SPOILER WARNING FOR ALL DRAGON AGE GAMES AND INQUISITION ADD-ONS, ESPECIALLY THE TRESPASSER DLC!

Summary: They fought long and hard to save their world, but it was over. The Veil was gone; the world as she knew it was lost. But then again, it was hardly the first time she'd managed the impossible. She just needed one more miracle. (Time-travel fic)


The World Before


"I was kind of hoping I'd never have to come back here," Varric said. Iron Bull grunted an agreement, the tension in his grip on his massive axe the only evidence of how unnerved he really was by the fact that they were so near the Fade.

They might complain on occasion, but they had never hesitated to follow Bethana into crazy, illogical, magic filled places- not when she was the Herald, not when she was the Inquisitor, and not even after she'd lost the title. She hoped that they knew just how much she treasured that loyalty.

"I wish it hadn't come to this," she said as they picked their way carefully through the rubble, watching for traps. "But I'm glad you're with me all the same.

"Ah, Starshine, don't go getting sentimental on us now. I'm going to get all teary-eyed," Varric chided.

"Maker-forbid," Cassandra said dryly.

As they quietly sniped back and forth, Cullen's hand slipped briefly into hers and squeezed. She glanced over in time to catch a brief, warm smile that did as much as the others' good-natured bickering to ease the weight of trepidation lodged in her chest. Determination rose to take its place. They were the reason she had to stop Solas. She'd do anything to keep her friends safe.

Officially the Inquisition was disbanded. The soldiers and scouts went home. The scribes and clerics returned to the Chantry. The wardens moved on. The mages reformed the Circles and Colleges under their own rule. Skyhold was all but empty. Officially.

Unofficially Bethana- the former Inquisitor- and her closest companions had begun a desperate search for Solas and some way to keep him from tearing down the Veil and returning the world to the way it had been when the elves were Immortal. He'd warned them himself that the return of his world would mean the end of theirs.

Months of searching- with Solas' growing flock of elven zealots doing their best to block them at every turn had led them to a shattered eluvian from Kirkwall that Varric had been decidedly unhappy to see. It had taken them even longer to fix the blasted thing, and by the time they managed it Bethana was unwilling to wait for the rest of their companions and allies to return from the various missions that had scattered them across Thedas.

They were nearly out of time; she could feel the end growing closer with every night she dreamed. The spirits were restless with the near inevitability of it. Bethana rushed through the shimmering silver of the mirror with only Cullen, Varric, Cassandra, the Iron Bull and a couple dozen others, into the fragmented world that existed between Thedas and the Fade.

Their small army found themselves in a massive ruin with a maze of walls and walkways that were alternatively pristine, crumbling, and floating in chunks on their sides or upside down.

They made their way with suspicious ease through the ruin. None of the others seemed to notice, but Bethana could feel the fade magic that was part of the very air around them swirling gently in the same direction they were going and tugging her with it. It wasn't a strong pull- like standing in the mild whirlpool of a bath after the plug had been removed. She could have fought it, but she was certain that in the center of that whirlpool they would find the very elf they were searching for.

"Is anyone else unnerved that we haven't run into any of the crazy elves that follow Chuckles around these days?" Varric asked a short while later. "I expected this place to be crawling with them."

"You think we're walking into a trap?" Cullen asked, not sounding terribly surprised.

"I think Chuckles would be more surprised if we didn't show up than if we do," Varric said.

"We don't have any choice," Cassandra said tersely.

"I know, I know. I'm just saying..."

"We'll have to watch our backs," Iron Bull finished for him. Varric nodded.

They all grew more tense the further they walked without any interference. Bethana caught an occasional glimpse of one spirit or another from the corner of her eye- something that always made her nightmare-harassed husband flinch just a little. She stuck close to Cullen, thought she knew he could handle a fight with demons without losing his focus if it came to that. It never did. The spirits left them alone.

They came at last to a large courtyard at the middle of the ruin. They were all jumpy and on edge as they crept closer. The air all around them was charged with green fade magic swirling slowly in a gentle current towards the fountain in the center of the wildly overgrown garden. At the very top of the fountain perched a round globe on a pedestal: one of the elven artifacts that Solas had claimed strengthened the Veil.

The implied manipulation hit Bethana so strongly that she hardly noticed at first that Solas himself was standing in front of it. She'd helped him activate those artifacts all over Thedas. If that was how he intended to tear down the Veil... Had she been helping him destroy the world all along?

