Faded Interlude
A/N:Greetings fellow DA lovers!
I present for your investigation (or dissection, which ever you prefer to pursue), the tale of a grossly under-appreciated character. I was sorely disappointed at how flat his personality was portrayed in one of his only two appearances, so have taken it upon my own inadequate shoulders to show him in a bit more of a detailed light.
Be warned, this is only a representation of my own impression of things, so please, be merciful!
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine! Brilliantly designed world, intriguing characters, and stirring, addicting story; all these belong to BioWare and all the talented folks who work in it's fold. I merely seek to go between the lines and spin my own simple stories, to the best of my ability within the bounds they have set.
There is a frightening sameness in the Fade. All is twisted and defiled, even memories held dear to one's heart are stained minutely by it's influence. This particular patch, held by a rather unimaginative sloth demon was no exception.
The soul at it's nexus had seen much more cleverly designed prisons, so the thought of having been drawn into this one was just an insult. Well, it would have been an insult, if only the soul could remember It's own identity enough to be insulted. The creature took a few infinite moments to remember...It had been a "he" at one time, hadn't It?
Insubstantial memories drifted up, too far out of reach to grab and reclaim, but still close enough to view. Yes, it seems It was most definitely male.
Well, that is at least a start. The newly discovered He now toyed with the worth of dredging up more memories, but the exhaustion of being a source for sustaining this pitiful corner of the Fade for his jailer dampened any desire for further amusement.
A discomfiting disturbance in a nearby area of his prison, made the hapless He-who-was-once-It curse his noisy fellow prisoner.
Imagine, fighting the illusion, as if the effort would somehow bring it all to an end. Ha! The demon may not have had much of a creative frame of mind, but it had certainly spun it's many-layered web well.
His eyes widened(wait, he had eyes? Huh, fancy that...) as the fabric of the Fade some distance in front of him warped and ripped open, spitting out an indignant someone like, and yet very unlike, himself. Another...human, if he remembered the term correctly. Yes, that was it, a human, that's what he was(is?), and so was this...very interesting person who knelt, fussily straightening out their shiny looking accouterments (armor?).
Two arms, two legs, with the same hands and feet adorning the ends, exactly like his own (though, he couldn't help glancing down at himself, just to check). A head, with the inevitable accompanying face. Yep, everything checked out, they were both of the same species, as far as he could tell.
So what was this annoying sense at the back of his mind that he was missing some important detail?
It wasn't until the other left off the fussing and faced him, that he finally realized what was bothering him. He'd left out height...and torso. A serious oversight, which apparently made all the difference.
Height...considerably less than his. Torso? Now there was the heart of the difference! The shape was all wrong! Or...was it?
With startling clarity that threatened to split his now confirmed head, a rush of memories swamped the poor Him, enlightening him to the fact that this human standing opposite him was a She. The memories were too many, and too jumbled for him to sort out, but a part of himself that had nothing to do with rational thought reminded him that she-humans could be very nice...or very exasperating, depending on the situation.
The She in this case seemed to promise more of the exasperation, judging from her choice in accessories. The dual blades strapped to her back were too worn and experienced looking to be just for show.
Then she looked up. Oh. Well......maybe one can't always tell from first glance, it had been a long while since he'd seen another human, much less a female.
Hadn't it?
Never mind. It didn't seem quite so important how long it had been since he'd seen a woman (yes, that's what they called them, wonderful creatures, if his memory served him), just so long as he could spend at least a little while longer studying this one.
As she took a few moments to glance around her, he took advantage of the pause to investigate every detail of her face and form distance would allow.
Not one of the tallest women he could remember seeing, but she held herself with the authority of one used to command. None of the women he'd ever known had held themselves thus, all of them being mages, and subject to constant scrutiny.
The memories flooding back were finally falling into an order he could understand, and the understanding was not always pleasant. Templars (he flinched at that memory) were the only ones he could remember seeing with a stance like that. Could she be a templar? No, the armor was all wrong, templars didn't dual-wield, and besides that, her face...oh that face...
He gave his head a little shake. Back to the business at hand. Face.
Her face held none of the almost fanatical devotion to duty and honor, he had seen in every templar he'd ever met. It was too...soft, sweet, innocent. In other words, completely at odds with the rest of her appearance. Crowned with black hair, it was heart-shaped and pixie featured, with two of the largest eyes the Maker could mercifully give such a little person.
Yet, was it really mercy, or just a joke, having to deal with eyes that big? How hard did she have to fight to be taken seriously, with peepers like that undermining everything she said? Made him wonder, who it was really more unfair to, being the one on the receiving end of those beauties, or the one having to convince everyone around her she was quite capable of taking care of herself, thank you very much!
A ghost of a smile drifted across his mouth, as he contemplated that interesting little scenario. Well now, that wasn't so bad, was it, smiling for the first time since...
