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istatrevelyan · 9 years

Text

Some time during the weeks when Fidan and Sera snip and circle and Belluel watches in agonised indecision, a woman arrives at skyhold. Big eyed and grey haired, voice resonant and and strangely remote, she wanders into the Tavern, doing her best not to touch the walls.

“You,” she says, nodding as she raises a shaking finger to point at Bell. “The smiling sdtory. The liar. Little one. Big shadow. You have a message.”

She fumbles, draws out a thick sheaf shadows. “I am…I do not remember. It is not important. The sky is important. And fire. Star fire. Is-star. Bright-sharp-cold-heat-far-Ista. She still has a name. She wants you to have this. Take it!”

“And from the sea there came a storm, and at the centre of the storm was a woman’s laughter, brilliant and dangerous and full of teeth that became a smile, the best and brightest light at land’s end. The dread pirate Belluel, who gave up one leg to wit and the other to wisdom; who uses secrets as currency. and borrows deep on your soul. “

Is that sensational enough for you, my heart? I took a little bit of every rumor and re-worked it. Pass it on to your Seeker and she might swoon–I’v heard rumours as to the Pentaghasts and their predilection for awful poetry. One of my tutors at Ostwick was a mortaltassi who was unlucky enough to leave Nevarra, and he had all sorts of stories.

[the writing trails off, shakier and shakier]

Sorry for breaking off. I’ve not very much energy in me, just now. I’m writing this part out in the side garden, Ahu’s clematis and roses still hanging on, through magic that I’ve never possessed. I said I’d be gone in a week and that date has come and gone.

I should not have come here. It’s too dangerous. It was bad enough as a child, but forgivable. Now…I am the age Pru was when the Templars came, and she has never forgiven herself for not going in my stead. You know this already, I’m sure. You had to live with it. Loss and grown-up’s guilt and it is all so terribly unfair. I should not be here without you, but I could not hold out.. I thought I was going to die. I only remember bits and pieces of the month before–red lyrium sings when it’s in you, did you know? Please be careful–there wasn’t anywhere else I could think of. So I took the risk. I wish I was as good at healing now as I was at sixteen.

[the page breaks off in tear stained scrawl]

Well. that was a horrible day. I’m tempted to scratch it all out, but I won’t, because we’ve been so kind to each other for so many years that we’ve smoothed over all our edges, and that was right and it was necessary and if we didn’t do it for each other than no one would, but Bell, my love, you say I’ve given you words, and that is a wonderful thing, but I never want them to ring hollow. See me at my worst so you can know me at my best, because I will see you again and I cannot wait to meet the wonderful adult you are, fears and scars and braggadocio and warmth and bad mornings where the world doesn’t feel like much…all of it. All of you. And then we can come back here together–the mamas miss you–and then anywhere you want, for as long as you want. We have so many words between us, and we need time to speak them.

I love you.

[page breaks off]

Three weeks. This is getting embarrassing. At least my hair’s growing back. The ducklings have been very solicitous. I just wish they’d stop calling meEnchanter. No one ever did in the bloody Circle and it’s making me feel decrepit.

The woman who has promised to deliver this letter to you is quite remarkable. The rift–you and Ser Tethras are correct, by the way; people really do make up the most pretentious names for cosmic phenomena–has done something strange to my magic. I can’t explain it even when my ears aren’t ringing in distinct keys, but…I can manipulate it. Raw fade energy. Not like your Fe can, by all accounts (and oh, look at you and your pet names. You are besotted.) Fire magic becomes…a lot more, when I’m not careful. The test is making sure it does it when I am. And this woman–she only ever calls herself my trainer;says her name has been eaten by the rift itself. Scary thought–has been trying to teach me how best to…well…”make fire fall as rain from the sky” sounds terribly overblown when I put it like that. But it does paint a picture. I wish I could meet your Tevinter not-magister. There’s so much more raw fade work in Tevinter that…this is a terrible ramble.

If I can learn this rift magic, no red templar behemoth is ever going to take me by surprise ever again. Though, to be fair, it wasn’t the big guy that got me. An archer with a fucking slingshot managed that. Back of the head. Very embarrassing.

