Chapter Text
I am not meant to be here.
By any stretch of the imagination, this life I’ve found myself living for the past four years is impossible. I used to ponder, at times, what it would be like to time travel. What skills could I learn so I could survive the world in the event of getting sucked into a wormhole or having to survive the zombie apocalypse. Thought experiments, brought on by reading and watching ‘too much nonsense’ as my mother would put it.
There’s a whole genre of fiction revolving around people getting sucked into alternate worlds. Those people are not generally unfit sedentary nerds, or if they are, they’re young. I’m not. My knees feel every bit of their forty years, and I was certainly unfit before a harsh life whittled me down. Felling your own trees and then chopping your own firewood from them does a lot to build muscle. There is no convenience to this life, no ease. At least I have good tooth genetics; that could have been a nightmare here.
Dear Playboy, I think ironically, I never thought this would happen to me…
I spent my first year here in Thedas, in a world I know from video games I first played during the pandemic lockdown, trying to get back home. Well, okay, no. I spent the largest part of the first year alternately sobbing and staring into space in a Chantry hospice, having a fun little emotional and mental breakdown as all of the laws of reality as I know them were broken.
I spent the second year trying to get back. I searched out people I thought could help, but I couldn’t even get to Kirkwall. There’s only so many odd jobs you can do for money, and that money does not get you far in a post-Blight Ferelden. I managed to get enough coin and favor to barter for a message to be carried into Orlais. It would result in either my murder for being a threat or hopefully the formation of a powerful acquaintance, but as no reply ever came, I lost hope.
I have spent the last two years resigned. I am not a Chosen One. I am an accident of fate or chance, and neither matters much when I’m gaunt from hunger and living in a drafty shack in one of the coldest places I’ve ever been to. I make enough to survive now, having saved and bought myself a broken spinning wheel that I’ve restored. I was able to get some flax seed and grow it, spinning decent quality linen thread. None of the wool merchants trust me with their top stuff, but I’ve started getting some business spinning the coarse wool used for floor coverings and durable, cheap textiles.
It should not be a surprise when the dragon lands outside, yet somehow I did not expect the soft susurrus of my spinning wheel to be interrupted by anything, let alone the remnants of an ancient elven goddess. I feel the hum of magic echo in my bones, and I go still. I have tried, very hard, to ignore the weird tingling I get around people doing magic here and honestly, I have tried to pretend that it doesn’t exist. It might as well not in my little sphere of the Frostback foothills.
Every now and then on a cold winter night, I ignore the fact that I conjured a flame in my hearth out of desperation. If I zap something in the house, it’s just static electricity. It’s not hard to ignore, as long as I stay calm. I have gotten very, very good at staying calm.
So I open the door and kindly invite the Witch of the Wilds in for a cup of hot cider. It’s cold out tonight, afterall, and even more so where the air is thin above the clouds.
She makes no effort to hide herself under any humble guise. No old woman from a swamp. Pure Chasind witch and elven goddess combined; her armor and headpiece Mythal’s, her hair wound with fabric and her round ears pierced with nature’s jewels - feathers, bone, and scale.
I offer her the chair closest to the fire.
We dance around each other in silence as I prepare and bring our drinks to the hearth. “You know who I am, child?” she asks, breaking the quiet as she accepts the humble mug.
“Flemeth. Witch of the Wilds, Asha’bellanar, and the Vengeance of Mythal, the All-Mother.” I sit down. “I am honored, if baffled.”
“Liar.”
I choke on my cider inelegantly. “Well,” I amend, “I am honored.” It’s true, too. She might be a terrible mother, but I’ve always liked Flemeth. I cannot claim the same of Mythal, but I do have a healthy respect for her power and the fragment Flemeth carries is truly the closest to ‘the best of them’ that a self-proclaimed goddess can be. She couldn’t be called humble , but she is…grounded.
Flemeth’s smile is that of a predator. Those eyes are deeply unsettling in person. “You are not peppering me with questions. Curious.” She takes a sip of her cider and gives an appreciative hum. Dennet’s family was kind enough to share some of their harvest with me and I’ve made the most of it.
She glances down, where beneath the worn rug at our feet there is a trapdoor that leads to the root cellar. In that cellar hums an ancient elven artifact that can strengthen, weaken, or measure the Veil. They’re small versions of the astrolabe at the Lighthouse, I theorized, and it’s proved accurate. Making some minor tweaks enabled a barrier that strengthens the Veil to the point where I don’t typically enter the Fade when I dream unless I make the effort to do so.
It also prevents most accidental magic unless I’m really worked up. It was a risk, tampering with the globe, but worth it. I’d either blow myself up and thus not have to worry about being put in a Circle at all, or manage to give myself some protection. “There’s no point in irritating you with questions, my lady. You’ll divulge what you wish when you wish, and I would not have you waste your time and energy.”
Flemeth snorts and grins again. “Oh, I like you. She chose well. Or terribly, depending on the viewpoint.”
Hm. Flemeth waits like a cat toying with a mouse. She, who? The question is obvious. I wrack my brain trying to think of women powerful enough to draw me through not just the Fade but potentially multiple dimensions. Can’t be Ghilan’nain; she’s still trapped, and I’d be Blighted. But the only other person capable is a fraction as powerful as Flemeth is now, and somewhat trapped, herself.
I tap my fingers on my mug. “Are there more than two fragments of you, my lady?”
