A/N: And we're on to chapter four, which took me considerably longer to publish than it rightly should have. And, yes, there are going to be horses in this version of Ferelden. I understand it was done in-game to save the headache of faffing around with horse models, but game mechanics aside, with all the freedom a story told only in words provides, to me, it makes absolutely no sense that an entire country would refuse to use one of the most important assets you can possess in a pre-engine world. But then, I am the sort of person who tends to over think those sorts of little details. Anyway! Thanks again to the ever-helpful bitenomnom. Read and enjoy.

-Sushifer

Chapter Four: Grievance

"How are you?"

"Hah! Shemlen tu vhenas'vin tur'alas , psh!"

What a foolish question. How did the human expect he would be?

The human seemed to realise the stupidity of his own words, glancing down to where Arahad paced beside him, through the forest. "Ah. No- I only meant, has the Taint become any stronger?"

"I am light headed and dizzy, sometimes. Sometimes I want to be sick and sometimes I am sick. No fever, yet. It's a little worse, but not much."

The human nodded, once. At his side, his horse whuffed as if agreeing with its master.

Arahad was back to fighting down a stream of ceaseless thoughts:

go back go back what are you doing how can you be doing this think about what you are doing turn back someone help I can't bear this I am strong I am elvhenan vir assan vir bor'assan vir adahlen vir tanadahl I will not cry I will not Tamlen oh Tamlen I-

"We will ride all the way to Ostagar, once we're clear of the forest. We can't risk delaying. The darkspawn grow stronger each day, and so does your Taint."

Ostagar. Duncan has said it had been a fortress, which was something you defended, he had thought, and wondered what you did with it when there was nothing to defend against, and if that meant it was no longer a fortress. Duncan had said his army, or somebody's army or several armies- he was not quite sure which- were camped in Ostagar, which seemed ridiculous, unless Arahad had heard him wrong. After all, human accents could be so impenetrable. He was certainly not going to ask him to repeat it. And he did not want to think over long on the open lands, or he would get dizzy.

The lands beyond, where the humans conquered and enslaved.

"Am I going to be a slave?"

The nobly spoken human was, for some time, stunned silent. When he did speak, there was a tension in his voice, as if he struggled to contain some insistent feeling.

"We have no slaves in Ferelden."

"Then what am I going to be?"

"You thought I lied when I said you were to be a Grey Warden? You will be as free as any man."

"Huh."

"The wardens serve all, and so all people defer to and work to help the wardens. To be warden is to be a member of an order which commands great respect."

"So everyone keeps saying. Shem respect elves now, do they?"

"Whether you are an elf or a human does not matter. You will be a warden, and that is more important than anything."

In other words, I will be flat-eared, thought Arahad, and so no better than a slave.

Duncan's measured coolness returned as he hurriedly moved to other matters. "The hahren warrior of your clan tells me you are more of a swordsman than an archer."

"I am. I was trained and bound as- as Andruil's knight. I am hers no longer, but I still know how to fight." To anyone else he would have added: though it's true I'm no great shot, even if the needs of the clan have- had sent me hunting many, many more times than they've needed my blades. But, that would mean admitting weakness to the human.

"Hm." Duncan appraised him for a moment. "These Dalish preist-knights- I understand you are a ceremonial order? You do not engage in real combat, against hostile enemies?"

"We are trained to fight as our ancestors fought! We are not priests. We each serve our god because we are their champion! We honour them as a champion must and when it's needed we take up arms for our clan. You think we're weak?"

Duncan gave him a very sharp look. "You must understand that I mean no offense. Nor do I look down on you," except you can't help but do that, thought Arahad with a smirk, looming over me like that, "because you are... an elf. I understand that you are angry, and grieving- but I cannot do anything for you, nor should I, nor should anyone, when we are approaching such a crisis. Ostagar and your Joining are more important than your petty personal concerns. You are an elf and I tell you this does not matter to me."

Trouble is, he thought, it matters to me, shemlen.

They went quickly through the forest, from patches where the Veil was thin and the undergrowth shifted at the corners of the eye, to the bright, healed pockets where the bird song was louder and the air tasted cleaner.

"You know the ways of these trees better than I," Duncan had said. "You should lead us to their edge."

Arahad had said in reply: "Tread carefully and show respect. When you make a fuss, the forest notices."

He had said nothing more to the human all day, after that.

