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~Book One~

Water & The Howling Wind

~Chapter 1~

~Her Phantom Limb~

Lady Inquisitor,

Our attempt to track the movements of suspected agents of Fen'Harel near Serrault have turned up nothing. We found the remains of several fire pits, but the campsites had been abandoned days ago and we couldn't pick up a trail. There was no sign of what they were doing or if they were really working for Fen'Harel. I've attached a more detailed report for the spymaster.

I'm sorry, I know this isn't what you wanted to hear. Hang in there Lavellan.

Scout Harding

Riona let the message slip through her fingers and a heavy sigh escape her lips. The letter fell onto the desk Divine Victoria had provided as part of the Inquisition's new headquarters in Val Royeaux. The Divine's agents had furnished her with lavish apartments and enough facilities to maintain a sizable force. Cassandra well understood the importance of looking for Solas. The location also gave them easy access to the port. Yet for all its luxuries and practicality, the new headquarters felt wanting to Riona. It lacked the character of Skyhold, or maybe she just missed the days when the Inquisition held allegiance to no one, when it was just her and her friends against the world. Her friends and... She made a fist to keep herself from finishing the thought.

"Disappointing news, I take it, dear." Vivienne interjected into her thoughts. Riona turned toward the new Grand Enchanter, though she also served as the Inquisitor's favored arcane consultant these days. The elf brushed a stray strand of scarlet hair out of her eye and allowed herself a courteous smile as she turned to her friend. Vivienne was leaning back on the couch with all the ease of one born to leisure, but the hard glint in her eye told another story.

"Just another operation that has turned up nothing." Riona told her as she seated herself across from the Grand Enchanter. "Progress has been slow."

"Don't get discouraged, Inquisitor, we both know what's at stake if that madman goes unchecked." Vivienne supplied without missing a beat. Riona caught the bitterness in her tone. The Grand Enchanter wasn't fond of being fooled.

"I'm very away, believe me, but that isn't why I asked you here. Did you read the materials I sent you?"

"Yes, and then I had several of the tranquil go over it." Vivienne reach toward the table between them and lifted a wine glass. She fixed the elf with a stern gaze. "As much as I respect Dagna and the Inquisition's mages, I think it's an incredibly awful idea." Riona's heart sank, which must have shown on her face because Vivienne immediately continued. "Really darling, what were you expecting me to say? You're talking about an immensely complicated manipulation of the Fade and your own body. If I'm not mistaken, I believe I saw some of Alexius' research in those formulas."

"I need it." Riona's hand drifted to her left arm, rubbing it just below the elbow and just above where it abruptly ended.

"You still have your sword arm, dear." Vivienne offered. "But more to the point, what the Inquisition needs from you now is your leadership, not your sword on the front lines."

"It isn't that, Vivienne." The Inquisitor struggled with her words for a moment. "Not just that, anyway. It's that I think I can feel it sometimes. There are moments when I forget it isn't there and reach for something, only to be reminded of everything all over again." Her voice had gotten very thin and quiet at this point. "I work very hard not to show it, but it's driving me mad... I can't..." She had to stop, or her voice would break.

"Riona..." The Grand Enchanter's voice took on a surprisingly gentle tone as she put down the wine glass and leaned toward her comrade. "Perhaps I'm not the one you need to hear this from, but you have to give this time. You need to accept this and become accustomed, because this is your new reality. You can adjust to this, so don't do anything rash."

"*sigh* I know." The elf allowed her gaze to wander to the window, over the roofs of the Orlesian capital, glistening in the sun.

"What has the Divine said about this?"

"Cassandra said much the same as you."

"Well, let that be the end of it then." Vivienne lifted her wine glass again and reclined into the couch. "I hear you'll be embarking to Skyhold shortly."

"Yes," Riona nodded absentmindedly. "One last caravan. We're leaving a garrison and some of the mages are planning stay. All that remains to move are some weapons from the armory, Dagna's equipment, and some personal items of mine."

"I assume you'll want to say goodbye to the place." Vivienne nodded along. The elf stood and started making her way toward the window.

"Of course, I have… many important memories there." She closed her eyes as the breeze brushed her face.

"We all do, dear, we all do."

Traveling by carriage was not Riona's favorite way to travel. Even back with her clan, she'd hated riding in the aravels. Every bump in the road jolted her and motion sickness threatened to relieve her of her lunch when she looked away from the horizon line. She regretted not taking one of her own horses, but at least she'd be able to ride one of her favorite dracolisks on the way back. Now Riona found herself staring out a window impatiently awaiting the next time they could break camp and she could take a break from this slow torment.

Riona pulled a letter from her pack and carefully unfolded it.

