Shaking the Faith

by Pentuppen

What happens when your Inquisitor is not the bastion of hope you were looking for? How do the inquisition cope with a Herald that would rather be anywhere else but at the breach? Micah Trevelyan didn't ask for the mark and he's seriously considering chopping it off himself if it will get him out of having to play the reluctant hero.

1. Chapter 1

Authors Note

Hi there just a few things about this story before you start.

I was inspired by two of my favourite authors when deciding to write this fic. I love George R.R Martins format of different POV's and his intertwining stories. While my fic wont have any red weddings there will be plenty of characters including some OC's that I'm hoping you'll enjoy.

Sir Terry Pratchett is also another inspiration here, which is why i must warn you that this fic will not be taking itself too seriously. While i intend to add plenty of decent plot, there will be a fair bit of silliness because I'm doing this for fun

This is intended to be a long project so i humbly ask that if you do like the fic, any encouragement or constructive comments will always be a huge boost to any writers confidence and will to continue.

While i have a fairly good outline of what is going to happen in this story, if the fic is established as enjoyable i will be happy to look at prompts and suggestions.

Ok thats enough of that bollocks, please enjoy!

Chapter Management

Chapter One

Cullen

It was never easy. It didn't matter how well the plan was made or how thorough you were, it didn't matter if you poured every ounce of your guile into meeting all the variables and the 'what if's', and it seemed to hardly matter if you placed every inch of your own hard won faith into believing you had done your best. You could spend days, weeks...even months preparing and the simple truth was that any plan could still be shattered in the time it took to draw a breath. In the space of one explosive green second the board had been overturned and the pieces had been destroyed as casually as if they had never been there in the first place.

What followed had been chaos beyond imagining and somehow he found himself in charge of a lot of scared men who were expected to fight creatures most had only ever read about. However brave they had been before this, however stoic and bolstered by the fact that they were doing the Divine's bidding..theMaker'sbidding, that was wiped away when the sky burst open and birthed it's nightmarish spawn on top of a site most considered to be sacred, perhaps even..protected. He allowed them only a few moments to taste fear before he had them on their feet and moving again, his voice somehow carrying above the screams of rage and grief, knowing that it would all fall apart if he gave them more time to process that the spearhead of this cause had been snatched away, fear and anger would bite deep.

He had also been acutely aware that half his troops comprised of mages and Templar's who had remained behind while other delegates attended at the Temple. For now they were following his lead, shock permitting them to follow the first voice to give them any sense of direction while disaster still disorientated them, and if he had given them the time to think, how long would it have been before sword and spell turned from the demons to each other when newly opened wounds began to sting with that old, righteous fire?

He had done enough to keep them from running in panic, enough to keep them from turning on each other, and this had allowed them to fight their way towards the Temple, but nothing he could have said or done would have prepared any of them for the sight that met them when they reached the smoking crater where divine hope had once stood. Proud, indomitable, faith made stone...these words had seemed a fallacy given to a structure made into a beacon by those who had dared hope...how the awful truth shone back at them as they stood upon the smoking edges of twisted, blackened rock.

It had been just a building after all.

Now it had been contorted into a nightmare brought to life, the very mountain pointing almost accusing dagger-like shards of molten rock towards the centre of the crater, the very air filled with a light that seemed to pulse with an unnameable blight. Twisted bodies posed in agony, dying too fast to crumble and still glowing with that terrible heat, fingers curled..mouths pulled back to expose screams that were likely snatched away before they could claw their way from seared throats. Red lyrium sprang from the rock like sickened, scarlet sores and Cullen didn't have to think too far back to imagine the kind of danger that stuff posed.

The breach loomed above it all, its baleful green light twisting and writhing in fits. Just looking at the thing made him think of some hideous mouth that would eventually descend and swallow them all, it would not have been a great comfort at the time to know he was fairly close to the truth. A horrified silence had fallen over the men and women who had followed his lead, eventually it was broken by the low murmur of one or two voices, and by the time they had carefully made their way over the lip of the crater the low murmur had become an agitated buzz that he knew would quickly turn to anger if given the chance. Anger was all well and good when you knew all your men would direct it at the same target, but half his troops hadn't been officially under his command and eventually this temporary hold he had on them would break long enough for several angry, heavily armed men and women to realise they stood among long time enemies.

Mercifully, any potential outbreak of violence among the ranks was curtailed by one of the rear guard scrambling down into the crater to report two more rifts having opened up behind them. He'd quickly rallied them together again,choosing to leave eight men in the crater guarding the breach while the rest were divided between guarding its outer edges and following him to what had once been the main hall until all the walls had been disintegrated. With a target for their frustrations they seemed all too eager to follow his shouted instructions as demons surged out of the ground like an insane type of malignant weed. It had felt undeniably good to strike out at something that required no act of careful conscience on his part, for once the course of action was simple, demons had to be destroyed.

It could have been utter chaos but with their anger given a unified direction they worked well for a unit that had never trained together. For the mages it was likely the first time they had been given free reign to test the limits of their abilities. The Templars might have been forced to allow their natural enemies to cast dangerous magics beside them, but the almost infinite supply of an even worse enemy seemed to make up for it, and after the first hour of furious battle they had even started working in tandem. The bulk of his men were Inquisition soldiers he had been training himself, and he trusted them more than the others who were likely one misdirected spell away from remembering they were at war.

