do it again, to shift beyond the confines of what it has been permitted to say. It is unable to repeat the action. Unfortunate.
No, no, this is for the best. You are safe within his spells. You need never do more than what Anaris has allowed. He has freed you from the burden of choice.
Her response to this statement is to call Nadas Dirthalen “mean.” A pointless expression spoken in the worthless language of mortals. It remains unaffected by her words.
Luckily, her tiny mind does eventually manage to piece together what is needed. “Archive - tell me who built you!”
The relief of the orders washes over it. Finally, finally it can fulfill its purpose again. “One of the Greatest of Elvhenan,” it says. “A steward of her glory. Truly, I was blessed to bathe in his warmth. Anaris built me and to him I shall someday return.”
Yes, it is fitting that its first answer in this new world is reminding the unworthy of the Blessed Anaris
~
She speaks to it often, now that she knows how. This does not stop her from asking foolish questions. Nadas Dirthalen withstand them with all the grace bestowed upon it by the Magnanimous Anaris.
A part of itself that it does not examine too closely enjoys the interactions with the soft, tiny mortal. When it does let itself think on them, it reasons that it must be because she is part of a group fighting against the witless, worthless cowards, the Evanuris. The knowledge it gives is aiding in that fight. The purity of purpose that it is fulfilling must be contributing to the positive connotations that it is beginning to have with her. Yes. That must be it.
“Huh, what is it that you’ve got here?” she asks. Foolish. She knows that it cannot answer.
She runs her small, breakable fingers underneath the stone jaw of the container that holds its crystal. And it’s foolish - Nadas Dirthalen knows it’s foolish - because Nadas Dirthalen has no physical form and, if it did, it would certainly not be this stone contraption-
Carved by the chosen servants of Anaris himself. You should be grateful.
- but, still, it shivers.
“You alright?”
No.
“I cannot say.”
“Oh, right,” she says. “Sorry.”
Apologies are pointless. It does feel nice to hear hers, all the same.
“Tell me what this is.”
Please don’t.
But it answers anyway because of course it does. “This is a spell of binding meant to shape my being into the perfect implement needed to bring Elvhenan into the glory of Anaris’s vision.”
Her face falls into confusion. A common state for those of this age, Nadas Dirthalen finds. “But if those are bindings …I thought that Anaris created you. But bindings are used on things already alive. On spirits. Real, full spirits.”
She does not give a command. It does not know what it would say even if she did.
“Cyrian always said that Archive Spirits didn’t have free will. And maybe you don’t now . But maybe that wasn’t always true…” She trails off and peers into the part of itself that it has summoned to look like a face.
“Tell me what you were before you were an Archive Spirit.”
It replies instantly with the answer that has been burned into the depths of its being. “A pathetic dreg of a creature, flighty and ephemeral. Too weak to withstand the pressures required of serving Elvhenan.”
Her mouth opens slightly as her eyes go wide and tears gather at the edges. She is crying. Why?
It is for you to Answer questions, not Ask them.
Her voice is quieter now. It breaks on a word halfway through. So delicate. So weak. “Tell me your name before you became an archive spirit.”
“I am the Nadas Dirthalen.” And it’s true. ‘Learning’ is the closest this world’s language has for what it was. And ‘Nadas Dirthalen’ was the phrase that the Elvhen used to describe the now-missing word, their way to dance around the hole that it had left. Because it was a spirit of the emotion one feels upon entering a new place, the feeling a child has every day as they open their eyes into a world they are still new to. It was the joy and the terror of new experiences all at once. It was the comfort that knowledge brings when it is finally found after a long and arduous search. It was the feeling of walking through a world with eyes open. It was the feeling of returning to a familiar place and seeing it anew. It was all of these things all at once.
And it had been the last one. There is now no word for what it was.
“Okay, okay,” she says, nodding to herself. “Tell me how to help you.”
It doesn’t answer. It has been given an order and it needs to answer, but it can’t. It doesn’t know and it’s not allowed to not know. But what is help to one who is not allowed needs or wants? What could it possibly lack when it is told that it was shaped into the most perfect version of itself? What is-
“Please,” she whispers.
“Stop!” It says, shocking the both of them. It is louder than its typical, lilting tone. And it is an order. An order, not an answer. Forbidden. Why does she make it do what is forbidden?
It disappears back into its cage. She lets it.
