Keeping Faith
Title: Keeping Faith
Fandom: Dragon Age
Rating: PG-13
Characters: M!Cousland, the Guardian
Summary: The Guardian watches and waits. Generations of pilgrims have come to seek the ashes. Many more will depart, having failed. He sees but through a glass darkly; the hand of the Maker is often beyond his ken. Patience, he was counselled. And so he waits.
Note: I don’t know what came over me for this one. I really don’t. I guess I just needed something utterly positive and something almost…non-cynical in the simplicity and clarity of it’s belief? Done for DAO challenge: waiting. I found it interesting that technically, Andraste’s tomb would say quite something for a case for the Maker’s existence, although how much has been warped by the Chantry is questionable. But hey, even an old cynical agnostic needs to believe sometimes.
-
The centuries stir, collected dust and memories down the aged hallways of the abandoned temple, stirring with footfall in the passageway. The Guardian waits.
It is his to endure. He appreciates the enormity of his task a little better now, but the Maker does not give burdens that a man cannot bear and the weight of the centuries is a small price to pay for standing eternally vigilant against those who would defile Andraste’s tomb. Pilgrims come and go; age and the oblivion of death eventually swallow the last of the memories of Andraste’s final resting place. Memory endures only as long as beings do, and a little longer, and it is not long before their children and children’s children silence all last whispers of where Andraste rests, to protect her remains from the vengeance of Tevinter.
Aegis, he was once named. Havard the Aegis, and he remembers the betrayal of his oldest and dearest friend with the pain of a wound bleeding afresh. He remembers, too, being left for dead, and struggling to his feet with the last of his strength that remains. The taste of blood in his mouth. The ache in his limbs, the agony where the Tevinter blade sliced deep into flesh, muscle and bone.
He remembers kneeling in the rain, choked sobs rising in his throat, fingers clawing desperately among her ashes. It is too late. He is too late. He remembers the vision, like a shiver of song, a brief tremor of bliss and a light trill of joy.
Now he watches over her final resting place. It is not given to him to know when or what; he can only vaguely understand how it will end. When the last of Tevinter crumbles. When the signs come. The signs he awaits, he understands, are the Maker’s way of revealing his will. And perhaps he doesn’t understand at all.
In the end, his task is the same and he who was once called Aegis, the Guardian, waits. He endures.
He keeps faith.
-
The centuries stir, collected dust and memories down the aged hallways of the abandoned temple, stirring with footfall in the passageway. The Guardian waits.
He watches as the ages work slowly on the structure around him. As grand stone carvings are slowly weathered by snow and rain, carvings growing faint and indistinguishable. And still he waits. He watches as tomb becomes shrine, and sees the new glory wrought by the hand of the mountain itself.
He watches as the high dragon settles into the mountainside around the ruined temple, watches as his children’s children’s children, descended through the centuries, gather to witness and marvel at the creature. He watches as some of the brave and foolish attempt to slay her, watches as they are slain by fang and flame. He does not move to help them. He has his task, and he does not feel the desire to interfere in the ways of the world he has long left behind. He should have been dead centuries ago. He has long surrendered everything in the service of Andraste and the Maker. It is necessary. Duty is all that he is now, all that he has left. His hand moves to the great maul he carries, but he does not raise it against them, not even when in their pride, they turn to worshipping the creature, drinking her blood, proclaiming her the Maker’s Beloved returned in glorious form.
He watches as the villagers send men to defile Andraste’s final resting place. He does not stop them. He is the last guardian, the last defender of Andraste’s tomb. The Gauntlet tests what he cannot, and it has been given to him to see a little more deeply into the hearts of men. The great maul tastes blood for the first time in centuries. Others are slain by the guardians, the ash wraiths that defend the last passage to Andraste’s ashes.
It does not matter, the shape of the world today, the new fire that burns like the hot blood of the dragon in they who were once charged with honouring Andraste and protecting her remains.
Some have fallen, but he who was once named Aegis, he who once called the Traitor ‘Friend’ - he waits. He endures. This is his task, and no matter how much Aegis may have despaired, the Guardian keeps faith.
It is not in his nature to be faithless.
-
The centuries stir, collected dust and memories down the aged hallways of the abandoned temple, stirring with footfall in the passageway. The Guardian waits.