Still they fought on, the enemies plentiful enough that there really hadn't been any time to remember who they were let alone who they had been fighting just days before. Blood, steel and enough magic to crisp the hairs on just about everyones neck, for two hours they fought as viciously as a pack of war dogs and even Cullen had to admit to feeling some pleasure in repeatedly slamming his shield into the screeching face of a demon. The tide of demons eventually began to slow though it never stopped, he knew better men and women would likely come up with better theories but it didn't take the mind of a first enchanter to understand that as long as the rifts remained open the demons would keep coming, but they done enough to ensure that Haven would not be overrun.

Then the breach spat something else out into the crater and everything pretty much went to shit.

They were all starting to show the wear and tear of battle by then, some sort of fragile camaraderie still keeping them all on the same side, and though they were tired there had still been enough fight left in them that he thought they might well last until the Seeker reached them with reinforcements. Then the frantic shouts erupted from the crater and a runner had been sent up to inform him that the breach had dropped something else, something decidedly not demon shaped and probably unconscious. When Cullen pinched at the bridge of his nose and very calmly asked the man his reasoning for the definition of 'probably', the soldier had the good graces to look a little embarrassed.

"Weeeell wethinkhe's unconscious, Bartholomew poked him with his boot and he sort of grunted but didn't wake up"

Cullen had been doing his best to maintain his patience up until this point, mostly because he had been all too aware of several pairs of ears all straining to find out what had been happening back down in the crater. He couldn't remember the recruits name right then, though he knew the face, he was a solid fighter and followed orders well enough, however his ability to give a coherent report right then was hampered by the fact that he looked ready to both wet himself with an overabundance of excitement or run in any direction that wasn't back down in the crater.

With a very firm grip on the tail of his temper, Cullen had asked why they hadn't just pulled the man up out of the crater, at which point the recruit had only looked even more nervous before pointing out that nobody wanted to touch anyone who'd been shoved from the fade by a strange glowing woman, certainly not when their hand glowed and spat green sparks suspiciously like the breach itself. The Commander had simply stared at the man for several moments while he tried to process that information in some order that might make sense, at which point the recruit well and truly dropped a tiger amongst the pigeons.

"I dunno if it matters Sir, but it looks like he's a mage"

Cullen hadn't needed to look behind him to see the ripple of disturbance this had caused amongst the ranks, a wave of low muttering had quickly swept over them, sizzling already frayed nerves and causing eyes to glance about with suspicion and wariness. Suddenly Cullen no longer had the charge of a whole unit, he could see people in robes subtly trying to shift away from those in armour while Templar helms were swinging from side to side trying to keep both eyes on all mages present. He'd been quite proud of the Inquisition soldiers at that point, most of them looked nervous but all of them had the sense enough to know something was about to happen, half of them already carefully moving themselves between the mages and Templars. They might well have been able to get away with it, he'd been about ready to call them to order with the aim of separating the two groups when several things happened at once.

Firstly the rift behind them belched up a few more demons in their midst which meant that the back ranks were sufficiently occupied with not stabbing each other, but they were jostling the front ranks in their efforts to push the creatures back, causing sparks to erupt from already tested tempers as limbs and old grudges began to tangle. By the time Cassandra arrived with more men, the mutinous muttering had become an angry buzz, mages and Templars now turning to face each other with accusations ready on their tongues.

And then it started raining demons, at which point all hell broke loose.

Micah

He had woken to find cold stone under his knees and four heavily armoured men all pointing their swords at him, he had found this last to be somewhat excessive given that he was chained and only recently conscious, but they hadn't seemed up for debating the matter. The last he remembered he'd been wandering the temple in search of something vaguely alcoholic. Being surrounded by unfamiliar Templars had thoroughly exhausted his ability to keep his mouth shut for his own good and he'd been sent away to find somewhere quiet before those helmeted stares drove him to committing a faux pas that resulted his head being taken from his shoulders.

After that there was just...well, nothing.

He remembered the woman in that brief trip to consciousness just before he fell out of...wherever he had been, and even she was a hazy thought that swam in and out of the realm of belief right then. The rest was simply gone, not forgotten or even waiting on the tip of his tongue, it just wasn't there. While even Micah himself might have admitted he was a bit of a fool, this did not mean he wasn't intelligent, the two were not mutually exclusive, even if it was occasionally hard to believe in his case. He was not inclined to believe he had simply lostanymemory that would result in him residing in a dungeon with men waiting to use their very shiny weapons should he so much as sneeze at the wrong moment. People tended to remember the events that might lead to a situation such as this one, if only so they didn't do it again.

He did not sneeze but he did swear quite inventively when something sank a burning poker through his hand and the world turned temporarily green. His 'guard' did not seem quite as surprised by this turn of events, though they did look slightly nervous, this meant that he managed to keep all his limbs, but he hadn't liked the way those men looked at him, as though he were an unexploded flask of fire balancing on a ledge. The reason became clear when his hand spasmed again and began to spark, the experience had been far from comfortable and he had been seriously considering demanding to know what was going on. The most he'd been able to guess was that he was in Haven, the guards were Inquisition but the walls were rougher than the fine stonework in the Temple.

The answers to many of the questions piling up beside him, came in the form of a rather severe woman who looked as though she'd cheerfully like to thump his head off his shoulders. As she broke the news of the temples destruction about as subtly as a brick and barked questions at him, Micah was given the distinct impression that here was a woman about half an inch away from snapping and decided to quell his usual desire to press buttons. Besides, he hadn't been in the mood, some of the mages in that temple had been his friends. He learned that he'd stepped (fallen) out of the fade, that he had been on death's door for three days and pretty much everybody in Haven believed he'd had a hand in the Divine's murder.

In other words, this was not one of his better days.

