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When Elona realized the path of the Inquisition would lead them to the Exalted Plains, she held her head high and painted on forced a smile.
She would be lying if she said she never wanted to visit the Dales; she knew there would be an emotional toll with it. Even still, she hadn’t been prepared for it. Apart from the nostalgic sense of walking in the footsteps of those who came before her, she knew the land was soaked in the people’s blood, and Elona felt it with each step.
She, Varric, Cassandra and Solas had set up camp near the Dalish, thought fair enough away to ensure they - The elves, not the Inquisition - were comfortable. She knew how her father would have reacted if a large band of heavily armoured shemlen were suddenly meters away, and the last thing she wanted to do is put any undue stress on Keeper Hawen.
With the fire started and night on them, a quiet call of birds and bugs settled over camp, the only sound breaking it was Varric’s snoring from inside his tent. It wasn’t long after the fire had begun to burn out for the first time that Cassandra had retired. She was recovering from a heavy blow she had taken earlier in the day to her side, and after being given a salve to help the bruising, she had become instantly exhausted, the adrenaline dying off. That left only Elona and Solas sitting around the flames.
Elona had spent the better part of the hour finishing up reports on the status of the area, attempting to write on the destruction, the feuding, the disruptions in the veil and the people suffering on the land without sounding biased towards the Dalish and the bloodied history of the land. After her third attempt on the sentence she was writing, Elona sighed and crumpled the paper, the still-wet ink staining her hands, and tossed it in the fire.
“Problems with the less exciting parts of being Inquisitor?” Solas asked from across the fire, glancing up from his book.
“Oh, just a bit.” She said with a smile, closing her journal that she had been working on. Tucking it back into her pack, she began to wipe the ink off her hands. “I know Cullen will want to know what supply lines we can make through here, how far the soldiers have reached and for me to take note of holding points but I…”
Solas watched her for a moment as she trailed off, hands stilling with the damp cloth, now stained black. “Is everything alright Inquisitor?”
“Elona, or Ellonarra I suppose,” She corrected, giving him a playful look. “You of all people do not need to use my title.”
“Is everything alright, Elona?” He said again, correcting himself with a smile and using her name. The two exchanged a smile before she leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees.
“Being here is strange, that is the only word I can seem to find to describe it. Seeing what has become of the people, how they could have been back then…” She let out another sigh. “I suppose I’m feeling quite homesick."
Solas raised an eyebrow. “How so?”
Her eyes fell to the fire, taking a stick next to it and poking away at the logs. “Being around the Dalish today, Keeper Hawen and Ithiren especially.”
Solas was quiet, letting her continue.
“I haven’t particularly had much time to think of the clan lately, but now each thought of home feels like a herd of Halla running me over. My father, Arlen, was a prominent hunter within the clan, he was well regarded as someone to listen to, heed advice from, and the way Hawen spoke felt so reminiscent of how he speaks. I can’t help but wonder what he would think now seeing me, here, leading a human religious order, being called Herald of a God I do not believe in. ”
“And Ithiern?”
Elona hummed. “My brother. Faendal. He’s younger, around three years. Shortly after he was born my mother left the clan, she couldn’t keep up with the travelling, and had become quite the outcast. My father raised us on his own with the matriarchs - Keeper Deshenna was as close to a mother as I had.” She paused, brow pinching together. “I miss Faendal terribly. I was always the one to protect him when we were older, he’s always been a bit a head in the fade type. I hope they could come to visit in the future, though who knows what would happen if he and Dorian met.”
Solas nodded his head towards her keeper staff that sat a few feet away, leaning against her tent.
“The red scarf you carry, tied on your staff - is that your mothers?”
Elona’s throat tightened, the words coming out a bit choked. “No. It belonged to my best friend, Capra. She didn’t survive the conclave - she was the spirit in the Fade that helped us out of there.”
“Ah, yes. I recall that now,” Solas said, an awkward silence falling across them. Through the fire, Elona saw Solas studying her face briefly before he began to close his book as he started to speak again, changing the course of the conversation briefly.
“What did you miss most about home?”
Elona smiled, happy to move the conversation along from that point of pain. “I suppose...The community, the people, even the atmosphere. There were times when things were hard, shems, the land, but the people always reassured me things would work out.” She paused. “I suppose I do have that here, though it is different.”
