Work Text:
Fenedhis. They were meant to set out hours ago. And yet, here they were, still in the Vigil’s courtyard, while Sigrun deliberated . It was not even a difficult choice! There were only two ponies she could ride at the Vigil; it should not have taken more than a moment to pick one. And yet, between double- and then triple-checking their travel rations -- for a whole two days’ journey, no less --, forgetting to ask Dwarkin for bombs that they would not need , and now picking a mount, they would be lucky to set out by noontide.
“What if we just walked, Vel?” Sigrun suggested idly, standing a few paces back from the first pony’s stall and shifting her weight back and forth. She could never just stand still , hands always fidgeting with something -- usually something pilfered from her fellow Wardens’ pockets, nonetheless -- or tapping against her thighs, bouncing on her toes as if standing still was physically painful. “I’m a dwarf! I don’t like being that high!”
Velanna huffed, eyes narrowed. “I have seen you ride taller brontos, Sigrun. Is the pony so scary?” Despite herself, the ridiculousness tugged at the corner of her mouth. Durgen’len , she thought fondly to herself.
“Yes! They kick,” Sigrun insisted, jumping back as the pony turned to face her. “I’m used to brontos. Can’t we walk?”
Velanna sighed. “Very well. At least we do not head to the Blackmarsh, this time,” she agreed, tone more reluctant than she actually felt. At least they were making progress.“Even you wore boots, there,” Sigrun remarked, swinging an improbably large pack over her shoulder with apparent ease. “I think a horse might get stuck, though.”
“A halla wouldn’t,” Velanna tossed back, shouldering her own pack with an ease provided by her magic and following Sigrun back out of the stables. A few of the Silver Order salute on their way out, and a few of Adain's newest recruits wave as they pass. Sigrun returns the gestures with her trademark enthusiasm, and Velanna nods jerkily, awkward as she usually is in her interactions with humans.
“Their horns might,” Sigrun muses as they pass through the gate and onto the Pilgrim’s Path. Velanna scowls at the rocky road, gouged deep into the landscape by ages of passing feet and wheels. She’s grown soft, in her months at the Vigil, and the rocks dig into the pads of her feet. She wears boots on expeditions; the Deep Roads are too foul. She rides horses instead of walking. She is soft .
She strides purposefully forwards, down the road, away from her Brothers and Sisters, away from Sigrun. Velanna can hear Sigrun’s surprised noise, hear the way her steps speed to try to catch her, and she has to force herself to not give in to instinct and break into a sprint or let her magic drag her underground, into the dark where it’s safe. Instead, she slows just enough to Sigrun to keep pace, eyes firmly focused on the road ahead of them. “They would not. They know better,” she says softly, moments or minutes later, when her voice no longer feels likely to betray her.
“Alright, salroka ,” Sigrun agrees, tone mild enough that Velanna nearly snaps at her. She’s working on her temper, but -
“Nathan thinks we will not find her.” Velanna can’t bring herself to look to her right, to see the pity on Sigrun’s face. Nathaniel is not the only one. This is a fool’s errand, and Velanna is not fool enough to not know what she will find. She stops, leans on her staff.
“Oh, sweetie...” Sigrun trails off, stopping a few steps ahead of Velanna. She doesn’t turn back, thank the Creators. Velanna swipes angrily at her cheek, grateful for the respite. “Nate’s an idiot. There’s not enough air that high, and it’s made him daft.”
Velanna lets out a quiet, undignified sound that might have been related to a laugh, and Sigrun turns around with a small smile. "Adain thinks she’s alive. You think she’s alive. I trust you. We’ll find her.”
~~~
Kal’Hirol is full of ghosts, both literal and figurative. Sigrun can feel them prickling at her spine, can hear the Stone calling out to them. How many years did it take for the dwarves who once lived here to become visible once more? How many more years until her friends join them? How long until their memory perforates the very rock beneath their feet and cry her cowardice for aeons?
