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She does not use the fade, indeed, her magic comes from a well of a different sort. She is old, old in the way a world is old and she is something Solas has never seen. The children of this Age think him a god, but he knows, knows that there were those who came before and gifted his kin with souls-arcane.
He wonders if she finds him as foolish and useless as he does the Dalish: a pale and formless fresco on cavern wall inadequately preserved against elements and endless years.
He wonders if he should feel humbled by her presence- awed by her abilities and skill. They are many, they are great, this he would not deny. But there is an Otherness to all that she is that makes it hard for him to express anything of the sort; even when it steels his breath with a gesture and a command and a will he does not think to match.
She has told him stories of her Sky Realm, of her gods and her gods’ gods. She has walked the lands of her People, apart and unchanging as mountains fell and canyons rose. She has traveled through Oblivion and seen the End of All Endings for her World. She has told him too of her last days, the only thing still standing.
She is Ancient, but the land here is new so she is curious as well. She is a wild thing, raging storm devastation and warm slow rain as she wills and by no one’s leave. She is action, always moving towards something but that something is ephemeral and waylaid often by the mundane. They travel and time, he comes to understand, is something that she notes only as day (villages and villagers) or night (hunting, sneaking, walking, sleeping) and not units of them pressed together (weeks, months, years, Age).
It has been so very long since he has walked a path with one like him.
He wonders if he should not.
