I do not own Dragon Age or any of the characters in its universe. Well just my Tam tam. I just like to stop and play with these wonderful characters for a bit. This is not a death fic!
Prelude
You know, being dead was not as painful as I thought it would be. Well the dying in itself was painful but now all that was left was a feeling of emptiness. I had left them all behind to fight Corypheus without me. To deal with the demons pouring from the rifts they could no longer close. The self-loathing I felt was suffocating, but if I had to do it all over again the result would still be the same. I would not teeter from this path because in the end it had saved his life, a life I truly would always protect. Dorian. He had hated me before I died, and must detest me even more now that I'm gone. All that matters is that he is not here and I am.
Well here, in a sense it seemed. I was always taught that when you died your spirit traveled into the fade and then passed on from there but as I surveyed my surroundings this did not look like any part of the fade that I had ever seen. In front of me was a door, large and roughly splintered from what seemed like years of abuse. Something inside me made me want to back away from that door and head in any other direction but when I turned around there was nothing but darkness behind me. It was like a large black sea that I would fall into and drown if I stepped away from the door. For what felt like the hundredth time, I lifted my hand and gripped the golden knob but my hand would not turn.
"Are you going to stand out there all day and admire my door or are you going to come in so we can get started?" The voice on the other side of the door startled me. I wasn't expecting anyone to be here with me, especially someone who could talk. Maybe this was a demon and my soul was about to be devoured. Maybe it would go back through a fade rift wearing my skin and charm the allies that once stood around me.
"Oh for the love of," the exasperated voice on the other side of the door huffed before it swung open. "Do I look a demon to you? Besides, I don't devour souls, they cause you to get fat." Surprised that the voice knew what I was thinking knocked me off guard. I stumbled forward, my hand still fastened around the knob when the door swung open. The man deftly stepped out of the way so I wouldn't collide with him as I fell into the room. I sprawled ungracefully across the floor while the strange man looked down on me and tsked.
"Tamlin Trevelyan, age 28, young son of Bann and Misha Trevelyan, a circle mage that spent many of his days cloistered in a tower before certain events led him to become the leader of the great Inquisition. " The stranger said, as if he was reading from a checklist. "Did I forget anything?"
My sarcastic streak that never failed to get me into trouble reared its ugly head. "Do you also know what color small clothes I'm wearing and my preference in sexual partners?" I muttered under my breath as I climbed to my feet and surveyed the room. From the outside, it was just an ominous door but from the inside, it was almost cozy. A fire blazed in a corner and several chairs sat around it to create a nice place to warm up. A black lacquered bar occupied a large amount of space in the middle of the room while tall black stools stood before it. Various types of plants bloomed everywhere and it reminded me of home. My mother loved to garden and the house was always overrun with fauna. My father tried once to tamp down the ever-growing forest in the house but one lip quiver from my mother and he was falling over himself in an attempt to please her.
"Hmm," the stranger tilted his head to the side as if lost in thought for a moment. "White, with little gold trim along the edging, and as far as sexual partners go, I don't think you have much of a preference since before you met him you were a Vir..."
"Enough!" I screeched to stop him from continuing, the color on my face blossoming into a bright flush as heat crawled up my neck. Yes, I did not have a lot of experience with sexual partners, well only one to be exact but it seemed even more embarrassing when a strange man said it aloud.
The man laughed and moved past me to take up a seat on one of the bar stools and beckoned me to sit on a stool beside him with one hand. Slowly, I moved towards the bar and took a seat, finally looking at the man in earnest. I had to blink and rub my eyes a couple of times to make sure they weren't clouded but I could not fully focus on the man's face. It seemed to shift and change each time I looked. Were his eyes green, blue, brown, I could not tell. "You really are a demon," I grumped, looking away.
The strangers laugh was loud and boisterous as it filled the room. "That's the first time I've been called that! However, we are not here today to talk about me are we? We are here to talk about you and how you came to take up residence in my home. I love a good story and it gets so boring out here in the middle of nowhere. Entertain me."
My face crumpled in anger this time and I turned back to glare at the man, his weird features still shifting. "I'm dead and you seem to already know everything about me, why do I have to tell you a damn story?!" My outburst did nothing but cause the stranger to laugh even louder and longer than he did before.
"Well…" he said, pausing to put his hands on the bar, they were aged from what looked like years of hard physical labor, cracked and leathery. "I just thought since we're more than likely going to be spending a large amount of time together you could tell me about the interesting life you've led but if you want we could discuss the politics of the Winter Court and the gossip floating around the…" I stopped him, my face twisting into annoyance. I would give anything to never have to deal with the Winter Court and its warped politics again.
"Since you know I'm the leader of the Inqui…" I stopped, the words turning bitter in my mouth as I changed my tone. "I *was* the leader of the Inquisition, I won't bore you with how that came to be." The stranger nodded in approval, silent now, waiting for me to continue. "I guess you want to know what led to my death." The stranger nodded again. "I guess it all started a year ago. I knew what was coming and I walked into it with eyes wide open."