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There is a breeze from snow topped mountains that flows down to the glistening city, the cool wind chilling the bones of all who hear the cry within the gale. The cry of a woman whose name has been long forgotten to the changing times. Her voice is said to corrupt the spirits of the city into something dark, something twisted and no longer of this world. Though the crier has no name many say she is a being of a world long since burned away.
With fear there is the desire for simplicity so the people gave their fear a name: Nan’asha, woman of vengeance.
None knew why they saw her as a spirit of vengeance but many swore they felt the anger in her voice. Flames of rage licking at their subconscious as if someone had done them a great wrong, as if the listener themselves were Nan’asha. Her anger becoming theirs as the listener’s sight went red with rage. If she was not a spirit of vengeance she was a spirit of unfathomable rage.
Many of the sparkling city’s young would whisper and spin stories of Nan’asha. They said that she was a young woman who died in the mountains, mourning her own loss as she no longer had a life to live. Others, women especially, claimed her to be a spirit of a woman who had lost everything. Many claimed her to be ugly. Others said she was extremely lovely, with hair of midnight and eyes of hazel. While none agreed on who she was, all agreed on one thing: upon her face she had a tattoo; the wings of some great creature spread upon her forehead and cheeks.
Through the nights many feared Nan’asha, they feared her blind rage and her tattooed face. They feared her eyes, hazel turning red against the darkened shadows of their houses. They feared her cry, the sound that spurred such an emotion not many could make since of her feelings. But Solas, the scarred elder, understood.
Solas heard her cries many a times and he could not understand why he felt guilty. When he listened he felt his heart clench, his throat tighten and burn. He could not fathom why he was not invoked with the same feeling of anger but instead pity, guilt.
On certain nights while he slept and Nan’asha was crying with the wind he dreamed, if you could call it that. He dreamt of beige walls covered in vivid shapes and bold lines of black and a friend with too many questions. Of watching a friend smiling at a golden eyed man, her fingers lingering on his hands as she wished him good health and safety before she left for some unseen danger. He dreamed of a spirit who became too human and hung on every word a storyteller spun.
He dreamt of the past. A past from a world that was swallowed up by green flames. On nights such as those Solas cried, curling his fingers to his palms as he wiped away that tears that streamed down his face.
“Forgive me.” He would whisper as if those he had killed could hear him. But he knew they could not. They were gone, even their spirts would not have been able to survive, he had barely survived.
In the mornings he would move slowly, water blue eyes staring over a landscape he had worked so hard to rebuild. He could not let ghosts of the past haunt him now, it was at least a millennia in the past now. And yet, things were still uncertain, his work was not yet done.
To his mirror Solas walked, bags of sleepless nights hanging heavily under his eyes. He would blame his dreamless nights on his constant worry of the Evanuris but now he couldn’t be sure. For a while Nan’asha had grown louder and constant. It was an issue for himself as well as the common people who hurried into their houses as soon as the sky began to darken.
It was time he faced Nan’asha. A spirit of compassion he theorized that had been corrupted by someone. Perhaps he could bring it peace.
“Do not go there, elder.” Warned a young woman, though her eyes spoke the age her skin did not prove in wrinkles or graying hairs. She paused in front of Solas, her stance rigid as she stopped the elven man from continuing on with his journey. It was odd how firm the woman was even with her knowledge of who he was.
“I am sorry?” Solas inquired, hopeful that the woman was more insightful then those he had asked about Nan’asha. He watched the woman shake her head, short locks of sun colored hair catching the light.
“All who wish to brave Nan’asha never succeed. I don’t think there is anything you can do to calm her.” She said no more, looking up at the towering mountain, eyes dimming for a moment as a gust of wind ripped through them though the song of the spirit was silent. “The things she looks for are no longer here I believe.” The woman sounded sad, and for some reason Solas seemed to feel that way to.
The wind was silent, the voice of Nan’asha still as Solas waved the woman goodbye. The woman did not wave back. She only stared up and sighed, turning her back on him as she went along on her way as if she had hoped that Solas had taken her advice against walking the paths of unkempt moss. Yet, Solas continued to walk, leather boots meeting the dirt with a certainty that kept him going.
Yet, as Solas walked up to overgrown pass to the peak of the mountains where Nan’asha was thought to dwell the wind was dead still, silent and with a tense that made Solas’ stand at the ready. It felt as if the spirit was waiting for him.
“You’ve come.” the wind whispers as Solas reaches a level upon the mountain. The field is rich in green, grasses and flowers of spring sprouting despite the chill that nips at Solas’ ears and nose.
“Who speaks? Show yourself.” Solas can feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand, eyes wide and searching around the grasses. It isn’t long before something crackles in the air, waves of magic laying against his skin in familiar tingles; the bust of a spirit appearing among the swaying grass.
“Do you remember her?” the spirit echoes, red magic glistening against green as deep, depthless eyes of white starring back. Solas looks to the spirit, taking in the indistinguishable facial features, the face blurry like it couldn’t make up its mind. “She remembers you, Solas,”
“How did you..?”
“You were her friend, companion, confidant, Hahren,” the spirit pauses, a sudden distressed cry escaping the spirit as it seems to fall in on itself. “Murderer! You murdered me! My family!” the spirit cries in anger and suddenly Solas is sick to his stomach, wheezing and holding his stomach as he tears his sights from the spirit. “You were my friend! She trusted you!”
“Be still!” Solas yells but the spirit only continued, crying into the wind with a song of grief and betrayal. “You cannot be her!” Solas tries to rationalize, his heart thudding and his throat tight as his fist tighten around the stave that holds him upright.
“It is she! It is me! It is her... my memory! She... I remember everything; the sky green and burning. The wounds I had closed falling apart like stones and falling to the earth in fire. I watched as it all crept closer and all I could do was,” the spirits voice breaks, the grass around it singeing as the smell of fire flitted in the air.
“Stop, please.” Solas cries, falling to his knees in the dirt unable to hold himself up against the grief that held him.
“All I could do was hold my beloved close while he held our weeping son! My son never got to see his third year!” the spirit roared, Rage erupting like lava as fire spilt over the grass; the first demon Solas had seen since the start of this new world charging at him as embers swirled behind it.
“You killed them!” it screamed as it raised its fire molten claws over Solas’ head while the elven mage stumbled back, throwing his hands up as icy crystals bit at his finger tips. With hurried words Solas threw the ice at the demon, the beast frozen solid as it stood over the his panicked body.
He stared, the lava and fire frozen and dormant beneath the ice. He knew the ice wouldn’t hold much longer but he didn’t know if he could do it, if he could kill her again... but he had to. To bring her peace as well as the poor spirit that empathized with her.
“I am sorry, lethallan.” Solas chocked as he slowly rose to his feet, whispering the words of a spell under his breath as he watched the demon break from the ice only to fall in a puddle. It clawed at the ground, scratching at the dirt as if it knew ot was not yet done until it stopped with the magic that created it. Embers and billowing, black smoke rising to a perfect blue sky.
“Dethra.” Solas mourned, falling to his knees again as his visioned blurred with hot tears, “I cannot tell you how sorry I am.”
The elven man cried, fists curled into the dirt as he remembers the friend with too many questions; the friend smiling at a golden eyed man, her fingers lingering on his hands as she wished him good health and safety before she left for some unseen danger; the friend he cared for; the friend he had killed.
Upon a mountain Solas cries, shedding his tears for Nan’asha: the woman of vengeance. Upon a mountain Solas cries for Dethra Lavellan, an old friend who has died by his hands twice now.