The low string of expletives from Varric echoed her feelings pretty accurately.

"Solas!" Cassandra spat, stalking forward with all of the pent up fury that Bethana had watched her try to control over the last year. "Traitor!"

Bethana hurried after her and grabbed her friend before Cassandra could lunge at the elf, her head full of memories of Qunari turned to stone.

"Don't do this," Bethana pleaded as Solas paused in the motion of reaching for the artifact. She could hear the quiet scuffle of steps as the others spread out behind her, but she didn't look away from the elven legend who had- she'd thought- become her friend. "There are other ways to help your people, to rebuild this place. There has to be."

"I thought you were better than this, Chuckles," Varric joined in. His voice was light and a little coaxing, but Bethana caught sight of his grip shifting on Biana from the corner of her eye and knew he was weighing his chances. "I knew the guy who started the mage war, you know. He thought he had to hurt people to accomplish his 'greater purpose' too. Didn't work out so well for him."

Solas went perfectly still and for a fraction of a second she thought they could get through to him, but then he turned around. His eyes were full of sorrow, but they were calm. Distant and determined. Even standing right in front of them he was impossibly out of reach.

The others must have realized the same because there was a sudden rise in the tension around her. The Iron Bull shifted forward just a fraction, and in the split second that Solas' gaze turned towards the Qunari, Bianca fired. Varric wasn't pulling his punches, the arrow flew with deadly accuracy towards Solas's heart-

And stopped mere inches away, hovering in midair. Varric cursed as Solas' expression hardened and he waved a hand towards their little army. Bethana and the handful of other mages with her threw up a desperate shield. She'd warned them about the way he'd turned the Qunari to stone; they were as prepared as they could be, though she wasn't sure that would matter in the end.

Solas' magic slammed into theirs and the shield immediately began to crack and buckled. Bethana felt like she was deep underwater, slowly being crushed by the pressure. She'd known he must have gotten his powers back, but this... This was not the Solas that she fought and bled and won the war beside. This Solas could have crushed Coypheus and his dragon all on his own.

They weren't going to win. Bethana knew it even as her companions took advantage of Solas' brief surprise in the face of their shield and attacked all at once, arrows flying, weapons swinging. Solas flicked his fingers and his magic snapped at their shield. The spell shattered, and the recoil knocked the mages off their feet. Bethana could only lay there, stunned, trying to catch her breath- trying not to believe they'd lost already even as cold horror wrapped around her heart.

When her ears stopped ringing she was met with silence. There were no battle cries, no clang of weapons on armor, no woosh and crackle of spells; there was only the faint whisper of magic from the artifact and the trickle of water from the fountain.

"Maker no," she breathed. Please. She had to fight against the dread to make herself sit up and look. A pained cry caught in her throat when she was met with Cullen's back standing between her and Solas, still as stone.

"No," she said again. "No, no. Cullen-" She reached for him, scrambling to her feet, and found cold, lifeless granite beneath her fingertips. "Please." Her vision blurred with tears. She pushed magic into the stone, but there was no lingering spell to disrupt and nothing to heal. He was gone. They were all gone. Everyone who had followed her so faithfully through the mirror stood as statues around her, weapons raised, expressions frozen in determination. In the midst of her heartbreak it didn't occur to her at the time to wonder why she wasn't the same.

"I'm sorry."

The sad sincerity in Solas' words slipped right past the grief threatening to overwhelm Bethana to spark something deeper, primal inside her: rage.

Bethana gave a furious scream as she ducked around Cullen's statue to fling herself at Solas. It was pointless, but she was beyond caring. She wanted to hurt him. She wanted to kill him. Fire and lightning rose to her call with more ease and power than they ever had in Thedas. Still he brushed off every spell as though they were no more than bits of breeze.

"Change them back!" Bethana demanded.

"It's too late," Solas said, turning back to touch the artifact with slender fingers. It brightened. "It's already over."

"We trustedyou!" Bethana swung the spiked sun of her staff at his head, unsurprised when it glanced off his shield without effect. He met her gaze as she stood there trembling with anger and grief. His eyes were calm, sad but resigned the way he'd been when he'd helped Wisdom to a peaceful end. He was grieving her already, but that wouldn't change his course.

The green of the Fade began to leak into reality. A tremor went through the air as the Veil cracked under the pressure of the artifacts' magic.

Solas' quiet, "I know," was the last thing she heard. Then the Fade washed the world away and Bethana with it.