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The mage- known as Telana- sits at the base of a shrine with her head in her hands. The tears have long since dried, as have her open wounds. She is counting the hours, the minutes, the seconds. It is a countdown, and as each second ticks by her hope trickles from her.
Condolence watches her, curled up at the base of Andraste The Hearthkeeper, watching the candles burn low around her. They are their own kind of hearth, Condolence supposes, these candles she has lit for the dead.
At some point, kneeling alone at the feet of her goddess she falls into dreaming. It is an easy thing for her, as a dreamer, she is a dancer between these two worlds, stepping with quiet grace.
“He isn’t coming back, is he?” Telana says as she passes over. She had sensed Condolence, a small blot of light amongst the ever darkening world.
He is remembered, Condolence says, for it is what she knows to be true. Ameridan may come back, or he may not, Condolence does not know. And anyway, the truth is not Condolence’s domain.
“Orinna and Haron too have fallen, I saw the memory of it. How strange it feels, to be the last of us to remain,” she sighs, and Condolence thinks she is about to fall back into waves of sorrow and tears. But she does not, she straightens instead, a lone coastal tree that refuses to bend. “I did not even want to come here.”
No, you did not, Condolence says, though she did not remember that. She is not a being built for remembrance of that sort. Not in the way Telana is. Her mind is a porous thing, built for the present, not the past.
“I have to find him. If there is any chance of bringing him back, that is what I must do.”
Condolence was watching the mages two on their journey. At first it was with little interest, for Condolence is a creature built for tragedies, not for quests and heroes. But Talena came to draw her eye.
The dreamer walked with a quiet dignity, and though she walked behind the other mage, her lover, she was not guided by him.
When Talena wakes, crowds of spirits have been drawn to her, like the freezing to death. The mill and mutter, watching and waiting, for even they know something is not right. They are pulled into the orbit of her grief, and bottomless pit as deep as the Void itself.
She is going to die! Somebody has to tell her that she is going to die! Your condolence is not enough- she is going to die!
Wisps cry out to Condolence like a cacophony. Even for a somniari like Telana, it would be too much, too much noise, too many beings pressing in. So Condolence holds the others back, and speaks to Telana herself.
Please Telana, this search of yours will kill you.
“I do not care.”
Please Telana, Ameridan would not want this for you. He would see you live long and happy, even without him.
“Then he shouldn’t have sent me away.”
Please Telana, the People still need you, they face the oncoming storm, a Blight, as deadly as Hakon. You can find your purpose again with them.
“My loyalty is always to Ameridan first,” she spits, “if you wanted somebody who believed in duty you should have saved him.”
Condolence tries again and again, but Telana will listen to nothing she says. Condolence is not a being made for such conflict, she is a being built for care, for tending the sufferings of others, and there is no single cure.
So, even though the others press in with a cacophony of emotions, Condolence pushes them back. It is her choice to do this (which her, she distantly wonders) and she must be allowed to see it through.
Telana takes a small coracle from the shore, ignoring the larger and sailed skiffs. The ships that Telana knows are of the land not of waters. She was never meant to drift. She was always meant to be a tree with roots digging deep into the soil.
She senses the spirits of Grief at her back, the ones that slip alongside the boat like a water strider. She sings a tune, an old lullaby Ameridan would sing when she could not sleep, and Grief dances to the song. The current they create is a pull to the inevitable end of the island.
Telana steps off the boat, and though she does not need it for the spell she continues the song. She had often daydreamed of how he would sing their child down to sleep with that melody, how beautiful he would look beside a cradle. She had never told him that. She wonders if it would have changed anything.
She has been to this island before, and so she wastes no time heading to the hut atop the rocks. The wood has been infused with decades of sea salt, forming crystal lines on the hinges of the door and windows. Telana’s tears will only add to it.
Condolence watches, continuing to hold the spirits and wisps back who grow increasingly concerned, buzzing like flies to a corpse. They natter, zipping too and fro, begging Condolence to let them tell her, let them tell her that she will die.
But Telana has only ever been guided by a single star of all those in the night sky. It has always been the one inside her, what she has known to be true and right. There will be no changing her path without changing her very nature, how wisdom becomes pride.
Telana offers a prayer to the Creators before she lays down. She takes a small carved wolf figurine, its edges long since worn smooth by the stroking of her thumb. As a young girl she had looked in awe at the Emerald Knights upon their halla, wolves loping by their sides. It hadn’t been her path to tread, but Ameridan had known her love for the order, and carved her the figurine as a gift at their wedding.
The memory brings a stabbing of pain to Telana and Condolence both as they remember together.
Telana strokes the wolf’s shape once more. “He Who Hunts Alone,” she says, her voice bitter, “I wonder if this is how Fen’Harel must feel?”
You are not alone. I am here. I cannot relieve your pain, but I will listen, I will comfort, I will do what I can.
“Ameridan was always the best hunting partner. His step was so light deer nor rabbit would ever hear his coming. I never had the talent for it myself.”
You will hunt again, Telana. His memory will be by your side.
“His memory is not enough.”
And she sets the wolf down at the door of the cabin, so that He Who Hunts Alone may watch for danger. And maybe if the God of Rebellion passes by this place, he will take pity on another lonely hunter.
Is there anything you would have me do, while you search? So we may prepare for when you return. It is a comment full of hope. It is so because that is what Telana needs, not what is true. But Condolence is not a being built for truth.
Telana breaks for just a moment. She wavers for a singular moment and her grief runs through her like the Tenasir in a spring flood. “Don’t let them forget us,” she asks, her voice so small, “don’t let them forget what we gave them. What I gave them.” And in that moment Telana allows herself a single breath of grief- not for her lost love, but for herself. For what she will loose on this search. She does not go to drown herself in this river unknowingly, she steps in with her head held high.
Condolence envelops Telana, the closest thing to an embrace she can manage. I promise, Telana. They will not forget you. They will not forget us. When Condolence pulls away, she is a mirror to Telana, memory living onwards. History incarnate.
And so, Telana goes into dreaming. It is hopeless. Ameridan is dead, he is gone, with her no more. She knows this, as does Condolence. But when she lays herself down to rest, she is not alone.
Telana dreams alone, yes. But she is watched over by Condolence, by the spirits drawn to her like a moth to flame, by the Creators. She is to them like a child, fallen asleep by the campfire, carried into bed by the strong and gentle arms of her father, laid to rest, watched over.
And even if it is far from here, maybe even in another time, another life. She will be remembered.
They will be remembered.
In another life, there is an Inquisitor who is also of the People, Dirthamen’s marks upon her skin. And Telana (or is it Condolence, she has lost track) thinks that Ameridan would have liked at that. She comes to the island and listens to the tale. She says that maybe it is time for Telana to rest.
And Condolence thinks she may be right.
And just as Condolence is about to follow Telana into that sleep, she notices an elven somniari of the inquisitor’s party stoop down and pick up the small wolf statuette set by the door. He looks at it, strokes the lines with his thumb just as she once did. He smiles as he looks at it, and Condolence finally rests.