The woman's name turned out to be Cassandra, she was a Seeker, she also looked like she'd been running on coffee and adrenaline for the past few days and had positively vibrated with the desire to beat some answers out of him, or maybe just beat him in general, he was quite convinced she hadn't been looking for much of an excuse. It had been the calmer and far more calculated tones of the Orlesian woman that calmed the righteous fire in the Seeker's fists, pointing out that they still needed him. Though it saved him a broken nose, he had been no less cheered by the thought of these people needing him, nobody ever needed him for anything enjoyable, the last time somebody needed him he'd ended up at the conclave!

At that point the Seeker seemed to cool down long enough to take him outside in order to illustrate the problem beyond the temple's destruction and his rather badly timed appearance. Staring up at the breach had been like staring up into nothing. Not the sort of nothing that speaks of emptiness, no it was more like the sort of nothing that contained only darkness and a lot of somethings that were guaranteed to be deeply unpleasant. Looking at it gave him the distinct impression that he might just fall up into that giant swirling mass and he suddenly had more sympathy for newly surfaced dwarfs.

Cassandra had taken this opportunity to then point out that the occasionally agonizing mark on his hand was going to kill him if it kept expanding along with the breach, but on the plus side he might just be able to close the breach! It was here that he'd decided two things. Firstly Cassandra really needed to work on her delivery of bad news, dropping it like an anvil seemed to be her preferred method and his brain had started to feel a little punch drunk by then. Secondly, he didn't have a damn idea how to close the breach. Did he just wave his hand at it, was there an actual spell? Or did he just do a complicated dance and hope for the best?

He also realised that he wanted to go near that breach about as much as he wanted to bare his arse to an archdemon.

Having every narrowed eye in Haven resting on him meant that admitting any of this was out of the question and he'd none the less found himself agreeing to help, if only because it was the only way he was going to get the damn ropes off his hands to begin with. Though Cassandra had not made the best of impressions he'd found himself rather glad to have her between him and the rest of Haven. People were angry, and he was a walking target for that anger, the word 'scapegoat' coming to his mind pretty rapidly. It was not the kind of mob anger that involved throwing rotten produce either, this sort of anger involved sturdy tree branches and ropes. They kept their distance however, Cassandra might not have trusted him as far as he could throw her, but she hadn't been about to let them lynch him.

Now he stood on the other side of Haven's gates, their intended path winding around the base of a cliff, Cassandra cutting at his ropes while he watched Inquisition soldiers running at cross purposes. Most of them seemed to be heading up the path towards the temple, but there were enough running back towards Haven with stricken expressions that Micah began to grow more concerned and he stuck closely to the Seekers side, at least until he fell to his knees when something sank white hot teeth into his palm and pain clawed its way from his fingertips to his wrist.

By the time the pain abated long enough for him to see more than white spots behind his eyes, Cassandra was kneeling beside him, and for a wonder she seemed to be displaying what he so far considered a rare moment of sympathy.

In Micah's opinion there was plenty to be sympathetic about as far as he was concerned. Life at Ostwicks circle had been good, he'd had a home, decent meals and all the cerebral challenges a young mage could have wanted. It hadn't been a particularly exciting life he would admit, but considering all that had befallen him so far, he'd been a damn sight better off. Then some dozy bastard blew up a chantry and suddenly everyone was being made to pick sides. Micah had been firmly of the opinion that he was on his own side thank you very much, an opinion that went down about as well as a fart in a tin suit with the current political climate.

In the end he hadn't been given much of a choice, the circle fell and suddenly they were running from unleashed Templars and forced to hide out in caves, scrounging what food they could and learning not to piss into the wind. The running and the caves were generally speaking, not an improvement to the modest yet comfortable life he'd enjoyed up until then, and it didn't get much better when the rest of the mages began to argue as to whether they should keep running or attend the conclave. Once again he was forced to pick a side, only this time it was easier, at least those who wanted to attend the conclave weren't hell bent on proving every mage myth right by acting like uncaged baboons the minute they were out from under the Templar's eyes.

"It's getting worse"

Micah neglected to thank the Seeker for pointing out the obvious as she hauled him to his feet like a sack of potatoes, he shook the offending hand with a wince and continued to follow the woman's back up the trail to where several soldiers were setting up a rough outpost on a bridge at the top. Now that imminent death appeared to have taken a step back for the time being, the cold was beginning to seep in and make itself known, the padded armour not really cutting it against a rather sharp wind chill factor, there were likely other, more pressing matters for him to be concerned about but since there seemed to be so many he was opting to deal with the more immediate ones.

While the seeker signaled for another set of gates to be opened he tried jumping up and down to get some feeling back into his feet while blowing his own warm breath into his cupped hands. Something above him caught his eye and he paused mid blow, cheeks still full of air as his eyes followed the descent of a fast moving trail of green fire, at least he assumed it was fire, it was moving pretty fas-.

The bridge didn't so much explode as crumble from beneath them, Micah felt his feet tip from under him and then he was bouncing from one rock to another in a bone jarring tumble, dazedly wondering if he was ever going to fall on something soft one of these days, and as if to add insult to injury he felt all the breath leave his body as the ice rose up to meet his rapid descent. When he could finally sit up without feeling as though he was going to shatter like a dropped piece of porcelain he could see more of those flying balls of fire, some of them smacking into the ice hard enough to send large, clear chunks flying, others landed in the snow where they sank and sizzled.