He feels the first stirrings of - curiosity? Hope? - when he stares into the wolf-grey eyes of the Grey Warden, still splattered in the blood of the high dragon, hair half-burned off his head, skin pink where the lingering traces of healing magic have sunk into the burns of dragonfire, soothing them, healing them. I name you Aegis, friend, Maferath whispers in his head, a memory of a bright day still fresh through the intervening millenia. The land of the Alamarri, now named Ferelden.
A sign, his heart breathes. A youth with blood as old as the land itself. He still does not know when, or what or how - it is not given to him to see the hand of the Maker but distantly. It is a clear illuminating understanding, as if in a shaft of sunlight that he sees the Warden and he knows only that he is.
Cousland, the lad is named. The Guardian reveals nothing of this understanding, this knowledge that has been given to him, and only to him.
Even signs must be tested.
-
The youth wins through the shades, through the reflections and passes through the flames.
“Well done, pilgrim,” The Guardian says, quietly. The youth pauses, and blinks, narrowing grey eyes at him. None of his companions appear to notice their leader hesitating on the way to where the urn rests on a plinth at the end of the hall.
“How long have you been here?” he wants to know.
“I have been here since Andraste was brought here to rest, close to the mountains, even closer to the eye of the Maker who loved her. I will remain until the Tevinter Imperium is dust and rubble.”
“The Tevinter Imperium has been mostly destroyed,” the boy says quietly. “It’s a small empire, constantly at war with the qunari.”
“Then my task is not yet ended.”
“Duty,” Cousland states.
“Duty,” The Guardian agrees. “We do what we must.”
Cousland bows his head in a nod, and a gesture of respect. “It’s a pity my errand is urgent,” he says. “I would have wished to tarry here. There’s so much…the place is…I had my doubts,” he says instead. “No longer.”
“Perhaps one day, you shall return,” The Guardian says. Already, he wonders if that reveals a little more than he should. There is an answering conviction, an answering stirring within his breast when he glances into the eyes of the Cousland lad. “When your task is complete, Grey Warden.”
“Aye,” Cousland says, slipping easily into the ancient dialect. “It would please me greatly.”
He breaks away, almost at once, remembering the task that has set his feet on the path of the shrine. He turns and follows his companions towards the Urn, pauses before the pedestal and genuflects. No one breaks the awed silence in the great hall, though the red-haired girl kneels and her lips move as she murmurs. The elderly mage leans on her staff and gets to her knees only with difficulty. The Guardian’s eyes see the glow of the spirit within. Ah, he breathes, you were the last among us…
Hessarian is silent. He does not respond. Perhaps it is his own reproach, which led him to the elderly mage. The Guardian does not know. It is not his to know what another of the brethren has chosen.
The templar, the Warden who wishes for death, edged with regret, the future King whispers something. Cousland claps a hand to his fellow Warden’s shoulder, says something quietly so it doesn’t carry in the grand vaulted hall. He rises to his feet and moves for the urn, taking a pinch of the ashes and slipping it into a battered leather pouch. Fitting, the Guardian thinks.
He slips into the shadows, moving through his Gauntlet to stand where he always has, defending the entrance of Andraste’s tomb. Once, he stood at the very entrance of the tunnel network, the great chamber carved with scenes from Andraste’s life. Today, he guards only the entrance of the very temple itself.
Time has taught them all humility.
They leave: the Grey Warden to his destiny, and the Guardian to his post. Perhaps this is the sign he has waited for for so long, the beginning of the end, but until then, he is the Guardian who once was Havard, named Aegis.
He has waited millenia, will wait even longer still.
In the end, his task is still the same.
His choice is still the same.
-
The centuries stir, collected dust and memories down the aged hallways of the abandoned temple, stirring with footfall in the passageway. The Guardian waits.
It has not been that long at all since the last time. The Cousland boy is not older, but his bearing is different. Wearier. He sports a long scar across his nose, slicing along the sharp lines of his cheek. The archdemon, the Guardian knows.
The time is near now, very near.
But he is still the Guardian, and it is still given to him to see a little deeper into the hearts of men. And so he asks, as the knowledge granted by the Maker’s hand compels, as he is bidden, “Do you regret it?”
“No,” Cousland says, steadily. “Never.” He never asks of who, of what the Guardian speaks of. Perhaps he is another more clear-sighted than he lets on, this Warden with the deep-set ice-grey eyes and a sad countenance. “Come now, my task is completed and I have returned to the temple to abide for a time.”
“The temple is always open to pilgrims come to pay their respect.”
