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Cal turns towards the southwest, watching that vibrant, spring-like green coiling and shimmering in the sky. It has been days now since it appeared, with little word to be had about what happened there.
Except, of course, for the aftershocks within the Fade that every mage on this side of Thedas must have felt.
Twisting, slinking, spreading, claiming ground, a gaping maw in pretty colors—
It will consume, there is nothing you can do.
“I’m going,” he whispers, tipping back until his head rests against cold stone.
“Alone?” Lysas asks, with an audible frown.
Cal huffs, and with a peripheral glance he flicks the very edge of one ear just to watch the elf shudder and scowl at him.
He’s already lost count of how many times he has done this. It has been months since the rebels trickled their way into Redcliffe with the Arl’s tentative acceptance.
Somehow, he thinks life may have been simpler when an apostate could still look at any non-mage and safely assume sympathy would come with a knife in the back.
“It’s better that way– less likely to be seen. And I’ve never been part of your group in the first place.”
So much death, so much cruelty, not enough food, hiding would be so much safer, so much easier—
My body, he thinks bitterly, is not yours to use.
“You forget I’m not here for Fiona either,” Lysas huffs, hands on his hips. “Not many places will accept mages appearing.”
True enough.
And that, above all else, is why he has to move on. His very presence in this place is a risk to other mages, if Pala ever thinks to branch out, ever becomes curious enough for another target.
The chasm in the sky is already a disaster, though, and he doubts anything he does could make it worse if he breaks there.
“Are you coming, then?”
Lysas goes quiet, and Cal takes a moment to wonder about how terribly young his newest friend looks. They must be around the same age, but Lysas shows none of the bone-deep weariness Cal feels in his soul.
He wonders if this is the difference between a mage whose Harrowing was successful, versus one who lives by fluke alone. He wonders if the elf ever even saw his Harrowing before the Circles fell.
That would be for the best, perhaps, but Cal will not ask. Few come out of it truly unscathed.
As true as it is that mages need to learn their limitations against hostile spirits, both properly prepared and not, most know that the rite of passage was nothing more than a templar excuse to cull their numbers most days.
Ansburg was better about it than most were, he knows, but few of those staying in Redcliffe came from Ansburg. He is lucky in that regard, though not as much as most would hope.
“No. The others… they need me more than my curiosity, right now.”
Curiosity. Cal supposes that would be the draw for any other mages that hope to investigate the vivid light looming around the currently-most-important building in Ferelden.
If the war has not worsened, that is. The rebel band here has largely ignored it so far, given Fiona’s endless game of waiting, but those out in the wilds…
“Yeah, alright. You… you keep an eye out. Outcasts have to stick together, right?”
Cal is far from the only mage here to see little in the way of help, even from the others. Far from the only outsider among the rebels.
Some consider themselves neutral, uncommitted to any act except what the Conclave bears. Some are borderline loyalists with nowhere to go, unable to safely reach others of their sort.
Some are Tranquil, and by the Fade do most mages seem to loathe acknowledging what they could have become. Few willingly interact with those lost souls, and fewer still view them as living beings.
Lysas hums, quiet for just a moment too long before he murmurs, “Maker, though the darkness comes upon me, I shall embrace the Light. I shall weather the storm. I shall endure.”
It’s as much of an acknowledgement as any.
Cal may not be fond of the Chant, but he knows the next line: What you have created, no one can tear asunder.
Was it left out for its lack of relevance, or because it has been rendered a lie by the starving chasm hanging above the far horizon?
Maybe.
It is a terrifying thing for most to see the world sundered, to see the unbreakable truths they believed in to be fallible after all. His own world split at the seams when he was still young, though not so literally as the maw has now.
“The deep dark before dawn’s first light seems eternal, but know that the sun always rises,” Cal finally responds, letting the words take that odd little twist in tone that sometimes comes with the Chant.
The phrase is sour on his tongue as he says it, for all it’s more like poetry than history or zeal.
They hunt you, cage you, twist you until you believe nothing else—
Not anymore, he thinks. The Circles are gone. The rebels will never accept them rising again as they were before. Not as glorified prisons. Most would sooner die than be imprisoned again.
But as true places of learning… maybe.
Cal finally pulls away from the wall, twisting his belt to double-check the supplies he has tucked away. Small things, mostly, more potion vials and elfroot poultices than anything else.
Redcliffe hardly has any travel rations, nothing that will survive longer than a week on the road, but that is fine. He knows how to hunt for his meals– it was one of the first things Jaro ensured he knew, after how to avoid setting his own clothes on fire in moments of fury.
“You really do prefer anything except the staff,” Lysas muses while Cal readjusts the belt again, and then the sheath dangling from it to save himself the annoyance of it whacking the back of his knee as he walks.
“Habit.” Cal shrugs. “My adoptive father– an apostate– insisted. For anyone other than an Enchanter, the staff is a target. It’s more dangerous to carry one than it is to cast without a focus.”
He has never used a mage’s staff. He has never needed one, despite the Circle’s insistence.
He abandoned you—
Carrying a blade is less suspicious than carrying no weapon at all, for a traveler. Cal might be rusty in fighting, and he might not know how to use magic with weaponry except through enchantments he can’t personally make, but the blade is necessary nonetheless.
Just traveling across half of Ferelden alone will be… rather trying, he imagines. No need to invite more trouble than what comes naturally.
“Good luck, Enchanter Kestis, and swift travels.”
The title tastes like poison.
“And to you and yours, Enchanter Lysas,” Cal responds quietly, and moves before he can think better of it.
He abandoned you, and now you abandon them–
Thinking of no one but yourself—
Cal is leaving no one that ever expected him to stay. Is it possible to abandon what was never yours?
It’s for the best, this way.