Every thought in his mind slammed to a halt, and his heart dropped down into his toes. Now he remembered why he was here. The Circle. Uldred. Blood Magic. Litany of Adralla. Sloth demon.
The gaze he turned back on his visitor was shaded with suspicion. What better way to lull him back into insensibility, than with a woman? It was a classic desire demon ploy.
The face that turned to him, now seemed too artfully crafted, too cleverly guileless. She advanced on him with a speed that made him pull back a few steps, drawing into himself, marshaling resistance to the onslaught of seduction that was sure to follow.
The chipper "Hullo!" that issued in place of the usual purring of a desire demon threw him back off balance. He blinked at her owlishly, before finally forcing out his brilliant rejoinder.
"Who are you? Where did you come from? Are you a demon?"
Ah yes, that'll show her. Idiot.
Her head cocked to one side, sensible ponytail flopping askew, and a single brow twitched.
"I'm not all that experienced in the ways of demons, but isn't it normally more their style to show you someone near and dear to you, rather than a total stranger? I'm just guessing here, but that's the trend I've seen, so far. Not a very creative lot, these demon-types."
This elicited another unwitting half-smile from him. Her logic was simple. A trifle uninformed, perhaps, but on the whole, fairly sound. And hardly the protest of innocence one would expect from a demon trying to hide it's nature.
"No... I can see that you're not. You're like me. Congratulations on getting out of that trap." The tone of his voice left the impression that the accomplishment was hardly worth the effort.
If she noticed his lack of exuberance, she didn't let it show, dropping her friendly demeanor for one of more urgency.
"What about my companions? Are they trapped too?" Her forehead creased ever-so-slightly.
He blinked at this revelation. Companions? Other dreamers? Was that why he had suddenly started to remember himself? Was the sloth demon getting distracted? He cast his senses out to the prison he had become an integral part of. No, he could detect no weaknesses in the barriers, no loosening of the bonds that held this little world together.
Hopes risen just a fragment, fell even lower.
His expression took on a hint of pity for this ignorant little dreamer.
"You came here with others? Then yes, they would be trapped. The demon traps everything that comes here in a dream it thinks they can't...or won't...try to leave."
He could see her shifting, impatiently, ready to blurt out her own escape as evidence to the contrary, but he cut her off with a raised hand, and a doleful frown.
"I thought I'd escaped too, but I've been wandering these empty, gray spaces for a lifetime."
His solemn pronouncement seemed to dampen most of her enthusiasm, the loss of which he regretted, but it did nothing at all to quell her grim determination. Her face hardened into a mask of authority he was certain came from long practice. Feet apart, arms akimbo, head tilted back so she could survey her surroundings clearly, she launched into a torrent of questions ranging from the nature of the Fade, to the structure of their prison and it's obstacles.
He tried to keep the annoyance from creeping into his answers, but when she asked him what he knew about the sloth demon, he couldn't bite back a sarcastic reply.
"Not much. You couldn't say we're friends, really"
She winced visibly at his tone, dropping her arms down from their defensive position and shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. One arm crept behind her to clasp the other where it swung at her side. The pose struck him as oddly...girlish, as was the constant chewing at the corner of her lip. She studied the ground at his feet as if it was suddenly the most interesting sight she'd ever seen. Her voice crept out, low and chastened.
"Y'know? I am one insensitive moron. Here I am, barking at you as if any of this was your fault, and I don't even have the common decency to ask you the one question that matters most: Who are you? I know I've been an ass, but could you at least tell me your name, so I know who I'm apologizing to?"
Her softened approach disarmed him slightly, but the bitterness at his situation ran too deep to keep out of his tone entirely.
"My name is Niall. I was trying to save the Circle when I encountered the sloth demon. I expect our experiences were similar"
She grimaced, chagrin seasoning her faint chuckle. Her eyes stared absently behind him for a few seconds, and he was filled with the unreasonable urge to reach out and give her a tiny shove to see if she'd topple.
Her features popped back to life with a speed that made him jump, when she finally realized the significance of the name he'd given.
"Niall? Oh yes, Niall! Owain mentioned you!" She was positively bouncing with glee. Made quite the incongruous sight, a figure in full armor, hopping about like a girl with her first pony.
His bitter smirk softened into just a sad smile. This had to be the strangest woman....or girl (honestly, it was hard to tell), he had ever met.
His thoughts drifted back to his purpose for being here. Owain.... the Litany.... his hands stretched out in front of him as if he still held it, then balled into fists and dropped at his sides.
"Owain helped me greatly. I suppose I'll never be able to repay him"
A tiny chink of armor settling indicated that his audience had stopped bouncing rather abruptly.
His eyes weren't focused on his surroundings anymore, seeing only the faces of his friends, his fellow mages, all the lives he'd stood to save...only to let them all down in a moment of weakness.
