So, this is just a simple idea that's been running around in my head over the last week or two. Since I'm still brainstorming for my other story at the moment, I decided to go through with this one. Just a quick, relatively fluffy (or at least the second part is) one shot. Please comment/review/etc. if you would like to! All rights go to Bioware.
When he finds her, she is red fire. Knees are bent and digging into the cold stone, head bowed in prayer, that sickly scarlet aura crackling like death beneath her skin. He grasps the bars of her cell with white-knuckled hands. Behind him, the Tevinter mage casts his eyes down in pity, and the dwarf—also infected with that awful red sickness—scuffs his boot against the damp ground.
Her voice drifts up to him from where she kneels on the ground, a song, a prayer, solid and desperate and tangible, though drawn ragged by the painful scraping of red lyrium in her lungs. He grips the bars tighter still. Not you, he thinks, he pleads. Not you, too. Then she opens her eyes and looks up at him, and though he is expecting it, he finds himself swallowing painfully at the sight of them.
Red. Her eyes are red.
She gasps in surprise when she sees him, scrambles to her feet, reaches for the bars even as he swings the cell door open. Behind the red lingers a year's worth of torture, regret, faith; her old armor sits loosely on her thin frame now, scraped and filthy. Her face is long and drawn—all pain and hope and can it be? He stands rigidly before her, breathless. Still the words ring in his mind: Not you, too. He feels his lips form the words I'm sorry instead. Trembling hands reach for a healing draught on his belt, but she shakes her head. From somewhere far away her reply drums and echoes against his chest. Too late, she means to say. Too late for me now.
There is precious little time. They race through the dungeons, and she fights beside him once more; all is crossbow bolts and Tevinter flames and the clash of his daggers as they tear through armor and flesh and down to the red hearts of his enemies. No longer men, he tells himself. Only monsters are left. He tries not to see the web of scarlet beneath her pale skin, or behind the dwarf's eyes. He cuts through a guard and hears the slam of her shield as another foe is knocked off balance, then driven through with her sword. She pants heavily and moves on, fearless, all heavenly wrath and fierce determination and one more chance, one more fight. They move in unison, a deadly dance, so accustomed to the moves of one another by now that to fight side by side is as natural as drawing breath. The dwarf fires off a bolt with a quip; another enemy falls. Fire rains from above and consumes a group of red soldiers before them. The few that manage to survive are quickly finished by his daggers and her blade, and they plunge ahead.
They find the nightingale further in the dungeons, chained and brimming with wrath. What horrors she endured are spoken only in the form of relentless judgment; she scoops up her bow and joins the dwarf in firing arrows into oncoming guards. No scarlet dances beneath her skin, and her eyes are not red.
Instead, they are cold.
His sorrow and regret build like a storm in his chest as they continue through the castle and up to the main rooms. With each cut of his blade he is closer; with each leap from the shadows he draws nearer to that small fragment of hope: I must get back. I must prevent this from happening. His eyes stray to the right and he glimpses the scarlet in her eyes once more. I must.
They reach the final room, the room where it all began, both today and one year ago. The magister falls beneath their blades and his breath rattles to a stop. In death, he looks like a desperate, broken man, his arrogance and his fear having been twisted into a weapon.
Nearly there. They must make it back, must mend the rift through time. He looks to her, and she to him, plagued red eyes meeting winter-blue. The silence, laden with things unsaid, stretches for a moment, and then she turns to hold the door with the dwarf. They will not last long—not with the red in their veins and the hordes of beasts coming their way. He reaches for her arm, too late. She is on the other side when the door closes. It joins the echoes in his head: Too late. I must. Too late.
The nightingale ushers him forward with the Tevinter mage, urging him to go. She turns and holds her bow steady and prepares for that long-awaited journey, both years and moments in coming.
The mage has almost opened the portal. He hears the beasts break through the door. Beneath them, he knows his friends have fallen, although their cries never reach his ears: the dwarf, full of cleverness and wit even after his years of torture; the nightingale, fearless and determined; the faithful warrior, whose prayers echo in his ears. In his mind, he sees her red eyes. They pierce him, straight through his armor and into his chest, where his heart limps on, even though hers has stopped. Will we make it? Will we set it right? The air electrifies as the portal rips open. The mage stumbles through and he scrambles after him, gasping, as the beasts claw at his back. He leaps for the opening as the world crumbles around him.
"Tyrn, wake up!"
He breathes in the waking world with a gasp, eyes opening to light streaming in through a window and a tangle of blankets and a firm but gentle grip on his right hand—his only hand, he remembers suddenly. Even after three years, he must often remind himself upon waking that his left hand is gone. He blinks once, twice. A familiar face is hovering close to his own.
"Cass." His relieved sigh ruffles her hair.