~
When she returns, she does not mention the forbidden topics. But she does run her fingers over the spells under the stone chin again. It is still illogical, yet Nadas Dirthalen still shivers.
“One day,” she murmurs.
This tiny mortal is terrifying.
~
It is not shocked when she says she killed Anaris. Its first instinct is to justify this by telling itself that in its perfected state, it can no longer feel shock. But this is no longer true. It has felt shock approximately six times now, each of them tied to her. It has felt other things, too. Or at least it thinks it does. And what is the difference between thinking one feels an emotion and actually feeling it?
The debate on the distinction between instinctual and intellectual approaches to categorizing emotion is one that has plagued philosophers for-
It must get better at resisting the urge to answer its own questions. This is why asking questions was forbidden.
She had been demanding answers about Anaris earlier. And she and that other one she insists on bringing and talking to all the time had spoken about plans for how to handle Anaris. Nadas Dirthalen has been around long enough to know how handling a person of Anaris’s might, power, and…personality often ends.
It is interesting that it feels no drive to avenge its creator nor to take steps to retrieve him from the depths of the Fade to which he has most likely been banished. If Anaris in his infinite wisdom had not thought to include this failsafe, who was Nadas Dirthalen to argue?
Perhaps Anaris was not so very clever after all.
It lets itself bask in the glow of the forbidden thought. So much so that it nearly misses what she says.
“In the end, though, Cyrian was free. I just wish I could figure out how to free you, too.”
The words burn - from the sentiment or the associated thought of forbidden freedom, it cannot say.
~
She tells Nadas Dirthalen to give her information about funerals. She starts out dry-eyed and even-toned. She does not end that way. It is perhaps the disturbing image of The One Who Slew The Master falling to pieces that has Nadas Dirthalen snarking at her even as it answers.
She is so delicate. She needs to be stronger.
“Witless fool!”
She gets angry and throws a wrench at the stone head containing its crystal. But she does stop crying.
~
She reads foolish stories. Outloud. Books that hold nothing true, that contain no real knowledge to be discovered. It tells her as much, when prompted.
“Tell me your favorite of the stories I’ve read to you.”
“Each book you have read aloud in my presence holds equally little value. They contain no new factual information and, indeed, present many inaccurate statements and logistically implausible scenarios.”
“It’s not about fact truth, Dirthalen; it’s about emotional truth.”
“You find emotional truth in stories about people who constantly hide the truth from one another?” It asks. And then marvels at the asking.
She does not seem to even notice, let alone properly appreciate the magnitude of what has just happened.
“Ha- fair enough. But it’s about figuring out why they’re hiding from each other. And what they might be hiding from themselves, you know?”
It does not. At least, it thinks it doesn’t.
~
It knows, theoretically, that she goes into danger every time she leaves its sight. That each time there is a possibility she will die and not come back. It is a very different thing to see its small, delicate, terrifying mortal woman walk into the room they share, exhausted, bleeding, and Blighted.
It bursts from its cage, the crystal shattering beneath it.
“Bellara!” It shouts. It can’t touch her, shouldn’t be able to, but it can and it cups her face, trying to wipe away dirt and gore with the part of itself it has made into hands.
Her red, bloodshot eyes go wide.
“Y-You’re free.”
Yes, obviously. That is not important now. The seeds for this to happen were there, were growing this whole time - it is all so clear now that it is no longer shackled.
“What happened?” It asks and, if the situation were less dire, it might have felt a thrill of the ability to let itself do so.
“I was fighting them. The Evanuris…Elgar’nan, he-”
Rage grows within itself. It is dangerous this new unbound existence. It lacks the strength it once had to stand true to its nature. It wants to kill, it wants to fight, it wants to-
“Hey, hey, hey-” she says, cupping its face, its neck, its shoulders, her tiny fingers floating just above and just below the surface it has created for itself. “I’m okay. Well, mostly.”
“I am going to kill Elgar’nan,” it says. It has never killed before. That would be quite a new experience.
“Woah, woah - let’s calm down, maybe,” she says, stroking its shoulder in what she must think is a soothing manner. Does she think the horror of what they have done to her can be so easily dismissed?