Now they were to sleep, if briefly. Or, Arahad was to sleep. They would get no further: even Arahad could not traverse the forest in deep night, and he would have been a las'vhen fool should he have tried. Tomorrow they would come to the open forest outskirts, where there were human tracks that the horse could manage, and Arahad would no longer lead the way.

His dozing turned to delirium. The camp-fire light, guarded by the hump of human shadow, became one safe heart in the black forest. There were lights off the path and noises like laughter: all the night spirits he had grown up with, that did not hurt you unless you were fool enough to go after them. They were hardly a comfort, but he was used to them. Never before had they been menacing.

And when he began to sink towards true sleep, he would start to feel there was something vast waiting for him down there, and he would jerk awake, sweating and choking.

And when he was awake, he thought of the clan, to begin with. He would always turn back to Tamlen, in the end.

A poisonous thought slyly lodged itself in the current of his fevering brain:

Tamlen knew.

He looked again at his recent memories of Tamlen. Under new inspection, they all shifted so that he felt he saw them from a different angle, from which things once hidden were now obvious.

Tamlen watching him from the opposite side of the stream. The way Tamlen had sounded as he told him about Seriah, and asked him about girls. And earlier, the way he had smiled, at something Arahad had said: sad, knowing, softly pitying.

If Tamlen knew, why hadn't he said?

The same reason you didn't say, he answered.

Creators save me- I do not understand this. Guide me from this dark path, I beg. What should I have done, Lord and Lady? Too late now-

Except Tamlen still lived.

He was so cold. Perhaps I will die, lethallin. I am as good as dead now, am I not? Exiled and sickening and the human says I may well die.

But not yet.

I am going to survive.

A new thought took root. I am going to survive.

I will survive, because I am strong, I am Elvhenan, and even when hope is gone we will endure. I will survive, so I can find you, or find what happened to you, emma lethallin, because I couldn't bear not knowing if I didn't even try- because I will try, because I will survive, because I've held off this taint before and if I can find you I must try- because I've held this off before and I can control it.

And if I find you, I'll tell you.

Everything felt wrong.

The shem Duncan's bulk was behind him, and he shivered whenever the motions of the horse pushed the human against him. He was warm and too-big and he smelt wrong. The horse was wrong; Arahad did not feel at all safe, rolling with its strides and clutching to the pommel of the saddle, so far from the ground. When he had been struggling up the side of the beast- because he had slapped shem-Duncan's hands away when the man had tried to hoist him up- he had thought: and now I shall be at the mercy of a human. The shem could ride this horse anywhere and I would have no way to stop him, but to dive off and break my neck. He might break his neck anyway, with the way the horse skittered on this fissured ground.

When they had begun to ride, the sun still shone, but it had been dusk before they crossed the treeline, to ford the river beyond. Arahad had whispered: 'tu abelas, arv'ven' and had not looked back. 'Bad luck to look back upon a place you're set to leave', Ashalle would say- had said. Though, he thought, a little bad luck will hardly make a difference to me now, will it?

The night-landscape was wrong. It was full dark before they reached the pass between the hills, and it was then that he finally twisted round and leant out, to look past the human to the land below. He frowned when he realised that even with the light of the waxing moon he could see little: though he was sure, after a moment's staring, he saw the vast spread of the Brecillian, rolling to the skyline. Then they were descending and it was gone.

The land felt even more wrong on the other side.

He had seen mountains once before, when the clan had drawn near the edge of the forest one summer, but he had never been anywhere so open. He did not need sunlight, to feel all those endless miles of empty air pressing at him.

He fell in and out of sleep and wakefulness as the horse's rolling strides shook his bones.

"We'll ride through the night," said Duncan. "You grow sicker every hour. We must reach Ostagar by evening next. Try to sleep, if you can." Try to sleep- hah, instead he was trying to stay awake. Because if he did sleep, his head would fill with a roiling mass of dark shapes and things he could not see but could feel and hear like a swarm of flies, a swarm of flies inside his head, filling him, and under it all a keening noise- that would pull him, shivering and sweating, back into the twilit flatlands. Soon the two worlds were too close to separate, and soon after that he sunk, finally, into deep dream.

The first thing he noticed on waking was the dried vomit stuck to the horse side, very close to where his head rested on the animal.

He found this quite amusing.

Also, it was daylight. This made absolutely no improvement to the flat, brown land around them.

Though the mountains ahead were rather grand.

