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Bond of Star-Antlered

© Cederwyn Whitefurr

December 2015

All Rights Reserved.

AUTHORS NOTE: Bond of Star-Antlered is a non-commercial fan work inspired by Dragon Age** , created out of appreciation for the original setting and its creators.**

All recognizable elements of Thedas belong to their respective rights holders.

Disclaimer: Dragon Age, the Dalish, halla, Ghilan’nain, Emerald Knights, and all related characters, lore, and concepts are © BioWare and Electronic Arts. This is a non-commercial fanwork created for entertainment purposes only. No profit is being made, and no challenge to ownership is intended.

Chapter 1: The Fawn

My name is Lirien Lavellan. I was nine summers when the hunters brought him to the camp.

A tiny orphan fawn, no bigger than a wolfhound, trembled beside his mother’s body. A shemlen arrow had taken her on the edge of the Brecilian. The clan mourned—losing a halla is losing family—but the Keeper said the gods had spared the child for a reason.

I was the one who carried him back, wrapped in my cloak. He weighed almost nothing, all legs and huge dark eyes. When I offered him warm goat’s milk from a skin, he drank greedily, then pressed his damp muzzle into my palm as if to say thank you.

That night, I named him Silmaris. Star-antlered. His nubs were barely visible then, soft as moss.

The hahrens warned me not to grow too attached. “Halla choose their keepers,” they said. “Not the other way around.” But every evening after lessons, I slipped away to the herd. I sang the old songs my mother taught me—the ones about Ghilan’nain walking the earth and shaping the first halla from moonlight. Silmaris would toddle over on unsteady legs and rest his head in my lap until he fell asleep.

Years passed like that.

He grew taller, stronger. By his third winter, his antlers had begun to branch, delicate and silver in the moonlight. The other keepers said he was magnificent, that he would pull an aravel one day with pride. But he never let anyone else near him. If another elf tried to touch his antlers, he would lower his head and snort until they backed away.

Only with me was he gentle.

I began riding him in secret when I was fifteen—bareback, far from the camp, racing through hidden glades where the trees still remembered Elvhenan. He moved like water, never tiring, never stumbling. When I leaned forward and buried my face in his mane, I could almost hear his thoughts: I carry you because I choose to.

The clan never knew.

Some nights, when the fire burned low and the others slept, I would curl against his side in the quiet of the herd pen. His warmth chased away the chill. I would trace the lines of his antlers with careful fingers, feeling the velvet shed and harden each season.

I told myself it was devotion. Nothing more.

I was wrong.

* * *

Chapter 2: The First Ride

I was fifteen the summer I first climbed onto his back.

The clan had made camp near the edge of the Tirashan, where the trees grow so old their roots remember Elvhenan. The air smelled of pine and distant rain. Most of the hunters were away tracking signs of human loggers, and the Keeper was deep in meditation.

Silmaris was four summers then—tall for his age, antlers branching like young saplings, still covered in summer velvet. He had begun pulling a small supply aravel with the herd, but only when another keeper led him. With me, he was different.

I found him grazing in a hidden glade, sunlight dappling his white-gold coat. When he saw me, he lifted his head and gave that soft, low call he saved only for me—a sound like wind through hollow reeds.

I had no saddle, no reins. Nothing but trust.

“Come, Silmaris,” I whispered in the old tongue. “Carry me as the knights once carried their own.”

He lowered himself to his knees without hesitation, the way halla do when they choose to let someone ride. My heart hammered so loudly I was sure the whole forest could hear. I swung a leg over his broad back, fingers tangling in his mane for balance.

For a moment we simply breathed together.

Then he rose—slow, graceful—and stepped forward.

The world changed.

We moved like water over stones. No jolting, no uncertainty. His hooves barely touched the moss as we wove between ancient trees. I leaned low over his neck, feeling the warmth of him beneath me, the steady rhythm of his heart against my thighs.

I laughed—could not help it—a sound of pure joy that startled birds from the branches.

We rode for hours that first time, far from any path the clan used. When at last he slowed and lowered himself again in a sunlit clearing, I slid from his back and pressed my forehead to his.

“Thank you, my heart,” I murmured.

He nuzzled my cheek, gentle as always, and in that moment I understood something the elders never spoke aloud:

He had chosen me long ago. I was only now beginning to choose him back.

I did not ride him openly for many years after that. But in the hidden places, under starlight or storm, we ran together. And with every stride, the bond grew deeper—quiet, patient, inevitable.

Chapter 3: The Forbidden Hollow

I was twenty-two summers when I found the ruins.

The clan had warned us all since childhood: some places in the deep forest were cursed, sealed by the Keepers of old for good reason. Whispers spoke of shadows that lingered from the fall of the Dales, of spirits that hated the living, of secrets too dangerous to unearth. “Let the dead keep their graves,” Keeper Marethari would say whenever a young hunter grew too curious.

But curiosity has always been my weakness.

Silmaris was seven winters then—his antlers fully branched now, carved with the swirling patterns of Ghilan’nain’s guidance. He towered over the other halla, proud and strong, yet he still followed me like a shadow. That day, while the hunters tracked a distant blight sign, I slipped away to scout alone. A crumbling stone archway caught my eye, half-buried in vines and moss, deeper in the Brecilian than any clan path dared go.

