Wow, okay, that didn't take forever or anything? Not gonna lie, I have been crazy busy for the last while. But I wanted you all to know that this is not on intentional hiatus, or abandoned, or anything of the sort.

Thank you all so much for the reviews along the way, for the love, and just for reading. I have not forgotten you, or these characters and their story.

To The End

If Aiyana had ever been particularly aware of her own apparent illegitimacy as an elf, it was now.

The visions and hushed whispers that plagued her now at random, flickering in and out in her mind like a weak lamp about to swallow the last of its oil, meant something, she knew. And sometimes she could glean meanings from the murmurs, grasp a feeling and understand it in her heart. But much of it was spoken in the language of her ancestors that she had never used, and she found herself regretting that she'd never learned the language, even if just for her own gain.

She'd peered into the tavern late the previous night, caught a glimpse of her son and the Inquisitor and their companions sharing a drink and a game around a large wooden table. She'd smiled, stayed silent, and padded without a word to her guest quarters within Skyhold's walls. And that night she'd dreamt of dragons, dreamt she could feel the surge of raw power within her very bones, even as a great ebony beast before her opened its fanged red maw and swallowed her whole.

As she woke up, the voices of a thousand elven memories trailed off, and she opened her eyes to the now-familiar sight of her borrowed room.

She sat up, feeling the stiff ache of a bad sleep in her muscles, and shoved her veritable mane of loosely curled white hair behind her shoulders, spitting a strand out of her mouth in the process. Thirsty, she plucked up a chalice of water from her bedside table, chilled it with a brief burst of frost magic, and drank a couple sips.

Not much could be accomplished by loitering, nor wallowing in the confusion of ancient voices in her mind. Aiyana set down the chalice of water and set about tugging on some loose cotton trousers and a simple tunic—men's clothes, but she was hardly any lady.

She stirred the witch magic in her blood and found her eagle form, taking flight with an easy rustle of wings and leaving her room behind.

As far as she could recall, the other witch—Morrigan—had made the inner garden into something of a favorite haunt. And she would perhaps be a good sounding board on matters of the collective elvish mind currently taking roost in Aiyana's own. Her eagle form carried her up and over, into the fortress's inner sanctum of tranquility, and she burst back into elven form and landed gracefully on the grass, startling a few Chantry sisters in the process.

...and the Inquisitor.

Ah.

The girl had her dark red hair pulled tight behind her head today, a style that did little to conceal the frequent severity of her expression. She was tending to a plant, strangely enough, a task Aiyana assumed nobility would assign a gardener to do. But there she knelt, her knees pressed into the wet dirt, wrist deep in what appeared to be a rare bush of royal elfroot.

Nanyehi startled just a touch, and glanced up with a quiet gaze as green-blue as a polished aquamarine.

"Right. Fortunate. I needed to speak to you," she said, lifting from her knees and making little attempt to brush the dirt off her breeches.

Aiyana smiled cautiously. "And you did a fine job of it just now."

"You make the same petty jokes as my brother," said the Inquisitor, her eyes crinkling fondly around the edges—Aiyana didn't miss the less-than-subtle emphasis on the word my. "But I suppose if magic carries through blood, so can a sense of humor."

"Amongst so many other less admirable things," said Aiyana. "But you wanted to say something?"

"I did. Do." Nanyehi folded thin arms over her thin chest. "How are you, ah, feeling? With the voices?"

"Fine." Aiyana mirrored her posture. "Managing. Nothing to worry yourself over, Inquisitor. I will do nothing to place your Inquisition—" ...my son… "—in jeopardy."

"I understand and appreciate it," the Inquisitor said. "I partly wanted to...apologize for obligating you to drink from the Well of Sorrows when none of us know the repercussions, present or future. And to thank you for giving of yourself to our cause."

"I wouldn't care to see the world end, either, Inquisitor," Aiyana said, brushing it off. "And I wouldn't want to see my son dragged into said world's end. I've allied myself with you for those purposes. And sometimes alliances take sacrifices, on both sides. It works such a way in the animal world as well as the civilized one."

"We want the same things," Nanyehi said. "Even so…"

She was interrupted, by a voice tinged with an Orlesian accent and more than a touch of concern.

"Inquisitor!" Spymaster Leliana called, jogging over to them. "I don't know what is going on...Morrigan has gone into the eluvian."

Alarm crossed Nanyehi's face. "Why?"

"She was chasing Kieran. She looked terrified."

"Chasing him?"