"Ostagar lies beyond that peak," shem-Duncan said, as he sat up. "At the end of the imperial highway. An hour or so and we'll reach it. You can spend the evening with the other wardens, before your Joining to the order, tomorrow." He said it hopefully, and paused afterwards. Did he expect some response, some questioning comment? When Arahad said nothing in return he continued, evidently snappish: "I suspect, by the decoration you've left on my horse, that you will want something to eat?"

"No."

"You will feel no better on an empty stomach-"

"Oh, I felt better- refreshed- until you mentioned food. Eurgh."

"Very well. Rest, then. You should get a full night's sleep in camp, tonight. You may not have the chance to get another for some time."

Arahad was suddenly very determined to stay as awake and alert as he possibly could.

The slope up to Ostagar made him sick, again.

Even Duncan made a noise of surprise when something much more grey and liquid than Arahad would have expected his stomach-contents to be hit the earth.

Duncan kicked the horse into a canter.

The fortress was a tumble of boulders and spires from a distance, and no better close. In the cool ring of the mountains it was an ugly shemlen mess, filled with, no, swarmed with humans.

When the stone loomed around them, he had to grip the saddle as a desperate impulse rose in him and he very nearly jumped from the horse to sprint away.

"Ostagar," said Duncan.

Ostagar, where they met a king.

Arahad was too strained trying to make sense of the mazed structures surrounding them and pinpoint where each nearby human was and where they went, to concentrate on this Cailan. He did not much want to concentrate on him, either, when the man was staring up at him with such gleeful fascination. He huddled down and let Duncan speak over his head about things he did not understand and even managed to make polite response to the king when addressed directly. It would be unwise to anger such a leader, even a shemlen one.

"You must not be so terse with his majesty," Duncan said, as they rode closer to the bridge across the valley. "I can bear your manners, but it will not serve you well to be disrespectful to such a man, even if wardens are, in principle, not bound by his law."

"Disrespectful?"

"When he asked you about Dalish culture-"

"I told him truthfully, that he would never know more about us, because we've learnt what happens when we let humans in."

"Yes, and that was disrespectful."

"Disrespectful to tell the truth?"

"To tell it so bluntly, yes."

"So I must lie to be polite."

"In some circumstances. But it is always better to withhold some of the truth, than replace it with a full lie."

Then I must learn to deceive to survive out with the shemlen, he began to think- until that snide voice added: learn? You learnt years ago.

He had to shut his eyes crossing the bridge. Glimpsing the drop made his belly plummet as if he had actually gone over the edge.

The camp on the other side was a warren of human cloth and stone and metal.

Duncan brought the horse to a halt away from the main camp, as already he was being hailed by frantic looking humans. A boy had rushed up to take the horse a moment after Arahad's feet touched ground, and Duncan was striding off through the labyrinth of bustling humans a moment later, while Arahad still struggled to don his pack and weapons.

"It is too late to send you out to gather what you need for your Joining," said the human, as he glanced over at the gold-rimmed western mountains. "So, rest. You will share a tent with Alistair, I think- our newest warden- and tomorrow we will take you and the other new recruits to the wilds. There is something there that must be recovered and with the battle so soon I can spare no-one else. You will be a warden by sunset tomorrow. Now-" he stopped. The tents at this end of the camp were not as large or patterned as those around the entrance, though not quite as poor looking as the frames spilling out of the edges of the fort some way off. "I regret that I cannot explain further- but time is scarce. Usually all the wardens would be here to greet you and I would tell you more of the order- we all would. Alistair will have to take you through all that, I think. This is his, though he's gone at present." He pointed to a low cloth-and-frame structure in with a cluster of similar tents. "Now, I must leave you-"

"Oh, I see: I'm worthless, then, and worth abandoning." It came out much louder than Arahad had intended.

Shem-Duncan's gaze had him as fixed as a mouse beneath a hawk. "Arahad." It was the first time the shem had used his name. The human might have gripped his arm; his shudder would have been the same. "In any other circumstance I would stay by you: all the wardens here would, and we would help you feel a part of us because I know that you are angry and I think you have some right to be. But all this will wait. You cannot return to your life before, your clan. Accept this. You are going to be a warden, and I know you will be a fine one."

With that he walked away.

He had sat in the tent for a good while and the shemlen Alistair had still not returned. He decided this was a good thing.