Lady Inquisitor,

I'm writing this to tell you about a, well, something of a ritual I've been working in with one of the mages, a lad named Cedric. He's really smart, and by smart I mean he has a great handle on how the Fade affects living beings and their development, he's also been looking at Alexius' work with time manipulation. Like I said, smart. We were both studying some of the research gathered during the war with Corypheus and got to comparing notes.

I don't want to get your hopes up, but we may have come up with a way to regrow your arm, or replace it, or make it like it was never gone, something along those lines. Cedric says he's going to attach the details in another missive. It's risky, but we tried it on a nug that lost its foreleg and it worked! Its coat turned bright yellow, but it worked! I can't tell you there won't be side effects or guarantee it will give you your arm back, but it could. I really think it could. Your choice, Inquisitor.

Arcanist Dagna

Its creases were well worn by how many times she had looked at it. It was a terrible idea. Vivienne and Cassandra had been absolutely right and she herself well understood the danger of powerful and ill understood magic, but Riona couldn't bring herself to dismiss the idea. It represented her only real chance of getting back her arm, of being whole in a way she hadn't felt since before she went to the Conclave in the first place. It was something to hold onto. Most of her friends were gone. Bull and his Chargers had left. Sera had gone to terrorize whatever nobles struck her fancy. Varric was running a city. Dorian was on the other side of the continent. Leliana was retiring. Thom had returned to the Wardens. It was anyone's guess where Cole had gone off to. Cullen, Cassandra, and Vivienne were around but wrapped up in their duties most of the time. Where did that leave her?

Abruptly Riona realized she was no longer being jostled. The carriage had come to a stop. She turned to look out the window. They had come to a stop in the foothills of the Frostbacks. There was snow on the ground and imposing pine trees dominated the view on either side of the road. The sky was beginning to darken and the shadows cast by the trees made the forest impenetrable.

"Why are we stopping?" She called out. One of her soldiers appeared in the window.

"A tree has fallen across the road, milady." The soldier sounded young, unsure, probably a recent recruit. That was becoming a rarity. The inquisition had attracted fewer and fewer recruits after Corypheus died, now they were downsizing even further with the transition to a peacekeeping organization. "The captain says it might be a trap and suggested you stay in the carriage." Riona blinked.

"Excuse me?"

"Th-that's what he said, milady. He suggested you-"

"Does the captain think me an invalid?!" Her blood flared hot at the insinuation. Her knuckles turned white with the force of her grip on her sword hilt and she forced the door open. The soldier nearly fell over. Riona opened her mouth to offer a few choice words for the captain when an arrow shaft abruptly grew out of the carriage door between them.

"Ambush!" Someone sent up the call, all along the caravan Riona heard the sound of swords unsheathing and someone shouting battle-cries. She drew her own sword and that was when the bandits emerged from the trees. Everything after that was chaos. Riona found herself facing a bandit with a longsword. He charged her, slicing down toward her head. Though she was suddenly very conscious of her own lack of armor, she was only wearing her red formal attire, she wasn't concerned. She met the attack head on, swiping the blade aside with her own sword swing. Accustomed to the weight of her shield, Riona nearly lost her balance but compensated. She brought the sword back across quickly and sliced into the bandits poorly armored leg. He let out a cry of pain and fell to his knees. The blow that ended him came quickly.

"Ah!" Riona cried out as a sharp pain jabbed into her side. She looked down just in time to see the dagger pulling free of her bloody side. She twisted reflexively, attempting to catch the attacker with her shield… only to remember that she had no shield. Instead she stumbled awkwardly with blood dripping down her side. The bandit backpedaled away from her, daggers held tightly in hand. Riona grit her teeth and tried to ignore the pain lancing through her body. She lunged, but her attacker sidestepped. She barely got her sword up in time to block the next blow. The attacker locked both his blades with hers, pressing on her defense. In another time, she would have been able to push him off, but her remaining arm wasn't strong enough to repel his full weight. For several tense moments, they remained locked, each attempting to overpower the others. She starred her opponent in the eye, it was the only part of his face visible through his crude helm. Suddenly his eyes went wide and the bandit crumpled, an arrow shaft protruding through his back.

"Inquisitor! Are you alright?!" Her soldiers streamed into view.

"I'm fine!" She growled, even as her knees gave way and she sank down to the rapidly staining red snow. "I'm fine…"

Riona's side sent a twinge of pain through her body when she sat down at her desk at Skyhold and she hissed. The soldier had bandaged her as best they could and the healers at Skyhold had fixed her up. The area was still tender. That had been her first fight outside of a spar in the months after she lost her arm and it showed just how much she needed to relearn.

"Bandits," She muttered to herself. "I've killed over a dozen High Dragons, faced mages, red lyrium abominations and the Qunari army. Now bandits give me trouble." She allowed herself a mirthless laugh and sank deeper into depression.