"The Litany was our weapon against the blood mages' domination. But it's too late. Everyone's dead..."
An uncharacteristic surge of anger swung him around to plant his fist in a rotted pillar behind him. As one would imagine, the collision effected him more than the pillar.
The shock of the impact traveled up his arm, sending his shoulders flinching up to his ears.
He swallowed the pain. It didn't hurt nearly as much as the realization of the futility of his efforts. His musings consumed him completely, so the hand laid gently on his shoulder had all the subtlety of a lightning bolt shooting down his spine. He spun around to face his comforter, who's presence he'd entirely forgotten.
She snatched her hand back, whipping it behind her again where it would do no more mischief.
He noticed her inordinately huge eyes were a deep green, and their apologetic gaze wavered between his face and his... arm?
Darting her hands out before he could react, she retrieved the swiftly bruising fist he didn't know he was cradling, running her fingers over the abused knuckles and murmuring worriedly under her breath.
Reaching into a pouch at her waist, she pulled out a tiny vial, uncorked it and gingerly pored a few drops over the abraded skin, rubbing it in carefully. The astringent odor of elf root drifted up, and he had to resist the urge to sneeze.
Glancing up from her ministrations, she studied his face curiously before turning her attention back to wrapping the "wound" with a soft strip of cloth.
Doctoring completed, she hesitated to release his hand, pinning him with an intense, ambiguous stare.
"There is still hope, isn't there?"
At the uncertainty in her voice, as though she were begging him to be wrong, all the bitterness drained away, leaving only pity. It was a damned shame, a crime for someone so vital and young to be trapped in the Fade like this, but he couldn't lie to her. He had fought with all his strength, rampaging from one end of his cage to the other, his only reward being a total fatigue of the soul, and an almost complete loss of self.
"This place drains you of everything... hope, feeling, life..."
She dropped his hand like a hot coal, stepping back from him and crossing her arms tightly, green-eyed stare growing ever more baleful. Her chin tilted stubbornly, but he could see it jump with an unconscious pout, and her voice had a quaver she couldn't disguise.
"It's not too late, I'm sure."
He held out his hands, helplessly, silently begging her not to fight the inevitable. She retreated a few more steps, stumbling a little in her haste. He stared at the picture she made now, hugging herself tightly, eyes squeezed shut as if avoiding the sight of him would negate everything he'd said. She looked more like a lost child hiding in her father's armor for comfort, than the commanding, confidant young woman who had invaded the privacy of his identity crisis only moments before.
"No...", he whispered, wishing even as he said it he could change the truth, but...what mortal could? "There is no way out of here. You think there might be, but... you'd be wrong."
Pointing out the transport pedestal, he explained the different islands, and the lesser demon guardians who made up the protective barrier around the sloth demon's central seat. The effect of this speech on her was not quite what he had anticipated. The death grip she had on her elbows loosened and her eyes opened wide, focusing on the pedestal, expression unreadable. When he'd finished, her body locked into what he had come to think of as her "soldier pose".
Setting off at a determined trot, she circled every foot of his personal "cell".
"What's this?" Her voice drifted back to him from a dark little corner concealing a small glowing portal.
Dropping back against the pillar, he slid down to the base, pulling up a knee and halfheartedly examining his new bandage, picking at the edge of the cloth, pulling out thread after tiny thread. Turning his head in her general direction, he bellowed apathetically back. "That leads to another portion of the fade. It's where I found that mouse hole I told you about."
"I'll be right back!', was her cheerful reply.
"Suit yourse-wait, wha...!?" Snapping up his head as the realization of what she'd said hit him, he leaped to find her. A foot catching on the hem of his robes sent him into an awkward, stuttering run.
By the time he reached the portal, she was already through.
An exasperated sigh tried to push it's way past tightly pressed lips.
"Be right back, will she? I'll say she will. There's nothing there..."
A/N: Well, there you have it, the first installment. …..........Well........Yup..........
Ok, ok! Before you start grabbing my poor little ears and hollering, "NIALL!? Why him, prrreciouss???", let me explain.......
Why the frugnappity not??????????
To put it simply, I love understated guys, guys who put up an apathetic front to the rest of the world, while underneath lay the most tender hearts on earth. Put them under extreme pressure however, and let me tell you, they give Emo a new meaning! Everything under the sun becomes their fault. Silly guys.
Niall, I felt, fell into that group perfectly, and if you've ever played through the mage origin, you'll see what I mean.
Otay, last note: the PC in this case is a bit different in build from cannon. A short Fem! Cousland, you ask? Yup. Anyone besides me notice how short both her parents were compared to her? That seem kooky to anyone? In any case, I'm a vertically challenged person myself, and firmly seated in the belief that the tiny will inherit the earth.
I'm going to go hide now....Please review, no flames, all flames will be fed to the giant dustbunnies of doom, and so on...