She hates Kal’Hirol. But Velanna needs her here. Nathaniel is busy, Adain is gone in search of- someone. Anders and Justice, too. There’s just her, lonely coward that she is, at loose ends now the darkspawn are mostly gone back to the Deep Trenches to dig for another Blighted God. Too cowardly to die with her friends, too cowardly to go to her Calling alone.
But she’s not too cowardly to face this, not when she’s needed, so she follows Velanna into the earth, averting her eyes from the piles of bones and armour she can still name. The trapped gate has long since been disarmed, and they walk straight in, as silent as the Stone isn’t. Despite her best efforts, Velanna hasn’t spoken since her choked almost-laugh outside the Vigil’s gates, and Sigrun has joined her quietude since they passed Jukka’s bones.
The prickle up her spine strengthens as they descend into the Thaig, the particular hair-raising sensation of hundreds of darkspawn below them, of the Taint seeping into the Stone around them. “Can you feel her?” Sigrun asks, her voice rough and rusty from too long spent quiet.
Velanna pauses, shoulders tight. “We don’t know for certain-” she starts, before sagging. “-No. If she is here, she feels like them .”
It had been a long shot, that Velanna might be able to feel the Taint in Seranni as different to any other darkspawn. Only Adain is practised enough to be able to discern his Wardens from each other, and he struggles with the newer recruits still. Sigrun and Velanna can both feel the difference between Wardens and darkspawn, but Seranni is a ghoul. They just have to hope to come across an Awakened darkspawn who’s willing to help. They just have to hope Seranni wants to be found.
“Maybe if we go deeper?” Sigrun suggests, hefting her pack higher on her back in preparation. The Thaig drops directly into the Deep Roads, and while Sigrun would rather avoid them, there’s still something comforting about the architecture and cool, wet air. She’s not a born and bred Surfacer. She’s Dust Town through and through. “We’ll find her. Even if we have to walk all the way to the Frostbacks and home again, salroka , we’ll find her.”
Velanna nods slowly, her eyes far away. “This way,” she says eventually, turning down a narrow, rough passageway through the rock. “ His laboratory.”
The passage from Kal’Hirol to the silverite mines where the Architect had once held power is tight and miserable, carved by mindless darkspawn through granite and Gangue. The ceiling arches barely high enough for Velanna to pass, and Sigrun has to turn her shoulders sideways at times. Nate would have to crawl, and Oghren would have gotten stuck within minutes. Sigrun can’t imagine hurlocks passing through, in their rotting, craggy armour, but she’s seen it with her own eyes.
It’s a deceptively short walk; time and distance seem to pass differently in the Deep Roads, minutes crawling like hours and hours disappearing like seconds. And then they’re in the mines, the last place anyone saw Seranni.
Anyone but the Disciples.
As they begin searching, Sigrun considers, once more, the implied question Velanna had asked as they set off. Does she think she’s alive?
Yes. Whatever the Architect had done to her paused the progression of the Blight. Seranni is alive.
Does she think they’ll find her?
Possibly. If Seranni is alive, if she wants to be found. If they’re lucky. If.
The mines are abandoned, long since cleared of the most easily accessed silverite veins, covered in rockdust and-
“Velanna, salroka ! Footprints, look!” Sigrun grabs her shoulder eagerly, bodily turning her friend. Footprints. Not just footprints, but bare feet. Even darkspawn wear boots.
Velanna is frozen, breath harsh and ragged as she sinks to her knees. “It could be anything,” she starts. “It could be anything..”
~~~
The footprints lead from the caverns of the mine itself and into the Architect’s laboratories, past the bones of drakes and dragons they’d fought, past the cells where they’d awoken, bound and bared and bled. His research is long since gone; whatever hadn’t disappeared with him picked over and sent to Soldier’s Peak and Avernus’ eerie lair.
But someone has taken up residence, a nest of blankets in the corner of the grandest of the rooms by the cold ashes of a makeshift hearth long gone cold.