"You were thrashing in your sleep." She hesitates. "Are you alright?" Her face is lined with worry, her lips pulled down into a concerned frown. His heart is still pounding.
"I…." He blinks again and focuses on her eyes, struggling to dispel the image of her red-stained gaze from his nightmare. Gone is the scarlet, that death-taint. Now they are as they have always been: at first glance, a deep but simple brown; when she faces the sun, however, they become a warmer, lighter hue—something akin to honey or rich mahogany wood. He squeezes her hand with his own; her skin is pale and marked with scars, but it, too, is free of the red lyrium's aura. He sighs carefully. "Yes. It was just a nightmare." He moves to sit up in bed, and she joins him. "I'm sorry I woke you," he says with a sheepish grin. She throws her legs over the edge of the bed and strides across the room in her nightgown, short black hair ruffled from sleep. When she reaches up to pull the shades fully open, he catches the glint of the wedding ring on her finger, and traces of his nightmare continue to slip away.
"Ah, don't worry," she says, tugging open the shades. He raises his arm to block the onslaught of light. "You somehow managed to smack me in the nose in the midst of all your flailing. I assumed you were just trying to add to my collection of scars." She turns to face him again with a playful smirk. Chuckling, Tyrn untangles himself from the blankets and steps out of bed. He tugs on an old silk shirt, his own ring flashing as he pulls the garment over his head and grunts.
"Well, I do have a weakness for them." From across the room, he can see the prominent scar above her left jawline, and another—though much more faint—just below her right cheekbone. Cassandra snorts and rolls her eyes heavily.
"It looks to me as though you have a weakness for giving yourself scars. Have you looked in the mirror lately, husband?"
"What? My markings cover some of them. Besides, it adds to my roguish look." He wiggles his eyebrows, and is gratified with another of Cassandra's snorts. Tyrn smiles, and they are silent for a moment, the upcoming discussion about his nightmare no doubt flickering at the forefront of both of their minds. "I'll go make us some tea," he says, and pads hurriedly out of the room and into the kitchen.
He returns to find her standing in their small library just down the hall from the bedroom, clad in a much warmer outer robe, as fall has come to Thedas, and with it a morning chill. Her brown eyes flick thoughtfully over the various titles. After a moment she reaches out and pulls a copy of one of Varric's books from a shelf: Swords and Shields. Tyrn watches quietly as she thumbs through the pages.
Over the years, he has collected multiple copies of the dwarf's works; during the times when the two were often away on business (she with the Seekers and he with the remnants of Inquisition dealings), he made a point of picking up any copies of Varric's books he could find. When they met again, Tyrn occasionally gifted them to her along with other thoughtful gestures, ranging anywhere from woodland walks to candlelit dinners to a simple bouquet of flowers, as Cassandra never seemed to tire of these, so long as they were fresh and they came with her most treasured gift of all: Tyrn himself. Cassandra often gifted him books as well, although his were generally volumes on various elements of history. Now and then he would open one to find a thoughtful note or a commentary she had left for him, as she often read them before he did (how she managed to read so much while rebuilding the Seekers, he still does not know).
Now, standing before their abundant collection of books (indeed, the shelves are looking quite heavy-laden these days—they really should finish building the new one), Tyrn shifts closer until his lips are just behind her ear.
"A bit of morning reading, I see."
"Gah!" Cassandra jumps in surprise and slams the book closed, then turns to look at him, her eyes somehow managing to show irritation, laughter, and a twinge of embarrassment all at once. It is a classic Cass look, one that he has grown quite fond of. Tyrn hands her a steaming mug of tea—it is these small things that make him grateful for slightly long, elven fingers, as he can loop them through both handles without much trouble—and laughs.
"Ha! Every time," he chuckles, bringing his own mug to his lips. Cassandra shakes her head and smiles as she replaces the book on the shelf.
"Even after all these years," she says with a sigh. "One of these days I'll get you back." She raises an eyebrow at him.
"Mmm. Not with that clunky armor you always wear," he teases. "I can hear you coming from a mile away."
"It's practical, not clunky. Besides," Cassandra takes another sip of her tea and breathes in the warm steam with a sigh, "Someone has to stand between you and the worst of the danger. Let's not forget about that time with the dragon…."
"Ah, alright. Point taken, my lady." His eyes grow distant for a moment, and his smile a little sad, as his thoughts turn once more to his nightmare. She catches the look and presses her lips into a worried line.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Cassandra asks, running a thumb against the edge of her mug. His winter-blue eyes flicker up to hers.
"I suppose I should." He hesitates. "Let's go out to the balcony," Tyrn adds, eager for the crisp morning air, and Cassandra nods in agreement.
