Authors notes: I haven't seen any stories about this so far, sorry if I missed them! Either way, here's my version. Hope you like it. Please constructively review. Also, I don't own any of the characters or story - it's all thanks to Bioware.

Thank you to Steve and Sophia from the DA Fanfiction Writer's Group for feedback.


9:41 Dragon

Varric's memory was not the shabbiest of places. It was superior to anyone else is in the Inquisition, certainly better than Hightown merchants back home. He remembered details in bright flurries of colour, more so if the material was interesting. It had been this way ever since he'd started documenting his various adventures for coin. With motivation like that, a quill meeting parchment had a price - headaches, usually.

Unfortunately, despite his keen attention to detail, when it came to discussions about the fate of the world Varric's focus liked to wander. It didn't occur deliberately. He always tried to keep an open mind so he could retell any given tale with the most consideration his vocabulary would allow, but it was different now. Any mention of destiny sent alarm bells roaring.

It smells like slime, like the Docks in Kirkwall, was his first thought.

What's the humming? was his second.

His pounding temples prevented thought. His mind was slow and onerous –like trying to squeeze through a path when one were a touch too big.

He sat up.

When his vision levelled, the dwarf realized he was in a lot of shit, perhaps the highest pile of excrement in his life.

Varric's worst enemy was here, the red lyrium. His cell had shards poking through the right corner of the cement, as though they'd decided to create a fortress of red crystal.

That explains the humming.

Its light gave the stony walls an eerie glow, but the air was thick and cold, like winter dawn, the same murky bluish green as the rest of the cell.

If the Herald had gotten into this mess, I bet she could slip right through the bars, he thought sorely.

Varric rubbed his head and wiped his face. Black mud came off with it. He didn't want to know how he looked. If it was anything like the smell of the cell, he would much rather drown himself in the water pouring from the other side of the bars.

Ok, I'm imprisoned, he thought, racking his brain. At least it wasn't because I was drunk! I need to chase up that bet with Sera later.

He gave a small smile, but his sense of personal accomplishment was short lived. When would 'later' be?

He looked down, seeing only his underclothes, damp and covered in the black, coarse mud. Varric doubted he would ever feel clean again. Bianca was still with him, but –his eyes narrowed- her arrows had been removed.

What cruel bastard stripped Bianca against her will? Varric thought.

He patted his outfit and removed a small notebook. It was his garbage bin for all thoughts – good and bad. His mind was as mucky as the cell and he needed to make sense of it. There was no better time to write.

He opened to the first empty page and found his trusty small ink bottle in one of his other pockets. If he was stuck here indefinitely, he could use the mud when the ink dried up.

My publisher would have fun with that, Varric thought.

Trying to ignore the rumble of his stomach, the prisoner pursued to recollect how he had got here.

Dear would-be reader,

If you exist. I hope you do.

Crap, I've barely even started and I already know this story is going to end up in the waste paper basket, but this is how it started... with a magister in red, sitting in a chair.

No need to get too excited, this isn't that kind of story. Would that make it better? Maybe if the fate of everybody in Thedas wasn't at stake.

Imagine a disturbed man pushing sixty in a stupid red outfit, in front of a fire, staring at you with evil in his eyes. The 'you are going to lose' sort of face... Named Alexius. A Tevinter who has us surrounded with mages in Redcliffe Castle... who want to kill us.

Yeah, now you're getting it.

I thought we had the upper hand at first, especially when the famous Herald of Andraste said, "Your men are dead, Alexius."

They were dead, a load of Venatori on the floor around the room.

But Alexius wasn't dead. He walked forward and held out his palm, the way the Herald sometimes did, only he doesn't give people hope with the action, but nausea. Even if the magic swirled green.

"You were a mistake," the magister said, "You should have never existed."

"No!" The Tevinter yelled.

I shut my eyes from either the green light... or was it the scary sounds of magic flying across the room, or, Andraste's tits, the explosion?

I think I opened them again at the wrong time, because when I did the Inquisitor's new Tevinter ally and Trevelyan were gone.

Cassandra gaped at the scene from the stairs.

"What did you do to our Herald?!" she growled, rushing forward with her sword, eyes flashing precariously. I tried to catch up, but let's face it, the Seeker had always been faster than me. "Where did she go? You must explain!"

Chuckles, an apostate, expelled some needed words of wisdom, "We must not be rash, Cassandra. We have no way of concluding what just occurred, though I do agree. I doubt it was a generous donation."

I laugh about it now, but I didn't then.

Grand Enchanter Fiona and I catch eyes. No one, not even the creepy man's son Felix, had any fucking idea what to do.

Cassandra thrust her sword to Alexius's neck, feet apart now, peering cautiously at the glowing sparks from his palm, but her voice did not reflect it.

"Shut up!" she snarled. "I will rip that man from his limbs!"

"If you will not stand down, I will protect you." Solas said.

"Start talking, if you want to make yourself look good before you die!" I advised, my fingers lingering on Bianca's trigger. I hesitated though. I don't know why.

The beginnings of a Barrier began to form around the Seeker, but it was too late. Alexius' was quick. He swiped his hand down and Cassandra was propelled back with a blast of invisible energy.

I fired some arrows as Alexius laughed. A burst of light filled the room and I can't remember anything else, except the magisters voice.

"I've got what I wanted." Alexius finished, "Now you will understand the Elder One's arrangement for our world without an inkling of doubt. Goodbye, Inquisition."

Everything disappeared until just now when I woke up in a prison.

If you are not groaning already I'm going to make you growl and fidget some more. This isn't going to be a happy story. I'm going to spoil you a little. I have too much evidence under my nails to hazard a guess that this is the sort of tragedy where everybody dies at the end.

Before you get too sad and start a drunken wallow about how you don't want to read a story that fucking terrible, let me try lighten the mood. This probably won't change your mind, but I hope this is NOT the book where everybody meets a horrible death that makes you want to cry to your mother and not trust your own decisions for two weeks….

But the story where you're still happy you read about their lives until their last breaths.

Before I go any further, this Elder One should have been named The Shitstorm One.

Andraste's ass. I don't want to die.