Chapter Text
There was a wolf in the garden.
Ellana frowned, fingers clenching.
In point of fact, there were many wolves in the garden, but this particular wolf was notable for the very distinguishing characteristic of its being alive.
It had been laying down in the middle of the courtyard, surrounded by countless stone effigies of its kin. When Ellana had arrived to begin another day of restoring the statues, she’d found it with its massive furred head on its massive furred paws, tail tucked almost elegantly around its massive furred body.
Her arrival had prompted a startled response from the creature. It had spooked, scrambling to its feet with lip and hackles raised. It regarded her with large, burning eyes for the briefest of moments. And then, swifter than she could ready a spell, it blinked and sat, blazing gaze soothed to a glow and face relaxed, its tail once again tucked daintily over its feet. Then it stared at her, stoic and regal, every bit the impressive model for the carved stone statue just to her right.
Ellana stared at the wolf.
The wolf stared back.
She squinted.
It blinked.
And then, quite suddenly, it gave an almighty yawn. Head thrown back and maw gaping wide, Ellana had just enough time to wonder if her head would fit fully inside that impressive bite before its jaws snapped shut again, and the wolf regarded her with wide, startled eyes, ears pinned back, front legs slightly askew. It looked for all the world like a pup spooked at the sound of its own howl, and Ellana couldn’t hold back an amused snort, fully forgetting that she was in the presence of a predator with teeth and claws built to rend her flesh.
For its part, the wolf blinked and shook its shoulders, shuffling back to its original statuesque position, the effect now rather diminished given its recent display. It gave a heavy huff, refusing to look at Ellana in favor of glaring off to the side, and the expression of long-suffering disapproval was so sharply familiar that it sent a bolt of recognition arcing through her.
His name was faintly sculpted breath as it slipped past her lips.
The wolf simply blinked at her, a gentle, patient expression that brought to mind lunches in the rotunda in the early afternoon, the smell of parchment and the soft rasp of old pages, a leading question and an encouraging smile-
She waited, but he did not speak. Silence reigned between them.
She’d grown accustomed to the stillness of these ancient ruins, as though the weight of all the intervening years, from the glory of its construction to the moment she’d rediscovered its crumbling entrance, had settled into the very stone of this place. She’d found the quiet to be peaceful, almost soothing. She knew with certainty that there were no expectations here, that what she chose to do would be judged by none but the moss and the rock and the stoic wolf statues. She’d found comfort in the solitude, in the unchanging shadows of the halls, in the warm shafts of sunlight between the stones.
But now, the silence was taut, pensive, as though the ruins were holding their breath. She was no longer alone, and the stone around them was waiting, watching, preparing for what might unfold.
Ellana took a breath-
“You’re just a wolf,” she realized. “And I’m waiting for you to talk to me.”
Shaking her head brusquely, she turned on her heel and skirted a large circle around the edges of the courtyard, giving the creature a wide berth.
“Dorian was right, I’m going insane,” she whispered to herself, her brows climbing her forehead. “I’m not gonna tell him, but he was right.”
Pausing suddenly, she tipped her head, feeling the comforting weight of her braided hair swaying against her back.
“I might tell him,” she reconsidered, voice soft.
She missed the sound of his laughter.
Someone huffed behind her.
Ellana frowned, turning and making the conscious choice to not jump at the sight of the wolf standing a few paces at her back, regarding her with his strangely knowing gaze.
Again, she found herself locked in a moment when the world seemed to pause, the two lone living creatures in this stone effigy to an ancient civilization slipping out of the flow of time as they considered each other.
“Shoo.” She frowned and flapped her hand at him.
The wolf’s only response was to look distinctly offended, the small muscles of its face going tight and ears flicking back.
Ellana cocked her head and crossed her arms, functionally at a loss.
“What am I supposed to do with an overgrown nug-nibbler?” she asked, glancing between the mossy statue to her left and the nug-nibbler in question. “I can barely take care of myself, let alone something that’s instinctively driven to hunt things many times larger than me.”
No one answered her.