Leliana paused to catch a breath. "She said he activated the mirror somehow. And then she ran into it. I have never seen Morrigan like that. You must go after her! We need her, Inquisitor."

Nanyehi frowned. "How… Does anyone else know? Does Corvis?"

"I will go find him right now. But please hurry. I do not know how long the eluvian will stay open!" With that, Leliana left them, running through the garden to the keep's mail hall.

Aiyana looked to Nanyehi. "Stay. I will go."

"Are you joking?" said Nanyehi, her voice almost a squawk. "They need me!"

"The Inquisition needs you here," Aiyana said. Her blood pulled in a strange way, urging her towards the eluvian. "Is this really the time for you to run through an unpredictable magical object when we could have war upon us at any moment?"

"I…"

"You're their leader. Their rallying force. Their inspiration. And that glowing bit on your hand is more or less your key to saving the world, isn't it?" Aiyana breathed, centering herself. "I'm the mage. I know these pockets of other dimensions, I can navigate them if I must. I can track Morrigan if I must. And that whole vat of ancient elven memory juice you made me drink might very well come in handy for something like this."

Nanyehi pursed her lips tight.

"Go, then," she finally said. "I suppose if I've entrusted you with the Well of Sorrows, then I should attempt to trust you with this."

"I will do my best," Aiyana said, as she turned and ran towards the silvery, slithering tug of the eluvian's call.

Finn had never been in a war room meeting with just about all of the Inner Circle present, before.

He actually rather liked it. It felt like a family affair. A gloomy little family affair with large-scale death and destruction looming on the horizon, but something close-knit nevertheless. Not that the sentiment probably made sense elsewhere than his own strange little mind.

"It does, somehow," said Dorian.

"Shite. Was I talking to myself again?" Finn muttered, keeping his voice under the current drone of conversation filling the room.

His lover's mouth tweaked at the side with an amused smile. "Quite. It's rather adorable, really. You get this little wrinkle between your brows and your voice does these delightful little changes in pitch. You look like you're having quite the animated discussion with yourself."

"Let's just say neither side of the debate is bringing anything intelligent to the table," Finn said wryly.

"Oh, hush, amatus. You are not, nor ever have been, stupid. Charmingly unobservant and easily distracted by non sequiturs in your thoughts, perhaps." Dorian folded muscular arms over his chest. "I wish you wouldn't casually insult yourself."

"It's part of my shtick." Finn dragged tattooed hands through his mop of wavy white hair, attempting to shove it away from his face. "And apparently I'm such a compulsive chatterbox that talking to myself and muttering in my sleep are normal everyday parts of my routine."

Dorian rolled his eyes. "I call it effervescence."

"Since when did you tweak everything to have a positive meaning?"

"I learned it from you, dearest one."

Finn smiled warmly. "I suppose I can't help but rub off on you."

"Oh, quite thoroughly," said Dorian, his expression tweaking into something decidedly more cheeky.

It was then, as fate would have it, that Finn noticed several people gathered in the room were watching him and Dorian talk. He straightened his posture, cleared his throat for emphasis, and abruptly silenced himself.

"Chapter seventy-four of The Insane Life of Finirial Lavellan," Varric began.

"Not that again," Cassandra groaned.

"Why does it have so many chapters?" Fenris complained.

"If I might have everyone's attention?" said Josephine, with a little clearing of her throat that could only be described as cute. "We draw uncomfortably closer to what is hopefully a final confrontation with Corypheus. Might we discuss what we can bring to the coming battles? Lay it all on the table?"

"Figuratively, of course, unless you would like me to order my Wardens to physically lie down on the war table," said Warden-Commander Nalida; the Antivan mage was as fully armored as every other soul in the room, various runeworks glittering amongst the metal and textiles of his armored robes, a staff strapped to his back. Warden Mahariel and Zevran stood close behind him, looking uncomfortably small without Warden Tabris and Warden Surana within their ranks.

"That will not be necessary," Nani said. She looked around the room. "I apologize for calling this meeting with a few of us...unaccounted for. But they will be returning shortly."

Finn had noticed his mother's absence from the room a few moments prior. Now, he noticed Morrigan's. He tried not to worry about it.

Corvis shifted his weight on his feet and spoke. "I'm sure I need not reiterate that Corypheus currently exerts control over two of my ranks. But I can offer what I have remaining to the cause. Although myself and any others with Warden blood cannot be in close proximity."

"Not without offering Corypheus a chance at more free allies," Commander Cullen said. He offered a last, almost reluctant "...powerful ones."