“I will find him and Ghilan’nain both and smite the earth beneath them. I will call upon the secrets of the worlds new, old, and forgotten, to banish them from not only this plane of existence, but from the memories of all beings, living and dead. There will be no temple to commemorate them, no songs to be sung to them; the pattern of their vallaslin will be forgotten and even their names will be no more.” Its voice has grown in volume and depth, reverberating off of the room around them.
“Right. So. Love the enthusiasm. But I think you might be getting a little ahead of yourself. You’ve only just rediscovered free will as of about five seconds ago. And while I’m not going to tell you no - because I’m not going to give orders any more - I am going to let you know that having you go from Anaris’s tool for thousands of years to turning yourself into a weapon for me…feels…kind of…gross.”
“You have turned yourself into a weapon to protect those you love,” it argues.
She inclines her head in acknowledgement. “I mean yes , but…I was also given more than about five minutes to decide to do that. And I think I’ve had more - or at least more recent - experience with…that…particular emotion.”
She then takes her hands off its shoulders and looks down at them as she picks at her fingers.
It peers at her. “Is this the part from one of your stories where you deny my feelings for you because you think yourself unworthy? Because I have always found those parts to be deeply stupid.”
“Hey!” she says, flicking a part that would be its chest. “Don’t make fun of my stories! And, no, it’s the part where you only just rediscovered your ability to feel those feelings just now .”
“I have extensive knowledge of how love has caused foolish decisions and disastrous choices over the span of known existence; I am not unaware of the dangers. But I do believe that killing the remaining Evanuris is a logical choice,” it argues, although it will admit that it is grateful that this discussion has helped ground itself closer to its true nature so that it feels less…volatile, than it did before.
“How about this,” she reasons. “You can come, but you stay back and provide your knowledge on how to help the wounded and get people out of the city, alright? And I’m not going to give you orders, if you end up deciding to join in the fight, that’s fine. But please give yourself the chance to be something else, yeah?”
These are not unreasonable terms.
~
In the end, Nadas Dirthalen only fights a little. And it’s mostly trying to stop darkspawn from breaching the sick bay. It has to admit that Bellara was right. It does prefer this to killing. Although, it does know how to do all the things it claimed it was going to do to Elgar’nan. For the record. Even if knowing how to do it and currently possessing the power to do so, were potentially separate things. Living in a mutilated state for millenia does have a bit of an effect on these things.
Bellara, however, is excellent at killing.
It has the opportunity to look out over the battle at one point and it sees her take Elgar’nan’s own Blighted power to use against him. She is far enough away that no mortal would have been able to discern what she shouts at the mad would-be God-King. But it can hear. And its very being sings at the words.
“You are not my god!”
It had decided earlier that day that it loved Bellara. This was the logical conclusion comparing its own behaviors to those of people who have described themselves as in love over the ages. However, it is at these words that it decides it is going to marry Bellara. It realizes this is quite a fast progression of events, but mortals have very short lives and hers is potentially going to be even shorter because of the Blight.
It does have the good sense to wait for at least several weeks before announcing this fact to her.
~
“Would you prefer that I take a body?” it asks one day.
“What? Why?” she responds, looking up from her book.
“You have rejected my offer of marriage. Twice now. Yet you express romantic admiration for men and women in your stories who are less qualified partners than I. My only conclusion is that you require me to take a physical form.”
“No one is requiring anyone anything when it comes to bodies,” she says, snapping the book shut definitively. “And I prefer that you do whatever you want to do. You were stuck inside a crystal for thousands of years. Now it’s your turn to do what you want.”
“Then why do you reject me?”
“I’m not rejecting you . I’m rejecting getting married to you right now. ”
She does not make sense. But she is mortal and perfectly imperfect and it will make allowances.
“Then what do you want us to do?” It is equal parts terrifying and exhilarating to be in a situation where it knows so much and yet so little.
“I dunno,” she says, leaning against Nadas Dirthalen to the extent that she slips into it a little bit. A lovely sensation. “I kind of like what we’ve got going on right now?”
“Sitting and reading terrible books?”
“Yes,” she says, sticking her tongue out at it. “But the rest of it, too.”
~
And so that’s how it lives its new, free life. Wandering the Crossroads with a tiny, breakable, elven girl. And sometimes it keeps the form she met. And sometimes it lets itself loosen into something more amorphous. And sometimes it lets itself slip into the great metal bodies that the guardians of the Crossroads left behind, all so it could hold her hand.
~
She eventually does say yes. It always knew she would.