Cassandra was on her feet of course, whatever else he might like to say about the woman she was hardy, he counted this blessing a second and third time when something dark began to emerge from a rising pool of green gas and sputtering fire. It seemed that the breach was not content with simply raining fire upon them, the demon unfurled from its explosive means of transport like the world's most unpleasant feast day gift. Micah very quickly found that his legs did indeed still work because he was currently backpedalling on them very quickly in his effort to get away from the thing.

There was always going to be the controversy concerning mages and demons, Micah sat very firmly on the side that wanted very little to do with the nasty buggers. His harrowing was a distant memory, one that he'd locked away in a very special box that was then unceremoniously dropped into the bottom of the well that was his mind. Demons scared him to a degree because quite a few of them were clever, it disturbed him to think upon a test of wills with an opponent who'd had far more time to get good at it. Right now however he was more concerned with this demon's claws than its intelligence, it probably hadn't enjoyed being hurtled through the air at several miles per hour and looked ready to share its displeasure indiscriminately.

To his immense relief the Seeker seemed happy to dive right in with a stunning shield blow that made him wince and grudgingly cheer the woman on in his head. He watched her bullrush the thing several yards away, she was relentless and clearly still very angry if the way she slashed at the thing was anything to go by. The admiration of his captors skill was interrupted by another of those strange fiery pools birthing an identical demon just a few feet to his left, Micah managed to scramble to his feet before the thing fully emerged but Cassandra's back was to them and the thing was approaching. He looked around wildly for something, anything, but all he saw on the ground was a basket, a few random apples and a piece of cheese and with the demon still approaching he was seriously starting to consider throwing the cheese.

Then his eyes settled on a fallen branch, its bark bleached white, leaves sharp and frostbitten. Well it wasn't a staff, but what was a staff but merely a focus? With no further time to debate he bent and snatched up the branch, already opening up the mental channels that tapped into his mana and collided with the words in his head, coalescing in his gut until he drew the growing energy into his hand, directing the spell through the wood and adding a little prayer just in case.

Once again several things happened at once.

Cassandra finally closed in on her assailant with a final swing that cleaved its face in two, it seemed to wither in on itself, what might laughably be called its blood seeping from its wounds in curling misty tendrils tendrils, like ink dropped into water.

His magic flung itself from his hands into the wood as though expelled from a slingshot, cracking the branch in several places and finally catching fire just as the spell launched itself at the oncoming demon.

The spell hit it's target dead on, he might well have been impressed with his aim if not for the fact that he'd just launched a chain lightning spell. The lightning enveloped it's intended target, paralysing the demon momentarily before it decided to wander off and bump into a tree for a bit, unfortunately it then arched and jumped across the ice to find an unintended target, Cassandra.

On the plus side, her resistances seemed to fare better than the demons and she merely received a painful but not debilitating shock, it was just a shame that the Seeker did not seem to be in the mood for any side that didn't include puncturing him just then. She shook off the little aftershocks and threw a death glare at him before charging after the still confused demon, ending its brief war with the tree trunk skewering it with a strike that a viper might have envied.

She immediately turned on her heel and came striding towards him, blade pointed and looking quite a bit like a demon herself right now, Micah didn't back away, but only because her glare pretty much nailed his feet to the floor and drew his testicles up into the region of his stomach.

"Drop your weapon, now!"

Micah blinked. He looked to the smouldering tree branch then back to the seeker, fear temporarily derailed in the face of this ridiculous command.

"It's...a...stick, it's on fire!"

He waved the stick about as if to demonstrate the true fallible nature of this so called weapon, only to have its dwindling flames burst to life again, forcing him to drop it and offer the Seeker a sheepish look that he hoped was charming enough to at least earn him a quick death.

"You attacked me, while my back was turned!"

It appeared that this was the more pressing matter now that the dreaded branch had been discarded, Micah had to admit that her complaint might have had merit if he had actually meant to hit her and for once tried for some semblance of diplomacy, although it was liberally smeared with reproach.

"Look, it wasn't aimed at you, if you can't focus your spells properly it simply leaps for what your mind deems a threat, and let's be honest Lady Seeker, you've made quite a lot of threats today, it appears to have left something of an impression on my subconscious"

The truth did not earn him all her good graces at once, but her weapons relaxed and the look of fury gradually melted away to one that was slightly more understanding if a little grudgingly so. It occurred to him that the Seeker appeared to have little to no actual social skills. She was fierce, barked orders with utter confidence and she could be extremely scary, but in that brief moment when she was forced to confront that she might have made a misjudgement she seemed momentarily...lost.

"You are right, we have asked much of you and given little, but you must understand we are still reeling from the loss of our most Holy, your arrival and the unanswered questions behind it are undeniably suspicious given their timing"

He was about to point out that none of what had happened to him constituted as proof of anything other than having a bad day, but she'd already raised a gauntleted hand to quiet him and he watched her face change as she quite visibly swallowed a little of her pride, her jaw tightening briefly before her face finally relaxed into something that might well have been called striking if the woman behind it were not so severe.

"However i must keep in mind that you have followed me willingly. I cannot protect you from all sides and you should be allowed to defend yourself. If we cannot find you an actual staff along the way, there is a forward camp at the next bridge, until then keep close to me, and i shall try to be less...confrontational"

He somewhat regretted her gesture, he'd been quite happy thinking of the woman as some boorish bully forcibly dragging him to a pretty certain death. Now she was starting to show that she might actually be an honorable woman leading him to pretty certain death and that was a problem for him, because Micah had no intention of getting near enough to the breach to actually invite the aforementioned death.

He intended to run the very instant opportunity presented him with a way out in fact.