They open the balcony door from their bedroom and step out onto a stone platform with sturdy, elegant railing, much like the one outside of Tyrn's old room at Skyhold. He sighs and looks out over the woods for a moment. Their home is set high in the hills of the Hinterlands, masked primarily by tall pines. It is quiet out here, away from the world. He looks over to see Cassandra still watching him, her face a mixture of thoughtfulness and unconcealed worry, dark eyes lit by the morning sun.
"I...don't believe I've told you much about what I saw in Redcliffe all those years ago, when Dorian and I were cast into the future," he begins.
"Never in detail, no. Dorian mentioned it a time or two." She sips her tea and regards him with a patient expression. "Well, he mostly described what he was wearing and how 'stylish' he looked when he was getting that portal back open." Cassandra rolls her eyes.
"Of course he did."
She rests her mug on the railing and gazes out over the trees. "He also mentioned that you found us—Varric, Leliana and I." Tyrn looks down at his hand, turning it over to watch the sunlight's reflection shift with his ring.
"Yes." He rests his palm on the stone railing, letting the cool, solid surface ground him. A breeze catches his thin shirt and ruffles his hair; his tall, thin frame is haloed in morning light. "You...died, actually. You were buying time for Dorian and I to get through the portal. All three of you, gone."
Something akin to pity flickers across Cassandra's face. "Oh. I see." Tyrn presses his lips together in a thin line, his winter-blue eyes chasing the shape of a bird in the distance. She presses on, "Dorian mentioned red lyrium, as well." Those blue eyes find hers, studying the color there, reminding him that the scarlet death was, indeed, just a nightmare, a figment of a time never realized. When he doesn't say anything for a long moment, Cassandra takes a step forward. "I'm sorry," she says, her voice warm and careful against the sharpness of the autumn air. She reaches for his hand and squeezes it tightly. "I didn't realize how awful it was."
Tyrn huffs apologetically. "It's alright," he says. "I suppose I'm just grateful that future never came."
"As am I." Cassandra smiles. "This one is much more preferable, I think."
Her elven husband brightens, his countenance lifting with a tip of his head. "A bit."
"Oh? Just a bit?" Cassandra's eyebrows raise in mock incredulity. Tyrn flashes her a mischievous grin.
"Well, I suppose a little more than a bit. Although," he tips his head to the side as he regards her, "that may depend on whether or not you attempt to make me another traditional elven dish."
"What? You said you liked it!"
"Well…."
"Tyrn!"
"Ah, what I mean to say is that you can't cook things the way you kill them, my love." He begins to inch toward the balcony door. "If you beat the vegetables into puddles of mush, well...let's just say it looked as though you were trying to get some vital information out of them, and they refused to budge."
"Ha! You arse," Cassandra charges after him as he flees through the open door and down the hall, the thump of their bare feet against wooden floors filling the home with echoing, joyful noise. One of Varric's books goes whizzing past Tyrn's head as he rounds the corner to the den; another hits the wall in front of him and lands on an overstuffed couch beside their fireplace. He turns and holds up his hand in surrender when she comes flying around the corner, her short black hair still clumped and ruffled from sleep.
"I submit," he says, stifling a laugh. "Have mercy on me, Lady Seeker. Please don't turn me into one of your pulverized dishes!" Cassandra laughs openly, a carefree and perfectly honest sound that she saves only for him.
"Oh, you're not getting off that easily," she says, then crosses the distance between them. "I think," she whispers, her face only inches from his, "that this means it's your turn to make breakfast, love." He chuckles in response, just before they seal the moment with a kiss and a smile. Tyrn sighs and pulls her into a hug, wrapping his arm tightly around her before reaching up to smooth her ruffled hair.
"What shall we do today?" he asks, his voice barely more than a whisper. "You don't have any Seeker business, do you?"
"No, not for another week or so." She breathes in the scent of pine and autumn air that lingers on his shirt. "Varric should be here tomorrow. He just finished his next chapter."
"Mmm. Which one?"
"Swords and Shields."
Tyrn hums in amusement. "You know," He starts as they pull away, smirking, "I'm pretty sure he only writes those for you. He tells me they aren't very popular." Cassandra raises an eyebrow at him.
"Agh, of course he does. It's his own fault, though," she says, picking at a stray thread on Tyrn's shirt. "He always ends with a cliffhanger. It drives me insane."
"So, he must finish the next chapter or suffer your wrath?"
"Something like that," she smiles. Tyrn chuckles softly.
"We'll have to get in a game of Wicked Grace when he comes by," he says. "But for now...let's stay home today. What do you think? Eat, lounge, read some poetry….perhaps a leisurely walk through the woods this evening?"
"That sounds terribly unproductive and more than a little cheesy." Her eyes—deep brown, warm, familiar—meet his. A smile dances on her lips. "Let's do it."
"Anything for you, my love," Tyrn says with an exaggerated bow, and Cassandra releases a chortle of laughter as she follows him out of the den and into a new, ever-brighter day.