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He fell.
Finally, he fell.
The earth did not shake when he did. The skies did not rain crimson nor did a great storm gather to thrash and thunder. He simply slumped to his knees, defeated. Bloodied, laid-bare, shaking — oceans of blood and rotting bodies left in his wake. Falon’Din, mocked as ‘the Merciful One’ by the enemies he had slain, collapsed on the floor of his temple no different to a mortal human. It had taken more than a mortal man to reduce him to such an embarrassing display, however. Mythal loomed above him, chest heaving, with her silver-sharp blade digging into his throat. Elgar’nan, oddly reluctant to participate in the whole affair despite his own bloodlust mirroring the fallen Falon’Din, stood beside her menacingly — his weapon sheathed, however. Behind them, the other members of the Evanuris watched on silently, poised to strike if necessary, as Falon’Din’s face morphed into a bloody smile.
“Would you destroy me?” He goaded. His voice, cold and cruel, echoed off the high walls.
“You,” Mythal hissed, her patience thinned so much cracks of wrath glowed from within her like magma. “You encroach beyond your lands, threaten my people!”
His gleeful expression did not wane at her words, madness swirling in his dark eyes. “Such is my nature. Even with my earth-woven flesh I am still a spirit of Foresight. In order to see what might threaten us, threaten our rule, I have no choice but to feed on fresh flock.”
“The only threat to us is our own corruption and you reek of Vanity!”
“And you of Vengence. Do you dare strike me down, Mythal? Will you finally rid yourself of your cloak of Benevolence?”
“We are more than what we were,” Mythal answered in a snarl. “We must be more than what we were.”
Falon’Din chuckled, the cracked sound of it like walking bare-foot on shattered glass. “Then I have not wronged you. You—”
Mythal’s blade sliced through flesh cleanly and a sea of red poured down Falon’Din’s exposed, pale body. It pooled in a dark puddle around him, his semi-detached head bouncing as he howled in shock. As soon as she had marked him, Mythal wailed and a white light pulsed in her palm. Tendons wriggled about like fat crimson-coloured worms as they, not so painlessly, sowed the severed head of Falon’Din back onto his neck without so much as a faint scar being left as evidence of the ghastly wound. Mythal did not lower her blade despite the anguish pouring from her eyes.
“You have made your point,” Elgar’nan boomed beside her. His large hand hovered above her gleaming, quaking sword. “He is aware it would be foolhardy to massacre your people again. Do not set a dangerous precedent lightly.”
Mythal shook her head defiantly. “Pride outweighs reason and logic. I see it — corruption consumes him. I invoke a blood oath.”
Falon’Din casually, as if every slight motion did not puncture him with torment, raised his arms in mock prayer to her. “My blood is spilled, my flesh mutilated and my followers scattered. Compel me, if you must.”
Mythal gritted her teeth. Behind her, behind the gathered Evanuris, wolf eyes observed her curiously. She felt them on her, felt how her confidant overflowed with concern for her, and it soothed her vengeful heart. From her side Mythal slowly produced a dagger, its cobalt shine pulsing, and held it steady in her hand despite being acutely aware of the fear the weapon produced in her brethren.
“I do not compel you,” she declared. The dagger clattered to the floor and gorged on the blood staining the tiles. “If your putrid shadow stretches over my lands again I will shatter you.”
For the first time since the war began, Falon’Din’s expression fell as he watched his blood become one with the cerulean dagger. He swallowed thickly, head cocked. A sadness flickered within him but was snuffed out hastily with a tight, defiant smile.
“I am shattered already. Wisdom eludes me.”
“Then search deep within yourself and find it,” Mythal rebuked. When she returned the blood-soaked dagger to its sheathe, her glassy glare was one of mourning. “I do not enjoy watching my friend become a monster.”
With that the hall emptied, its invaders begrudgingly satisfied judgement had been passed. Falon’Din, upon finding himself seemingly alone, wept. There he cried, curled up in a pool of his own thickening blood, until a shadowed hand caressed his shoulder. He flinched, expecting another punishment. Instead, a laugh echoed in the rot-filled air.