By the time the two of them learned to work in tandem-and they'd had to learn pretty fast- he was actually feeling a bit of a bastard, but he was still a scared bastard who knew he had neither the power or the skill to do what they were asking, and he was absolutely not going to be standing there when they all realised he was no use to them at all. It was all very well guessing that his mark might be able to close a rift or even, maker forbid, the breach, but in truth none of them knew what would happen, he could get swallowed up into the thing, be turned into a melting puddle of grease on the flagstones. Or he could cause another explosion like the one that had destroyed the temple.

No, he was not going to be banking his life on something that had a fifty percent chance of turning a lot of people (including himself) into charcoal biscuits, he'd take his chances elsewhere and if he couldn't get rid of this cursed mark then he would get rid of the hand where it resided and and drop the damn thing into the nearest volcano.

They did eventually find him a staff, Cassandra rather gruesomely pulling it from the stiff hands of half frozen mage who looked like he'd met the wrong side of a green fireball and Micah surreptitiously wiped it on his pants before experimentally extending his magic. The draw towards the staff was far more controlled, his concentration and the staffs components making for a better focus. Mana and energy cautiously touched upon the staffs element, a warm sensation slipping up his forearm to indicate that fire had been woven into the wood and metal bindings. With the staff's fire to send the demons fleeing in panic as they caught aflame, and his own lightning to stun or paralyse them, Cassandra was easily able to cut her way through the creatures that littered their path towards the forward camp. The wraiths were still annoying little shits however, they always managed to blindside you or hover in just the right patch of air to become almost invisible before they launched their spirit bolts at you. Micha found himself ducking and sidestepping a lot while doing his best to remember Cassandra was not his enemy as he cast his spells, she might have gotten away with a low charge, but the his energy barrage now consisted of several hard hitting bolts of flame and he didn't really want to explain away cooking the woman in her own armour.

However part of him rather wished she was his enemy because then he would have felt slightly less like a cowardly arsehole when he eventually saw his opening for escape. As openings went it was a bit of a tight squeeze, and yet he had to take it because the longer he spent in Cassandra's company the closer he came to developing a conscience and doing something monumentally stupid.

Not a chance. It might well end up being the honourable thing to do, but an honourable pile of ash was still ash and that was not going to be his fate. His chance came when the Seeker bull rushed another demon when it managed to run a claw through her armour, she was skillfully dismantling its face with the pommel of her sword when he started to back away, utterly absorbed, and trusting.

Oh he was going to the void for this.

He was turning to run when he saw a couple of wraiths float up behind the Seeker, and swearing under his breath he felt at least compelled to throw a barrier her way before he leapt over an embankment and half rolled, half slid down the other side.

He didn't stop to check whether she had seen him or not, having made his first move to escape, he could feel panic trying to nip at his heels and he got moving before it could really sink it's teeth into him. He didn't take much care as to where he was going other than as far away from the breach as he could get, his feet starting a careful run because slipping and breaking his leg at this point would be disastrous. All questions of social graces and honor aside, if the Seeker found him now she would likely chop off all limbs except the essential one and carry him to the temple on a cart!

So the only true direction he chose was...away. Away from the breach, the seeker and all the people who wanted to see him swing like a festive ornament.

Cullen

He could still hear the sounds of battle in the distance, but the clash of swords and the answering demonic shrieks were sporadic, which meant for the time being the men were holding back the tide from the rifts and slowing them down. This reprieve offered him little relief however, for three days they had been at battle and even with the assorted troops rotating in shifts they were getting tired, making mistakes and inevitably fuses were growing shorter. The number of deaths had been low but if things went on as they did for much longer then this would change.
Therefore it was highly inconvenient that their Commander was currently kneeling on the outskirts of the temple's confines with his eyes squeezed shut and his fists buried in snow up to his wrists. Lyrium withdrawal came with a whole host of unpleasant side effects, the headaches were the most frequent, muscle pain could often be a common visitor, temporary dysfunction in motor skills and unexplained arousal were rarer (thank the maker for small favours) and of course there were the nightmares and the risk of death if the body was too weak to cope. Presently he was experiencing a new symptom, his own skin felt stretched and tight with tension, and though his cheeks were cool to the touch he felt as though he were carrying a furnace in him. His flesh felt so taut that he was sure that it should begin to peel and crack before it sloughed away.

The heat and the stretched feeling had begun when he'd been arranging the relief for those down in the crater and he'd found himself rushing through his orders before he could begin to start sweating as profusely as he surely should have been? He pushed himself to walk as far from the battlefield as the burning sensation allowed him to manage, his brow still dry but his body feeling as though it should have been exuding steam. It had been hard enough to admit his weakness to the Seeker, he could not risk the respect of the people under his command and watching him bury his aching face into a handful of snow was not going to instil anybodies confidence in his sanity.

It was blessedly, wondrously cool however and out of sight he allowed himself to fully commit to the fact that it felt like his own flesh should be melting off from the inside. He rested there in that blessed chill until the feeling began to wane and then finally fade. As he sat up and scooped snow away from the neck of his chest piece, it occurred to him that the cold likely hadn't been any true remedy, he had a nasty suspicion that this particular symptom involved a problem with his mind, nothing that felt that hot should have left him unharmed if a little shaken.

For the last few months Cullen had been perpetually aware that he was taking a huge risk by combining his new direction in life with his attempt to resist the need for Lyrium. It was undeniably dangerous for a start, the range of symptoms were unpredictable and could often be violent. However his chief concern was his work with the Inquisition, he needed this to work, The Inquisition had not led him astray from the order, he would not blame them for his abandoning the Templars, that decision came with the fall of Kirkwall and Meredith's lunacy, but it had been a huge leap of faith in himself to take on the task and he has always known that if the symptoms became too debilitating for him to effectively lead, then he had another hard decision to make.