Velanna is kneeling by the blankets before she realizes she's moved, hands shaking as she rummages through them for any sign of her sister. Sigrun is beside her, attention focused on the scorch marks of the fire, and Velanna's stomach roiling with conflicting emotions. She wants to be alone. She couldn't bear to do this alone.
"Whoever was here isn't darkspawn," Sigrun says softly, nudging Velanna out of her harried digging. "Or at least, not the usual kind. Look, they drew a map."
Sure enough, scratched in the cold granite of the room is a shaky, awkwardly sprawling diagram, and the words 'ma emma samahl', to match the ones in ironwork around her neck.
Velanna's breath catches on a ragged sob, collapsing in on herself until she feels she might sink through the smooth stone beneath her knees. "She was here. She was here. Creators, she's alive ..."
She jumps at the feeling of Sigrun’s arms around her, just a little; Wardens are tactile, she's learned, an embrace or a brush of hands to rush away nightmares, but she never expects it even now. But Sigrun is familiar with her awkwardness, and Velanna leans into her side, accepting the comfort as best she can. "She's alive, and she's her ." Not dead, nor a mindless ghoul as Nathaniel's former nursemaid had been. Whatever Seranni is, she's still enough herself to tell Velanna where to find her.
"And she left us a pretty detailed map of where to find her, too," Sigrun says, and the lightness of her tone helps center Velanna. She scrubs the tears from her eyes, cheeks flushed in embarrassment for her momentary display of dramatics, and pulls away from her friend with frustrating reluctance to peer at the map's details.
It's very clearly the Deep Roads and Dead Trenches, with the way some lines end and restart corresponding to collapsed tunnels, but which part? She fumbles with her pack, pulling out her painstakingly copied maps, and glances between them, trying to match landmarks and twists, to no avail. She's Dalish; these dark caves aren't for her.
Huffing, Velanna thrusts the maps towards Sigrun. "Perhaps your Stone-sense can make heads or tails of this mess," she mutters as the dwarf takes the map more carefully than she's offered it.
Sigrun makes a thoughtful sound in the back of her throat, settling into a more comfortable position as she spreads the maps around her on the floor, using small stones to keep them from curling on each other. "These are old tunnels," she says quietly, squinting at the charcoal marks on the floor. "Might take a while. We should set up camp, maybe?"
As practical as the suggestion is, Velanna can feel her hackles rising at the suggestion of more waiting. She waited two months already, until it was clear the Architect had no aims of his own on the Vigil. She can't bear the thought of taking even half a heartbeat longer. Her mouth is open to snap out a retort, but she forces herself to breathe. "...Yes. Thank you," she settles on eventually. Sigrun is here by choice, to help. She deserves better than Velanna's impatient, lashing tongue. She's the best of all of them, and has as much reason as any to harbour a grudge against the world.
Velanna sets out their bedrolls and carves a series of glyphs into the stone of the doorway as Sigrun compares their maps to Seranni’s scrawl. She charms a fire out of the cold rock, and heats water for tea and soup, and when she runs out of tasks to keep her hands busy, she writes.
It's been her obsession since the Commander's quiet, thoughtful gift, filling the blank pages with the words her hahren repeated until she and Seranni could recite them backwards. The stories of the Creators' battle with the Forgotten Ones, the rise and fall of Arlathen, the rise and fall of the Dales. Legends built from scraps of memories her ancestors' ancestors had coaxed from the spirits that were the sole survivors of the Dread Wolf's final betrayal.
She wants to tell stories. She needs to find the kernel of truth in the stories she tells, in the hopes of planting it in fertile soil and growing her knowledge. If she writes down her clan's stories, and the stories of every other hahren, maybe she can isolate that truth. Maybe, somewhere, there's something she can use.
The scratching of her quill slows eventually, and she glances up to see Sigrun still staring at the maps, tea and soup long gone cold beside her. "... you should eat," she says softly, and Sigrun jumps, eyes jumping to Velanna as if she'd forgotten she was not alone.
