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l8rose · 11 months

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Smith From Another Land

Chapter 78

Ara was truly getting sick of the color blue. Now it had become a really dark shade of blue and she knew she was unconscious. It was just the same as every other dream that had to deal with the otherworldly forces in Thedas.

It just looked like a dark night that was illuminated by little dots of light that sparkled in the distance. Even the lights had a faint blueness about them.

“Like stars.” Ara mumbled as she stared at them, remembering what had been said about the lyrium in the cavern earlier.

She felt a strange sense of relief as she just stood there in the dark. The feeling on her skin was gone and so was the hum. Even the irritation had fled and all she felt was an overwhelming sense of calm.

Although she had the feeling the sense of calm was just because of the absence of everything else. Her irritation had fled and that was probably the best thing about being unconscious right now.

“Carried away.” Dagna’s voice echoed around her. “…didn’t… mean…”

“Are you talking about the sha-brytol, I have to point out that they killed Renn.” Ara said with a huff before turning around to see if there was any kind of person to focus on.

“No…” Dagna’s voice came again. “You… I… carried away…”

“Wait…” Ara thought about what it could have been talking about. The earlier conversation about the red lyrium had been short but now it seemed like the Titan was contradicting itself. “Are you saying you were the thing making me irritated, but you said…?”

“Red… lyrium.” Its voice turned to that of Varric. “…trick… sickness…”

Ara sighed into the darkness, but she just could not quite bring herself to feeling irritated. She just felt tired and briefly thought about just ignoring the Titan. It seemed like it would be better than trying to deal with the Titan who was having a much harder time to explain things to her then it had the last time.

It felt almost disjointed.

Like it was only giving her the barest amount of attention.

“Sickness. Kills.” The voice remained Varric’s but there was a strange sort of emotion to it that Ara just could not place. “Punishment… Sickness. Wanted to… make… better.”

Ara rolled the words around in her head before glancing up at the twinkling blue dots.

“Are you saying you made me irritated to make me come here so you could make me better? Or did you mean make something else better.”

That just made no sense to her but then, she was talking to a being who was a little beyond her comprehension. Even the Daedric Princes had made more sense than this Titan.

“No. You.” The voice responded. “You… not.. fine. You. Hurt.”

She instinctively rubbed her shoulder where she had been struck by that arrow so long ago. There had been no pain or any signs of the red lyrium after the initial injury. Yet this Titan was saying that she was still hurting from it.

“No, it doesn’t hurt.” Ara said with a frown.

“You. Hurt.” The Titan responded in Varric’s voice.

“I healed fine.” She stated flatly.

“You. Hurt.” There was clear agitation in that voice. The twinkling stars seemed to tremble with that anger.

“Okay, fine. I’m hurt.”

“Sickness. Not. Good.”

“Yep. Not good.” Ara shook her head before pinching the bridge of her nose again. “So, you’re saying you got carried away because of the red lyrium?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” That really did not answer her question, so she merely sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Even though she felt like she was thinking more clearly, she still could make no sense out of what the Titan was trying to explain to her. “What about the sha-brytol? Did you get carried away with those too?”

“Damn.” The Varric voice said before the Titan took his shape in the dark. “No… speak… from…” The image shifted again, this time to Renn. “Dwarves.”

“No speak from dwarves?” Ara questioned. “No speak from the sha-brytol?”

“Titan’s Hymn.” The image shifted to Valta. “Sha-brytol.” And then back to Varric. “No… speak.”

“Right, so they don’t speak to you, or you don’t speak to them.” Ara guessed that was what it meant.

“Exactly.” The not-Varric answered. “No. Speak. No. Option.”

“I guess that means you couldn’t stop them from attacking us?”

“No.” The image said before it shifted to Renn. “Debt.” And then it shifted more quickly again to Valta. “Dwarves. Bonded.” And then finally again into Varric. “Their life.”

Ara sighed in frustration. She had an idea what the Titan meant but this was getting old. It felt like this thing was giving her a headache every time it talked.

“Ancient. Thousands of years.” Varric’s image and voice had shifted again, becoming Valta.

“Got it.” Ara said with another sigh. “They’ve felt indebted to you for a very long time. All the while, they’re sucking on lyrium and wearing lyrium armor. Thought that stuff was bad.”

“Lyrium.” The not-Valta seemed to pause, and the image shimmered back to Varric. “Blood.”

“Blood?”

“Blood.” The Varric image twisted, and she had the impression the Titan was frowning. “My. Blood. Our. Blood.”

“Oh.” Ara grimaced. “This place really had a weird fetish for blood.”

There was an almost confused feeling in the calmness, but it quickly passed.

“Ugh… that means they fed me your blood.” Ara continued.

“Bad. Bad. For…” The image had changed to Dagna for a moment before returning to Varric. “Sky.” And then it jumped back to Valta. “Titan.”

Each time it spoke, there was a definite note of disgust and concern in the voice. Like the Titan was now worried for her.

“Sky Titan?”

“Dragon.” It flicked back to Varric. “Sky.” And then back once more to Valta. “Titan.”

Ara stared blankly at the not-Valta even as the glowing dots around her suddenly took on the shape that could only be called a dragon. Even if it looked like a constellation, there was no mistaking the form.

“Are you saying dragons are the same as the Titans, just… in the sky?” That thought seemed hilarious as she certainly could not picture Alduin flying through the sky and shaping the world as he went. Not because he was not strong enough but because she knew he simply would not care enough about anything other than himself. “That I’m a Sky Titan?”

“Yes.”

Ara frowned as she stared at the image of a dragon but the Titan began to speak again before she had the chance to ask anything else.