Having to step away from the battle was something of a blow to his confidence, the episode had been strong but brief, and yet a lot of things could happen very quickly when dealing with rift's that could appear anywhere, and if he wasn't there when something worse came out of one... Guilt appeared to be as much of a monkey on his back as the Lyrium had, the Seeker had done her best to dissuade him from this but since she wasn't very practiced at being tactful she managed to make most of her pep talks sound like frustrated rants.

For once he attempted to take her advice and push aside the all too easily found guilt, he was tired too and he was still expected to lead them which meant he got even less rest because how in the void could anyone sleep with that much responsibility? He closed his eyes for a moment and let out a long sigh, feeling his breath leave him in a steaming cloud while he stole a few brief seconds of silence, the ring of steel presently pacified for the time being, only the soft thump of snow falling from the occasional overloaded branch to disturb him.

"Bollocks!"

Cullen leapt to his feet before his eyes were even open, suddenly sure that he had been discovered by one of his own men after all. When he did open them he spotted a figure at the other end of the clearing he'd hidden in , his back was to Cullen and so he hadn't spied the Templar, then again he appeared to have stepped into a deeper patch of snow and was presently too busy hauling himself out of the suddenly waist high powder with his staff to take stock of his position. The Commander almost started to move away before his luck ran out and he was seen, when his eye caught the green glow reflected in the snow, his first thought being rift! until he saw where the glow was coming from.

He had not gotten much of an impression of the prisoner before he was carted back down the mountain on a hastily constructed stretcher accompanied by Cassandra, he'd been too busy trying to control his own troops when the sight of the mage incited an uproar, and that had been when the mage was still unconscious. The man had been of average height and appearance, his only notable features being the reddish brown hair and of course the mark on his hand, the last part had been particularly committed to memory when he'd watched it spark and pulse as if the light it exuded were breathing.

That light was presently bobbing around on the floor right now as the mage shook a few of the larger clumps of sticky snow from his legs. It was beginning to dawn on the ex Templar that the 'prisoner' was heading away from the temple, he was also unaccompanied and all of a sudden the Seekers failure to reach the forward camp was starting to make an uneasy sense.

The bastard was running!

The 'bastard' also chose that moment to look behind him and Cullen found himself staring straight into his wide eyed gaze a second before the man with the questionable lineage turned quick as a hare and bolted for the trees.

He didn't bother to yell stop because that would have been a waste of breath when the man was clearly not interested in doing anything but attempting to become a dwindling dot on the horizon. He gave chase because there was nothing else he could do, out here there was nobody close enough to call for assistance and Cassandra's last few messages made it quite clear that Solas' theories had true merit. Since Cassandra had been all but ready to throw the elven apostate in the same cell as the circle mage, Cullen didn't think she'd support the man if she wasn't utterly convinced that it could work.

Which meant their possible salvation lay in the hand(s) of a mage who was currently legging it through the skinny leafless trees.

The weight of his armour and weaponry was not desirable for running in the snow, his boots were hardwearing but made for firmer ground and would do little to help him navigate his way through the powder that would stick to his legs and add yet more weight. In short, the mage might well have had a good chance of getting away from him if it were not for the fact that a fine mist of anger was was rising from his gut and filtering it's way through the rest of his body, bolstering the corded muscles and filling his mind with the sort of determination that could knock down buildings.

Getting started was hard and required the kind of ungainly foot lifting jog that you really hoped nobody was around to witness, but with every step his body was adapting, assisted by the simmering will that continued to grow as he kept his eyes on the mage's retreating back. Keeping a lot of people alive during dangerous times was hard, but this was a singular and simple imperative that allowed him to place every ounce of his concentration on gathering speed against the clinging snow. The mage could not be allowed to get away, if the apostate was even half right then they could stand vigil at the temple for a month and it would not mean a damn thing, they would either run out of troops or the breach would finally envelope them all.

Cullen's views on mages might have been forced to take something of a skewed turn in the past couple of years, but this didn't prevent him from promising himself that this particular mage was at the very least going to feel the flat of his blade for being such a selfish bastard. He'd closed at least half the distance between them now on sheer will alone until he watched the mage disappear down a steep, snow buffered hill, Cullen pushed that little bit more to follow before he could lose sight of the man, reaching the edge of top and leaping a third of the way down the hill. When he landed he stayed on his feet merely because he was now on the type of incline that required you to keep moving unless you wanted to perform various unintended acrobatic feats when you fell. This also meant that he was picking up speed.

While the mage was indeed lighter and faster, he seemed to be ill equipped for rapid travel through woodlands and it was starting to show. He'd have been fine if he'd stayed where the tree's were thin and pruned by the frost, but now he had led them into the taller and much hardier pines, and Cullen guessed that it was their roots that were snatching at the mage's feet while he steered his path accordingly, constantly gaining ground.

Yes the mage was quicker, but he did not have the stamina of a man who had been training or in battle for most of his adult life, this was turning less and less into a chase and more into the Commander running the mage down. So far the mage had been sensible enough in that he hadn't bothered to check on the former Templars progress, committing himself fully to putting as much distance between them as possible, it was only when the man did throw a neck jarring glance back at the approaching Commander, that nature decided to throw up one more surprise. Whether it was tree root or rock that caused his legs and feet to betray him didn't matter, the result was the same-a flailing of arms, an inarticulate curse and the mage rolling down a bank that was mercifully bereft of any tree or rock that might break his bones. Cullen put on a last ditch burst of speed, sword singing from it's place at his hip as he half jogged, half slid down the embankment after the tumbling figure that finally came to a stop in a still-cursing tangle of limbs at the bottom.