She is nameless and strange, but she does promise to get this letter to you. I’m sorry that I have worried you, and been unable to help all hurts. I still feel as if I should–as if it should still be as easy as a story and firefles; shadow puppets on the nursery wall. I know it isn’t, but I love you as fiercely, even as I live vicariously through your stories and worry about the silences that can’t be helped.

Counting stars

(and keeping count, which is an improvement on when this appalling letter began)

ISTA

bellueltrevelyan

it up

istatrevelyan:

The letter is small, but lovingly folded, the old Trevelyan seal thick and shining on the thin leaves beneath. The handwriting is shaky.

Belluel. Bell. I’m writing this at Prudence’s desk. I haven’t heard from you in so long that I’m terrified you will not get this letter, or any other, even as I hear stories of you up in those mountains, surviving winter storms, But…I’m home, at least for a week. A part of me wants to curl up and hide here–that’s concussion talking, most likely; there’s half a Circle’s worth of phylacteries still to find, including mine. And I won’t bring more Templars on our family. But one of the ducklings has family in Ostwick, and I could not resist seeing ours while he was restored to his. And a few of us were hurt

Father is dead. He is not missed. You are. Every day. I have enjoyed turning his rooms over to the apprentices, however. I was always terrified of those halls, running to yours whenever I could, Prudence catching me when I fell on that stupid third step. I admit I felt like the world’s oldest six year old, coming here with a two dozen magelets trailing behind.

But, in case you’ve gotten older letters and worry, know that I’m alive and we’re all getting better, and shall soon be released stronger upon the world.

(Poor world.)

YOU, now. Write, beloved. Remind me that you did not die in that avalanche people still talk of. Have you kissed your Antivan adviser? Does your Inquisitor still make you dance circles around the very pretty image you can’t help but form? Are you really working with a Tevinter mage and a mercenary group lead by a Qunari? Your stories are growing so big that I feel like I’m sixteen again, reading the tales you made up to distract me from surgeries.

Everything will be all right.

Counting stars. And they’re ours, this time.

ISTA

this letter is folded in and around a sprig of dried blossoms from a blueberry bush, long since out of season but still clinging to the fresh scents of spring, leaving behind a small smear of color upon looping, familiar writing that had pressed almost through the parchment in some places

Is, you’re home, you’re home, the word isn’t big enough to wrap around the idea. Everything we’d wanted, and I’m not there. How are our mamas? Did they scold and fuss over your ducklings for getting out of bed? Or you, for that matter. I know what your writing looks like when somebody’s taken the piss out of you, and somebody took more than that, took an arm, or at least a leg, and I should know. Are you making sure to sit up in that chair you like, so you don’t get bedsores? Gods, you’re barely out and walking and somebody shoves you right back down. I wish I was there, I wish everything was different, I wish I was different hope you and your ducklings get to feeling better soon, or I will march down there myself, call it an inquisition raid or something, our Josephine will find cleverer words for it than that, but there it is.

And the old bastard is finally dead, is he. Good. May the winged god shit on his ashes and no, nosybritches, I have not kissed Josie yet, though I could well kiss you for making me think of her when I surely needed a bright thing to look to, and yes, Fe (and I laugh to spell that out, but she loves it, I know she does, and so I do, too) is fine is grown larger with every telling, isn’t she? I look to you know for the strength to say words I should say, not the ones I want to, the way I always have. She needs to hear them, the way I did. Do.

Ah, and you heard about them, did you? Did you hear that the qunari, the Iron Bull, is a spy? He said so, right to Fidan’s face, and it was like the sun came out, the way he laughed, it was beautiful and rising and I should bottle it up and sell it as liquid sunshine. He is a silly thing, too, but no more than Dorian, the Tevinter, though not a magister, as he says, though I admit I got lost as to his explanations of what exactly he is, aside from someone that I think is lowering his hands atop a dark thing. He smiles too bright, laughs too much. I recognize those things.

More importantly, what have you heard about me? Am I as dashing as our seeker, in those tales you hear? Do I strike an image atop penny dreadfuls? I must know, but no more than I must know your stories, your words, more and more and more.

