"Get up! Human, wake up!" The unfamiliar voice that drags me from my stupor is raspy and colored with panic.

Blearily, I peel my eyes open. "What?" I groan, trying to focus enough to see more than a blurry grey mush.

"Yes, you're awake! Look, I need you to tell me what this glowing shit is. These guys won't give me jack–," the voice, cut off by a kick to the stomach, belongs to a massive woman with curling horns capped in metal and dressed in mercenary's garb. That's all well and good and weird as shit, but the thing that draws my eye is the green glow emanating from her left hand. Her teeth are clenched, trying to keep herself from crying out in pain.This is fucking Dragon Age: Inquisition, that's the fucking Anchor, and it's attached to fucking Adaar.

I move to help her, and that's when I notice the thick rope securely binding my wrists together. "Who's the kinky bastard that thought this up?"

That wins a snort from the qunari.

"Silence, both of you. We await the Nightingale and Seeker Pentaghast's arrival," a younger man brandishes his blade first at me, then at Adaar. I don't shrink back from it, instead leveling an irritated look at its wielder. The lack of fear in my eyes only seems to increase his own.It makes more sense for Cassandra to take longer, I suppose. It's not as if she and Leliana would be lurking around outside, timing their entrance for when the Inquisitor wakes up.

"Oh, please, if you planned to kill us we'd be dead. Dungeons are for people wanted alive, at least until their purpose is fulfilled," Adaar narrows her eyes at the armored man. "You are not the only one who seeks answers. I do not plan on running, but I trust you will permit me to speak to my fellow prisoner." The Tal-Vashoth turns to me, "I am Kaaras Adaar. What are you called, human?"

I blink. "Oh. Rosalind. You can call me Ross, I guess. Everybody else does."

"Ross, then. Do you remember anything at all about how we got here? Any reason we're here together, considering we've never met before?"

I can't exactly say that the last thing I remember is sitting in front of a textbook in the middle of the night wishing I wasn't immune to the effects of caffeine.I decide to go with what's safe. "No, not particularly. I remember the Conclave,"technically true, "but I have absolutely no idea how I got here."Also true.

"It is the same for me," Kaaras frowns. "Though I can recall a strange dream–"

"Well that's right convenient, innit?" a pasty faced guard spits at my feet. His grin is marred by crooked yellow teeth. "The two bitches we found in the rubble of the fuckin' Conclave can't remember–"

Cassandra slams open the door, cutting off the buffoon before he can finish. Leliana trails in behind her. Kaaras tracks them warily, clearly thinking about what Pudgy McGee has let slip.The rubble of the Conclave. The Anchor flares up again, drawing a pained cry from her lips.

Cassandra circles around us, scowling. "Tell me why we shouldn't kill you now," she snarls. "The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead. Except for you two."

"You think we're responsible," Kaaras leans forward, squinting through the hazy torchlight.

"Explain this," Cassandra hisses, gripping Kaaras' left arm. The Anchor pops angrily.

"I can't," Kaaras mutters.

"What do you mean, you can't?"

"I don't know what that is, or how it got there," Kaaras insists, squaring her shoulders.

Lunging forward, Cassandra grips a fistful of the qunari's tunic. "You're lying!"

"We need her, Cassandra," Leliana murmurs, pulling the Seeker away.

"And you?" Cassandra growls. I can't help but shrink back from the ferocity of her expression. "Did you have something to do with this, prisoner?"

I shake my head. "No. I am sorry that I cannot be the easy answer to your questions, but I would help uncover the truth if you would let me."

Leliana sighs, addressing both Kaaras and I. "Do you remember what happened? How this began?"

Kaaras scrunches her eyebrows together, concentrating. "I remember running. Things were chasing me. And then... a woman?"

"A woman?" Leliana crosses her arms, incredulous.

"She reached out to me. I…" Kaaras trails off, at a loss for words.

"And what can you recall?" The spymaster's mouth twists as she looks at me. Closing my eyes, I think back to the timespan after falling asleep at my desk. It's slippery to latch onto, but eventually a snippet of conversation filters into my brain.

My, my, aren't you a fine specimen? A bright little spirit, both adventurer and philosopher. Such great potential. Yes, I think you will do quite nicely.

What. In. The. Actual. Fuck. That isn't the normal voice inside my head. Right?

No. We sound nothing alike. Honestly, I'm irked that you even have to ask. That is very clearly male.

Realizing that I have yet to answer Leliana, I piece together a reply, "I remember a voice. I think it belonged to a man."

"A man?" Leliana presses, even more skeptical. "Did you know him? What did he say?"

"No," I shake my head. 'He said I had 'great potential' for something. I don't know what."

Cassandra grips Leliana's arm, pulling her away from Kaaras and I. "Go to the forward camp with her, Leliana. I will take the qunari to the rift."

"I'm not going with you?" I ask Cassandra.This is new.Leliana kneels at my feet, cutting through my bindings with ease. Alarmed at the discoloration of my wrists, I do my best to rub some feeling back into them.

"I see no reason for you to accompany us. You are not the one with the mark."

That actually makes sense.

"Let us go," Leliana gestures for me to follow.

I shrug, intrigued at the prospect of going off-script so soon, "guess I'll see you on the other side, Kaaras."

"You'd better!" She calls. Then the door shuts between us, and suddenly I am in a freezing village of people who hate me with only a trained assassin for company.

I am so dead.