She throws her head back and cackles with delight. “Splendid! And dispense with the honorific. I appreciate the show of respect, but it isn’t necessary.” Seriousness crosses her face. “I will tell you the truth, then, child: I do not know.”
I blink. “Well. Shit.”
One elegant eyebrow arches. “Indeed. Succinctly put. I recognize the remnants of my magic - or rather more accurately, the remnant of Mythal’s. Yet that ghost in the Crossroads is not powerful enough alone to manage this.”
I purse my lips, thinking. Trying very hard to pretend this is just another simple conversation with someone who likes lore so I don’t freak out.
Then again, I’ve seen what happens when a conversation with Mythal goes sideways. Best not forget that.
“Go on, out with it.”
I exhale slowly. She’ll either gut me or she won’t. Not much I can do about it, either way. Resignation, my old companion. “Yavana?”
I only see her out of the corner of my eye, but she stiffens and I feel the sharpness of the look she levels at me. “She would not be able to bond with Mythal.”
I nod. “Because she carries Andoral’s fragment of Andruil.” I sip my cider again. If she’s going to kill me for guessing too much, I’d like to at least have a slight buzz going. “I always wondered if she seeks the Great Dragons to preserve them for making thralls, hunting them herself, or for future preparations.”
“And what would you know about those future preparations?” I can practically hear the dragon fire in her voice.
“Not much,” I admit honestly. I’m not dumb enough to hide knowledge from an Evanuris. “I know that dragon fire is important, but I don’t know why.” I risk a look at her. “I found myself here before I could find out. The fifth installment in the series had not even been planned yet.”
“Fascinating,” she murmurs, largely to herself. “I know there are worlds out there connected by the Fade that echo dreams back and forth, but the variety in which they find expression is…unfathomable. Even to me.”
“You do not need to convince me of the reality of my situation,” I tell her. “I have felt how real it is with the sharpness of hunger and desperation. ‘Denial is a river in Egypt’ - a saying from where I’m from.”
She smirks. “What is the actual name of the river?”
“The Nile.”
The smirk turns into a snort. “You know, the People never had a true appreciation of puns and wordplay. Unfortunate.”
“I suppose the emotion aspect of it would give the joke away.”
“True,” she admits. “Humor was more sight-based. Lying was always difficult.”
Ah. I think I see where this is going. “But not impossible if one can dance around the truth like it’s an Orlesian ballroom.”
Flemeth tilts her head. “So your knowledge extends to the Wolf.”
I rub a hand down my face. “I assume the intent was for me to stop him somehow, but if that was so, I failed. The Conclave is a fortnight away, and I’m not sure if my message ever reached Felassan, or if he even lives.”
She sighs. “That boy.”
My lip twitches. “Which one?”
Her laugh is sharp and hard, but still warm, somehow. “Try calling Fen’Harel a ‘boy’ and see how far it gets you.”
“Straight to a grave, I’d imagine.” Solas might have been one of my favorite tragic characters in all of fiction, but I am well aware that he is not someone to mess with. “Which I half expected to happen already from trying to meddle.”
“He yet lives, my slow arrow. Broken, but not beyond restoration.”
Tranquil, then. Not dead. That’s…something. I don’t know what, but something. “I know things, Flemeth, but I am not a hero. I am not young, nor am I strong. I am sad, middle-aged, and weak.” I close my eyes. “What am I to do here in this world of legends?”
“Become one,” she says simply, “or roll over and die.”
I ponder her words, as she no doubt intends, long after she leaves into the night. She’s done as Flemeth has always done and nibbled at the edges of history. Are we both playing into someone else’s game? Some other version of her with an inscrutable agenda? Is it better not to play at all?
To be, or not to be.
Well, fuck. I am nothing if not persistent. I endure. I endure, and I know things. Put that on a t-shirt.
In the morning light, I look at the stockpile of wool I have ready for market. The tapestries and the floor coverings, and the fine linen thread. Good enough to try and sell at the Conclave, if I survive the journey to Haven among a throng of mages and Templars.
I don’t know why I’m doing this. I’m no one. Yet, this no one was brought across worlds by someone, for some unfathomable reason, and I won’t just roll over and die. The weather here tried, and failed. Starvation tried, and failed. Depression made a valiant attempt to aid starvation, and failed. Couple bandits tried once two years ago, and failed thanks to Dennet’s men. I’m the Energizer Bunny of this medieval magic hellscape.
Of all the video game worlds to fall into, it couldn’t have been Stardew Valley?
I did manage to recalibrate an ancient elven artifact based on vibes and guesses, so I must not be completely fucking useless. And I managed to scrape out a meager income with skills that were nothing more than a passing hobby previously, rather than starve to death. I’ve avoided possession or lighting anything on fire by accident. I’m not in a Circle.
Maybe my tendency toward hyperfixation, near encyclopedic levels of knowledge of fantasy lore, and my adoration of speculative fiction are good for something after all. Maybe.
I load up my cart and harness up the shithead of a donkey that’s all I can afford to feed. Before I leave my little shack in nowhere, I stand by the crossroads sign, take a deep breath, and do my best Ian McKellan impersonation. “All we have to decide,” I tell Frodo, my donkey, “is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
He repays this sage wisdom by trying to eat my cloak. I bop his nose. “Should have named you Gollum, you ass.”