This story does not aim to retell the epic you already know.
The events of Dragon Age: Inquisition serve only as a frame, an excuse to unfold another tale within the tale.
This story explores the making of the Herald of Andraste's myth, guided by an elf who embodies the legend of Fen'Harel.
It took me quite a while to find the tone and the turn this story needed.
This is the third time I write about them, and the first time it truly feels like it moves forward.
Solas is a character who struck personal chords of rebellion in my own life story. I always felt I owed him a fic, although maybe, in the end… I only owed it to myself.
I think that when we approach the end, we almost can't help but circle back to the beginning. And that's what happened to me. I was reaching the final chapters of Fragmentos de Libertad (a story still unpublished, set after the events of Veilguard), and I realized I needed to give life to this earlier part of the narrative because I wasn't being honest with Lavellan and Solas while constructing that ending.
That need brought me here, and I don't regret it for a second. Writing this part of the story has been beautiful, an incredibly personal journey, because it allowed me to reconnect with the two earlier Solavellan stories I had written many years ago.
You have no idea how many times I reread every chapter, over and over again, or how hard I try not to lose the narrative thread 😂
But this chapter of the story found me at a different moment in my life, and it pushed me into a wonderful process of research to give it the weight and credibility it deserved.
To portray the war, I leaned heavily on A Long Way Gone.
To shape Solas's mental clarity, I relied on Harari.
To think about Elentari's feminine freedom, I found inspiration in Cazzu.
To explore slavery, I turned to Frederick Douglass's autobiography.
And to develop certain aspects of an original character from Fen'Harel's Agency, I drew from Beautiful Boy.
And well… this is what came out of that journey.
I know this first part can feel a bit dense in content, diving into Solas's guilt-ridden mind is exactly what The Wolf's Awakening is meant to feel like.
But in The Price of Fire (Book 2) there's more air, more Elentari, and a bit more room to breathe around our fatalistic elf's drama 😂
This English version was initially translated with Google Translate and OpenAI tools. If it sounds strange, the original Spanish version is available. I don't have the skills to translate properly, but I do read every English translation carefully, making sure the intention stays intact and that Dragon Age lore terms follow BioWare's canon. Still… since I don't speak English, I don't know if it may read oddly to native speakers. 🙃
With nothing more to add, welcome to my madness.