A/N: Another Anders/F!MageHawke. Inspired by the following song. Meant to be AU. On the darkish side. I do not own dragon age or any affiliated characters, places etc. etc. Not for profit. Just for fun.
I have burned my tomorrows And burn my shadow away Fate's my destroyer
And I stand inside today
At the edge of the future
And my dreams all fade away
And burn my shadow away
I was ambushed by the light
And you judged me once for falling
This wounded heart arrives
And burn my shadow away
Oh how I loved you
"Burn My Shadow" by Unkle
Fire in the sky.
Point of no return passed hours before.
She turns to me eyes hard as diamonds.
Voice flat and foreign.
"You used me." It is both question and answer.
Foolishly I justify my actions.
I have no idea what I've done.
She picks up the gauntlet I have thrown.
Gifts her power to my cause.
Not even Justice can equal the savagery with which she wields her body.
Her staff an extension of her arm. The bladed end rends flesh and bone. The other spews forth fire leaving blackened smoldering corpses in its' wake.
From the gallows and the broken circle to the courtyard beyond.
She cuts a swath wide as a river and red as perfect rubies.
She doesn't falter. The greater the opposition the more power she unleashes.
Staff gripped white knuckled in one hand the other tips lyrium potion to her lips.
Three times.
Four.
Six.
I lose count.
She reaches for another comes up empty handed.
Without hesitation she touches steel to skin drawing from the power that flows through her veins.
Her eyes light anew. Bright and fevered.
She dives into the fray a force of nature. Pure and vicious and unstoppable.
A blow like the fist of the Maker himself slams their commander into the ground.
The sound of madness fills the courtyard.
Echoes like blows to the inner ear.
Then Meredith is gone.
Consumed.
The survivors stand around us blades and blazened chests spattered with gore.
Uneasy.
Afraid.
At Cullen's urging they lower their swords.
Again she turns to me.
Clothes slicked to her body dripping crimson onto the stone.
I don't know how much is hers.
Don't want to.
She pulls me to her.
The kiss is a brutal copper coated thing.
"Can you taste it love?" She breathes the words against my swollen mouth. Hot and full of something I can't define.
I shudder. "I taste only blood."
"That is the price of freedom Anders," she says a sharp-edged smile sitting wrong on her face. "And it's flavor. For freedom you would betray me. Make a tool of me. Now I am a weapon. For freedom."
When she moves she is a blur.
Before my mind can fully register her absence she returns.
Down on one knee before me head bowed staff straight out behind her.
The remaining Templar fall one by one.
Until there is only she and I shrouded in the silence of a tomb.
"What have you done?"
"I have given you freedom." Her voice is husky barely controlled.
"But they were standing down." I whisper unable to reconcile the carnage before me with the woman at my feet.
"They were Templar."
"Blessed Andraste! What of mercy?"
She looks up at me this stranger with her beloved face. "Does a sword know of mercy? Or an arrow.? I am no different. A thing to be used as a means to an end without mercy or compromise."
My heart breaks.
I have brought freedom to Thedas. Cloaked in death and wearing the guise of a beautiful woman.
Who holds all the power that blood can buy in her delicate hands.
But at what price?
She rises.
Walks into the night.
And I follow.
Maker help me.
Maker help us all.