I should have turned back.

Silmaris sensed it first. As we approached the vine-choked entrance, his ears flattened. His white-gold pelt trembled, muscles rippling beneath as if cold wind cut straight to his bones. He snorted low, a warning rumble, and nudged my shoulder hard—pushing me away from the darkness yawning ahead.

“Easy, my heart,” I whispered, resting a hand on his warm muzzle. My own skin prickled with fear; the air here felt thick, wrong, like the Fade pressing too close. But something pulled me forward. A whisper in my blood, perhaps. Or simple foolishness.

He followed despite himself, grunting softly, eyes rolling white with unease. His hooves scraped the stone as we descended cracked steps into the gloom. I lit a pitch torch from my pack—the flickering flame danced across overgrown walls carved with faded halla statues and armored figures I recognized from old tales: the Emerald Knights.

The chamber below was vast, choked with roots and fallen stone. Broken armor lay scattered—green-tinged plates, elegant and ancient. My breath caught. This was no mere tomb. This was a sanctuary of the old guardians.

Silmaris grew more agitated. He pawed the ground, lowered his great antlers toward the shadows, and let out a sharp, distressed call. He pressed against me again and again, trying to herd me back toward the stairs. Danger, his body said. Leave.

“I know,” I murmured, stroking his neck to calm him—and myself. My heart pounded, but I could not turn away. Not yet.

In the center, beneath a collapsed dais, I found them: fragile rolls of bark, thin as autumn leaves, etched with faded elven script. They rested in a stone alcove, protected by what little roof remained. One touch, and I knew—they were ancient, from the time of the Dales. Touch them wrong, and they would crumble to powder forever.

Carefully—gods, so carefully—I unrolled the least damaged one by torchlight. The pitch hissed and smoked, casting long shadows that made Silmaris flinch.

The words were hard to read, ink bled by centuries of damp. But fragments emerged:

...the Emerald Knights rode not alone... ...a sacred ritual, that bound halla to knight... ...in body and spirit, as Ghilan’nain intended... ...the deepest trust, sealed in...

The rest dissolved into dust as I breathed too close, flakes drifting like ash. Gone. Forever lost to time.

My hands shook. A ritual? Binding halla and knight beyond mere riding? The elders spoke of the knights with reverence, but never this. Never anything so... intimate. So forbidden.

Silmaris nudged me harder then, nearly knocking the torch from my grip. His eyes pleaded. Enough.

I rolled the remaining fragments gently into my satchel, memorizing what little I could. The Keeper would never accept this—nor the hahrens. They would call it corruption, a trick of the shadows. Burn the bark without reading it.

But as we fled back into the sunlight, Silmaris finally calming at my side, the words burned in my mind.

A sacred bond. Deeper than trust.

What had we forgotten?

* * *

Chapter 4: Echoes

That fragment haunted me.

A sacred ritual, that bound halla to knight… in body and spirit, as Ghilan’nain intended… the deepest trust, sealed in…

Sealed in what? The bark had crumbled before the answer.

I turned the words over in my mind during the long days of travel, while mending aravels or tending the herd. What could “in body and spirit” mean? The knights had ridden their halla into battle, yes—that much the tales agreed on. But a ritual? Something deliberate, sacred, beyond the simple act of mounting?

The elders never spoke of such things. When I was a child, they told stories of the Emerald Knights with pride, but always distant, like stars too far to touch. The knights were heroes. The halla were sacred partners. Nothing more.

Yet the scroll had implied more.

Silmaris noticed my distraction. He would nudge me gently when my hands stilled too long on his coat, or stand closer than usual while the herd grazed, as if to remind me he was there. His presence had always been a comfort, but now it carried a new weight. When I looked at him—really looked—I saw not just my companion, but something ancient. Something that might remember what we had forgotten.

The dreams were faint at first. Not visions, not yet. Just impressions.

A knight in emerald armor kneeling beside a great halla. A hand resting on antlers. A sense of profound surrender—not defeat, but offering. Two beings choosing to become something greater than themselves. The feeling lingered when I woke: warmth, trust, a connection so deep it blurred the line between souls.

I told myself it was only imagination. The ruin’s shadows playing tricks on a curious mind.

But I began to watch the way Silmaris moved with me. How he anticipated my steps before I took them. How, when danger stirred in the forest—bandits, darkspawn, a sudden storm—he placed himself between me and the threat without hesitation.

One evening, as I groomed him by the dying light of the camp’s fire, my fingers traced the strong curve of his neck longer than necessary. He stood perfectly still, breath steady, eyes half-closed in contentment.

For the first time, I wondered.

What if the bond was meant to go deeper? What if the knights had known a way to truly become one with their halla—not just in battle, but in something older, more sacred?

I pulled my hand away quickly, cheeks warm.

Foolish thoughts. Dangerous thoughts.

Silmaris turned his head and rested his muzzle against my shoulder, as if to say: I am here. Always.

I buried my face in his mane and said nothing.