"Inquisitor?" Dagna called out as she ascended the stairs. She looked around, her head swiveling like an owl's to take in the whole room. "Wow, you know, I've never been up here. It's a much better view than the Undercroft." She peered out at the night sky through the window. Riona picked herself up and tried to gather herself.

"Dagna, I want to talk about your project with the mage Cedric."

"Oh," Dagna stopped her survey and brought her attention to the Inquisitor. "Did you decide it was too dangerous? That's okay, I understand. It's a revolutionary idea, but still rough around the edges. A shame to shelve it, but I get-"

"I want to try it." Her words made Dagna stop short and stare.

"What?"

"If this ritual or technique can restore my arm," Riona took a breath. "I wanted to try it." Dagna starred for another few moments before jumping into action.

"Wow! I wasn't expecting you to go for it so soon! Great! I mean, I'll need to send someone to wake Cedric up and gather some tools..."

"Whatever you need,"

"There's something else!" Dagna cut in nervously. "We need to do it in a place where the veil is weak, to draw on the extra magic. And the best place for that is-"

"Beneath the Breach." Riona pursed her lips. "You want to go to the Temple of Sacred Ashes."

"Uh, yeah." Dagna nodded emphatically. "Exactly that. Even closed, the Veil is thin there. The Fade is closer."

"Could this ritual possibly have an affect on the Breach now that it's sealed?" If it could that would be the end of it. There were some lengths she wasn't willing to go.

"No, no! Nothing like that!" The arcanist waved her arms frantically. "We're just going to take advantage of the magic already seeping through, not drawing more out of it, no risk of remaking the Breach." Riona mulled over that for a moment.

"You're sure there's no risk?"

"Not of affecting the Breach, definitely!"

"Alright then," Riona stood from her desk, again wincing as she strained the wound. "Gather your materials Arcanist, we're going on a trip."

"Great!" Dagna was practically bouncing on her heels. "I'll get Cedric and we'll go out ahead, we'll be waiting for you Inquisitor." She half ran half skipped out of the room. Riona began her own preparations. She garbed herself in the fur armor she had received for her friendship with Stone Bear Hold and descended. Riona would retrieve her preferred dracolisk from the stables and head out, but first she had a stop to make.

She stood in the Great Hall staring into the ground floor of the tower. She stood there long enough that twice a patrolling soldier stopped to ask if she was alright. When the elf could no longer put it off, she entered. She remembered those two years before the Exalted Council, every time she entered this room and looked at his work on the walls, she felt a pang of unresolved emotions. Now, after all she had learned, that feeling was raw and heavier at the same time.

"Solas, I will prove you wrong." She muttered under her breath. "Once I have my arm back, I'll chase you myself."

"You're sure this will work?" Riona eyed the elaborate runes drawn on the ground dubiously. Her dracolisk beside her scratched at the edge of the circle as if to mirror her misgivings.

"Well, I hope you didn't drag us all the way out here in the middle of the night to back out now." Cedric muttered under his breath. He was a middle age man with a wiry frame and a perpetual scowl on his dark bearded face. His glum cynicism was offset by Dagna's energy as she double checked and adjusted the ruins with a manic fervor.

"Sure? Mostly! Don't worry Inquisitor!" She shouted. Several Inquisition soldiers lurked a good distance away from the ritual, eyeing the proceedings with distrust and unease. Riona couldn't blame them.

"Please take your place in the center of the circle, Inquisitor." Cedric indicated where she was to stand. "And raise your arm, the missing one I mean, when I say." Cedric shuffled to the edge of the circle where he removed a talisman from a small metal box. Riona took her position and squashed her misgivings. This was the point of no return. She glanced the up at the shimmering scar where the Breach used to be, attempting to draw strength from the glowing testament to what she had accomplished.

"Ready, Inquisitor?" Dagna shouted from the edge.

"As I'll ever be," Riona said to herself. To Dagna she shouted, "Yes, begin!" The excitable dwarf smiled and extricated herself from the runic circles. The talisman started levitating in Cedric's hands, emitting a soft glow that spread to the runic circle. Instantly the air around her felt electrified, like a lightning spell inches from her skin.

"Raise your arm!" Cedric shouted. She did, and the crackling sensation intensified around her raised limb. The feeling started to build, arcs of energy slicing through the air. Riona could feel the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end.

"This is a bit more intense than before!" Dagna shouted about the growing din.

"We've never attempted this on anything larger than a nug before!" Cedric shouted back. "This is expected, it will stabilize!"

"What?!" Riona shouted at them.

"You'll be okay!" Dagna assured as she started leading through her notes with a look of intense concentration. "Probably!" Riona would have replied back, but the energy around her was reaching a crescendo. A whirlwind of crackling green energy was rapidly forming around her. The energy seemed to be holding her in place. She couldn't drop her arm of she tried. This was looking more and more like a terrible idea. She would have to send letters of apology to Cassandra and Vivienne, assuming she got out alive. The energy kept pressing in on her, pressing painfully into her flesh like whirling hot irons. The elf felt it digging into her flesh and beyond her flesh. Riona screamed. Then, in a blinding flash of light, the growing cyclone of energy vanished. The runic circles faded. The talisman stopped glowing and fell into Cedric's hands.