Looking to the spaces between, where mama Pru says all the stories come home to rest, and so surely we can find a damned night’s sleep once in a while,

Bell

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istatrevelyan · 9 years

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The letter is small, but lovingly folded, the old Trevelyan seal thick and shining on the thin leaves beneath. The handwriting is shaky.

Belluel. Bell. I’m writing this at Prudence’s desk. I haven’t heard from you in so long that I’m terrified you will not get this letter, or any other, even as I hear stories of you up in those mountains, surviving winter storms, But...I’m home, at least for a week. A part of me wants to curl up and hide here--that’s concussion talking, most likely; there’s half a Circle’s worth of phylacteries still to find, including mine. And I won’t bring more Templars on our family. But one of the ducklings has family in Ostwick, and I could not resist seeing ours while he was restored to his. And a few of us were hurt

But, in case you’ve gotten older letters and worry, know that I’m alive and we’re all getting better, and shall soon be released stronger upon the world.

(Poor world.)

Everything will be all right.

Counting stars. And they’re ours, this time.

ISTA

bellueltrevelyan

fidanlavellan

“I didn’t know shems had gods,” Fidan said, voice tiny, no poison in the word. “Apart from the ones Cassandra keeps saying I represent. You–yours make more sense to me.”

She shifted, turning in the circle of Belluel’s arms until they faced each other, wincing as she felt last traces of static leave her skin.

“Sorry if I’m hurting you,” she said. “I’m not used to using so much magic, even in fights, and electrocuting you is poor thanks for everything you’ve done.” A faint, wavering smile, sweet before it broke, tears still running fast down her face even without true sound. “Why did you? I’m not–I haven’t been able to help you, not properly. You haven’t had a letter from that person you write to in months. I know you’re worried, but you’ve never asked me–not me, the daft elf–”

(the words spoken with an echo of Sera’s scorn, though she did not hear it)

“–but me the resources I’m supposed to have. I’d help, if you told me what you needed, but I’ve done nothing, and you’ve let me–” her voice broke. She grit her jaw, wincing as pain shot up through to her skull, echoing the lightning. She shifted ahain, one hand cupping Bell’s face. Something she had never dared before, thumb gentle over her cheekbone, trembling just a little as it grazed her lower lip before carefully starting to pull away. “I can never thank you properly,” she whispered. “I don’t know how.”

Belluel caught at Fidan’s hand without thinking, wanting only for that touch to go forever, but once she had Bell froze, eyes flying open where before they’d gone heavy lidded in breathless stillness, not wanting to spook Fidan away. She looked startled, pinned, and it was a moment before she eased out her inheld breath and forced herself to relax, to readjust her hold on Fidan’s hand to the curve of her fingers the way she’d always wanted to and had never allowed herself save for this once, just. Just like this.

Had she not been who she was, Bell might have been tempted to take that hand and use it to tug Fidan closer and trace that same line of Fidan’s lips with her own, but she was who she was, and that person was quietly horrified at the thought of undercutting such a new loss with her own desires. Experience told her that shift of the lead pellet in her gut at the mention of Ista had brought, a queasy, uneasy rush of cold accompanied by the quiet knowledge that all her efforts had resulted in failure, soft and silent and deadly, was nothing compared to that she would bring upon Fidan if she did so now.

Not to mention Sera, she remembered, easing back just slightly. She covered the movement by tucking her head down to brush their joined hands against her cheek. She shuddered out a slow breath. “You already give me everything I could ask for. I could not ask for more from anyone, even Ista. That’s her name. You’ve earned that much, more than. That is my gratitude to you, for all you do and have become. I-” She looked away. “I have watched you become a herald before my eyes. Not of that paltry religion of theirs but of your gods. Yours. You are still a storyteller. Your stories shape the world. Where are they leading you now?”

fidanlavellan

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istatrevelyan · 9 years

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The letter. when it is handed over to Fidan by an elven server at the Redcliffe Gull and Lantern, is in heavy code, slightly scorched, and full of tear tracks. None of Ista’s letters ever show this level of wear--didn’t even when she was in her teens.

