So, you know in the game how everyone just shows up at the edge of the battle field, ready to jump in and save the front lines, pushing forward till victory is at hand? Yeah, not as much.

There was a bit more preparation than that, thankfully, and part of it was Solas taking me to the side and quietly teaching me how to at least attempt to shoot out highly dangerous bolts of magic from my staff. I was hesitant to actually try, not wanting it to blow up in my hands or something, but he was adamant that I at least make the effort if I wanted to survive the coming battle.

Well, when it's put like that, I guess I really didn't have a choice.

I held onto it with both hands like he had shown me, shifting my body so I was firmly planting my feet, back straight and head held up a little. Confidence was key, I'd been told. Oh boy. I closed my eyes, conscious of Solas watching from the sidelines, Varric running through the motions of cleaning Bianca, his treasured Crossbow, Leliana in her darker Chantry robes and Cassandra in her gleaming armor debating over the best way to get to the front lines without risking losing me. It was touching...But not what I was supposed to be focusing on.

This was one of the most basic staves out there, able to be used by almost any Mage, and align with the element they were most attuned with. So, I just had to...focus on sending a force, energy that I had never had before, through this piece of wood in hopes something would happen.

"You are distracting yourself. Clear your mind, let the thoughts of doubt or fear fade away, and focus on what you felt when you brought your magic to the forefront before," Solas called out, making me wince. It was true, I had been distracting myself, not wanting to actually do this. It was one thing to try and protect someone from a Monster in the heat of the moment, when the adrenaline was pumping. And another when there was nothing pushing me past my comfort zone mentally, and the pressure of being watched was present.

I took a deep breath, keeping my eyes closed, focusing on the feel of the grain underneath my fingers, how the wood still held that strange...tingling sensation. Like there was a small amount of electricity flowing through it, yet it wasn't painful to the touch. Frowning, I gripped it tighter, thinking back to when I had frozen those Shades, and called down lightning upon the group of Wisps. I had thought about things connected to what I wanted, what they made me feel. What I wanted to happen. With this...There was less thought needed, right? Was I supposed to...Just think about what I was? What I felt? Then...Channel it? In that case...

I was young.

I hated my intelligence being questioned.

I was a big brother.

I loved comforting others and trying to see the best in everyone.

I was afraid.

I had always dreamed of using magic

Warmth spread throughout my body, invigorating and powerful, pulsing through my veins like liquid chocolate, dripping down my arms until they reached my hands. A sound, alien to me, made me open my eyes, and they widened as they spied the flames licking at the head of the staff, yet not actually harming the wood or stone that made up the tip. I grinned, looking over to Solas for approval, but he regarded me not with pride, but with surprise and a touch of wariness. I frowned, clutching the staff a tad closer,"What? Did you think I couldn't do it or something?" I asked almost petulantly. That's when i noticed that my voice sounded...off. Discordant. Like there was another layer that was slightly out of tune compared to mine. I froze, then slowly set the staff down, the flames flickering to nothing. The warmth remained though.

"So...what's your deal, huh? Spirit of Valor, Justice, something else?" Varric drawls, his crossbow reassembled and resting in his lap, cradled in such a way that he could raise it up quickly if needed,"Sorry, it's just that when someone's eyes start to glow, I can't help but be reminded of my old pal Anders."

I swallowed hard, then closed my eyes, focusing on that warm feeling flooding my body. It...It felt good. Like I was being wrapped up in a warm blanket, all comfortable, yet also feeling like I could stand up to anything. That made me uneasy, distrustful. And that distrust was enough to start to make that warmth fade from my system. I felt a small twinge of disappointment from the back of my mind, almost as if whatever the hell was in here with me was...hurt, by my reaction,"Don't know. Sorta hoping that whatever it is can be removed safely though." I reply in a clipped tone, back to normal, wincing as the bit of lingering warmth in my shoulders and back turned warningly hot for a moment,"Pretty sure they don't like that idea either, so who knows." I opened my eyes again, hoping that they weren't glowing, showing the incriminating evidence that I was wrong.

Solas stepped forward, his brow furrowed, making these little creases on his bald head that were adorable, a distraction from the turmoil of emotions I was feeling,"If...you and the Spirit were bound together unwillingly, perhaps that could be arranged, but...You seem to be in control," He comments, his eyes flickering over me, analyzing me,"If it was a Demon, it would have attempted to overcome you for it's own agenda by now, but so far it has simply...made itself known by assisting you with a simple task."