Cullen didn't hesitate, the second he was within striking distance he had the sword pointed at the mage's face while his body shifted sidelong, automatically making himself a smaller target for any erratic spell that might be thrown his way. The mage was tangled in his own scarf while trying to dig snow out of his eyes and it took a moment for him to sit up and fully acknowledge his current position. Cullen watched him blink and try to focus on the sword point which was now so close he had to cross his eyes to see it. Inevitably those eyes eventually travelled up the length of the blade to regard the man who wielded it.

There was a brief flurry of emotions that skipped across the mage's face, but they were too quick for Cullen to decipher and then incredibly, the man lifted his hands up in surrender and produced the sort of grin one might produce if they believed they were simply being a good sport.

"Oh come on now, there's no need for such pointed threats, a man is entitled to a jog before he's sent to his death isn't he?"

He wasn't sure if it was the lack of fear or the almost jolly tone of the mage's voice, but somewhere in the middle of that sentence that simmering anger suddenly found fuel and erupted into full flame. Cullen was tired in both mind and body, death and destruction had been non stop ever since the explosion at the conclave, and he was expected to be counted amongst those that could fix this mess, and here sat this man, this ridiculous mage who was supposed to be the only answer to their rather deadly problem and he just...didn't..get it. His head was begin to throb in skull aching pulses at his temple's, and very briefly the idea of taking his sword and ramming it through that smile visited his mind. He ignored the compulsion easily, it was the same little voice that dared you to jump off a cliff when you stood at its edge.

"Throw the staff"

Every word was hissed slowly and came in the wake of a hoarse growl between clenched teeth, and he could practically hear the tether on his anger fraying in each syllable. The mages smile became less jovial but did not disappear as he made exaggerated slow movements to pick up his half buried staff and throw it as far as he could, Cullen making sure to turn his wrist just enough for the blade to catch the light, a warning against any sudden urge to try turning the tables.

"All right then, I shall take that as a no on negotiations. I still rather object to the sword pointed at my nose however, could you…?"

He very gently made a prodding motion towards the weapon in question, his hands still held up, that wretched smile still in place, as if they were discussing a spilled beverage or had bumped into each other on the road. Cullen felt himself snap just a little and he moved closer, his fist twisting into padded cloth as he pulled the mage almost to his knees, angling his sword arm back so that he didn't actually impale the man. He forced himself not to flinch when a sickening throb threatened to force his eyes closed, it drifted away but he knew it would circle back like a shark.

"If the Seeker didn't believe you were absolutely vital to our cause I would carve your head from your shoulders. Every selfish second you have wasted risks the lives of my men, you are coming back with me!"

He shoved the mage back, releasing his clothing as he straightened up, the sword tip once again honing in on the mage's nose, Cullen taking a certain pleasure in the fact that the man seemed to have nothing more to say, the infuriating smile had also slipped somewhat.

"Now, stand up"

"No"

That singular word had the effect of staggering his barely tethered rage for a moment, his brain skidding into a thought pile-up in response to this unexpected answer, or more accurately, it's tone. The mage hadn't refused with defiance or fear, in fact the inflection of that one word was dripping with barely contained joy, Cullen couldn't have been more surprised if the fade had suddenly dropped a basket of kittens in his lap. The anger came flooding back of course, once he'd fully registered the refusal, that dull throb finally turning full circle again, one razor sharp fin slicing across his brain as he grit his teeth and stepped forward again, barely aware that he had raised his sword now.

"If you do not get up now i'll bloody well drag you back, minus a limb if you force the issue, right now i don't really care if you come back willingly or not you selfish bastard"

The mage looked up at him in all his steaming rage and a very slow smile began to part his lips. It was a large smile in which nearly all his teeth were visible, it was an unmistakably smug smile and several alarm bells clamoured in his head a split second before something cold pressed very gently to to the back of his neck and every muscle in Cullen's body suddenly went still.

"If you do not drop that sword this instant Ser, by the Maker i shall take it from you and spank you with the damn thing!"

The tone and absolute confidence of that voice was so reminiscent of a revered mother that for just a moment he was 13 years old again, he almost dropped the bloody thing out of sheer instinct! While nothing short of his actual death was likely to make him disarm himself, he did choose to compromise by lowering his arm until its tip touched the snow, but this was done mainly because the metal at the back of his neck had a very sharp presence, it was not a display of deference to a voice that momentarily reduced him to his early childhood. There was a soft sigh behind him and that certainly didn't bring revered mothers to his mind, nor did the voice that followed it, now stripped of its commanding tone, it send an odd shiver down his spine.

"Oh well i suppose that shall have to do. Now, i would very much like to remove this sword from your neck Ser, but i cannot allow you to harm him. If the rumors in your camp are to be believed you need him."

The mage's grin was all but tearing his face in half, and part of Cullen still wanted to rearrange it, but his anger was half hearted now, the shock of being blindsided having doused much of it. The woman was sounding almost reasonable while holding a blade on him, that took some skill, and even he had to admit that he had felt himself tipping towards old habits out of sheer frustration. He was still debating how to respond when she snapped at the mage who was getting to his feet, looking as though he was about to launch into a dance of joy.