"In a bit. It looks so familiar..." Sigrun muses, fingertip tracing just above Seranni’s harsh lines. "I wish I still had the Legion's maps, the Wardens' aren't as complete."
Velanna nods, returning to her journal, though she's finished her writing for the night. Instead, she reads over her work, taking comfort in the stories of her childhood while Sigrun ponders.
"Oh, shit ," Sigrun says an indeterminate time later, and Velanna drops her journal in her haste to move to her friend's side. "I know where she is, Vel."
Velanna peers over Sigrun’s shoulder, eyes wide and heart racing. Kul-Baras. Why did that sound familiar?
"The Architect’s former lab," she says softly as she remembers the Commander reading old Weisshaupt reports aloud one evening. "Why would she go there?"
Then again, why wouldn't she? The Architect had saved her life, had kept her alive and aware despite the Taint. Velanna had left her for the Wardens, and before that for misguided vengeance.
And yet she's left a map to follow, in case she's wanted after all. Velanna will not let her down again. "Is there an opening near?" Velanna asks Sigrun, still embarrassingly unfamiliar with the Deep Roads.
"Looks like there's an entrance through Ortan Thaig," Sigrun says, pointing at a marking on a separate map. "There's a cave system that the darkspawn broke through last year we can use to get down there, about four day's walk from here. Then another two to Kul-Baras."
Six days. Only six days till she might see her sister again. Velanna slumps, suddenly exhausted, leaning gently into Sigrun’s side. "Less than a week?"
Sigrun's arm goes around her waist, giving her a tentative squeeze. "Less than a week. We can start walking in the morning, but for now, we should sleep. Can you zap my soup?"
Velanna sighs, pulling out her best put-upon expression, even as she channels a tiny burst of primal energy through her palms and into the bowl. "If you'd eat promptly, I wouldn't have to always reheat things for you," she complains as she passes the bowl back. "What would you have done if you were out with Nathaniel?"
"Historically, eat cold soup," Sigrun replies watching Velanna begin tidying away the maps. "It's better than deepstalker. Or cave beetle. Anything's -"
"-better than cave beetle," Velanna recites teasingly, pitching her voice too high in gentle mockery. "Believe me, I've heard. Eat your soup."
~~~
Sigrun clutches the map of the surface in her hand, occasionally turning back to watch Velanna, silhouetted by the early dawn. She's beautiful, in the strange, unfamiliar way the surface is beautiful, stretched unnaturally long like the trees and vines of the Wending Woods.
She feels guilty, in a vague way, for thinking that way. She's a Duster, a Carta girl. She's a Legionnaire. She's dead . She belongs to the Stone, only breathing because she's a coward who can't even die properly; Velanna belongs to the sun and the trees arching ahead of them.
But Velanna is beautiful, sunlight catching in her hair, and Sigrun is alive despite the odds. And so she pushes the guilt away, and she lets herself appreciate the beauty of pink clouds in the morning sun, of wheat fields to their sides and trees ahead, of elven women who smile at her like she's something to be appreciated, too.
They continue in companionable silence for much of the day, interrupted by Sigrun's occasional questions about bird names. Velanna suggests she get a falcon for scouting.
"We do need a new mascot, now that Pounce-" Sigrun starts, faltering at the reminder of dead friends. She misses Anders. He deserved better, from the Wardens and from the Chantry. No one deserves to die for how they're born, mage or Duster. At least he took them down with him. "-Now that he's with Delilah."
Velanna nods, her smile strained but not gone. "At least a falcon would not leave dead mice on our pillows," she mutters under her breath.
Sigrun elbows her in the side. "It was sweet ! He wanted to make sure we ate!" she insists, echoing Anders' arguments in defence of the tabby's antics.
"Then he should have brought us tarts, with how many his human stashed away," Velanna retorts, pushing her gently away before reeling her back in. "There's a clearing through the trees, to our right. Camp?"