The camp was a mess of humans and noise and humans making more noise, but sitting in the tent was no quieter, and nausea had begun to grip him again, for the space held a concentrated stink of human. But leaving would push him back out into that heaving camp of humans, and he was so tired, and his limbs ached- he could sleep-

He remembered the dreams, and that keening noise.

That decided it. Besides, the edges of the fortress looked deserted.

He pulled off his boots and unbuckled the last of his armour.

The day was turning towards dusk when he laced up the tent behind him, barefoot and dressed in his deerskin breeches and the shirt with beads around the cuffs. He would find somewhere quiet. The noise of these humans made him want to scream. He was still sure he moved through a dreamscape. His eyes saw the sinking sun and instinctively his head told him: shouldn't you get back to camp, or set up your own for the night, and that would link to the next part of the routine so he would think of getting a fire lit and of what he had to cook on it, when some human noise made him realise anew where he was.

He saw the first elves all too soon. A pair, two males, scampering after some human knight, carrying his camp chest. When they began to fall behind, the human stopped and waited for them both to catch up, then slapped them both and continued on his way. And the elves followed after, as meek as before.

It got no better. The flat-ears of the camp were all quivering creatures in repaired clothes, who could not look a human in the eyes. He had always hoped that the stories of the weak traitor-elves beyond the forest had been exaggerated, because they were all elvhen, were they not, so they all shared that same ancient blood? Now he saw they were all too true. He made sure to give a good glare to any flat-eared wretch who caught his gaze. Elvhen'din, all of them, miserable not-elvish elvhen'din. Swaying on Duncan's horse, as his mind had faded the night before, he had thought- perhaps there will be one, one exiled child of the forest whose heart he could share or perhaps even one who did not wear vallaslin, yet held the strength of the Elvhenan. But he had gone beyond the vhenin, the realm of the People. Hahren Paivel had been right to call it 'the desolate waste beyond the forest'. I stand alone, he thought, and kicked a pebble.

The ever-present dog hubbub grew louder. He was approaching the narrow pens in which hounds that looked as big as him gnashed and scrabbled. He paused, watching from some way off as the kennel master patrolled the fence. The human stopped, and hefted a bucket up, to toss it into the cage. Wet meat slapped the dirt, and the dogs feasted.

Arahad was transfixed. He watched the glistening scraps falling to the dogs, and swallowed. He was very hungry. He did want to eat. He wanted to gorge himself. Why had he not seen this before? But what he wanted was not bread or stew or fruit, the thought of which raised his gorge- he needed something fresh- raw, sticky meat was what he craved- perhaps, he could sneak up to the hunks of carcass waiting at the side of the pen and-

"Elf!"

The kennel master beckoned. Arahad shuffled closer but made sure to keep some distance between him and the human.

"I've a job for you. You find the recruits who're going to the Wilds tomorrow, and give them a message, and I shall give you a silver, mm?"

"I am one of the recruits who're going to the Wilds tomorrow."

The human guffawed, until meeting Arahad's eye cut him silent.

"Hm. Now, I'm not saying I believe you- but just in case, not wanting to get on the wrong side of Duncan or nothing- saying you were a recruit, I don't wonder if you might'nt do something for me when you're out in the wilderness- and if you're not, well, pass the message on to someone who is."

Arahad wondered if he should hit him now, or later.

"If you happen to see any little white flowers," the human continued, "dainty things, grow near water- easy to spot though they're hen's-teeth-rare- I wonder if you'd pick some for me? I got a dog who won't live unless I get some, y'see. Poor old sod picked up something off the 'spawn. Probably tried eating one, daft beggar."

"Which dog? Show me." They might not keep dogs, but he was certain he would know the proper treatment of a beast, better than any human.

"Yeah-" said the human, heading for one of the far gates of the dog-run "yeah, you might be able to- you little fellas don't seem to spook them as much as humans, when they're fretting-"

Arahad gave the man a hard look, until he started explaining.

"He needs muzzling. He's given me a fair nasty bite already and I don't want him causing havoc if he goes rabid. Or goes Tainted. And I reckon, if you really are a warden, seeing as poor Theold was killed before the mutt could- well, he might-" he paused, and shook his head. "Anyway. He needs muzzling. You want to try?"

How could Arahad decline? Other humans were starting to nudge each other and watch them. He had seen that sort of crowd often enough, when young hunters announced they would clean and prepare their first kill themselves, or da'len took it on themselves to climb an unconquered tree. They had the look of men eagerly waiting for a mishap.