The questions remained.

Chapter 5: The Unexpected Touch

Years slipped by like leaves in an autumn wind.

I was twenty-seven summers now, First to the Keeper, my days filled with lessons in magic and lore, my nights still belonging to the herd—and to Silmaris.

He was fully in his prime, his antlers a sweeping crown of silver branches that caught every ray of moonlight. The clan spoke of him with quiet awe; no halla in living memory had grown so magnificent. Young keepers tried to approach him, hoping to earn even a tolerant glance. He allowed none but me.

Our secret rides had become rarer as duty pressed heavier, but the bond never weakened. In quiet moments, when the camp slept, I still sought him out. Grooming him had always been my ritual: running my hands through his coat, checking for thorns or scratches, tracing the carved patterns on his antlers with reverent fingers.

On this night, the moon hung low and full, bathing the forest in pale silver. The clan had made camp in a wide clearing, the aravels circled like protective arms. I slipped away to the herd pen, carrying a soft brush and a small vial of scented oil the hahrens used for the halla’s coats.

Silmaris waited for me at the edge of the pen, as he always did.

I greeted him with the old words, pressing my forehead briefly to his muzzle. He huffed softly, warm breath stirring my hair, then stood patient and still as I began my work.

I started at his neck, brushing in slow, familiar strokes. The brush moved lower, along his shoulders, down the strong curve of his chest. The motion was the same as it had ever been—comforting, meditative.

But tonight my thoughts were restless.

The fragment from the ruins still lived in the back of my mind: in body and spirit… the deepest trust… I had tried to push it away, to bury it beneath duty and daily life. Yet sometimes, in the quiet, I wondered what the knights had truly shared with their mounts. What surrender had felt like. What unity.

My hand, without conscious decision, drifted lower than it ever had before—past his chest, along the soft fur of his belly. Just a little. Just enough to feel the warmth of him, the steady rise and fall of his breathing.

My fingertips brushed the edge of his sheath.

The touch was feather-light, accidental in origin but not in lingering. Heat flooded my face instantly. A small, muffled squeak escaped my lips—half surprise, half mortification.

I froze.

Silmaris turned his great antlered head slowly, deliberately, until one dark eye met mine.

He did not flinch. Did not step away. Did not lower his antlers in warning or displeasure.

He simply looked at me.

His eyes widened—not in fear or anger, but in gentle, patient surprise. As if to say: Oh. This is new.

There was no accusation in that gaze. No rejection. Only quiet curiosity, and beneath it something deeper—recognition, perhaps. A question of his own.

My hand trembled. I drew it back as though burned, pressing it to my chest. My heart pounded against my ribs.

“I— I’m sorry,” I whispered, voice barely audible. “I didn’t mean—”

He blinked once, slowly, then leaned forward and rested his muzzle against my shoulder, the same reassuring gesture he had offered since he was a fawn.

The moment stretched, heavy with unspoken things.

I buried my face in his mane, breathing in the familiar scent of him—warm fur, pine, and moonlight.

Neither of us moved for a long time.

But something had shifted. A line had been brushed, however lightly. And neither of us, I realized with a quiet thrill of fear and wonder, had stepped away from it.

* * *

Chapter 6: The Stream’s Edge

We had ridden far that day.

The clan was settled near the Frostback foothills, but I had taken Silmaris into the deep woods at dawn, seeking solitude. Duty had grown heavier since I became First—lessons, rituals, the weight of the Keeper’s watchful eye. These rides were my only escape, our only time truly alone.

He carried me effortlessly, as he always had. No saddle, no reins—just my hands tangled in his mane, my thighs pressed to his warm sides. We moved through ancient pines, sunlight filtering in golden shafts, the world reduced to the rhythm of his hooves and the steady beat of his heart beneath me.

By midday we found a hidden stream, its waters clear and cold, tumbling over smooth stones. I slid from his back, legs trembling slightly from the long ride. Silmaris lowered his great head to drink, antlers dipping like branches heavy with snow.

I leaned against his shoulder, breathing him in—the sharp scent of sweat and pine, the warmth of him after exertion. My mind drifted to the old magicks: the way Dalish healers spoke to plants, coaxing roots to yield medicine; how hunters read the language of beasts in a flick of ear or tail. Silmaris had always been my clearest teacher in that silent tongue.

My hand moved without thought, stroking down his flank in slow, soothing circles. Comfort for him. Comfort for me.

The stroke drifted lower.

My fingers brushed the soft fur along his belly, then—unintentionally—along the warmth of his sheath.

A quiet snort escaped him. Not startled, not angry. Just acknowledgment.

His body trembled beneath my touch, a subtle ripple that traveled from flank to shoulder. He lifted his head from the stream, water dripping from his muzzle, and turned to look at me.

His eyes held no innocence now. No simple curiosity.

Only deep, steady awareness. And trust.

I tried to pull my hand away, cheeks burning. “Forgive me,” I whispered. “I did not mean—”

He sidestepped gently, pressing his side against me—not trapping, but offering. One hind leg stretched back slightly, opening himself to the touch. A soft nudge of his muzzle against my arm. You may, Keeper.