The sun is starting to set, Sigrun realizes, and she nods. "Probably a good idea, if there's a place for it. Better than getting caught somewhere weird." Setting up camp in the Blackmarsh has made her wary of impromptu resting points.
Sigrun sets up the tent and spreads their bedrolls out within, leaving Velanna to the fire and food - she can make deepstalker safe to eat, but her cooking skills end there. When she crawls out the flap, Velanna has magicked a fire a few paces away, and has a pot already boiling away in the middle of it.
Velanna kneels next to it, idly poking a green stick at the coals, less purposeful and more for want of something to do. Sigrun settles beside her, pulling her bracers and greaves off and into a vague pile. It still feels wrong to be without them, but she's no longer a Legionnaire; Wardens are resigned to death, yes, but not so immediately. She can take moments and days for herself. "Where will you go, when we find her?"
Not if, when. Seranni left them a map. She's alive, and wants to be found. Velanna only joined to find her, so there's little to keep her at the Vigil now. Adain wouldn't keep her there if she was unhappy. Maybe she'll stay close enough to visit, the way Oghren spends half his time with his wife and son.
Velanna is quiet for long moments, listening to the sounds of the forest. "Must I go anywhere?" she eventually asks, voice small in a way she rarely is. The vulnerability means something, even if Sigrun doesn't know what.
"No. But you don't have to stay, either."
I won't ask you to stay, she means, even if I want to. Wild things deserve to be free, and Velanna is every bit as wild as she looks.
"You joined for Seranni. No one would blame you, if you left. She's your family."
Another long pause, that Sigrun has to fight the urge to fill. " "Join us, brothers and sisters. Join us in the shadows where we stand vigilant, and know that should you die, your sacrifice will not be forgotten." I lost my clan for my vengeance. The Vigil is my home. I want to bring my sister home."
~~~
Sigrun doesn't respond to Velanna's quiet confession verbally. But she moves closer, arms brushing in the firelight, and the smile she gives her warms Velanna more than their makeshift hearth.
Their conversation moves to more practical matters, and then to less important ones as they eat their dinner of soup and hardtack. Something's shifted between them, something fragile in the way they hover in each other's space, not quite touching but closer than they need be. The darkness of the night feels soft and comfortable in a way it hasn't in close to a year, and while the loss of her clan doesn't quite hurt less , the pain is dull.
Eventually, the fire dies down, and the chill of the night threatens to seep into their skin, so they move to the small, cramped tent, stretched out in their bedrolls side by side. They don't talk, but it's a companionable silence; nothing needs to be said.
Sigrun's breathing softens and slows as she falls asleep under Velanna's watchful eye, peacefully unaware of her companions keen gaze. Velanna herself is, frankly, exhausted, but sleep eludes her.
She knows why her heart races every time Sigrun pushes her playfully, or grabs her hand to get her attention; as inexperienced in romance as she may be, she's no idiot. What she's not certain of is what to do about it.
Wardens are allowed relationships. Kristoff and Aura are proof of that, as disheartening proof it may be. They can even have children, as Oghren and Felsi prove, though that's less of a concern. Adain wouldn't care, certainly, and with his approval, what does she care for the approval of Weisshaupt?
But that is her putting the aravel before the halla, as her hahren would have said. Whether it is allowed is moot if her affections are not returned, and Creators take them both, Velanna cannot tell. Sigrun is bubbly and affectionate with everyone, from Adain to Nathaniel to the rotting corpse that had housed a morally obstinate spirit. Velanna is not special, not singled out for it any more than the other Wardens.
She wants to think there's something, in the way Sigrun volunteers to help her find her sister, in the way the other Wardens make themselves scarce with excuses why they cannot join the hunt. She wants to read into Sigrun's concerned questions about her leaving, wants the hesitancy when she says she could leave to be from wanting her to stay for more reasons than just the fear of losing a third friend in as many months.