Bell, my heart, be careful. There is something wrong with the Templars. More so than usual, I mean. Bad lyrium--nothing we’d seen or heard of in Ostwick. Nothing I’d heard at the start of the Breach, and I’d heard that most of the tempars had all pissed off to that ridiculous fortress in the mountains where you may or may not be living, and which may or may not be sentient...this is rambling. I’m sorry. I’ve found a lead on some missing phylacteries in Orlais. We’ll be heading in that direction, if you don’t hear from me for a while.

Bell, I lost two of them today. They weren’t reckless. We had no choice but to fight, and they were stronger than some of the others. My apprentices, even before the fall of the tower. You know I was only allowed a handfull, all those years. Burying Lorcan and Yael makes me wonder. The Tower might have been right. At least about my being fit to teach.

But be careful. Two Red Templars did for us. If you haven’t seen them yet, then tell your mages to pull cold, not fire.

You’ll find word from me in Orlais.

Counting stars

Ista.

bellueltrevelyan

Fidan let her eyes close. Let herself eat and enjoy the honey in her mouth, the warmth and stickiness on her fingers. Bell’s words were a torrent the bright parts catching at her, making it easier to smile. Until she was laughing.

“Ivy is never worth the trouble,” she said, setting her empty plate down and knowing she grinned like a fool. “More are allergic to it than not. Ruins the mood.”

She shifted, letting herself relax a little against the wall. “Thank you again,” she said. “I can’t imagine what my face looks like, I’m afraid, but there’ll be sleepless nights a while longer. There’s been–” no. Keeping quiet will keep them safe. A childish wish, perhaps, but her throat was closing, skin tightening, heart too fast and too high.

“I know where the last letter for you was found,” she said, when she thought she could trust her voice. “I don’t know if you’ve been back, or if you know where–” she shrugged. “I could show you. If you like.”

Anything, she thought, to escape the compound.

bellueltrevelyan

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istatrevelyan · 9 years

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The letter waits to be found in the Hinterlands, at a settlement still buzzing with news of the stray group of mages who stayed in their woods without destroying a single thing. The letter is scattered through with pressed Andraste’s Grace, tiny music notes sketched into the corner of one of the pages, marking out a small, lilting pipe melody.

Hearing you are half in love with half the company has me smiling. You’ve worried me these past couple of years, sweet. More with your silences than your words, which makes sense for both of us, I know. But it does me good to hear some warmth now, even if it is a bit fevered. The sailing metaphors are a little heavy, my heart.

(You don’t need to shape the world for me. I promise.)

I have had to do nothing so heroic to protect these ducklings. They’ve suffered my cooking; I’ve suffered long discussions over which way really is left. We’re doing our best to avoid the hole in the sky. I imagine that you, given all the pretty company you keep, cannot say the same?

The Watcher and The Well. Tevinter’s North Star bright and central and scattering out in all directions, probably slipping into a few dreams while I lay awake naming constellations for you, One of my charges, older than most apprentices and with more memories of his family than is comfortable for any of the lost ones, has given elven names to some of the stars. Andruill’s Grace; the Road to Elgar’nan. Stories I do not know, for the first part. Do you know them? Or someone who does?

You can threaten me with travel manifests all you like, Belluel. I have survived 20 years of Arcane Theory. I am prepared. And if you do not take care of yourself, I shall come and find you, no matter how unprepared.

Counting stars.

ISTA

Enclosed, along with the many folded parchment, is a dozen dried wildflowers of various sizes and colors, bright and leaving starbursts of pollen smeared behind them on the paper like afterthoughts, like kisses.

And there you go again with asking questions you know full well I have no answers to, or at least, not good ones. Well. There are good ones, but if I am to give you hope it shall not be false, but ringing with the best truth I can manage, which is rather scarce, as of late. I’d say that I just happened upon our dear inquisitor, but we both know that would be both one more lie to stack upon my mountain. Eventually, I shall have built a country entire to share between us. I like that idea. But I digress. No, it wasn’t a coincidence, at least not so much as anything with me is, as much as the gods allow. I think you can guess as to why, but I shall not go into that in this letter. In truth, I don’t trust myself to say it aloud or even on paper for fear that the spirits shall see it and tear it away from me, so you shall have to trust that I had very good reasons for turning my back to the ocean, though hopefully the time and the sacrifice shall be well spent.