“I was not convinced she would be deceived. You have done well, my brother.” Again, he flinched. “Do you regret your role in this so soon?”
“I do not. I simply hurt. We have lived too long in flesh-bodies,” Dirthamen murmured. “If even Mythal is too blinded to perceive our differences…”
“Is that why you took my place?” His twin in image only, scoffed. “To quell your paranoia? To learn the location of the Wolf’s Lyrium Dagger? Or simply to witness first hand Mythal act in a way befitting of her impending assassination?”
Dirthamen groaned. With great effort, he heaved himself into sitting upright. Curls as white as mountain tops tumbled down his face, the ends sticky with a sickly shade of pink. “You provoked her,” he stated bluntly. “She had no choice but to act as she did. It does not confirm she will betray us as you foresaw.”
“To be so bold as to bloody a god in his own temple? To force peace through a blood oath and thus tying your essence, instead of mine, to that cursed blade? Have you gone mad?”
“Have you?” Dirthamen countered softly, so used to his brethren’s venemous words. “For whatever I am, you must be too.”
“Careful how you speak,” Falon’Din growled. He prowled around his fallen, broken twin. “I take your loyalty to heart but do not think it protects you from my wrath.”
“Loyalty,” Dirthamen echoed, musing thoughtfully. “A quaint interpretation. Does a parasite consider itself loyal, do you think?”
Falon’Din snorted. “You think yourself a parasite?”
Dirthamen pondered, swaying a little as crimson continued to seep out of his untouched wounds. “I am Learning. Learning requires a desire to foresee — to learn is to yearn for knowledge so that one might reshape events into better outcomes. To put it simply, what you see I inevitably must consume, catalogue and assess.”
“So this was you assessing,” Falon’Din inferred, not bothering to hide his intrigue. He moved to reclaim his oak staff, the one that had slipped from Dirthamen’s grasp not long before he fell. “And what, pray tell, is your conclusion?”
Dirthamen strained his neck to look upon Falon’Din directly. The sadness he managed to contain before gushed out of him in a shuddering gasp, his pupils reduced to pinpricks.
“Our destruction,” he lamented weakly. “If not by Mythal’s hand…then by our own.”
“What is this a depiction of?” Ewan asked curiously.
Indeed, the human mage had taken great interest in the shrines and arts that adorned the inner chambers of Mythal’s Temple. He pushed a few copper strands out of his eyes. He was dishevelled from the ordeal it took to even enter the ancient temple let alone from solving the puzzles contained within to ward away the less knowledgeable, and appeared unsettled by its eyes being depicted darker than any night the man had experienced in his short, sheltered life.
“Falon’Din,” Morrigan answered. Solas bristled behind her, not at all thrilled to be suffering more of her flawed knowledge. “Overseer of funerals and guide to the elven undead. I have heard the Dalish invoke him on their deathbed, or before quests from which they expect no return.”
“People cling to whatever gives them hope, I suppose.”
“Perhaps that’s why the Dalish sometimes refer to Falon’Din as ‘the Merciful One’.” Solas scoffed with disbelief. Evidently, not quietly enough as the witch whipped around to shoot him a glare. “Have something to add, do you?”
“I do not believe they sing songs about Falon’Din’s vanity, is all.”
“Go ahead,” Ewan encouraged. “You must have another legend for us.”
Solas stared at the visage of the Ancient Elvhen god, his thoughts indecipherable despite the crystal clear sneer marking his face. “It is said Falon’Din’s appetite for adulation was so great, he began wars to amass more worshippers. The blood of those who wouldn’t bow low filled lakes as wide as oceans. Mythal rallied the gods once the shadow of Falon’Din’s hunger stretched across her own people. It was almost too late. Falon’Din only surrendered when his brethren bloodied him in his own temple.”
Ewan scrunched his nose, turning away from it in disgust. “I’m surprised they let such a monster live.”
“One does not lightly kill a god, Inquisitor. Even in legend.”