And Riona Lavellan had vanished.

Cedric and Dagna looked at each other, then at the scorched spot where the Inquisitor had been standing, then back at each other. Cedric summed up both their thoughts succinctly.

"Shit,"

The twigs of the bush tugged lightly at the fabric of her dress as she passed by. Sunlight trickled down through the branches to light her path alongside the stream. Riona knelt by the river to wash her hands. She didn't notice the eyes watching her until she looked up, the glinting eyes of a wolf sitting just across the stream in a pile of bushes. She knew that attempting to reach it would be fruitless. For she had had this dream many times before.

But something was different this time. The wolf emerged from the brush, watching her intently. Riona reached out a hand toward him, but something held her back. Then that same something started pulling her back away from the stream. She tried to resist but her feet weren't touching the ground anymore. The landscape started zipping by her faster and faster. The wolf gave chase, bounding after her like a bolt of dark lightning. The verdant forest gave way to darker and more twisted shapes. Trees twisted into jagged limbs and claws. Twisting darkness became trees. The only constant Riona could see in this shifting medley was the wolf, still chasing her, still with eyes only for her, barking frantically.

The trees and twisting shapes gave way to barren plains of black ice. Riona was accelerating faster and faster. The wolf was falling farther and farther behind. When it was but a speck on the horizon, a massive bolt of light pierced the sky, sending cracks through the fabric of the sky itself. Simultaneously, an agonizing sensation shot through every nerve in Riona's body. She let out a wordless cry. Then everything went dark.

"Ugh" When awareness finally returned to Riona, her head was pounding as if an Ogre had started slamming her into the ground. Opening her eyes, she quickly figured she was inside some kind of tent, wrapped in furs and warmed by a central fire pit. She wasn't dead then, though she still felt off. The Inquisition soldiers must have carried her to some shelter. That much was a relief, but it wasn't her most pressing concern.

Did it work?

With some effort Riona extricated her left arm from the furs and let out a cry of joy as she wiggled five fingers in the firelight. It worked, her arm was back! She could kiss Dagna she was so happy! But wait, did her hand seem smaller than usual? Come to think of it, her voice sounded a little strange too.

"Oh, you're awake!" The new voice yanked her from her own thoughts. Riona retracted her hand as her eyes focused on the newcomer entering the tent. When the stranger stepped into the firelight, Riona realized two things: first that the stranger was a girl, barely more than a child, and second that she may have been hasty in assuming she was in Inquisition custody. The girl looked like nobody Riona had ever met. Her skin was dark, but she didn't look Rivaini and a pair of bright kind cerulean eyes looked down at her curiously. The new girl raised her hands in a placating gesture. "It's okay, you're safe. My name is Katara."

"Where am I?" Again, her voice sounded strange to her own ears, just a little too high pitched.

"Our village, the Southern Water Tribe." At her blank look, Katara frowned. "The South Pole?" Riona shook her head. "So where are your parents?"

"Parents?" Riona's brow furrowed. What an odd question to ask... The pieces fit themselves together so suddenly she found herself breathless. Katara could see her concern.

"What's wrong?" She knelt down next to Riona. The elf lifted the edge of the furs and stared down at her own body. The Water Tribe appeared to have dressed her in their own garments, but the body beneath the garb clearly did not have the shape of a battle hardened slayer of dragons and would be gods. Instead, she saw the body of a child, thirteen years old at most she would guess. In a daze, she muttered, "I am going to kill Dagna."

Author's Note: I've been battling writer's block for a particular scene in my Titan of Rapture story, yes the new chapter is coming. One day I was contemplating the consequences of Dragon Age: Inquisition's Trespasser DLC and watching a new video about why Avatar: The Last Airbender was such a phenomenal series. Something clicked and I knew I wanted to start writing it.

I felt tossing a fully realized powerful adult character into the Avatar team would seriously disrupt the charm and dynamic of the trio. They run the risk of becoming more of a chaperon than a friend and companion. A kid, even one who is only outwardly a kid, stands a better chance of connecting to them as a peer. So that was my rationale for de-aging the Inquisitor. It also means she's weaker, especially since she's a warrior accustomed to relying on physical strength, which makes for a better arc as she needs to train and get more powerful, just like the other members of team Avatar.

I have developed an explanation for how precisely Riona ended up in the Avatar world and how it is connected to Thedas, which I will reveal with time, probably at the winter solstice episodes. There will also be some added Dragon Age related plotlines and threats, so this won't be a just a retread of the Avatar plotlines with an extra character.