Cyrlan Lavellan

cyrlan lavellan

STAND YOUR GROUND, THE DAWN WILL COME

there's a thing about stories they don't tell you — that these larger-than-life heroes, well, they used to be regular folk.

you want to be a hunter. that much is simple. see them with their silver daggers and palewood bows, bathed in moonlight and glory of a victorious hunt. but fate does not care, the fade cares even less; soon it tugs at your dreams and mind, soon the keeper is beginning to groom a young elf to bear the burden of his clan upon narrow shoulders.

you tell yourself it isn't all that bad. you like helping, this is just another way of doing so. maybe you won't be tripping over your own legs in coltish excitement over your first hunt with the rest ( too busy memorising new spells by the campfire ), maybe you won't be trading stories over meals ( too busy inspecting the runes lining the camp with the keeper ). maybe you won't be a hunter ( too busy crafting lightning from nothing to note the melancholic gaze of hunter-huntress parents ) but you'll be the first.

that's got to count for something, right?


the wrong place at the wrong time: the type of introduction warped into something more befitting an epic hero, braving dragons and demons alike for the good of thedas. for the sake of the people, they need to see someone more. they need someone more than the reluctant elf heralding nothing more than the trouble that follows close at his heels.

so you let them. lets them twist your name into something more, turn into more name than flesh and blood, and ignore the fact that you are facing down horrors you know only from tales; because to them, you too, are story.

you only want to help. if a herald is what the people want, if an inquisitor is what they need, then inquisitor you will be.


death loses its bite, somewhat, though fear never does. you don't shriek any less at a terror bursting from the ground, but each blow is placed with more accuracy than the last; each blow is a step towards a battle-hardened mage with a glimmer of hope that hey, maybe we aren't all going to die after all.

happy days are sparse, joyful moments scattered. but you grasp at it where you can, when ancient horrors breathe down your neck and unknown magic marks your hand. catch a barrier at the edge of your mind, feel fire and ice alike crackle down your spine as a spindly hand claws through thin air a breath away. someone's cracking a joke, someone always has a mouth that moves faster than their mind; then you're laughing even as you ward off gnashing teeth.


there are the bad days. you know them all too well. ( you used to like the colour green. )

but now your armor bears odd scuffs where no creature has yet attacked, where you fall to the ground clutching your hand to your chest as though that would help alleviate the pain, breathing hard until you can gather enough strength to stand up again.

it splits into delicate spiderwebs and pools in glowing irises; nevermind you can feel demons pressing in, eager to grasp a glimpse the world, but it also burns. shadows carpet the ground and crawl across the walls, you are illuminated only by the mark. voices whisper in voices you cannot understand, but this time you want to, you need to but you still can't and it's so frustrating—

then there's the moment where you realise people are dead due to your incompetency — a wrong decision, an err in judgement, the wrong people sent. and just like that, they are gone.


blagh i'll continue this when im more coherent


ahhhhhhhhhh


aHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[b]LUKE PASQUALINO[/b] as [i]cyrlan lavellan[/i]