Cousland makes to step through the Gauntlet but the Guardian catches him by the arm and leads him by the secret ways of the temple’s keepers. This should not be, and yet it is right and he knows it, though he does not yet know why.
It is beyond his ken to know much of the workings of the Maker’s hand, and yet the Maker’s hand has led them all to this moment, preserved this boy to make his final journey towards the shrine.
Havard, Aegis, Guardian - he has always kept faith. He feels faith now, hammering in his breast, telling him of what he knows, and telling him to trust where knowledge fails him.
Cousland walks through the fires without hesitation, and this time, when he emerges, he looks at peace, resolute, determined - and yet less grim. Less weary. He pulls his light tunic on again, and shrugs on the leather jerkin. The blade he bears in hand and draws. He kneels for a moment before the plinth, naked sword borne across outstretched palms. A supplication, perhaps. A prayer.
Perhaps an offering, a sign.
He lays the sword on the ground, finally. “I will never wield it again,” Cousland says quietly. “Perhaps it should not please me so much. But it does.”
He meets the Guardian’s eyes, grey staring into grey, the same bright, clear grey of the skies above the mountain, now that the Blight-dark is gone.
“Abide here for a time,” the Guardian says. “This is a sanctuary as much as a temple, a place of rest and healing.”
“A place of faith,” Cousland repeats, softly. Almost wonderingly. “A place of peace.” He unstraps the shield from his back, the smooth yew scarred by the mighty blow that tore deep into Havard’s side from so long ago. “I won’t need this either.”
The Guardian reaches out in spite of himself, fingers brushing where the wood split from the terrible blow. This was once his, he remembers. This was once his shield, come through the centuries scarred but still intact. Wielded by the Warden, he realises, another in a long line of warriors since he first set it aside, since he first devoted himself to the task set him by Andraste herself and the Maker.
“No,” he agrees. “You will not.”
He sets it down, next to the sword. “Come,” he says. His wait is almost at an end, and he understands now, understands with the sureness of the weight of the years he has borne, with the bright, steady illumination of sunlight when a curtain is pulled back, revealing what was previously hidden in a burst of clarity.
Old and new, ancestor and descendent, the first and the last, the Guardian and the Warden walk, side by side, out through the corridors, out onto the clean snow of the mountainside.
-
Fandom: Dragon Age
Rating: PG-13
Characters: M!Cousland, the Guardian
Summary: The Guardian watches and waits. Generations of pilgrims have come to seek the ashes. Many more will depart, having failed. He sees but through a glass darkly; the hand of the Maker is often beyond his ken. Patience, he was counselled. And so he waits.
Note: I don’t know what came over me for this one. I really don’t. I guess I just needed something utterly positive and something almost…non-cynical in the simplicity and clarity of it’s belief? Done for DAO challenge: waiting. I found it interesting that technically, Andraste’s tomb would say quite something for a case for the Maker’s existence, although how much has been warped by the Chantry is questionable. But hey, even an old cynical agnostic needs to believe sometimes.
-
The centuries stir, collected dust and memories down the aged hallways of the abandoned temple, stirring with footfall in the passageway. The Guardian waits.
It is his to endure. He appreciates the enormity of his task a little better now, but the Maker does not give burdens that a man cannot bear and the weight of the centuries is a small price to pay for standing eternally vigilant against those who would defile Andraste’s tomb. Pilgrims come and go; age and the oblivion of death eventually swallow the last of the memories of Andraste’s final resting place. Memory endures only as long as beings do, and a little longer, and it is not long before their children and children’s children silence all last whispers of where Andraste rests, to protect her remains from the vengeance of Tevinter.
Aegis, he was once named. Havard the Aegis, and he remembers the betrayal of his oldest and dearest friend with the pain of a wound bleeding afresh. He remembers, too, being left for dead, and struggling to his feet with the last of his strength that remains. The taste of blood in his mouth. The ache in his limbs, the agony where the Tevinter blade sliced deep into flesh, muscle and bone.
He remembers kneeling in the rain, choked sobs rising in his throat, fingers clawing desperately among her ashes. It is too late. He is too late. He remembers the vision, like a shiver of song, a brief tremor of bliss and a light trill of joy.
Now he watches over her final resting place. It is not given to him to know when or what; he can only vaguely understand how it will end. When the last of Tevinter crumbles. When the signs come. The signs he awaits, he understands, are the Maker’s way of revealing his will. And perhaps he doesn’t understand at all.