(yes, she is pretty. has a smile like the world is new and she has just felt the act of creation shudder beneath her hands, like she is swimming through stars, the glittering dust gets caught up in her eyes and laugh and if you ever tell her I said that I shall be very cross)

Tell me about the sky. Tell me what you see. I want to be there with you to take it in and what it would do to your face and your smile and your hands in mine, but for the moment I can content myself with this. Words and images and the hope that lies between.

And oh, Ista, if only you could have seen these others she carries with her as she goes (or that carry her with them, an interesting and amusing consideration), her advisers, one Josephine, Cassandra, and Leliana. There is another, but the less said of the man, the better. I much prefer to sing their names over the edge of the battlements as I sing yours, and watch the wind goddess carry them away.

Yes, battlements. I rest my head in a castle now, or a keep, the definitions escape me and frankly, I do not care. I care for the people within, the people and the noise, rising up beneath to carry you away. (Yes, that was a sailing metaphor. Do keep up.)

Also, dear heart, sweetness, light of my life, if you don’t remember to take care of yourself, in addition to your ducklings, we are going to have words. Long words, loving words, accompanied by only the sternest of looks. I may read excerpts from the most delightful travelogue I came across. Do you recall that pamphlet I mentioned that put me to sleep? That one. I am willing to make a sacrifice of that magnitude in order to drive home just very disappointed I will be if you do something silly in order to protect them. Yes, yes, selfless, noble, yes, a hero to us all, but I much prefer having a living cousin to a dead hero, hmm?

Also also, I saw your star tonight, and I thought of you. Reached out to catch it but, silly thing, it kept dancing out of my reach. How very peculiar.

Marking the sunrises until the sun will rise on your face,

Bell

#ista trevelyan #belluel trevelyan #epistolary bridges

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istatrevelyan · 9 years

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“What are you doing, dear one? Years of letters from scattered ports, and now you’re in a tiny, landlocked part of Ferelden now that the world is apparently ending? But only sometimes? Because someone who is apparently meant to stop end of said world is showing up all across the world and takes people with her?

(I’ve heard she’s pretty. I hope she’s pretty.)

The sky is beautiful. I say this in every letter, but the sky is beautiful. The apprentices keep laughing at me for staring off into every possible distance under the guise of keeping watch, but I can’t help it.

We’re fracturing. Inevitable, really. I’m doing my best to keep the younger ones safe and sane, but I don’t know how much longer I’ll be listened to, between all the space and the anger. A part of me wants them to go--the selfish part, the tired part--so I’m free to join you, wherever you are. It sounds like you might need someone to set things on fire.

Counting the same stars you see, until we meet.

ISTA”

The people around her asked for the strangest things. Wyvern hearts and help with a home they hadn’t seen in years. Old loves and new belt buckles (”I’d love to tell you how this looks on you, Dorian, but…wrong audience.”)

Belluel Trevelyan, now. She didn’r know the woman well, for all that her laughter and lies filled the wamest corners in Haven. Fidan did know her step, sure. Wood’s distinctive–the mix of balance and weight of a re-learned stride. Fidan imagined that the woman looked her full in the face, and couldn’t help but wonder what she saw. She was almost used to the extravagant praise that didn’t mean a thing; the long words in unexpected places, the smirk that curled around “Herald,” that made Fidan want to laugh out loud.

Fidan also knew that Belluel collected information. Between Leliana, Varric, this strong-voiced fleet captain and even Sera and her Jennys, she thought, they were up past their ears in messages. But Redcliffe was a twisty little town and she’d heard whispers about an angry, fire-flecked shem mage who was half the time in the hills and the rest on the coast, who was leaving messages for “Ahu’s girl, with love from her Star” at every rest stop.

Fidan was no spymistress. But she’d caught that name in Belluel’s patter before, and now she had a note of her own in her hands, the paper thick and Circle made and utterly blank to her.

She took it back to Haven with a sigh, finding Belluel’s corner of the tavern.

“This one of yours, Captain?” she asked, feeling her smile go rueful. “I practically fell over this one, so I thought I’d deliver it, since you weren’t out with us today. Don’t worry,” she added, grinning.

“I didn’t read a word.”

#ista trevelyan #belluel trevelyan #fidan lavellan #fidan as inquisitor

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