A shrug from me was his answer. I didn't know what to say to that really. It almost sounded like he was implying I could work with my...tenant...And that didn't sit well with me. Anders was a perfect example of why that probably wouldn't work out well. After all, Justice had been twisted into Vengeance just by being bound to a Mortal like that. I didn't know what was inside here with me, but I didn't want to be the reason that it was twisted from it's original purpose into something corrupt. Nor did I want to become an abomination, my body being remade into a hideous thing that housed a malevolent being, hellbent on killing and destroying everything around it.

"You three, we're ready to disembark. If you have not prepared yourselves before now, it is to late now," Cassandra barked over to us, before she turned with a hand on her sword, marching off towards the path that would take us towards the front lines. We traded looks, the three of us, then silently gathered our things, staves in hand, Crossbow holstered, and an uneasy air hanging over us all as we followed her.

It was chaos.

Pure, bloody and heart racing chaos.

We had made it to the front lines, but it wasn't just the few people, maybe twenty, that were there in the game. There were around a hundred, and all of them were fighting, or dragging the wounded or dead off off the battle field, screams and the sound of metal against something foreign ringing through the air. It had a smell to. Like charcoal mixed with blood and sweat, the fires still burning all around from the explosion all an ominous red, deep and vibrant, instead of the usual oranges and yellow.

We made our way to the heart of it, where a Rift, larger than the one's we'd seen before, hung in the sky like a sore on the world. I hung back with Solas and Varric and Cassandra went ahead to provide relief for the struggling soldiers facing the...the Terror demons. I paled, seeing their long, spindly bodies, arching horns and gaping mouth filled to the brim with grey and blacked teeth, their claws striking out to scrape against metal and flesh mercilessly. I readied my staff, focusing on that...that warmth that I had felt before, just thinking of it bring it flooding through my system. I took hold of it with my mind firmly, then directed it towards my staff, not allowing it to spread past my arms and chest, certainly not my head where it would try to make me feel emotions that I had no need of in this situation.

Flames burst into being at the top of my staff, and I allowed myself a grim little smile before I imagined those flames being gathered together. I reared back, then swung my staff like a lacrosse stick, a bolt of orange flame sent soaring through the air to impact against the leg of one of the Terror Demons, two more sent in a sluggish succession, one missing the mark. I cursed as it's attention turned away from the dying soldier before it, the sight of the poor man choking on his own blood making me go pale, before I turned to keep my eyes firmly on the threat. I started to toss more of my little bolts of flame at it, each singing and blackening it's scaly skin, but it showed no reaction other that to jolt a little from the impact, letting out a sound like a mix between a scream of agony and fear. My breath started to come faster now, sweat beading and dripping down the side of my face as it kept coming, no matter how many flames I gathered clumsily and threw at it! It was like it could smell my fear, enticed by it, and it's gaping mouth stretched open even wide, it's claws clicking together menacingly, crouching down as if to jump not twenty feet from me, and-

S-shhrk! Thnk! Thnk! Thnk!

Ice crawled over it's crouched form, encasing it completely and keeping it from pouncing onto me and rending into me with it's hooked claws. Then, three consecutive crossbow bolts slammed into it at a rapid pace, each in a different place, causing the Demon to crumble into green mist that was sent back to the Fade, a shell of ice remaining.

I sent Varric and Solas a weak smile of gratitude, which they returned with a solemn nod, Solas, and a wink, Varric. Then, I turned back to the battle waging around us, watching as a seeming unending wave of Demons continued to pour into the area around us. I grimaced, then raised up my left hand towards the sky, towards the Rift above. Instantly, a stream of green energy snapped into existence between my Mark and the tear in the veil, making me hiss as it burned. I gritted my teeth, not closing my eyes this time as I willed that beam to split into multiple strands, each hooking onto the edge of the Rift and then pulled!

The chorus of Demonic screams that echoed out around the field as they were all sent back to the Fade at once, turning into a green mist that zoomed past the closing tear, was like music to everyone's ears. And the sight of the Rift that had been the source of them slamming shut? A masterpiece of art.

