We will fight for a world where our children can be born mages, and free. Ten years, a hundred years from now, someone like me will love someone like you, and there will be no Templars to tear them apart.
– Anders, Dragon Age 2 © BioWare
A puddle of darkness wets her cheek, and as she exhales its surface moves in shock waves. A cold mist is clenching onto her, but it is distant to her. There is iron in her mouth and acid spreading through her stomach, but she hardly notices it. The pain is growing ever distant and the dark surrounding her is surrendering to the light blooming behind her retina.
She opens her eyes and the sun is caressing her skin, the grass is soft, and somewhere birds are singing. Instantly, she spots him by the stream near the forest. His trousers have been rolled up to the calf and he is sitting with his feet dipped into the foaming water. He has not noticed her yet and has a sweet, timid smile on his face.
She calls out to him. Something in her voice, an unexpected shrillness, discourages her, but his eyes do not convey any worry as he turns to her. His smile is vibrating and contagious. She laughs in spite of herself as she rushes towards him.
They meet halfway in a tight embrace.
"How did you come here?" she whispers in his ear. His nose brushes against her cheek, cold, wet – no, warm, friendly.
"I have been waiting for you," he answers in a honeyed voiced, not a hint of roughness in it.
"I never thought I'd see you again. When I left-"
"I left with you. We escaped together. Don't you remember? The Templars forced us to part ways, but now we're together again. We'll be together forever."
"Yes … We escaped. I remember now."
"Did something hit you in the head, love? Let me take care of that for you." He kisses her on the temples, tenderly. There is no pain.
"I lost you." A heavy blanket encloses her heart. Something is prodding at it, aggressively, but weakly – for now.
"And then you found me again."
"You shouldn't have left me. The Templars caught up with me." There are tears in her throat, and she does not know why.
"And I rescued you. They will never hurt you again." His grasp has loosened and she can feel a cold breeze between their bodies.
"No..." She lets go of him, backs away hesitantly. "We never did meet again. I dreamed of you, night and day and – … They caught up with me." She looks down, and a vicious smear is growing at an alarming rate through her white blouse. She looks up, and sees tears glistening on his sunkissed cheeks. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!" she exclaims, and suddenly the pain is suffocating her. The prodding has penetrated and the wound is unimaginable.
"There is nothing to be sorry about. Love. Don't cry. I'm here. Don't cry." He grasps at her with ghostly fingers that will not take hold. She stares into his eyes, whose emeralds are fading into rotten moss.
"I failed you. I couldn't –" she breaks off into violent sobs, unable to breathe even though she does not need air. "I couldn't hold them off! I was too weak. I was too scared. I'm so sorry. Forgive me!" Desperate fingers claw at him, but they meet only dirt and gravel, and the tears running down her cheeks taste like blood.
"Love, there is nothing to be sorry about. You did what you could." Despite his brave words his dimming eyes betray the despair that resides there.
"I don't want to leave you here. I don't want to leave you." She hugs her stomach, keeping its entrails from falling out as she quivers from the sobbing.
"We both knew it could end like this. It wasn't your fault."
"I just wanted to be together. To have children. To be free."
"I know. I know."
"And now I will die in this meadow, alone, and you will never find my body. Only rumour will tell you of my demise."
"Not alone. I'm here." But it is a lie, albeit a comforting lie, and the structures of the Fade are falling apart. The young man before her is no more than a ghost.
"I love you. I love you so much." she cries as the dream abandons her and the grim world ruled by mage fearing men returns to her.
The cold has left completely; the blood has lost its taste. The darkness of the world has spread into her, forcing the panic into submission.
As her lungs stop thirsting for air and her heart surrenders its futile struggle, she pictures his face, and even in her dying moment she begs for his forgiveness, knowing no matter how much she asks, nothing will ever dull the pain of losing her.