He vaulted into the pen.

The animal was huge, even curled on its side. The drool stringing its muzzle glistened and its half lidded eyes glinted, and he could smell its sour breath. It breathed, and whimpered, and that was all.

He imagined it rearing up, snarling, striking before he could get back over the fence that blocked his back.

He crept towards it. It remained motionless. He stopped by its rump. He could feel the heat seeping from it on his bare calves. He swung one leg over it, then the other, so he straddled its back. He crouched, holding the muzzle, holding his breath.

It growled. It did not move, but he saw those teeth flash as its lip curled and the noise it made was long and low. He kept leaning down, pulling the muzzle wide. A wrong twitch, and his fingers would brush its snout.

It kept growling. He gulped, blinked, spoke Andruil's name and drew himself into the place-without-fear- and slipped the muzzle over its jaws.

The dog did not move. The growl stopped. He knelt, swallowed his calming heart, and tightened the buckles of the muzzle, adjusting it to fit. As he stood, the dog looked up straight into his eye and his pulse caught. He had not expected it to look so sad.

Some of the nearby humans cheered as he vaulted back over. Now they had the look of men watching a young hunter drag his first kill back into camp.

Arahad grinned. And none of you dared do what I did so easily, he thought, striding off. Maybe, there'll be some satisfaction to be had in this horrid nightmare, if I can keep showing the humans I am better than them all.

He wanted to find somewhere quiet, just for a moment, just so he could breathe. But even when he had moved through enough of the hollow ruins that the camp was a faint howl and not a roar his head was not cleared. It was all stone, stone everywhere, and all the grass had been churned to mud beneath the feet of an army. He had been small in his clan, but here, he was dwarfed. He had almost been run into twice already, and these aisles of stone made him feel shrunken, pinned, lonely. He was trapped. He saw himself in a hand, in a closing fist; and he vomited.

When his stomach un-tensed, he wiped his mouth and went on. He would head for the western edge of the ruin, to watch the sunset already glowing golden between the snapped spires of the fortress.

Ahead, someone laughed.

He held himself still and listened. There were undoubtedly humans nearby. He could see them moving; a pack of them stood or sat, passing some object between them. He was walking down a thin corridor of the ruin, built along a narrow outcropping of rock. Either he could go back, or he could cross these humans to reach the end.

He strode on.

He walked as close to the edge of the corridor as he could and held his breath and looked straight ahead, but still he had to look when a human voice cut the air, and he was close enough to see the man's teeth.

"Truly, our predicament must be bad if the royal camp's own knife-ears can't afford shoes!"

Arahad paused. There were four men, each of them with trimmed hair and fine, bright-patterned clothes, none of them any older than him. Two held bottles.

"Now," continued the human, in a drawling, precise shem-accent. "Are you a boy, or a girl? I can never tell with you little creatures." His companions snorted and grinned.

"Doesn't matter, does it?" said another. "Close your eyes and get it in and an elf's an elf, no?"

Arahad thought for a moment. Then, he walked up to the human who had first spoken, and punched him.

The human staggered; blood streaked his cheek. His companions cackled as if at some uproariously ridiculous prank, as if it was funny, until the man steadied and lunged and had Arahad by the neck. Arahad froze, watching him, watching those bared teeth, those wolf-blue eyes. The man's grip was damp and he pressed his fingernails into Arahad's throat, just hard enough to hurt.

"You say sorry, and I shall be nice and let you go."

Never breaking the gaze, Arahad brought his knee up sharp into the man's groin. As the man doubled over, Arahad spat, catching the human's neck, and followed it with every elvish curse he knew.

"Thinks he's a big man, doesn't he?" said one of the companions, still laughing. "Bless."

"Oh, we'll tell everyone about this," said another.

The man was hunched so low he was almost on the floor. He half looked up to Arahad, face made animal with rage. Arahad kicked him in the side of the head as hard as he could.

"No shemlen will ever insult me and leave unscathed. I will-"

But the man has suddenly unfolded and caught Arahad's legs and he was falling-

The man had him straddled a moment later, blood flecked teeth bared as his hands found Arahad's throat again and now he squeezed.

"Get his arms," hissed the man, and a friend leapt to hold Arahad down.

"You won't actually kill him, though?" said one with the vague concern of someone worrying about a cat cornered by children.