My breath caught.

Curiosity—dangerous, forbidden—rose like a tide.

Slowly, carefully, I let my hand return. Cupped the soft, furred sheath in my palm, watching his every breath, every flicker of muscle. He stood calm, patient, head tilted slightly back. A low chuff escaped him—not demand, but pleasure.

I felt him shift beneath my touch, subtle at first. The sheath warmed, tightened slightly under my gentle fingers. He moved ever so slightly, pressing forward into my hand—not thrusting, not rut-mad, but guiding. Using my grip to pleasure himself with delicate care.

I traced the length of him through the fur, feeling the slow firming within. The tip began to emerge—pink against white-gold, sleek and elegant. My fingers followed, exploring with reverent caution.

A startled gasp slipped from my lips. “We should not,” I breathed, voice trembling. “This is wrong—”

He snorted softly, turning his head to meet my eyes again. The look was clear as spoken words: I allow this. It is ours. No one else will know.

My resistance crumbled.

I let my hand close more fully around him, stroking now—slow, worshipful, learning the weight and heat of him as he grew firm in my grasp. Minutes passed in silence broken only by the stream and his quiet chuffs of breath.

Then his stance shifted. Hooves stepped lightly from side to side. His tail flagged. Breath came shorter, deeper.

I moved my grip lower, near the base, simply holding him—steady, present.

He rolled his hips once, gently. A low grunt rumbled from his chest.

Then he spilled.

Not in savage bursts, but in long, shuddering waves—warm across the moss and my fingers. Again and again, each pulse accompanied by a soft twitch, a quiet grunt. I held him through it, feeling the power and vulnerability of him in that moment.

When it passed, he dropped his head low, flanks heaving, body shivering with aftershocks. I rested my forehead against his neck, my own breath ragged.

Neither of us moved for a long time.

The stream kept singing.

And something ancient, something lost, stirred awake between us.

Chapter 7: The Shared Secret

Our ride back to the aravels passed in a haze, but a league from where we had made camp, I dismounted. Side by side, we walked the final distance back to our camp and our aravel.

Around me, the forest that had felt alive with possibility now seemed watchful, as though the trees themselves had witnessed what transpired by the stream. I clung to Silmaris’s mane, thighs pressed tighter than necessary to his sides, every stride reminding me of what my hands had learned.

He moved with the same steady grace as always, but a deeper calm radiated from him now—quiet satisfaction that mirrored the warmth still lingering on my skin.

When camp came into view, smoke curling lazily from cookfires, I slid from his back on unsteady legs. A young hunter glanced up from mending a bow.

“Long ride, First?” he asked, eyeing Silmaris’s sweat-darkened coat.

I forced a smile, grateful for years of practice at hiding my thoughts. “We chased rumors of an old elven shrine,” I said lightly. “Nothing but ruins and stubborn roots. He needs a thorough brushing after the thorns we pushed through.”

The lie came easily. Too easily.

I led Silmaris to the herd pen, away from curious eyes. Other halla greeted him with soft calls, yet he paid them no mind, following me to the far corner where the grooming tools waited.

Silence accompanied my work—brush moving in long, careful strokes along his neck, shoulders, flanks. Each pass felt like penance and apology both. My hands trembled slightly when they neared his belly, but I kept them high, proper.

When the last burr was gone and his coat gleamed once more, I set the brush aside.

He stood patient, waiting.

I stepped close, cupping his great muzzle in both hands. Warm breath fanned across my palms. Leaning forward, I rested my forehead against his, eyes closed.

“No one must ever know,” I whispered, voice cracking. Shame and wonder warred in my chest—this was blasphemy, surely. Sacred creature and keeper. What had I done?

He remained still for a long moment.

Then a soft snort escaped him, gentle, almost amused.

When I pulled back, he leaned forward and licked my forehead once—slow, deliberate, the broad rasp of his tongue warm and reassuring.

His message needed no words: My lips will speak nothing. You are my keeper. Only mine.

A laugh escaped me, half-sob, half-relief. I pressed my face into the soft fur of his neck, arms wrapping as far around him as they could reach.

Our secret.

Shameful, perhaps, to the clan. Sacred, perhaps, to something older.

Wrapped in his scent and the quiet of the herd pen, it felt like the most honest thing in the world.

* * *

Chapter 8: The Sunlit Grove

I don’t recall exactly how it happened.

We had wandered far from the clan’s path, deeper into a secluded grove where the late-summer sun filtered through the canopy in golden pools. I had come to gather—fungi for poultices, roots for dye, late berries for the evening meal. Silmaris had followed as always, content to curl in a patch of sunlight while I worked.

The air was warm, heavy with the scent of earth and pine. My satchel grew full, my skin damp beneath my dress. Without thought, I slipped the strap from my shoulder and let the garment fall. Then the rest.

It was only the forest, my halla, and whatever woodland spirits watched. I had never been body-shy; the clan might whisper of modesty, but the trees did not judge, and Silmaris had seen me bathe in streams a hundred times. I stretched languidly, arms overhead, then bent forward until my fingers brushed my toes, savoring the pull in my muscles.