In the end, his task is the same and he who was once called Aegis, the Guardian, waits. He endures.
He keeps faith.
-
The centuries stir, collected dust and memories down the aged hallways of the abandoned temple, stirring with footfall in the passageway. The Guardian waits.
He watches as the ages work slowly on the structure around him. As grand stone carvings are slowly weathered by snow and rain, carvings growing faint and indistinguishable. And still he waits. He watches as tomb becomes shrine, and sees the new glory wrought by the hand of the mountain itself.
He watches as the high dragon settles into the mountainside around the ruined temple, watches as his children’s children’s children, descended through the centuries, gather to witness and marvel at the creature. He watches as some of the brave and foolish attempt to slay her, watches as they are slain by fang and flame. He does not move to help them. He has his task, and he does not feel the desire to interfere in the ways of the world he has long left behind. He should have been dead centuries ago. He has long surrendered everything in the service of Andraste and the Maker. It is necessary. Duty is all that he is now, all that he has left. His hand moves to the great maul he carries, but he does not raise it against them, not even when in their pride, they turn to worshipping the creature, drinking her blood, proclaiming her the Maker’s Beloved returned in glorious form.
He watches as the villagers send men to defile Andraste’s final resting place. He does not stop them. He is the last guardian, the last defender of Andraste’s tomb. The Gauntlet tests what he cannot, and it has been given to him to see a little more deeply into the hearts of men. The great maul tastes blood for the first time in centuries. Others are slain by the guardians, the ash wraiths that defend the last passage to Andraste’s ashes.
It does not matter, the shape of the world today, the new fire that burns like the hot blood of the dragon in they who were once charged with honouring Andraste and protecting her remains.
Some have fallen, but he who was once named Aegis, he who once called the Traitor ‘Friend’ - he waits. He endures. This is his task, and no matter how much Aegis may have despaired, the Guardian keeps faith.
It is not in his nature to be faithless.
-
The centuries stir, collected dust and memories down the aged hallways of the abandoned temple, stirring with footfall in the passageway. The Guardian waits.
He feels the first stirrings of - curiosity? Hope? - when he stares into the wolf-grey eyes of the Grey Warden, still splattered in the blood of the high dragon, hair half-burned off his head, skin pink where the lingering traces of healing magic have sunk into the burns of dragonfire, soothing them, healing them. I name you Aegis, friend, Maferath whispers in his head, a memory of a bright day still fresh through the intervening millenia. The land of the Alamarri, now named Ferelden.
A sign, his heart breathes. A youth with blood as old as the land itself. He still does not know when, or what or how - it is not given to him to see the hand of the Maker but distantly. It is a clear illuminating understanding, as if in a shaft of sunlight that he sees the Warden and he knows only that he is.
Cousland, the lad is named. The Guardian reveals nothing of this understanding, this knowledge that has been given to him, and only to him.
Even signs must be tested.
-
The youth wins through the shades, through the reflections and passes through the flames.
“Well done, pilgrim,” The Guardian says, quietly. The youth pauses, and blinks, narrowing grey eyes at him. None of his companions appear to notice their leader hesitating on the way to where the urn rests on a plinth at the end of the hall.
“How long have you been here?” he wants to know.
“I have been here since Andraste was brought here to rest, close to the mountains, even closer to the eye of the Maker who loved her. I will remain until the Tevinter Imperium is dust and rubble.”
“The Tevinter Imperium has been mostly destroyed,” the boy says quietly. “It’s a small empire, constantly at war with the qunari.”
“Then my task is not yet ended.”
“Duty,” Cousland states.
“Duty,” The Guardian agrees. “We do what we must.”
Cousland bows his head in a nod, and a gesture of respect. “It’s a pity my errand is urgent,” he says. “I would have wished to tarry here. There’s so much…the place is…I had my doubts,” he says instead. “No longer.”
“Perhaps one day, you shall return,” The Guardian says. Already, he wonders if that reveals a little more than he should. There is an answering conviction, an answering stirring within his breast when he glances into the eyes of the Cousland lad. “When your task is complete, Grey Warden.”
“Aye,” Cousland says, slipping easily into the ancient dialect. “It would please me greatly.”