Her next exhale was so long, it scoured the bottom of her lungs. Sucking at her teeth, Ellana shrugged, tossing her arms up as she resumed her journey across the courtyard.
“Fine, but you feed yourself. And be warned: if you suddenly remember your homicidal instincts, I will turn you into a blanket. Winter’s around the corner, and I didn’t have a chance to pack for it.”
With that, the elven mage who was once the proud Dalish First of Clan Lavellan, the honored Inquisitor, Herald of Andraste, and Savior of Thedas, sat in the dirt in some ruins in the middle of nowhere and began scrubbing moss and lichen off a statue’s solemn snout.
In her periphery, she watched the wolf stroll confidently up to one of the nearby statues she’d already restored. He stared at his stone kinsman for an eerily long moment, head tipped ever so slightly to one side as if in contemplation. She knew well what the creature was seeing; smooth carved lines of fur, old stone brightened again under her thorough care, no trace of time’s passing to be found. Except for the eyes. The eyes she’d left untouched, covered with thick moss or tendrils of creeping vines or webs of stubborn lichen. She’d left all their eyes untouched. So he couldn’t see her, couldn’t find her.
As her hand paused in its work, Ellana found herself wondering what the wolf made of that as it looked at her handiwork.
Then she frowned, returning to scrub at the stone with twice as much vigor.
It was an animal. It didn’t make anything of it.
As if hearing her thoughts, the creature looked over, turning its considerable attention back onto her. Then he gracefully lowered himself to the ground, resting in the shade of his carved twin and fixing his warm golden eyes on her.
Ellana swallowed and blinked some dust from her eye, leaning close to the statue to work at the detailing in the carved lines of its mouth.
The other wolf, the real one, kept staring at her.
Every once in a while, she’d glance over to find him still watching, lupine features soft and eyes half-closed. When he’d catch her eye, his ear flicked, or the tip of his tail twitched. A quiet acknowledgement of her attention, of their seeing each other.
Something odd began squirming in her chest, tangling with the back of her throat.
She chose to ignore it and kept working.
When she’d done what she could with her hands, Ellana sat back and regarded the statue. The greenery was mostly cleared away, but there was still staining from perpetual exposure to the seasonal rains, as well as bleaching from the sun. This next part of the restoration could only be done with the help of magic.
Which was what gave her pause.
Her hands fiddled together in her lap, warm living fingers of her right tracing habitually over the cool artificial digits of her left.
Off to the side, the wolf shifted, and Ellana cut him a glance from the corner of her eye. He was sitting up, head tipped again in a curious expression. His attention on her sharpened.
She pursed her lips and took a quick breath in through her nose.
Then she lifted her left arm, the one fitted with a gracefully molded and beautifully etched metal hand, the work of a master craftswoman and old friend.
The wolf tensed.
Ellana held her breath, and willed.
The air seemed to shimmer, and the familiar feeling of weightless satin slid over her skin, leaving gooseflesh in its wake as the Fade warped to her will.
Before her, under the guidance of her hand, the statue changed. The staining evaporated, the bleaching faded. In the space of a long breath, the carved wolf became as new again.
She would have spent a minute marveling over that, as she had every time prior when her efforts had been successful instead of leaving her in debilitating pain. But her attention was unceremoniously dragged back to her new companion.
The living wolf rose to its feet, now towering over her as she knelt on the ground. Her breath froze in her chest as it approached, graceful with every step, eyes now fixed on the stone she’d brought back from the past. Coming to stand next to her, close enough that the fur of his russet coat brushed against the sensitive skin of her shoulder, the wolf assessed her handiwork. She could see the concentration in every line of his body, in the way his ears strained forward, his head tipped first one direction and then the next. When the wolf touched his nose to that of the statue, the movement was so deliberate that Ellana half expected the stone to spring to life, given sentience by the sheer intensity of the living version that touched it.
She watched the wolf examine the restored statue, and when he finally took a step back and turned to look at her, she would never be able to deny the understanding she saw in his gaze. His look was warm; it was proud.
A tear slipped down Ellana’s cheek.
Then she scrambled to her feet and fled into the shadows of the ruined temple of Fen’Harel.