But love makes everyone into fools, and Velanna is too much scared to lose a friend to ask outright, to assume she might be wanted when she never has been before. And so she lies in the darkness, restless and anxious, with her heart pulled beneath the earth by her sister, and a scant foot to her left by her friend.
Eventually, she sleeps, and morning comes damp and bright and chilly. They pack their bedrolls and tent, and poke life into the coals to make tea and oats before returning to the road. Three more days pass much the same: walking till they're tired, and sleeping till the sun wakes them, and high sun on the fourth day finds them descending into the dark of Ortan Thaig.
"Ortan is nice, I think," Sigrun says, as the cave they're in narrows into the rough-hewn tunnels carved by darkspawn who don't care about things like comfort or convenient places to put a torch. "Closer to the surface than some of the older Thaigs, at least. Shouldn't have too many darkspawn to fight, if we're lucky."
Lucky they are; Ortan Thaig is almost disconcertingly devoid of life, or the Tainted mimicry of it. This is normal, according to Adain's reports from Weisshaupt: after a Blight, darkspawn retreat deep into the Dead Trenches, women and girls in tow, cursed to the cause of recovery. The Thaigs are abandoned for darker places, and dwarves and opportunists tasks advantage to regain territory or make a profit.
The lack of darkspawn, talking or otherwise, makes for easy travel, and they make it to the edges of Ortan Thaig before either of them are tired, the mounting anticipation making them both jittery. "We should make camp here," Velanna suggests, looking at a house carved into the bedrock near the gate out into the Deep Roads themselves. "Safer than anywhere else we'll also down here."
Anywhere else they'll need to take turns with a watch, and she wants one more night to feel Sigrun's warmth at her side as she drifts off.
~~~
It's another two days’ travel through the Deep Roads from Ortan Thaig before they notice the tunnels around them changing. Sigrun, more familiar with the architecture, notices first. "These are old ," she says, barely more than a whisper; they both speak in hushed voices almost the minute they leave the Thaig. No one wants to be heard down in the dark.
And these roads are. Older than most of Orzammar, or at least most of the Orzammar Sigrun's seen. Older than Kal'Hirol or Ortan Thaig. They've been progressing steadily deeper for two days, but their most recent turn drops much steeper into unknown territory; Kul-Baras isn't well charted, or even known outside of the Wardens.
"Then we're getting close," is all Velanna says, taciturn and tense as she leads Sigrun through spiralling tunnels and occasional arched chambers.
They turn right for what feels like the thousandth time, Sigrun close on Velanna's heels. Too close; Velanna stops in her tracks, and Sigrun crashes into her, knocking them both to the ground in an awkward, sprawling tangle of limbs.
In the moments it takes to untangle themselves for each other, Sigrun notes two things. One: the stone floor beneath her hands is warm to the touch and dry, not cold and clammy like the rest has been. Two: sounds echo strangely around them.
When she finally stands and looks around, she understands why Velanna had frozen. They've left the tunnels of the Deep Roads behind. They've left the archaic dwarven architecture behind. Wherever they are, this is something else entirely.
The cavern is almost so big as to defy understanding, the ceiling less of a definite sight and more just a suggestion, the walls curving out so far as to look straight. They are standing on a ledge, endless stairs following the subtle curve of the wall to their left down into the darkness.
Kul-Baras. The long resting place of Urthemiel. The original laboratory of the Architect who unburied him. Their goal, and Seranni’s current home.
Sigrun's skin is prickling with awareness, the sensation of the horde milling beneath their feet disconcerting after so long in the abandoned Deep Roads. There are hundreds of darkspawn here by her count, if not thousands. She's not too accurate with exact numbers, just yet. She just knows there's a lot, enough that just standing here is a death sentence.
Her hand grabs Velanna's squeezing tightly to give and get reassurance even as she eyes to pull her back out of the cavern to no avail. Velanna stands firm, and then moves forwards, pulling Sigrun behind her to the edge of the platform and peering over and down. "They don't seem to have noticed us," she whispers as she steps back to relative safety. "If she's here..."