“Exist.” The image shifted to Dagna and the voice changed as well. “Make. Magic.”

The cogs in Ara’s head were slowly turning as she processed what it said.

“Dragons make magic?” She finally said. “So… Titans make the land and Dragons make magic?”

“Yes.” The image responded before it became Varric once more. “Words.” And then it flicked back into Dagna. “Make. Magic.”

“Oh.” Ara realized then what the Titan was trying to say. The Thu’um. By speaking in dovahzul, she was making magic. “But then… why are the dragons not…”

She had no idea if the Titan would even be able to answer but she needed to know. Even if this was not Nirn, she still felt some manner of kinship to the dragons here.

“Punishment.” The voice cut off the question. It remained looking like Dagna but it had shifted to sounding like Varric.

“The dragons were punished?” Ara frowned and felt a growing sense of irritation. “How? Why… who did it?”

“Don’t… know…” The Titan responded with Varric’s voice. “Sleep.”

“Right… you were sleeping.” She groaned.

“Yes.”

Ara sighed at the most unhelpful answer so far. She knew it was trying to give her the answers when she asked but she felt too limited by the way it was using the forms of people she knew. She was at least grateful to know about what had happened to the dragons even if the specifics were still unknown.

It did make her think of the others who had come through with Magnus.

“So… what happened to the other Titans?” Ara prompted, hoping that she could at least get that question answered.

“We. Were. Made.” The Varric answered and the form finally shifted to his.

Those stars that had taken on the shape of a dragon suddenly shifted and she found herself staring at the likeness of Malacath.

Even without the color or solidity of a statue, she knew that this was the Daedric Prince that her people served. There was no mistaking it. The same horns, the same tusks. Even the defiant expression was clear in his face.

“We. Were. Broken.” The voice continued but there as a very un-Varric like pain.

The image of Malacath began to shift. It seemed like the image was contorting in pain before it began to shrink in on itself. The mouth was open in a wordless scream before the face was lost in the jumble of stars. Finally, it looked like little more than a round orb that floated in the air before her.

“We. Were. Used.” This time, the voice was fully Dagna’s and the form flickered back into Dagna.

Another form appeared out of the stars. An elf with long hair pinned back against their head. It was hard to make out any real features on the elf, as if the Titan did not want to bother giving them the same amount of detail as they had for Malacath. There was something disturbingly familiar about the elf but she could not quite figure it out.

They approached the sphere and took it in their hands. The stars seemed to shudder again, and she guessed the Titan really did not like what had happened.

“Malacath wasn’t one of the Magne Ge.” Ara said with a frown even as the image faded. “He was a Daedra from Nirn.”

The lights around her seemed to struggle before they solidified into a form she had definitely seen before.

It was one of the people she had seen at the table in her dreams. One of the strange faces that she had not recognized, yet now, she could sense some kind of familiarity with it. Like she had seen the face before when she was awake.

Only she had no memory of it.

The starlight began to speak, and it sounded like she was hearing all the dwarves she knew. Varric, Dagna, Rocky, Valta, Renn, even that scout and the random voices she heard from Skyhold. It was as if the Titan was now drawing on every voice she had heard.

“Aedra. Daedra. Aedroth. We begin again. Something different. Something new. Where Malacath was once Trinimac, he became something new again.” The voice echoed in the darkness and almost hurt her head.

Ara thought about what she had seen and how Malacath had turned into a something, but she really did not understand a thing this Titan was trying to tell her.

“Okay, so the other titans became… orbs?” Ara finally asked even if it sounded ridiculous.

“Yes.”

The image of the elf and orb faded away completely. There was only that blue tinted darkness with stars floating around her. They almost seemed to be dancing around her.

“I thought Titans were super powerful?”

“We are. Were.” The Titan sounded almost sad. “We sleep. They stole us while we slept. They killed us while we slept.”

“Is that what the ancient elves did?” Ara felt an overwhelming sense of horror. She was not certain if it was her own feeling or something from the Titan.

“Yes.”

“But why?”

“Why does any man take from another?” The Titan asked. “Their greed knew no bounds. Their hunger was endless.”

“Seems the ancient elves are the same here as the elves are in Nirn.” Ara said with a sigh.

“Some things never change.” The Titan seemed to agree. “Even the new forms reflect the old.”

“New forms...” Ara said with a frown. “New. That the Aedra and Daedra became something new and now again with the new forms…”

“Yes?” The Titan seemed confused as if it did not quite understand what she was reaching towards.

“Julianos is known as Dirthamen here.” Ara continued. “And Kynareth… they are both here.”

“All of the Divines are here.” The Titan answered. “Some trapped. Others stolen.”

“But… if they’re here. That means they know how to return to Nirn?”

“No.”

She felt something squeeze around her heart.

“What do you mean, no?” Ara demanded.

“There is no return to Nirn.”

“That’s impossible.” Ara’s voice rose in anger and fear. “I went to Sovngarde and faced off against Alduin!”

She was shouting now even as she tried to think back to that fight against Alduin.

The details felt fuzzy, and she could not quite remember what had happened. She did not remember if she had stepped into Sovngarde. Yet she could remember the warriors who had stood at her side and the fog that had prevented a full-on assault against Alduin.

“We battled…”

“The Dragonborn fought.” The Titan answered. “And the Dragonborn failed.”

“No.” Ara stammered even as an unfamiliar but overwhelming grief filled her.

“Nirn is no more.”

#chapter 78 #sfal #smith from another land #ara #Arakash gra-Krazak #titan #the descent #dragonborn in thedas #skyrim #dragon age inquisition #dragonborn is not the inquisitor #orc #orc dragonborn #crossover #cross #over

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