When I straightened and looked back between my legs, he was no longer dozing.

He stood directly behind me—silent as the old legends claimed halla could be when they wished. One moment curled in sunlight, the next a ghost of white-gold and silver antlers. One ear flicked back, the other forward, body perfectly relaxed. He had heard or scented nothing that worried him. Only me.

He stepped closer. A playful chuff warmed the air, and then his tongue—broad, warm, and startlingly gentle—traced from the base of my spine all the way to my nape.

I gasped, a startled, childish sound, and spun around.

He gazed at me with those deep, soulful eyes—adoration, trust, and something new. Something patient and knowing.

Before I could speak, he moved forward, draping his powerful neck over my shoulder in the old gesture of comfort. The weight of him was familiar, reassuring. I wrapped my arms around his neck, breathing him in.

Then he grunted softly and pressed—gentle, insistent. My knees bent under the subtle pressure. Thinking he wanted his chest scratched as he sometimes did after long rides, I knelt and reached up.

He snorted, tossed his antlered head once, and nudged me again—this time backward.

I toppled gently onto the soft loam, cushioned by moss and fallen leaves.

For a moment I only stared up at him, confused. He lowered himself to his knees with graceful care, folding his legs beneath his massive frame. His eyes never left mine—asking, not demanding. Bridging the silence between species with nothing but trust.

I did not stop him.

His tongue bathed my face first, warm and sticky, tasting of sunlight and stream water. I laughed breathlessly, half-protest, half-surrender. He moved lower, nuzzling the small curve of my breasts.

“Hey,” I murmured, voice trembling with something between laughter and wonder, “you’re not a fawn, and I’m not a doe.”

He snorted as if amused and licked again—slow, deliberate strokes across each nipple.

My breath caught hard. My back arched off the ground without permission. Sensations I had no right to feel—as Keeper’s First, as Dalish, as anything—swirled through me like wildfire.

He huffed softly and continued, lapping left, right, right again, then left, as though savoring. His dark eyes stayed locked on mine the entire time.

When his muzzle drifted lower, tracing the line of my belly, I snorted in sudden alarm and tapped his nose. “Silmaris, no. You cannot…”

He paused, ears flicking. For a heartbeat he looked almost scolded—the same expression he’d worn as a month-old fawn when I’d once denied him extra milk.

Then he grunted, low and gentle, and simply parted my thighs with the warmth of his muzzle.

I gasped, ears burning, eyes wide. Hot breath washed over the most private part of me—places no Dalish, no human, no creature had ever touched.

He looked up again, one ear cocked, and gave a soft snort that felt unmistakably like amusement.

Before I could form another protest, he pressed his nose to my lower belly. His tongue—long, slender, surprisingly flexible—found me.

Thought shattered.

The world narrowed to warmth, pressure, the slow and deliberate strokes of a creature who knew exactly what he was offering. My hands found his antlers, gripping gently—not to push away, but to anchor myself as waves of sensation rolled through me.

I did not stop him.

I could not have stopped him if I tried.

And in the quiet of that sunlit grove, beneath the watchful eyes of ancient trees, I let my halla love me in the only way he knew how.

* * *

Chapter 9: The Keeper’s Warning

When we returned to camp, I was not myself.

I had bathed in a cold stream on the way back, scrubbing my skin until it stung, trying to wash away the evidence of the grove. But my mind—my mind lay pinned beneath Silmaris on that sun-warmed moss, his tongue still tracing fire across my skin, my body still trembling from the waves he had drawn from me. I walked in a daze, legs unsteady, heart fluttering like a trapped bird.

“Attend me.”

The sharp command cut through the haze. Keeper Marethari stood at the edge of the aravels, her hooded robe casting her tattooed face in shadow. Age had withered her body, but her eyes were sharp as ever—two chips of green stone that missed nothing.

“Come, child,” she said, voice clipped. “There is much to do.”

I swallowed hard, willing my pulse to slow, my breath to steady. Adrenaline spiked through my veins—obedience, duty… and fear. I followed.

She led me to the halla pen. The herd watched us with wary eyes, ears flicking at our approach. All except one.

Silmaris stood apart, calm and magnificent. He merely flicked an ear in greeting, as though nothing in the world had changed. But when our gazes met, I saw it—that quiet glimmer. We share more than any Dalish thinks. No guilt in his eyes. Only steady certainty.

“I have noticed, child,” the Keeper began as we ladled grain into feeding buckets—heavy work she left to my younger arms. “How you have a… bond… with him.”

My heart tried to climb out of my throat. The pause in her words felt deliberate, like the sharpening of a blade. Or perhaps it was only my guilt twisting every silence into accusation.

“Yes, Keeper,” I managed, voice steadier than I felt. “I have a bond, as you said. When I was a child, a halla bonds to one keeper. They become their whole world—while the halla share themselves with the clan…”

She fixed me with a look that made the first knife seem to slip home. Her gnarled fingers tightened on her carved staff.

“They serve us willingly,” I continued quickly, reciting the lessons like a shield. “They haul our aravels, their does give extra milk for which we are thankful, they protect us, warn us—”

“Yes, yes,” she muttered, cutting me off. “Spoken like the great book itself. By rote.”