Elona leaned back, keeping herself up with one elbow as she sunk into the grass. “We used to have these huge feasts every ten years with the other clans and shiralins, they were spectacular. We’d get into so much trouble, my friends and I during those few weeks - but everyone was just so excited. Dancing, feasting, exchanging warnings and stories of the Creators as the week went on before they all returned home.”
“You do not seem like one for trouble in your youth.”
“I suppose not.” She started. “You’ve only known me when I’ve had the responsibility of the world on my shoulders. No, I normally was one to get dragged into it. Faendal getting lost chasing a rabbit or saying something he shouldn’t have so I would clean up for him, Capra led us once into Ostwick - that was quite the spat afterwards with the Keeper and my father. Esri and Irri started a competition once with the other Firsts and Seconds in the other Clans, I don’t remember the details but I remember competing, and I remember an aravel nearly being set on fire.”
She cleared her throat, continuing. “It’s funny. I was never the instigator, always the accomplice, now here I am, Lady Inquisitor. I can name maybe once or twice when I truly did get in trouble on my own accord. Either from voicing some complaint about the moral of a story I was learning or - fenehdis-lasa” Elona suddenly cut herself off with a swear, putting her face in her hands. Solas raised an eyebrow, questioning the action, a small smile playing on his lips.
“An old memory resurfaced?”
“Unfortunately. Creators, I haven’t thought of this in ages. During the spring festival, often the kids or young teenagers would craft crowns of Mythal’n’Suledin -- ah, Crystal Grace I believe it’s also called?”
Solas nodded, signifying he knew what she was talking about, before she continued. “We would place them on the heads, or necks, should the statues be broken, of the creators wherever we were camped. I believe I was… six? Seven? We had been camped somewhere with a statue of Fen'Harel, I realized I had never seen him with a crown of flowers, and figured he must be lonely seeing everyone else wear them.”
Solas had grown quiet, his expression unreadable.
“I climbed up onto his back, granted it was a smaller statue, and looped one crown of Mythal’n’Suledin around his ear.” She tapped the tip of her left ear to emphasize it. “I then proceeded to fall off the statue, and I broke my arm - right here.”
Elona pointed to her left arm, the middle point directly between her elbow and wrist. “I cried loud enough that Deshanna and my father were able to find me. He scolded me for being reckless and climbing something far too tall, and she scolded me for alerting the Dread Wolf to the clan’s location, welcoming him into the festival. We had to pack up and move camps that night.”
He hadn’t replied, the heat and smoke from the fire masking whatever expression had settled onto his face.
“It’s silly, now, thinking about it.” Elona said, a sudden self-consciousness hitting her at the old story. She knew Solas was familiar with the stories of the Creators; they had argued enough about them when they had first met, but the topic of Fen’harel had not come up often. It left her unsure where he stood on topics of the Trickster God.
“It is not silly at all.” He eventually said, whatever thought had passed, and a small sympathetic smile curled on his lips. "You have more compassion than most, far more than anyone I have seen in this world or the Fade. Who is to say, perhaps Fen’harel did appreciate being included.”
“Are you suggesting the Dread Wolf liked me giving him a flower crown?”
“I believe I was declaring that he did.”
Elona laughed suddenly, something overcoming her as the noise escaped her mouth and butterflies danced in her chest. “Did spirits in the fade tell you this?”
“Most certainly.”
She put a hand to her mouth to attempt to contain herself, Solas matching her laughter at the absurdity of the conversation. She sighed, once she had come down from it, rubbing her eyes now that the exhaustion from the day was finally hitting.
“You should get some rest, I will be able to maintain the wards alone long enough for Varric to wake.” Solas hesitated for a moment as she stood before he spoke once more. “Thank you for accompanying me to find my friend, I…appreciate it immensely.”
Elona smiled. “Of course, Solas, I wouldn’t have it any other way. What are friends for after all?”
The word friend felt odd on her tongue. It was all she had for a label. Friends helped each other, friends cared for each other, friends shared stories around a fire, made each other laugh, friends didn’t make each other flustered, they didn’t kiss in the fade, they didn’t make her heart skip or warmth spread through her chest at the sound of her name.
“Elona?”
“Hm?” She said, pulling herself from her thoughts.
Solas had an eyebrow raised, a curious expression on his face as her ears turned red. Fenhedis. I completely missed what he had said.
“Sleep well.”
“I will, thank you.” She replied in turn, slipping into the tent she was sharing with Cassandra, leaving him to tend to the campfire alone.