The four of us regrouped near the center of it all, the approving glint in Cassandra's eyes, the smile on Varric's face, and the way Solas' shoulders untensed a little was enough to make me beam.

Then, someone approached.

The first thing that I noticed was the man's eyes. A warm brown, just a shade or two away from honey really. Then I noticed his curly blonde hair, cropped short and damp with sweat melted snow. Then I realized who I was looking at when said man sheathed his sword and prowled over to us with a small scowl,"It's about time you all got here, we've lost a lot of good men getting this far," He grumbles, his chiseled features pulled into a frown as he looked over us all, his eyes landing on me before he raised a brow,"So. This is the Prisoner, yes? I hope what they say about you is true."

I wilted a little under that stare, trying to both combat my initial reaction, which was to stare owlishly at the handsome man in front of me, and the knee jerk desire to turn and run away from the disapproval that was layered underneath his words,"A-ah, I hope so as well, though if it's about any theft of chocolate, it wasn't me," I blurt out, then close my eyes in mortification, face flaming,"Hey! Lets go seal up that Breach now!" I yelp, quickly scampering off towards the Temple while trying not to meet the man's eyes.

"Is he always like this Cassandra?"

"He...means well. I think. There are things about him that make little sense, but I think we can trust him for now, Commander Cullen,"

It was larger than I thought. Everything was, really. You couldn't expect the game designers to fit an actual world, mile for mile into a game and expect the players to deal with a day long trek just to get to the other side of the Hinterlands.

That said, the Temple, or what remained of it, must have been simply massive. After all, the crater that was in it's place was at least the size of the Burlington Palace. With towering spires of glowing red rock to add an almost stylistic flare, if a macabre one. I bit back the remark about how I could imagine my country doing something like this. Wouldn't do to make myself sound more incriminating, nor raise questions of where I was from yet.

We made it to the entrance of the building, but we paused as we came across the first of the...bodies.

Each was stuck in a pose, all varying stances depicting agony or fear, the way they seemed to have been flash crystallized and burned to nothing making me wonder if it was really that quick of a process. Had that one been clawing at his face, trying to get rid of the red crystals growing underneath his skin? Had that one been huddled down, resigned to their fate? I wasn't sure that I wanted to ever find out. I felt light headed, the smell of burning flesh and something almost oddly sweet, but sickly to the point that I wanted to gag was floating through the air. It got worse as we went further into the Temple, walking past crumbling walls and down cracked and broken stairs, picking our way through more slowly, as if the idea of rushing and causing a commotion in this absolute silence, this portrait of the Conclaves last moments, was blasphemous.

When we managed to get to the clearing where the center of the blast had taken place, we heard the shuffle of leather boots moving quickly behind us,"You made it! Thank the Maker!" Gasped Leliana, placing her hands on her knees for a moment, catching her breath,"It is good to see you all survived."

"It is good to see you as well, Leliana," Cassandra replied, but I turned away from that conversation, my eyes drawn to the Breach above, and the Rift that hovered in the air in the center of the blast zone, twitching and shifting in strange ways, pure, crystallized fade energy, displaying itself as a vivid green, pushing in on itself in ways that would have a physic's teacher frothing at the mouth. It was...Pretty, in a way. Also sort of nauseating to look like, when one considered just what had to have happened to cause it's existence.

"...Is...Is it just me, or does that Rift feel...different?" I ask in a murmur, causing all eyes to turn towards me.

Solas cocks his head to the side, raising a brow,"Other than that it is more unstable, and most likely the first? No, I sense little else about it," He replies thoughtfully, looking down at the Rift,"If I am correct, you could unseal, then seal it again, causing the Breach to slam shut above us."

I wriggle my nose a little, then shrug,"I don't know, I guess that could be it. Just felt...angry." I huff, shaking my head. That sounded silly, as much as it was true. The whole area felt permeated with a layer of ambient hatred really, making my skin crawl. It was as if there was something watching me all the time, and not just because of some weird thing in my head that was a hermit.

Que the awkward pause. Varric coughed into his fist a little, even, adding a new layer to what was usually just silence so far.

My eyes roll without my permission, and I start down the path,"Whatever. Cassandra, Leliana? Opening the Rift will probably make the other side perk up at attention, so we should probably prepare for that," I call over my shoulder.