We walked the line of buckets in silence for a moment. The other halla lowered their heads to eat. Silmaris waited patiently for his share, watching us both.

“I see more than a bond, child,” she said at last, voice low. “Once, millennia ago, the Emerald Knights rode into battle astride halla clad in armor our smiths have forgotten how to forge. Much has been lost to us. Now the halla are ours, as we are theirs. Be mindful of your place. One day you will stand where I stand—body bent, memory heavy—carrying the lore of our people until the end of days.”

“Yes, Keeper,” I whispered. Guilt crashed over me like cold water.

I had broken sacred law in ways she could never imagine. Riding him in secret was unforgivable enough. But what I had given him by the stream… and what he had returned a thousandfold…

“Come,” she said briskly, turning away. “Duties await. Then lessons. Skipping off into the forest and shirking your studies is inexcusable.”

I followed, head bowed, the weight of her warning settling between my shoulder blades like a blade yet to fall.

Silmaris watched me go. When I dared a final glance, he dipped his great head once—slow, deliberate.

We are not done, my heart.

And despite the fear clawing at my chest, something inside me answered:

No. We are only beginning.

Chapter 10: The Quiet Months

The Keeper’s warning settled over me like a heavy cloak, one I could not remove.

I buried myself in duty the way a hunted creature buries itself in leaves—completely, desperately. From the first light of dawn until the campfires burned low and the stars wheeled overhead, I was at Marethari’s side. I copied fading codices until my fingers cramped around the quill. I recited rituals until the words blurred together. I mended torn canvas on the aravels, ground herbs for poultices, sat through endless lessons on the history we still remembered and the far greater history we had lost. When the clan moved, I walked beside the Keeper, asking questions, taking notes, never once letting my gaze drift to the forest paths that called to me.

I stopped wandering.

No more secret rides beneath the canopy. No more hidden groves or quiet streams where the world narrowed to just the two of us. I bathed quickly, always clothed, always within sight of the aravels. The wild places that had once felt like home now seemed full of watchful eyes.

Silmaris felt the change immediately.

For the first few weeks he waited for me each evening at the edge of the herd pen, ears pricked forward, dark eyes searching the camp for my familiar shape. When I approached only to offer a hurried stroke along his muzzle and a whispered apology before duty pulled me away, he would huff softly—puzzled, almost wounded. He never pushed, never demanded. That was not his way.

As the days stretched into a full month, the soft huffs turned into quiet snorts of irritation. He began turning his back when I came with feed, lowering his great antlers just enough to make his displeasure clear without threat. Never aggression—Silmaris had never shown me anything but gentleness—but the message was unmistakable: I miss you, my heart.

He took to standing at the farthest corner of the pen, gazing out toward the treeline we had once raced together. When I finally came to groom him, always properly, always brief, always with trembling hands that remembered too much, he endured it with stiff patience. No more leaning into my touch. No more resting his heavy head across my shoulder in that old gesture of comfort. The absence ached like a bruise that never quite healed.

The clan noticed none of it, or if they did, they attributed it to my newfound devotion to duty. The Keeper’s sharp gaze softened; once, she even placed a gnarled hand on my shoulder and muttered that my dedication honored the People. Whispers of my “unusual closeness” with the halla faded into the ordinary rhythm of camp life. The simmering suspicion cooled to embers.

But at night, alone in my aravel, the longing returned like a tide.

I missed the warmth of his side against mine, the steady rhythm of his breathing in the quiet groves. My body remembered the sunlit moss, the weight of his neck across my shoulder, the slow, deliberate strokes of his tongue that had unraveled me completely. I would lie awake, fingers pressed to my lips to muffle the sound of my own ragged breathing, shame and desire twisting together until I could scarcely tell them apart.

Two full months passed in that careful, self-imposed exile.

Duty kept me obedient. Guilt kept me distant. Longing kept me awake.

And through it all, Silmaris waited—patient as stone, steady as the seasons. He never strayed far, never turned his devotion elsewhere. Some evenings I would catch him watching me across the camp, ears flicking, eyes holding that same quiet certainty he had shown in the grove.

I am still here, my heart. When you are ready.

The embers had cooled on the surface.

But beneath, the fire still burned.

* * *

Chapter 11: The Moonlit Binding

The third month shattered what little resolve I had left.

Distance had not been penance; it had been agony, a slow starvation of the soul. Every night I lay awake, body aching with memories of his warmth, his tongue, the way he had looked at me in that sunlit grove as if I were the only light in his world.

On the night the moon swelled full and luminous, spilling silver across the camp like spilled cream, I could bear it no longer.

I rose from my aravel, barefoot, clad only in a thin shift that clung to my skin in the warm air. No excuses this time. No lies. I walked to the pen with purpose, heart pounding a rhythm older than words.

Silmaris waited at the gate, silhouetted in moonlight—antlers a radiant crown, eyes gleaming with quiet certainty. He did not huff or question. He simply lowered his head and stepped aside, inviting me through.

