The Wolf and the Halla

A Dead World (Solas Prologue)

During uthenera he had wandered the abyss without purpose, gaining his strength over millinia. When he awoke, however, everything was different. He had not imagined that creating the veil would have caused the world to die.

His eyes opened with a start. He sat up quickly, his long black braid flipped over his shoulder with the motion. Despite having been asleep for a long time. He slipped from his bed, the quilts of silk had long since rotted away. He had slept on merely a rag and a tattered mattress, for many years. He padded down the stairs quickly, and entered the main hall. Disaster. The ceiling had fell in, which made making his way outside difficult.

After carefully laid steps and maneuvers, he walked out into the sun. His eyes burned from the light he had not seen in so long. He held up a hand to shade his eyes. The courtyard was empty, as expected. The statue of Fen'Harel facing the gate and out toward the mountains was absent. He wondered where it had went.

He descended the stairs carefully, only then noticing that his clothes were all but destroyed. What had once been a beautiful robe made for a God, was now nothing more than rags. At the least, it covered the important parts. His manhood well hidden beneath a few folds of a velvet robe.

He grunted. Doesn't matter, he thought, no one is here. He walked around the yard awhile, assessing the damage. He tried to bring magic to his fingers to help clean the mess. It was useless. He was too weak.

He was in the garden when he lost his control. The eluvian was gone, his eluvian. His statue was gone also, another of Fen'Harel. He walked carefully around. All the beautiful plants he had once enjoyed had withered to dust and blown away. There were no trees to shade the benches. There was nothing.

He huffed. A scowl crossed his face as he threw a ball of energy across the garden, his hair whipped back over his shoulder and at some point the braid fell loose. The barrage of energy crashed through a barrier of one gazebo and it crumpled, sending up dust from old stone. He yelled loudly. Cursing the world, or really himself.

He rushed to his study quickly. The walls were dusty, his paintings withered, the faces of the elves he once knew missing pieces of their physical characteristics. He breathed hard, tears stinging his eyes. How long has it been, he wondered. His castle was in disrepair, the statues and eluvian gone. His eyes popped open. The orb.

He rushed back to his quarters, taking the steps two at a time. The orb would be here, on a shelf by the fireplace. He ran to it and grabbed the orb without thought. He dusted the spiderwebs off of its surface, as he sat on the ground there beside the fireplace and shelf.

He tried to use it the orb to channel his powers, he rubbed his fingers over the surface and called to it with hope. Nothing happened. He could not wield the power in his own orb anymore. The orb he had spent years channeling power into, the orb he had done unspeakable things to get. The orb he had used to become a God. He threw the orb away from him in frustration. It rolled under the remnants of the bed he had laid on for so long.

He sat there a long time before he brought his eyes up and looked to the balcony. The city? He stood and walked out of the door. He looked across the mountains, but he saw no flicker of the city. He closed his eyes again.

Through the anger and sadness he reminded himself that he had put up the veil to save the world. Not himself. Placing the veil and trapping the Gods had taken alot out of him. He had been asleep a very long time.

"The world." He croaked. It was the first words he had spoken in an eternity. And despite his body being no more sore than after any night asleep, his vocal cords had became dry over the years. The words set off a fit of coughing. Eventually, the coughs subsided, and he rubbed at his throat trying to rub some moisture into the cords and tendons there.