If Seranni is here, like her map said she would be, then they have no choice. Velanna has no choice but to find her sister, and Sigrun has no choice but to follow the woman she loves. She's already dead, her life borrowed from her fallen companions. The extra months are worth the feelings of inadequacy, especially if she can reunite Velanna with Seranni.
"We'll find her," Sigrun reassures her, mind made up. "We'll find her, and you'll go home. Together."
She rearranges their hands, the fingers of her left hand interlaced with Velanna's right. She's always functioned best with a specific goal. Find Seranni. Make sure Velanna and Seranni make it out alive, at any cost.
Slowly, flinching at every sound, they make their way down the stairs. They smell them before they can hear them, the sickly sweet, nauseating rot of the Tainted. Then the broken, garbled voices crying out wordlessly. And then-
"Be yourselves calm! We are being to save you from the Song!"
The stilted phrasing is all too familiar, though the voice is not. A Disciple, one of the Architect's Awakened darkspawn. This could be very good, or very, very bad. The Disciples aren't exactly known for being helpful, for all they can at least get their points across. If they're lucky, they'll know Seranni, and be willing to tell the two of them where she is. If they're unlucky...
Best to hope they're lucky.
She can finally see the end of the stairs through the gloom, fifty paces ahead and below. Which means she can see the horde, and they can see her and Velanna. But bizarrely, they don't seem to care: every darkspawn, as far as the eye can see, is facing to the center of the cavern floor - a much smaller space than the cavern itself, with its spiraling, spherical walls. And at the center...
"Seranni!" Velanna hisses, jerking forwards with a rough rug on Sigrun's arm. Sigrun puts her weight in her heels to hold them both in place despite Velanna's desperation.
"Sweetie, wait," she begs, louder than she wants, as the Disciple continues from its place on a dias beside Seranni.
"The Teacher and the Sister are being your saviors from the Song! Disciples of the Architect, waker of the Singer! But you must be being patient - you will be fed in time." Seranni’s voice rings high and clear, a contrast from The Teacher's painful rasp.
They must have found the Architect’s notes - though where they found Warden blood, Sigrun doesn't know. Doesn't really want to know how they found enough to Awaken the hundreds or thousands of darkspawn gathered in audience.
Velanna tries to pull away again, and when Sigrun's grip proves too strong for her to escape, she freezes, before flashing Sigrun an apologetic look. " Seranni!! " she screams at the top of her lungs, breaking the spell the Disciple and her sister have over the darkspawn.
"Paragon's save us, what is wrong with you?!" Sigrun cries out, nearly as loud as Velanna in the echoing silence as everyone processes their next actions.
But the darkspawn do not attack. "Do not be being afraid," the Teacher says, waving their hands in what seems to be a command, parting the sea of darkspawn before them as easily as if clearing plates from a table. "You are being the sister of the Sister. You are being awaited. Approach in peace and they will not be hurting you."
~~~
Velanna all but runs down the stairs when Sigrun releases her, throwing herself into the horde without a care. Seranni is alive, and smiling at her through cataract-rheumed eyes. It's enough that she's alive, even if she looks the ghoul she is. It's enough that Sigrun is behind her, a little more hesitant, but still following.
Velanna doesn't deserve such goodness, but she grabs for it with greedy, covetous hands, the way she grabs Sigrun's wrist and pulls her through the crowd, the way she and Seranni cling to each other when they meet in the middle, halfway from the stairs to the dais.
The next minutes are a blur - Sigrun will recount them later, when they emerge to the synthetic directly above Kul-Baras, their numbers doubled. All Velanna cares about now is the tight fold of her arms around her sister, and the gentle grip of Sigrun's fingers in hers. " Ma emma samahl ," Velanna breathes, tears falling into Seranni’s hair. "I've found you. Let's go home."