We moved into the forest as one, side by side, his great form brushing mine with every step. The path to our grove unfolded beneath the moon’s gentle gaze, leaves whispering secrets overhead.

When we reached the clearing—the same mossy bed where everything had changed—I turned to him. Moonlight bathed us both, turning his white-gold coat to liquid pearl, my skin to alabaster.

“Silmaris,” I breathed, voice trembling with years of longing. “My heart… I am yours. Completely.”

He lowered himself slowly to his knees before me, the way he had the first time I rode him as a girl. But tonight was different. Tonight I knelt too, pressing my palms to the warm expanse of his chest, feeling the thunder of his heart match my own.

I let the shift fall from my shoulders, baring myself to the night, to him. Vulnerable. Offering.

His muzzle dipped, nuzzling the curve of my throat, warm breath sending shivers across my skin. Slow licks followed—worshipful trails along my collarbone, my breasts, teasing nipples to aching peaks until I arched into him with a soft cry. I buried my fingers in his mane, stroking down his neck, his flanks, until my hand found him again: already swelling, hot and heavy with need.

We sank together onto the moss, bodies curving in perfect harmony. I lay on my side, one leg draped over his powerful shoulder, guiding him closer. Our eyes locked—dark, endless depths reflecting the moon, reflecting me.

His tongue returned first, lapping slow paths of fire across my skin, drawing gasps that echoed through the trees. When he tasted me fully—broad, flexible strokes that unraveled every defense—I shattered once, twice, clinging to his ant antlers as waves crashed over me, leaving me slick and trembling, begging in whispers only he understood.

Only then did he shift.

He rose above me with infinite care, cradling rather than claiming. I reached between us, fingers wrapping around his thickness—gods, so impossibly full, velvet over steel—and guided him to my entrance.

The first press stole my breath: blunt heat parting me, stretching me with exquisite slowness. Inch by aching inch he sank deeper, pausing whenever I gasped, letting me adjust to the overwhelming fullness. When he was fully sheathed—buried to the hilt in slick, welcoming heat—he stilled, forehead pressed to mine, sharing breath, sharing soul.

We stayed locked like that, joined in perfect stillness, feeling every pulse, every throb. I clenched around him experimentally; he shuddered, a low rumble vibrating through us both.

Then he moved.

Not thrusts—glides. Long, languid rolls of his hips that dragged every ridge along my sensitive walls, withdrawing almost completely before sinking home again. Slow. Deep. Relentless in gentleness. Each stroke built the fire higher, coaxed whimpers from my throat, had me arching to meet him, nails digging into his mane.

He brought me to the edge again and again—once with those endless glides alone, once when he lowered his head to lap at my breast while buried deep, the dual sensations shattering me into stardust.

Only when I was sobbing his name, body clenching in desperate need, did he quicken—still controlled, still reverent, but deeper, fuller, hips rolling with a rhythm as ancient as the forest itself.

His release came like a tide: long, shuddering waves of heat flooding me, pulse after pulse as he pressed impossibly deeper, grunting low and primal against my neck. I felt every spurt, every claim, my own climax crashing with his—milking him, binding us in liquid fire.

We stayed joined long after, his weight a comforting blanket, softening slowly inside me while I traced trembling fingers along his antlers. Tears slipped down my cheeks—not shame, but awe. Completion.

The binding was sealed. Knight and halla. Body and spirit. Forever one.

When dawn’s first light touched the horizon, he withdrew gently, nuzzled away my tears, and curled around me protectively as I drifted into the deepest sleep of my life.

No blasphemy. Only truth.

* * *

Chapter 12: The Goddess’s Name

When I woke, the world had changed.

I was astride my beloved’s back, bare skin pressed to warm white-gold fur, moonlight still clinging to us like a second skin. But it was not the simple weight of rider upon mount I felt. Every twitch of his pelt rippled across my own body. Every breath he drew filled my lungs. Every beat of his great heart echoed in my chest as though it were my own.

And in my mind, clear, resonant, ancient, words flowed like Dalish wine.

I am you, mistress.

The voice was his, yet deeper, layered with centuries of memory. I knew it the way I knew my own thoughts.

“Sil…” I whispered aloud, hands trembling where they rested against his neck.

It is I, Silmaris, knight of the Green. At last the ritual is done. We are one spirit, one body, one soul, with each other.

My breath caught. I felt him glance back, the ghost of a smile brushing lips that were not lips, and then he exploded into motion.

He ran.

Not the joyful gallop of our youth, but something beyond, wraith-like, effortless. Trees blurred past. Streams parted before his hooves. Briars and rocks might as well have been mist. The wind sang through his antlers and through my hair at once. I did not guide him; I did not need to. We moved as one being, rider and mount dissolved into a single perfect harmony.

How far he carried me, I could not say. Distance lost meaning. Only when the first pale hint of dawn touched the horizon did he slow, cantering, then trotting, then halting before a ruin half-swallowed by the forest.

He knelt gracefully. I slid from his back on legs that still trembled with the memory of our joining.

Before us stood a sealed stone door, ancient beyond reckoning, carved with faded reliefs of armored knights and crowned halla. Vines and thorns had guarded it for centuries.