He breaks away, almost at once, remembering the task that has set his feet on the path of the shrine. He turns and follows his companions towards the Urn, pauses before the pedestal and genuflects. No one breaks the awed silence in the great hall, though the red-haired girl kneels and her lips move as she murmurs. The elderly mage leans on her staff and gets to her knees only with difficulty. The Guardian’s eyes see the glow of the spirit within. Ah, he breathes, you were the last among us…
Hessarian is silent. He does not respond. Perhaps it is his own reproach, which led him to the elderly mage. The Guardian does not know. It is not his to know what another of the brethren has chosen.
The templar, the Warden who wishes for death, edged with regret, the future King whispers something. Cousland claps a hand to his fellow Warden’s shoulder, says something quietly so it doesn’t carry in the grand vaulted hall. He rises to his feet and moves for the urn, taking a pinch of the ashes and slipping it into a battered leather pouch. Fitting, the Guardian thinks.
He slips into the shadows, moving through his Gauntlet to stand where he always has, defending the entrance of Andraste’s tomb. Once, he stood at the very entrance of the tunnel network, the great chamber carved with scenes from Andraste’s life. Today, he guards only the entrance of the very temple itself.
Time has taught them all humility.
They leave: the Grey Warden to his destiny, and the Guardian to his post. Perhaps this is the sign he has waited for for so long, the beginning of the end, but until then, he is the Guardian who once was Havard, named Aegis.
He has waited millenia, will wait even longer still.
In the end, his task is still the same.
His choice is still the same.
-
The centuries stir, collected dust and memories down the aged hallways of the abandoned temple, stirring with footfall in the passageway. The Guardian waits.
It has not been that long at all since the last time. The Cousland boy is not older, but his bearing is different. Wearier. He sports a long scar across his nose, slicing along the sharp lines of his cheek. The archdemon, the Guardian knows.
The time is near now, very near.
But he is still the Guardian, and it is still given to him to see a little deeper into the hearts of men. And so he asks, as the knowledge granted by the Maker’s hand compels, as he is bidden, “Do you regret it?”
“No,” Cousland says, steadily. “Never.” He never asks of who, of what the Guardian speaks of. Perhaps he is another more clear-sighted than he lets on, this Warden with the deep-set ice-grey eyes and a sad countenance. “Come now, my task is completed and I have returned to the temple to abide for a time.”
“The temple is always open to pilgrims come to pay their respect.”
Cousland makes to step through the Gauntlet but the Guardian catches him by the arm and leads him by the secret ways of the temple’s keepers. This should not be, and yet it is right and he knows it, though he does not yet know why.
It is beyond his ken to know much of the workings of the Maker’s hand, and yet the Maker’s hand has led them all to this moment, preserved this boy to make his final journey towards the shrine.
Havard, Aegis, Guardian - he has always kept faith. He feels faith now, hammering in his breast, telling him of what he knows, and telling him to trust where knowledge fails him.
Cousland walks through the fires without hesitation, and this time, when he emerges, he looks at peace, resolute, determined - and yet less grim. Less weary. He pulls his light tunic on again, and shrugs on the leather jerkin. The blade he bears in hand and draws. He kneels for a moment before the plinth, naked sword borne across outstretched palms. A supplication, perhaps. A prayer.
Perhaps an offering, a sign.
He lays the sword on the ground, finally. “I will never wield it again,” Cousland says quietly. “Perhaps it should not please me so much. But it does.”
He meets the Guardian’s eyes, grey staring into grey, the same bright, clear grey of the skies above the mountain, now that the Blight-dark is gone.
“Abide here for a time,” the Guardian says. “This is a sanctuary as much as a temple, a place of rest and healing.”
“A place of faith,” Cousland repeats, softly. Almost wonderingly. “A place of peace.” He unstraps the shield from his back, the smooth yew scarred by the mighty blow that tore deep into Havard’s side from so long ago. “I won’t need this either.”
The Guardian reaches out in spite of himself, fingers brushing where the wood split from the terrible blow. This was once his, he remembers. This was once his shield, come through the centuries scarred but still intact. Wielded by the Warden, he realises, another in a long line of warriors since he first set it aside, since he first devoted himself to the task set him by Andraste herself and the Maker.
“No,” he agrees. “You will not.”
He sets it down, next to the sword. “Come,” he says. His wait is almost at an end, and he understands now, understands with the sureness of the weight of the years he has borne, with the bright, steady illumination of sunlight when a curtain is pulled back, revealing what was previously hidden in a burst of clarity.
Old and new, ancestor and descendent, the first and the last, the Guardian and the Warden walk, side by side, out through the corridors, out onto the clean snow of the mountainside.
-