Sigrun talks with the darkspawn calling itself The Teacher while Velanna and Seranni cry the tears of the heartbreakingly happy. It tells her of their mission - to continue the work of the Architect, to free Thedas from the Blight for good. It tells her how it found Seranni after the Architect entrusted his research to it, and how together they took the last of the Warden blood back to Kul-Baras, where it all began. It tells her of their failures and their successes: two score dead from the reverse Joining, another score dead by their own hand when they realized themselves. Twelve fully Awakened darkspawn, helping to control the hivemind of the darkspawn gathered in Kul-Baras.
It tells her of their plan: to return to the Vigil and convince the Wardens to help, to return to the Architect's labs and leave a trail leading back to Kul-Baras.
When Sigrun tells Velanna all of this, lying in the afternoon sun nearly a week after their initial descent, Velanna can't find it in her to be concerned by the careful planning. Her sister sits in the shade of an oak, holding her left hand like they did when they were children. Sigrun holds her right, and she feels happy .
"Ma serannas, Sigrun. You have reunited me with my sister. I-" she coughs, tears filling her eyes again. Reluctantly, she lets go of Seranni for the first time since first grabbing her hand in the dark. She's been given everything she thought to ask for, today. She can be brave, and ask for one more thing. Seranni watches with wide eyes, a slow smile on her lips that promises teasing later. "Walk with me?"
~~~
Sigrun follows behind the other three on the way out of Kul-Baras, counting paces and turns for the Wardens' maps later. Velanna clings to get hand as tight as she clings to Seranni’s, and Sigrun manages to fight off the fear of abandonment with every squeeze of Velanna's fingers.
And then they're resting in the sun, and Velanna wants to talk alone, and the panic returns. Sigrun climbs to her feet, hampered by pins and needles from her exhausted sprawl and the way Velanna continues her death-grip on her hand, and lets herself be led further into the trees.
This is where she tells me she won't come back , she thinks against all logic. Seranni wants to go to the Vigil.
This is where she lets me down , she amends her pessimism as Velanna turns to face her, taking Sigrun's free hand, too.
"I am not a good person," Velanna starts confusingly, shifting her weight uneasily from foot to foot. "I have had my worst nightmares proven false, and my wildest dreams come true today."
"Don't say that!" Sigrun interrupts, her refusal to let Velanna speak poorly of herself getting the better of her. ""We're more than our mistakes," Jukka used to say."
Velanna smiles, some of her nerves seeming to fade. Why is she so nervous?
"I am greedy. My sister is returned to me, and yet..." She pauses. "I still find myself longing for someone, despite myself."
Nate, maybe? Adain? Sigrun's mind races, conjuring possible liaisons before just as quickly discarding them for wild, vain hope at the open, vulnerable expression on Velanna's normally inscrutable face.
"You should tell them," she says softly, heart pounding in her ears. "Maybe she- they -feel the same way. You're - Velanna -"
Velanna drops Sigrun's right hand, pressing her finger to Sigrun's lips to hush her. "Let me speak !" she complains, a laugh buried in her words.
"She's beautiful, and clever, and stubborn, and interrupts me constantly, " she continues, cheeks pink and eyes flickering everywhere but Sigrun's face. "You helped me find Seranni. You followed me into a horde of darkspawn. Tell me I'm not misunderstanding this, Sigrun, or tell me now if I'm wrong, please ."
Sigrun turns her head up to the sun, bright and warm and so beyond her comprehension until the last year, wiping a tear from her eye. "You're not misunderstanding. You're-"
"I love you," Velanna interrupts her, words rushed and tripping over themselves on their way off her tongue. "I love you."
They collide in the space between them, awkward in their height difference, Sigrun pushing up into her toes and Velanna leaning down. The overcompensation makes a mess of their first attempt: Sigrun's lips on Velanna's nose and Velanna's on her chin, and nervous, excitable laughter between them.
"I love you," Sigrun whispers back in the moment before their second attempt, their lips brushing with the words. It's soft, bright and warm like the sun, comforting like the heat of a fire. Velanna tastes like the forest, a tree making itself at home in a dark, warm cave. "Let's go home."