With the sound of thunder rang loudly in his ears, his grey eyes snapped open. A sudden pain struck in his chest and spread rapidly through every fiber of his being. It felt as though his blood boiled with hot magma and scorched its path all the down each microscopic blood vessel in his physical form. The pain. It was just too great. Each rise in his chest felt heavy. The air he breathed in felt slow and cold, as though he were breathing in the very snow off of a mountain. Then in a rush, that very same breath escaped him with horrid sounds that followed. He had not recollected since he started to holler, but somehow he knew that the foreign voice filling the darkness with its pain-stricken agony was his own…And he could not stop it.

Darkness. There was nothing more challenging than the empty dark. The silent, empty darkness; with only one’s own thoughts left to ponder into nothingness. No light to ease the fears. No one to hold or confide in. What greatness he knew, what expectations he had; it had all faded away. It was swallowed up by the empty, unforgiving and everlasting abys. It was clear that he was alone with nothing but pain to console him. This had been it. The worst fear: Dying Alone. He was carrying all that he knew of his people with his final death and failing to keep the truth and the history of his world remembered. Such a fear for any race would be terrifying. Not just because of his death, but the failure and extinction that was carried with it. To make it worse, he carried this with knowing that He was to blame.

Something touched his face and he was startled; twisting his head away and shifting his hollering more into screaming. He screamed from the pain pulsing through his sunken form. He screamed to hopefully scare away whatever it was that touched his face. It quickly turned painful into that panic. He screamed because his screams were the only sound he could hear and he feared if he didn’t hear anything that he would lose his mind next. The thunder echoed from deep in his ears, past his own voice; as though it was more heard from within his own mind. His arms moved, frightening himself more until his hands trailed down his shoulders and his arms to finally realize that there was nothing there. What had been touching him was only his own hands. His own fingernails…and then he came to realize that his fingernails had actually grown enough to scratch him.

There was a moment of relief then, a certain relief that caused him to laugh at himself—his own fright—and what followed came softer hollers. Solas traced his hands back over his face once more to feel the scars of the vallaslin, the fresh scratches of new blood and the mark where the All-Father, Elgar’nan, struck his forehead with a golden enchanted spear. Truthfully, the only thing that felt foreign to him was the vallaslin, and this was only because the markings were new – or rather, the markings were new on His face. Solas swallowed back a sob and closed his eyes for a moment as he traced the patterns of the tree symbol. Mythal’s symbol. He envisioned in his mind of the shape that stretched all across his forehead. Memories flooded his mind as fast as his racing pulse that pushed the fiery blood in his veins. He gritted his teeth as tears streamed down his face; just to endure those flashes of images.

The Evanerus. Mythal’s Murder. The All-Father burning the brand of his wife onto Solas. He remembered every event that brought it up to that point that was well over a melinia of war. He remembered it all so vividly. So clearly… And then he remembered the voice of Mythal, asking him to come.

That’s right.

She wanted him here. She called to him from beyond the Fade and forced his blood to rush. She forced the air into his lungs and pulled him with her magic--pulled him into the physical and solid form that was his body. Unfortunate that it was against the will of the All-Father, Elgar’nan. Unfortunate that Mythal could never ease the suffering of going against her own religion’s commands. Commands that would have kept such ‘sentinels’ to sleep until there was a need of their services. It was unfortunate that there was no other way Mythal’s will could be done. So, the Dread Wolf must rebel. Again.

That made more sense to everything, and it calmed his thoughts a little. The pain and the darkness was from his own tomb. He was cursed to serve Mythal in this manner. Because no one could kill him, he was sentenced to sleep--and because a calling that was faded from time, forced him against the unconscious command --and against his own wishes--his body reacted to the insubordination with pain. The pain was so sudden and so intense, for it was like waking up to a strike of lightening through every nerve ending of the body. His skin still felt pins and needles prickling in vain across muscles and softened flesh that remained stubborn just to sleep.

