Elsa's Quiet Wrath
She walked into Silver Vale with a smile on her face and a scent of mint and a spring day on her skin—and she sought what she wished to destroy in the name of her newest beloved. She paused, allowing the villagers to drink in her impossible beauty, the visual of her ethereal form a tool of control.
She stopped at the door of the largest house—her instincts were telling her to start here, but nothing more than that. It had been a good millennia, at best, since she had read any human dialect, but the deep, toxic residue of their spiritual decay was universal.
A portly man, the village leader, Elias, stood by the entrance. He glanced at her with a fleeting look of annoyance, quickly masked by awe. Elias barely noticed the flowers blooming at her feet, his mind racing with worries about the Crocodile attack cleanup. Elsa pounced on his soul like a starving predator finding wounded prey. He shivered, a deep, involuntary tremor, but showed no other outward signs.
Elsa narrowed her eyes. This was the town leader Varric spoke to, and he had helped prepare Ardyn for her sacrifice—happily giving her to ensure that his own daughter was not chosen. A transgression indeed, but not truly worthy of her ultimate wrath. Instead, she made her search a bit more painful. The tubby man moaned, grabbing his stomach as if he had eaten something bad, doubling over with sudden, severe phantom cramps. 'A-ha! The Stronghoods.' The fear of his complicity, the fear of losing his daughter, all pointed directly to this house.
Elsa's mind went quiet as she looked deeper into the man's soul and perceptions. She need to verify what she found before she decided on her course of action.
She smiled and looked at a woman standing next to the village leader, even as she read her soul she reached out to her students.
She needed to understand Varric's condition and see if Ardyn would confirm anything – she wanted her student to want justice for herself.
Ardyn and Varric both rested. Varric was still at the medic pit and she was still in the Tranquility Cave but they rested within each other's souls.
It was something neither of them had experienced before. A precise melding of their souls into one unique space.
The precise melding was not passive; it was a universe built of their mutual need. It swirled with purples (Ardyn's light), blacks, and greys (Varric's shadows and power), and there were emerald green pools (Elsa's influence), an expansive lilac sky, and obsidian plateaus extending up from a vast misty nothingness. They were wrapped within each other atop one of these plateaus, their forms rendered in soft, pulsing light, when Elsa reached out to them both, her energy an unwelcome but familiar probe.
She raised an eyebrow and a sly smile parted her lips. "I see you two have truly found each other. You have built a beautiful, terrifying world."
Ardyn's response was both a blush and a sense of triumph—her light flaring brightest at the edge of his power—and Elsa scoffed and got straight to what she wanted.
"My dear. Tell me the truth. Did your family cause the scars you have, or had, on your back?"
Elsa felt Ardyn stiffen in their shared space—a sudden, sharp withdrawal of her light, replaced by a cold coil of shame, guilt, and a desperate need for secrecy. That raw, visceral shame was all that was needed to confirm what both the village leader and his assistant held in their souls.
"It's okay. Your teacher will take care of this."
"There is no need teacher."
"Why is there no need Ardyn? Have you not learned of your worthiness yet? Have you not fought for the things you want and deserve? Explain why there is no need and I will leave it all."
"Because it is not important. I have found what I need so all else can fall away."
"Hmm. If all else has fallen why do you feel shame when I come to you with this? Why have you not told Varric of this and unburdened your heart and soul? Do you have answers for these?'
"No teacher I don't. It still hurts me."
The last was said softly and with shame and it stoked Elsa's fury.
"And this is why I will address this. Only to start. I will leave the end to you – only because you need closure in this. But closure in your own way. Not mine nor Varric's."
Elsa pulled away and Ardyn allowed her soul to bury deeper into Varric's and his soul instinctively drew her in and raised a protective barrier around her.
And in this way they both slept and rejuvenated each other, as the world around them carried on.
Elsa walked calmly – but a dangerous fury was raging within her. She reached the front door of the largest house in Silver Vale and her rage increased. She looked over the building and weighed it against what she now knew and she trembled.
The house was solid, but its materials were cheap, and its foundation rested on stolen wealth and moral decay. She trembled—not in fear, but in the overwhelming, barely contained power of her protective fury.
Unable to help herself, she blew the heavy oak front door inward. The loud, tearing sound of wood splitting and hinges ripping from the frame echoed through the village. Elsa walked into the Stronghood household.
All was quiet.
She found the entire family—Michael, Anabel, Angelica, Tomas, and Sonia—frozen with shock around an open wall safe, surrounded by deeds and scattered jewelry. She smiled sweetly into five faces, noting the fear rippling off of each family member. The palpable terror gave her a perverse sense of joy. She calmly sat on the nearest dining chair, the ancient wood creaking under her slight weight.
"My name is Elsa, and I am Ardyn's teacher." Her voice was soft, melodic, and held all the danger of a lullaby sung by a hungry sea.
Michael Stronghood swallowed audibly, his eyes darting between his family and the wreckage of the door. Elsa's smile broadened.
"Ardyn is precious to me. Even if she does not want harm to befall you, and even if she does not tell me any of what happened," she paused, leaning forward until her beautiful face was just inches from Michael's, "I have ways of understanding all. Rest assured, I do understand humans sufficiently to exact a punishment far worse than any death that you could imagine."
She bounced her shoulders playfully and a sweet smile returned to her face, a beautiful mask over absolute malice.
"Now let's begin."