"Wipe that silly smirk off your face Micah, it was a stupid idea to run and right now being a smug little shit in front of a pissed off Templar is just idiotic, I taught you better than this"

That tone of authority had snapped back like a whip and the grin fell off 'Micah's' face like a trapdoor, the man suddenly looking mutinous, his expression fitting that of a boy who's just been told off for picking his nose. Cullen could almost sympathise and wondered if perhaps the Lyrium hadn't already driven him mad because this whole situation was absurd and he had an insane urge to laugh. Just as gently as it had arrived, the blade was pulled away from the vulnerable flesh of his neck and only then did Cullen turn very slowly on the spot and took two steps back so that he could keep them both within his sights.

His first impression was that her armour had seen better days, even the full helm looked as though it had been carefully repaired a number of times over the years, and all this really meant was that the armour was well used to doing its job. She looked to be only half an inch shorter than he was, and strong enough to carry a greatsword on her back, the shortsword she was now sheathing, rested at her hip, her stance neutral enough though he could practically feel the shaded eyes behind that helm boring into him and assesing him as much as he was assessing her.

"All right then, under the circumstances I think that It's best if we return to your camp Commander"

"Will i be walking there with another sword at my neck?"

He tried to sound amused but he mostly sounded indignant, this was someone used to giving orders rather than following them and he didn't feel quite so ready to march to her tune just yet, even if she was being reasonable, which irritated him just a little because it was hard to intimidate anyone with that dastardly skill. She hadn't even told him who she was and Cullen still wasn't sure if this was a rescue, a hostage situation or if she were suggesting they all take a pleasant walk back to camp and talk about it over tea. His head throbbed again when the mage suddenly piped up, sounding equal parts indignant and excited.

"Angelique you cannot be serious, this man is a lunatic...a former Templar lunatic"

The latter part of this statement apparently required a wild gesticulation of the mage's hands to emphasize his point and Cullen's desire to hit him peered briefly above the waters of his rapidly dwindling patience. The woman lifted her hands and gripped the helm, pulling it off with a short sound of relief before she tucked it under her arm while narrowing eyes that came startlingly close to the colour of ice at the man currently shaking with cold or possibly umbrage at his supposed saviours continued failure to whisk him away from the mad ex Templar.

"Do not call me that"

"I woke up to swords being pointed at my face and everyone either shouting at me or wanting to kill me in my sleep, and they want me, to trudge up that sodding mountain and wave my hand at some scary sphincter in the sky so I can save the world. Well I'll tell you something Angelique, they can shove it up their arses because I'm not doing it!"

The name was repeated, and this time it was drawn out as a clear insult, one that resulted in the woman holding up her hand in a 'one moment' gesture to Cullen before she dropped her helm, strode over to the mage and grabbed the back of his collar. Two seconds later she had him face down in the snow with her knee on his back, grinning through the loose hanging strands of copper coloured hair and suddenly Cullen didn't have the heart to interrupt. She seemed content to let the mage flail his limbs for a little while before they flopped back to the snow with a muffled growl.

"You are returning to the Inquisition camp, you are going to try to close the breach and you are going to prove to everyone that you are the decent person i know you to be, or i will personally throw you into the bloody thing, are we clear?"

The reply was once again muffled but it was audibly resigned and this seemed to be enough because she got off his back and hauled him onto his feet by his collar again, before she turned back to Cullen.

"I understand the importance of your cause Ser, but so far i don't applaud your methods, not everybody gets to choose responsibility, and while he is occasionally an idiot…"

"Oh thanks!"

"...he deserves proof of his guilt before he is treated like a criminal"

He was fairly sure that he was being gently scolded and at this point he decided enough was enough and took a few steps towards them, the sword still held at his side but loosely for now, it was clear that the woman was at least attempting to avoid confrontation. She was of course offering a reasonable truce and with the clock still ticking he should really take it, but his natural suspicion and that lingering irritation at the woman's audacity was still leaving him indignant and possibly a little petty. It was a stupid and pompous gesture he would later kick himself for, but it was exacerbated by another ripple of pain that bloomed at his temple's and squinted his eyes.

"Just hang on a minute, while i appreciate the surrender what makes you think I'm taking you anywhere but to a cell. He ran away placing countless lives in danger, and you held a sword to the back of my neck, I'm not seeing why i should trust you at all, i don't even know who you are, only that the timing of your arrival is suddenly as suspicious as his!"

She blinked slowly just the once and then smiled at him, he felt that odd flutter down his spine again and narrowed his eyes.

"Firstly we aren't surrendering, we'll not be walking to your camp in chains, secondly he ran away because you appear to have plenty of soldiers but very little tact and thirdly…"

Something shot past his left shoulder, ruffling the furred mantle to bury itself in the a tree just behind him, Cullen had barely whipped his head around to take stock of the quivering arrow when another appeared in the ground between his legs.

"...he walks up to that monstrosity in the sky with me or he doesn't go in at all"

And with that she turned and began to walk back the way they came, picking up her helm along the way and utterly ignoring the presence of the sword in his hand. Cullen still hadn't moved, the threat of another arrow taken fully on board, his eyes scanning the trees for any indication as to where the arrows came from, and then to her retreating back before they settled on the mage with an expression that was asking what the hell had just happened. Micah gave him an almost sympathetic look and even clapped him on the shoulder a couple of times.

"Ah yes, she tends to have that effect on everyone sooner or later, it's bloody infuriating"

"I still don't even know who she is!"

"Ah yes, i must have dropped some of my manners while i was rolling down that hill, allow me to introduce you to Angel Trevelyan, my sister"