"Or fancy new shells for his soul if the Inquisitor manages to slay his current body," Corvis said.

"Here's what we have." Nanyehi stood up a little taller, as if it helped her seem a tad more imposing. "The free mages are still under our command. That's a significant magical force. I would suggest keeping Lady Vivienne and Commander Helaine at the forefront of that force. And I do not want mages that don't have barriers scattered amuck on the battlefield being smashed about on the front lines. Keep them in a fortified position where they can freely cast."

Vivienne—who stood rather taller than everyone else thanks to her pristine Orlesian boots and the razor sharpness of her posture—smiled mildly. "But of course, darling."

"The same applies to archers and ranged combatants. Varric, Sera, anyone proficient with a bow or crossbow, keep your distance and keep your cover. I want warriors and anyone skilled with hand-to-hand combat to be the bulk of the force," Nanyehi continued. "And those are unfortunately in shortage at the moment…?"

"Unfortunately," said Cullen. "They are but a few days out."

"You have Fenris and I," River Hawke said, her fingers brushing a belt stuffed full of thin throwing knives around her hips. The elven warrior stood quietly at her side, white markings on his skin pulsing ever-so-faintly with the current of lyrium within them. "Cassandra. The Iron Bull and his Chargers. Whatever remains of the troops we left here to guard the fortress, including Commander Cullen. We can muster something to hold the core of the battlefield."

"So we either wait for the full bulk of the troops, or make do with what we have." Nanyehi splayed her thin, pale hands on the sturdy wood of the war table. "We will face the last of Corypheus's troops, very likely. But most critical is facing Corypheus himself—which may require the use of my Anchor to counteract the orb he carries—and that black dragon that guards him."

"That seems to be the pressing issue," Dorian said.

"Some of us have bested dragons before," Corvis said. "And of a notably higher caliber."

Finn couldn't help but recall being trapped in Hakkon's immense jaws, plummeting towards a watery death, nearly being crushed by its bulk when they both broke the surface of the sea and sank to the bottom. The memories had a certain exhilarating quality, he supposed, but they certainly were not his fondest.

"I think our most urgent objective is to find Corypheus before he comes to us." Cullen's eyes narrowed in an expression of tension. "If we even have the time to do so before our armies arrive back from the Arbor Wilds."

Leliana shook her head. "We have been looking for his base since all this began, with no success. My spies cannot keep eyes on him or his dragon."

Cullen scoffed in frustration. "That thing must come and go from somewhere."

"Dragons may be large, but they're wild beasts all the same," said Shesi; Finn almost couldn't see his tiny Warden friend next to Zevran. "They will have lairs, secluded spots they can retreat to when they choose not to engage a threat. Even this one."

"Would it not be chained and bound in whichever place Corypheus uses to retreat and lick his wounds?" Nanyehi asked. "Or it is under some variety of mind control? Enough to keep it peaceful?"

"We don't know."

"The amount we do know is frustratingly little," Leliana said.

"What about the Deep Roads?" Josephine offered, propping her clipboard on her hip.

"She has a point," Corvis said. "We were able to muster a large force from Orzammar when the Fifth Blight came a decade ago. They will march to the surface if the threat is dire enough, if their treaties compel them to."

"It would take time," Josephine said, "but we could once again send word to Orzammar—"

A great many things happened suddenly and all at once. A dragon's roar—uncomfortably close—shook the walls of the war room as if they were formed of parchment rather than stone, a war drum blared desperately from the fortress walls outside, several mages in the room snapped barriers around the lot of them inside, and Nanyehi let out a choked scream of pain as the iridescent green Anchor in her left palm crackled with energy and shot tendrils of glowing magic up her arm.

Finn darted to his sister's side, skirting in between a suddenly alarmed Cassandra and Josephine to reach her. Solas had acted just as fast; he took Nanyehi's stiffened left arm in both of his and muttered something, magic misting from his hands, trying to soothe the Anchor's burn.

"He is here!" Cassandra cried.

"Here in Skyhold?!" Finn peered through the clear blue film of the barrier surrounding them, through the windows.

Even through the slight obscuration of their rippling shield, he still felt an earth-shaking pulse of magic tear through the air with a boom, saw green light pour through the windows. Someone screamed outside. Many someones.

Curses and "Maker, please, save us" and "this cannot be happening" rippled through the room. The hair at the back of Finn's neck stood on end.

He locked eyes with Solas for a moment, then found Dorian's scared gaze across the war table.

"Everyone...everyone get outside," Nani hissed through gritted teeth. "He's brought the fight to us."