Dragon Age Origins: The Tale of Solana

Chapter 41: Ser Donall

Solana collided with a hard chest, the hands that steadied her were just as surprised. The crowd pressed harder, and before either of them could speak, they collided against each other's chest, harder this time. The both fell out into an empty pocket of floor by a pedestal of candles. "Who?" the man helped her stand.

The crowd spit out Alistair and Leliana out just as the man was beginning to apologize to the elven maiden he had collided with. "I beg your pardon. I did not see you approaching me... This crowd is getting tighter, it seems."

"Ser Donall...?" Alistair's words slipped off his tongue before he could contain them. The man who gave him small pieces of candy while guarding Redcliffe Castle from his childhood stood right in front of him. "Is that really you?"

Ser Donall's eyes took a moment to register the fully grown man beside the elven maiden. "Alistair?"

That hair, those features... So much like his father's that it was hard for someone to see anyone else! It was him! This man was little Alistair!

"By the Maker! How are you? I was sure you were dead!" The last sentence was strained with emotion.

Alistair's sentence was strained as well, though far less so as the situation he referred to still sparked anger deep within. "Not yet, no thanks to Teryn Loghain."

"If Arl Eamon were well, he'd set Loghain straight soon enough," Ser Donall swung his hand to finalize what Arl Eamon's words would soon be doing. However, they all picked up on what Ser Donall had just said.

"If he were well?" Leliana asked quietly.

"W-what do you mean," Alistair demanded. He saw the man he had grown up with, the one who raised him, the one who had given him his first sword to spare with. Was he near death? The sight was so foreign a concept that he couldn't believe it!

"The Arl is stricken with an illness that threatens his life," Ser Donall turns towards the candles behind him to gaze at their small flames. "We have found no cure, either natural or magical."

"When did this happen?"

"Only a few weeks ago," the man confirmed, turning towards Alistair. "He has declined quickly. No one knows the nature of the illness, and even magic has done little to slow its' progress. Our only hope now is a miracle! Every knight in Redcliffe has gone in search for the Urn of Sacred Ashes."

Leliana's mouth dropped open; however, he only cleared up what Alistair and Solana had heard only hours ago back at the tavern. Solana didn't know much about Andraste, but she knew of the Urn as well as anyone else. They were a legend, a myth some said cooked up by the Chantry. The legends say they had the power to heal any sickness, and any diseases by just having a pinch of them.

Whether or not Solana believed in the Urn was close to none, but if the Redcliffe knights are truly searching for a fairytale like that, could there really be something out there?

"A woman indeed..."

"Gone now, and long dead..."

"A mage's power, only stronger..."

The voices knew something was more to the story than what met the ear. Solana swallowed hard the lump in her throat.

"Andraste's ashes are said to cure any illness," Leliana sputtered now.

"But I fear we are chasing a fable," Ser Donall spat angrily. "With each day, my hope dims."

There was silence as they all were coming to terms with this news. "I was hoping to meet Arl Eamon, in fact," came Solana's sad tone.

"Why is that, if I may ask?"

"We needed his help against Teryn Loghain. Which I guess all of you now know the reason," Solana put her hands on the back of her head.

"I see," Ser Donall scratched his five o'clock shadow. "The teryn is a popular man, it's true. Teryn Loghain, however, is a hero throughout Ferelden." There was a silence between the whole group. Ser Donall sighed, "Whatever the teryn has done or not done, the arl remains ill, or worse. That is my primary concern."

"A poison..."

"Blood... Magic..."

"Do you think Loghain is involved with the arl's illness?" Solana felt as if it wasn't her own voice, but someone else's. She shuddered, and jumped when she saw the wisps of blue pool down towards the floor from her eyes.

"What just happened?" she asked Alistair.

Alistair had to hold in a chuckle. Solana looked perplexed. It wasn't time to explain her strange new power, but to focus on what Solana had asked. Could Loghian planned for Arl Eamon to get sick? Surely not...?

Leliana stood straight, shocked to the core watching blue steam fall in tendrils of smoke to the floor from Solana's eyes. Ser Donall took a moment to regain his face as well.

"The arl fell ill before the king died," Ser Donall cleared his throat. "But," he thought a moment, hand on elbow, "what if the teryn planned that as well? Ah, such thoughts don't sit well with me."

"We should see what is happening at Redcliffe," Alistair quickly jumped in. "I believe that now more than ever."

"If nothing else, you'd be welcome at castle Redcliffe," Ser Donall grinned. "The arlessa is there, and she could tell you more than I could. I am just waiting for my friend, Ser Henric, to arrive so that we may leave for Redcliffe."

Alistair and Solana exchanged glances. "What is it?" Ser Donall asks.

Solana hands over the amulet and the note, explaining what had befallen poor Ser Henric on the Imperial Highway. "Maker's mercy," Ser Donall sighed heavily as he thought on what to tell his sister, Henric's wife. "Thank you for giving me these. I would never have known otherwise."

"I'm sorry about your friend," Solana consoles. "We drove off the bandits that killed him."

"Thank you. I wonder how many of us have had similar fates on this mad quest?" Donall attempts to read the note. Much of the ink was gone due to water damage. "I will head to Redcliffe, and seek out this scholar his note mentions. Perhaps he found a lead that none of us have. I must go."

The got outside, and Solana sighed loudly. "This is just great," she huffed sadly. "We take a step in the right direction, and we are pushed three steps back!"

"At least we know what to expect at Redcliffe," Leliana added with a optimistic smile.

Solana shrugged. "I guess. Are you sure you are still up for this? Once you come with us, it'll be hard to come back to your old life. Believe me."

"My life here was long over before you four came," Leliana states with a forlorn look at the crowd growing at Lothering gates.

While the girls chatted, Alistair noticed a rose growing on a bush nearby. It was the reddest flower he had ever seen! The flowers around it were dead, or worst, but somehow it's life was growing strong. Solana laughed loudly at something Leliana said as Andaran jumped excited around them. The two women shared a few words, and Alistair couldn't stop looking at Solana's rosy cheeks of joy.

Her eyes slide over to his, and the glassy color of them softened. The sight of her, smiling with the sun and blue sky shinning bright behind her, was enough to change Alistair's body into a giddy mess. He quickly turned, and pondered the rose. He reached out, and put it into his pack.