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At the gates of an alienage—heedless of the curious glances of passersby or the impatient stomp of a waiting horse—two elf children stand, one on each side of the dividing line drawn between humans and elves, unaware how this moment will mark their lives. The one who will stay and the one who will leave; the one who will be remembered and the one who will be forgotten. For now, they are juxtaposed only in appearance: a golden-haired boy, eyes rimmed in red, as he clings to a girl, dry-eyed and serious, the subtler counterpart of her vibrant brother.
"There now," the girl says, with all the gravitas of the decades she has not yet lived. "You'll make your nose all red and Branwen will think you've been into her preserves again."
Garahel laughs a watery laugh. "Isseya," he holds her by her shoulders now, his bony fingers pressing into her flesh, "Promise you won't forget me in the Circle, that you'll come back when you're able.
For a long moment, the girl says nothing, before she glances over at the robed man waiting for her. Not much further, a templar watches them both, silverite-plated armor gleaming in the sunlight.
Shifting her weight, she tries to smile at her brother when she turns back to him.
"I promise. Here, take this," she digs into her pocket before she holds out a hand to him, his eyes go round at the polished piece of quartz she drops into his palm. "Enchanter Erimond says its from the Fade," Isseya whispers, "it steals away all bad feelings."
Garahel's expression is all skepticism. "Is that true?"
"I don't know," the girl shrugs, "but he said it would help make me less afraid of where we're going." She glances once more at the Templar nearby, the helm obscuring their face and the fiery sword emblazoned on his cape making her jittery. Her few years alive had taught her to be wary of men with swords. "Don't be afraid, Garahel," she says, closing his fingers around the rock, and pushing at his fist. She throws her arms around his neck then. "We'll be together again. Like we always have been."
They are given a few moments more before the enchanter separates them, leading the girl away by the shoulder. The boy stands at the gates until they are out of sight.
⸺
Isseya bites the edge of her nail where it's split, her foot tapping anxiously. Her eyes track her brother pacing the flagstones in front of her, gesticulating while he explains his plan—one she's not entirely sure is sound.
"Join the Order?" Isseya asks again, earning herself an impatient look. "It's only… why?"
Garahel shrugs. "Why not?"
"There's about a thousand reasons why not," she scoffs, crossing her arms so she can pin her hands to her sides. Her nail bed is already raw from her anxious picking. A pair of novitiates pass by them along the corridor, casting curious looks at them both. Their eyes linger on Garahel in a way that makes her clench her jaw, but her brother had always been striking with his golden hair and green eyes. When she speaks again, her voice is tight. "Chiefly, that it's a lifelong commitment."
"Do you have something better to do locked up here?" Garahel shoots back sharply. Chagrin limns his features and he rakes his fingers through his golden hair. "Joining the Order—becoming a warden—they'll let you out for that. Especially now that you've gone through all that rigamarole—"
"The Harrowing."
"Aptly named, sounds like." He arches an eyebrow at her. "Don't you want to get out of here?"
"Garahel," Isseya's words are sharp, agitated. A templar stands guard only yards away. She hadn't even been granted the privacy of a room to meet with her brother. She smoothes her hands over her mage's robes as she sighs. "It's true, I don't want to be a member of the Circle. Not really. But you have yet to tell me why you want to join the wardens." She drops her voice. "It can't just be for me."
He stares at her for a long moment. Isseya holds her breath, fearful he might just insist upon it. He has never let her forget her promise in all these years, has not found something to occupy him that is greater than her. He cannot live his whole life this way. She cannot imagine her life without him. Always together, since they'd curled around one another in their mother's womb.
His shoulders drop. "I want to be something, don't you? Something more than what I am now, anyway."
"And what are you?"
"Just a nameless elf whose parents didn't even want the burden of him." The words were a knife in Isseya's heart, the wobbly smile he gave her twisted it. "I don't have magic to recommend me."
Isseya swallows against the lump in her throat, it's not what he means, she knows, but she says it anyway: "You do have a name. You are Garahel."
The words sound lame even to her own ears.
He stares at her for a long moment, almost searching, the resolve in his green eyes wavering just before he shakes his head. "We go together or we don't go." A beat. "You promised."
Pressing her lips together, she stiffens, at once both pleased and dismayed he'd remembered so long.
That promise was a childish thing, exemplifying how naive to the world she'd been that she'd assumed there would be a world for her after the Circle. But there is, whispers her want, and it is out there. Where she can only go if she follows Garahel to the Grey Wardens. She refuses to acknowledge the other path for she has no wish to live as an apostate, and what would she do besides? Run off into the wilds? Truthfully, neither did she desire to see only the interior walls of the tower until she died, however long it would be from now to then.
To the wardens, she would go, then.
For herself and for Garahel.
Together.
⸺
Pride wars with sorrow as Isseya watches her brother scale Andoral's head. Garahel clings to the archdemon and she sees the flash of the blade a breath before it's embedded in the beast's skull. She knows what happens next—every Grey Warden does—but it's in these few precious heartbeats, through the fog of war and the call of the blight and the demons gathering on the other side of the veil, that she recalls their lives. Both shorter than it ought to be and years longer than either had expected.
In retrospect, there was never going to be a different outcome, she realizes. It was always going to be Garahel, and not she, who would be the one to break the promise first. For awhile, as the blight ravaged her body, she thought she might. But, no, it will be Garahel who will go first. Garahel who was meant to kill Andoral. Garahel who will take the glory she never wanted and, hopefully, be the last sacrifice of this damned blight.
Isseya knows there is no stopping what is to happen next, but it does not stop the tears pricking the corners of her eyes, nor the dolorous ache of her heart as she watches her brother—her courageous, daring, fearless brother—drive his blade between the dragon's head and spine.
You've done it, she thinks, You will always be someone now.
And it's true.
Garahel will be remembered as a hero. He has saved the world from utter ruin. There will be songs and stories of his feats, bards will exaggerate the details over bad wine for the next century. History will remember him as the elf that rid Thedas of an archdemon. Little of it will be true, but the important parts will. He will never hear them. He will never get to bask in his accomplishment like the heroes of those stories. He will not get to ride off into the sunset with his princess. He will never know what good his sacrifice did.
Because they are Grey Wardens.
In death, sacrifice.
The words burn as she swallows them, her tears are whipped from her face by the wind. Her vision blurs, but she does not look away until she sees the archdemon fall. She does not look away as Garahel falls with it. She does not look away even as the clouds part overhead. Her brother is gone, and she thinks to herself that there has, perhaps, been too much sacrifice.
Interminable minutes pass before Revas clicks her beak impatiently. Isseya smooths the feathers at the griffon's nape with frozen fingers. Together, they wheel through the sky over the bay, signaling to whoever might be waiting to enter the city until it was over that they had won. At great cost, but victorious. As she guides Revas into wide circles, she spies her brother's broken body and chokes back a sob.
A griffon call echoes in the quiet solemnity of the battlefield, the blight's song quieted enough for her to hear it, and the sound of distant cheers as their remaining forces realize what has happened. There is a red haze across her vision that tells her, whatever time she has stolen back from Andoral, it is not a lot. Isseya will keep her promise to her brother, but she has another promise to keep, she cannot follow him just yet.
Over the ruins of Antiva city, the two siblings are parted. Isseya flies higher and higher until Garahel is out of sight.