Two, it takes, his voice, our voice, echoed in my mind. Only a bonded halla and its rider may open it.

I stepped forward, heart pounding with new certainty. Beneath the creepers I found them: two raised stones set into the earth. One bore the faint outline of a hand, long, elven fingers. The other, the clear print of a cloven hoof.

“As one we were, are, and will be,” I murmured, the words rising unbidden.

I placed my palm against the handprint.

Silmaris lifted one foreleg and pressed his hoof to its stone.

Warmth bloomed beneath our touch. Silver light, pure, eldritch, flowed through grooves carved deep into the rock, tracing patterns older than the Dales. With a groan of stone long asleep, the great slab split down the center. Dust cascaded like dry rain as the halves ground apart, revealing a gentle ramp descending into velvet darkness.

Torches long dead flickered to life as Silmaris stepped forward, their flames pale and blue, lighting the way with ghostly grace.

Come, mistress…

I followed, my halla, my mount, my lover, my very soul, down into the sepulcher sealed since the first age of the Dalish.

And as we descended, a name rose in my mind, spoken not by him, not by me, but by the bond itself, ancient, revered, undeniable.

Ghilan’nain.

The Mother of the Halla had not abandoned her children.

She had simply been waiting for one of us to remember how to truly belong to them.

We walked into the light together.

One heart. One breath. One truth.

Forever.

* * *

Chapter 13: The Blessing

A ghostly form, larger than the largest of the halla, materialised from out of the ether before us. Silmaris extended a long foreleg, kneeling with the other, his antlered head bowed until it nearly touched the floor. I felt compelled to kneel, then bow my own head.

“For an age beyond measure have I waited, child, my son.” The voice was rich, filled with power that vibrated through stone and bone alike. “Why did the Dalish turn from the old ways, when they are needed most strongly? You have done what no Dalish has done since the first age—you have remembered the ritual that binds a halla to his mate, to the one who is his, and his alone. In ages past, only Dalish male warriors were permitted to be Emerald Knights—they would lay with their halla doe, bless her with their seed, and through this ritual would the bond be sealed. You are no male, child…”

Those words struck like judgment. I knew then and there I was unworthy, for this was either an aspect of the Goddess Ghilan’nain—or her very self. I dared not look up. I dared not draw more than the slightest of breaths. I absolutely dared not speak.

I heard a sound—unnatural, the hiss of steel that was not steel, of a sword unsheathed. When I stole a trembling glance, the Goddess now stood upright, a bipedal halla, neither buck nor doe. A scabbard hung in one paw-like hand. Her three-fingered grip closed on the ancient leather hilt as she turned the flat of the blade toward us. Stepping forward, her cloven hooves clicked against the stone, and she touched the sword to either shoulder—my mate first, then my own—before she spoke.

“By my will and by the power of the divines, do I bless you: Halla who is Silmaris, Dalish who is Lirien Lavellan. Arise, Knights of the Emerald—for so I have spoken, so it shall be!”

She sheathed the sword with a whisper of sound, then turned it, holding it out to me, hilt first. My hands shook as I took the blade, feeling the ancient leather warm as living skin, the belt light as moonlight itself, crafted into a weave no Dalish could hope to replicate.

She turned to the dust-shrouded altar, and I realised it was a funeral bier—for we Dalish did not embalm and entomb our dead. We buried them upright in the forest, planting a tree above them, so in death life would be reborn. Before the bier knelt the bones of a halla, shrouded in ancient armour it had once worn into battle. At the Goddess’s touch, the bones themselves crumbled to powder as she lifted the armour and turned about.

“You are not fully grown, my son,” she spoke, fitting it piece by piece onto his body. “In a season or two, this will feel like a second fur—as light as your own, yet stronger than anything you or the Dalish know.”

He remained kneeling, reverent, accepting the gift for what it was—and what it meant. At last, she stepped back and, seemingly without a thought, dropped back onto all four hooves before she smiled at us.

“Go, Knight, her beloved mate and companion. Return to your clan, and with that, carry my blessing. For too long have the Knights of the Emerald been forgotten. No more—for a time is coming where you will be called upon. Even I know not when.”

Her form shimmered and vanished like motes of moonlight, leaving only the faint scent of pine and wildflowers, and the weight of her blessing settling over us like a mantle.

Silmaris turned to me. His eyes—those deep, familiar eyes—were wide, showing the whites in a way I had never seen. Awe. Wonder. And beneath it all, the same steady love that had carried us here.

I still held the sword across my palms, its belt draped like liquid starlight. My hands no longer shook.

We did not speak—there was no need. The bond hummed between us, warm and alive.

Together we climbed the ramp, emerging into a dawn that felt newly made. The forest greeted us with birdsong and soft golden light filtering through the leaves.

Silmaris lowered himself. I buckled the sword at my hip, then mounted—bareback still, but now it felt different. Right. Complete.

He turned toward the clan, toward home.

And as we rode—knight and halla, one heart, one breath, one truth—I felt the future stirring.

The Emerald Knights were forgotten no longer.

We were only the first.

- End -