Of course this also proved another point. He was not dead or stumbled in his path to have suddenly been locked away in some other part of the Fade. Solas was still very much alive after the huge explosion that destroyed everything he knew and held dear. After centuries upon centuries of searching the Fade and feeding his thirst for what knowledge he could acquire in dreams.

Solas tried to focus on the spell to remove the markings from his face. He had to pull the energies from memory and do this spell. He knew it well. When slaves came to him tired and weak, they begged to him for sanctuary away from their cruel and abusive gods. They begged for freedom and Solas created a reputation for himself in those days, to remove those markings and free those people in the hopes that they would join with him. It had been so long ago but none of this was forgotten.

As the blue light formed over his face, Solas could hear and feel his own flesh beginning to burn. The sickening tang of seared skin filled his nostrils just as the sting of a forced rejection damaged his face. There was no denying that he was out of practice after such a long slumber but if he was to ever leave this tomb, then he must remove markings that would—and could—influence him. However, since he had not done this spell in a long time, it was not a perfected cast. Though when, at last, he felt the soothing after effects cool against his skin, the feeling of molten magma pushing hot through his veins, quickly began to subside.

The pain was finally going away. It was beginning to get easier to breathe. He was relieved from any commands of a Sentinel. It was freedom and it never felt so much at peace.

Rivers of tears streamed down the sides of his face then. He felt reborn. Clean. It was just as he had given the same feeling to other slaves from so long ago. Solas was free from the influence of another and he was alive. The air --though dusty-- smelled in some way sweeter and his skin felt cool to the touch. Despite how much he screamed and wept moments ago, now he was laughing from the bubbled joy that mixed with that sorrow. It might have sounded as though the darkness may have driven him mad but it was far from the truth. He was never more sane in his long life!

“Mythal....” He mumbled. His voice raw and dry from disuse. He started to wipe away the tears, and blindly smear away the traces of blood and cold sweat from his forehead. “....Ir abelas.”

Even after so long, Solas was still rebelling against the will of the Pantheon – or rather, the will of the Evanerus -- and this time he wasn’t even trying that hard. His only true regret in this ‘rebellion’—if one could still call it such-- was that doing so was a just as much a disservice to Mythal as it was a service in contrast to The People. It would not matter how much he apologized to her now, but Solas still did. In this awakening, he was to become her vengeance and salvation against the world. This was because the damage he had done was too great and he knew that.

He sighed then; for a moment just relaxing and preparing his body to move. Everything still felt sore and so very weak. He didn’t need light within this tomb to know that his body was probably malnourished and lacking muscle. The sickening feeling of nausea churned and tumbled within his stomach; reminding him of the hunger for food. He felt as though he could consume the quantities of a dragon’s feast, but the nausea settling so strongly in him would quickly disagree what his mind fantasized. He needed to leave this place and rest on his thoughts of Mythal. Otherwise, such melancholy would quickly consume him before he would even move.

For it was difficult not to think of the woman who had first protected him and now summoned him. He could not help but to wonder if there may have been fragments of her soul locked away somewhere behind eluvians …or perhaps within other souls…? Did he even have time to find her? He did not know. He needed to get his bearings. Needed to ‘move’ and this body felt so slow for one that had just awoke. He could only wonder if she would have waited for him somehow. If he could just find her and reach her—but no. Priorities were what remained important. First, he needed to find where the foci was. He could look for traces of Mythal much later.

As weak and tired that he was, Solas knew it would take everything in his concentration to attempt in sitting up. He took another sigh, trying this time to concentrate on his hearing. There was nothing to answer him but the lingering thunder that echoed still. Whether or not this had still been in his mind, from the clash of when he last had used all of his magic, he did not know nor did it seem of much importance as moving at been. His senses were stripped raw, with no direct path that even his sensitivity could detect. His muscles were slow to move. He could feel ligaments shifting and threatening to twist and pull if Solas did not move slow enough. The struggle against gravity was more of a challenge than he remembered as well. He pressed weight against his wrists and tried to use them for balance. His head was spinning the further that he rose but he pushed onward. He pushed and hissed from each movement until at last, his efforts had paid off.
He moved.