"Of course not! I'm hardly that much of a fool, you fool-" the human's words faded beneath a roar that spread through Arahad's head. He could not hear and he could not move and he twisted and pulled and he drew breath but he could not breathe-

His face felt cool. He realised they had spat on him.

In his shrinking mind, he imagined someone rushing round the pillars, shouting and pointing at the men.

No one came.

"You have killed him."

"I damn well haven't, you imbecile. Nudge him- you see. He made a noise, did he not?"

"Is he crying?"

"-pissed himself, look-"

"-not moving, though-"

"He'll wake up soon. Come on. I'm bored."

Arahad had returned to consciousness some moments before, but strained to stay absolutely still until their footfalls were quite gone.

He sat up. He sucked at the air, but that only made him cough and retch and that only made him even more desperate to breathe. His throat burnt: he felt he had swallowed gravel. His vision had been groggy before, but now, he saw through a haze.

And all he could think of was that face, the human, a handspan from him, and that he had been powerless.

He crawled into an alcove of the wall and waited for his trousers to dry and most certainly did not cry.

He slunk back to the tent when, around midnight, it began to rain. At least it would save him washing the piss-soaked trousers.

A snoring shape that he assumed was the hateful shem Alistair was stinking up the tent when he crawled in and undressed. Arahad had thought the tent a good size, but the huge, sprawled human took up over half the space. Rage rose in him like vomit when he realised his pack and pile of things had been moved: until he saw it was all in the same order and position he had left it in, only leant against a different tent pole. His bed roll has been neatly laid out, as well.

He curled up as far as he could from the big, mumbling pile of blankets and tried to sleep.

His dreams were worse. The dark things that moved like glinting smoke and that noise remained and kept resurfacing, shadow-shapes in the pool of his mind- but he dreamt of Tamlen too and it was this that woke him. It was hard to doze off again as half-drowsy instinct screamed at him to get away from the human pressed against his elbow. Still, he would take the familiar, guilty wakeful memories that already crept before him, over those churning, uncontrollable dreams.

Tamlen had stood before him, smiling, and then he had coughed, and coughed again as if he was choking, and when he looked up he had smiled even wider, and his mouth had been filled with black blood, that slicked his chin and slid down his chest, because he was naked, or had he become naked? and then Arahad was him, he was Tamlen and he saw himself, except he was a shrunken skeleton with skin as pallid and transparent as taut gut.

And then he remembered the shemlen's hands on his neck, and he suddenly wished sleep would return.

Elvish Translations:

Shemlen tu vhenas'vin tur'alas - literally, human with a body-dirt filled mind. Better translated as shit-brained human. Being an incomplete ceremonial language, Elvish does not much lend itself to snappy insults. This, however, does not stop young elves from doing their best to construct imaginative insults or abbreviated cusses. If anything, Arahad is almost showing off/ indulging himself here by using a more awkward, formal phrasing.

Vir tanadahl- Way of Three Trees. Taken from the Elvish 'charge of Andruil', supposedly the teachings of Andruil herself, this is the way of the hunter- a guide and prayer for hunters, although all Dalish use it as a sort of mantra. The three other phrases Arahad recites (detailed below) make up the three guiding principles (the three trees) of the discipline.

Vir assan- Way of the Arrow: fly straight and do not waver.

Vir bor'assan- Way of the Bow: bend but never break.

Vir adahlen- Way of the Forest: together we are stronger than the one.

Las'vhen- abbreviated form of felas'vhenas, literally translated as slow mind- essentially, stupid.

Emma lethallin- my clansman.

Tu abelas, ar'ven- With sorrow, I go. Farewell used specifically for a long parting. Due to the unlikelihood of elves ever leaving their clan, it is generally only heard during an Arlathvhen (the meeting of the clans every decade) or at funerals.

Elvhen'din- not-elves. Similar in connotation to flat ears.

Vhenin- soul. Though not with quite the same connotations as the human word soul, it rather refers to the combination of the mind and heart that the Dalish say leaves the body to journey through the Beyond on death. Ghosts are believed to be the manifestation of the heart of the dead, which has been unable to form the Vhenin with the mind, or has been forcibly separated from it. This entity is also believed to be something pooled across all children of the Elvhenan- something of a group spirit, which each elf is part of, even while its owner is alive. When it is said that that great Keepers have spoken directly to the hearts of their people this is more or less literally meant- they have supposedly tapped into the collective Vhenin. Non- Dalish elves are commonly believed by the Dalish to have lost this.