The memory of the bindings burns in my mind; bright embers of a problem, a doubt banging on the back of my brain, a bitter query that won't leave me alone.
Will I become that?
He promises he will help. He hears me hurting and he promises. I will strike you down if you turn into a demon, Cole, he says.
Promises and piecrusts, Varric sighs. He sees me, sees the seams slowly coming unsewn, and he is tempted to try. Tomorrow, late at night, he tells himself; just leave without looking back. But he is still there the next morning. Sometimes he misses the other city too much, the one that was torn apart. He survived. He knows he can either unravel or darn this. He wants to keep stitching this story.
I look around. One minute we are exploring, expecting to find explanations from people whose present purpose responds to pride, not to vigilance or victory. Sacrifice stops being a symbol when it is wasted.
The next minute, we find a tear in the Veil, and the world explodes.
I see us gnawing, tearing, ripping – we are fire and ice, we are unforgiving. Blades spinning, I carve a path. And then I see them, the others, clustering round an impossible crystal, crawling, cowering. They, the ones I could turn into. The monsters.
They are delicately bound to the Veil. Barely visible fibres set boundaries to their puny lives in this plane. I hear their troubled breathing – hollow and harrowed gasps. They are suffering, stuck in a state of powerlessness that rends them real and raw. They don't want this, just as we don't want this.
I will be this.
I will become them.
No.
Stop, I struggle to scream. Stop this. Stand back.
But who am I talking to, them or us? Where am I standing?
Their lives are fading away. And then a lonely light glimmers a little more strongly, just enough to catch my attention. It whispers in my mind.
There is no us or them. The choice is always yours.
I know that voice. I turn around, looking for him. He stares silently, and then he smiles. He understands. He is caught between these two worlds, just as I am.
No, not caught. He is free.
No, not in between.
Not anymore.
.
.
.
A/N: I haven't written in such a long time! This is something I wrote in an hour, and it's dedicated to my dear EilonwyCousland QueenofTragedy :)