Doom Upon All The World

Chapter 14: Enveloped

The house was tinted bright orange with the heat and burn of fire. It spread along the walls, taking and turning everything to a dark crisp. Everything was falling, everything they built gone and shattered. The air filled with the smoldering scent of wood burning. The sound was awful. A loud rustling crack echoed through the halls with every second that passed. It was torment and agony to watch one's home burn. But Maeve could not watch. The children were outside, protected by Tom and Leliana. The others were outside searching for the people responsible for raining fire down on her home. The arrows kept coming. They sunk deep into the walls, crashing through windows and burying themselves far into the hollows.

There was nothing they could do. It was too many too fast. They had to leave their home to burn. Maeve tore up the floor boards in the kitchen, pulling the nails out with agile fingers. Her adrenaline had her moving with ease she hadn't experienced in a long time. Beneath three of the heavy wooden planks rested the very thing that had saved Thedas. Her heavy battle ax hadn't seen the light of day since Mythalus was born. Now she had a reason to take it out. She needed it more than she ever thought she would. She strapped the ax to her back, her long hair falling around it. Standing over the hole in the floor, she watched as the kitchen was slowly absorbed by the glow of fire and smoke. The heat was great and burned so hot it hurt but Maeve could not make herself move. She let the fire come. She didn't panic.

The flames were so beautiful yet horrid and evil at the same time. She had made a life here, raised two children here, made precious moments, cooked meals, taught lessons, felt love and pure joy here, in this place. Now all of it was burning with the structure. She would have been enveloped by the raging fire. In the end, it was Solas that broke her from her trance. "Maeve!" He shouted through the flames. He called to her time and again, hoping she'd hear. He pleaded with her and finally she heard him. She turned to him and smiled. She didn't know why she did it. There wasn't anything happy that warranted her grin. Solas tried desperately to smother the fire with ice and snow, his hands getting as close to the flames as he dared. His efforts were futile. The fire would not go out. She backed up, hitting the table as she looked at Solas. She ran at the flames. When she reached them, she forced her body upwards, leaping over the raging mess.

She landed just in front of him, stumbling into his arms. He held her by the waist at first before his hands came up to cup her face, testing, making sure she was alright. She coughed violently as her lungs filled with the thick smoldering air. The crackling around them was growing louder, the beams holding up the high ceilings of their house threatening to come crashing down. Solas looked torn and angry and worried all at once. Then Maeve saw something in him she never had. It startled her, climbing up her spine and sending tingles through her skin. She saw the fear in his eyes greater than it had ever been.

His staff glowed brightly on his back, giving off an odd green glow in the dark orange light. He hadn't been reunited with it in months. Of course he used it more than Maeve had her ax. He needed it at times to draw and direct his strength and mana more accurately. However, he wielded it now knowing that what he would use it for was far worse than what he had done in recent years. Healing and helping, fixing and creating drained a Mage of their life energy slowly and it did so even more slowly for Solas but killing, hurting, maiming, murdering those things came easily without taking an inch from one's life. The fear that it may overtake both of them coursed through Maeve.

There was so much happening. The children were outside the house, starring and watching quietly in awe and horror. Nicolynn hugged tightly to Anthony and Claude as she couldn't bring herself to watch her home burn and possibly her parents with it. The fire raged on around them as they went to the open door. Maeve could hear the others as they tried to race after the archers on their horses. More arrows were coming. They had already succeeded in drawing them out. Now they were just tormenting them. They were circling, making a game of destroying all of their material things and with it so much of their hope. She heard Dorian as he gathered the other horses and Tom as he readied the carriage. The fire crackling in the house behind her as they beat on her ear drum, booming so loudly she thought it would drown everything else out. It didn't. It was so loud. Too loud. Everything was too loud. It was too much.