The sound of people suddenly scrambling to get into position thanks to the commanding voices of Leliana and Cassandra was probably a bit to satisfying.

As we traveled down into the crater, dropping down short distances every now and then on whatever surviving architecture was around, and avoiding the massive red crystals that jutted up from the ground like super heated knifes that Varric proclaimed with disgust was Red Lyrium, we heard something. Something...Soft at first, but it quickly grew louder with each repetition.

"Someone, help me!"

"Secure the Sacrifice..."

"Argh, ack, gurgle!"

"Kill the...noisy one."

I swear, my face got hot enough to catch my Staff on fire. That...was me. I could tell, cause whatever was happening, I could tell that it was like when I was just waking up, trying to communicate. Just...in intense pain, it sounded like,"...Damn it." I mutter, ducking my head and trying to turn invisible. Better than feeling everyone's stares burning holes in my back.

"That...is your voice, is it not?" Cassandra asks carefully. She looked half way furious, half way confused and concerned. I could only nod.

"Yeah...Pretty sure that's me. Probably on the ground. In pain. You've heard it before by now," I sigh, rubbing my face, then hissing as the Mark sparks against my nose painfully,"Usually I would be able to remember things like that. Not this one though, sadly."

She shifts uncomfortably, as if not really sure what to make of that, then huffs,"Well...in any case, we should finish what we came here to do, no?" She states, posing the obvious order, slash subject change as a question.

We all pause, then move, a flurry of motion as we position ourselves around the Rift.

"Here goes nothing," I mutter under my breath, feeling oddly exposed being the center of the arc that everyone had made around the Rift, Cassandra and another soldier that had made it through flanking me, swords out and expressions hard. Unlike them, they had been doing this for so long that they were prepared to deal with anything that would be thrown at them. I wasn't so sure I would be able to do that.

I rose my hand up, swallowing down the lump that had formed in my throat and closed my eyes. Breath in, breath out, breath in, out...

Zck-Zzzzt!

I grimaced as I could feel the connection between my Mark and the Rift form, but this time I didn't try to imagine closing it. It was already partially shut, I could feel it, but...It was like when you tried to push the square block into the circle hole. It might fit, sure, if you forced it. But it wasn't right. My brow furrowed, and I imagined those same tendrils that I always had emerging, only this time hey were digging into those crystals, wrapping around them, then slowly and firmly tugging. I huffed, sweat starting to bead on my brow as I began to lean back, pulling, pulling...

I felt a sudden lack of connection, the resistance I'd felt before vanishing and sending me stumbling back. I opened my eyes to see something dart out of the huge, ethereal hole in the air, sending out waves of green energy that glimmered strangely. That quick little something curled onto the ground off to the side, it's mist like form flickering, before it suddenly burst up and out like a balloon being inflated at max speed. A roar of triumph rocked the ground, and the now massive, hulking demon grinned down at us all. Electricity crackled along it's muscled form, at least twelve feet tall, with huge curving horns, two sets with one smaller than the others, adding another three feet. It's eyes, all seven of them, laid mis-matched on it's face, and it's mouth was full of huge, sharp teeth. It's arms, long and bulging with muscle, were like a gorilla's. Barring that it had no fur, only scaly flesh that had massive blades of bone that jutted out along it's forearms.

A Pride Demon. One of the most powerful ones.

I looked at it, then my staff which barely bothered a spindly Terror Demon, thought about my weak spells that were more showy at this point than anything...Then slowly nodded,"...Nope. Fuck that," I stated simply, then closed my eyes and focused on that warm feeling I had experienced before. I poked and prodded at it's source, getting a vague feeling of annoyance from it, before I forcefully shoved at it, imagining that I was giving it control of my eyes.

I admit, it was satisfying to feel it's equivalent of an,'oh shit!' moment coming from my intruder.

The source of that warmth withdrew from the forefront of my head, from my eyes, then began sending as much warmth as it could flooding through me, making me gasp as my entire body began to feel like it was on fire. Not painfully, but that intense heat was everywhere, on every inch of my body, thick and pulsing, like there were little men pressing hot needles into my flesh that brought a mix of pain and relaxation at the same time. I heard a strangled gasp from the man next to me, heard Cassandra's cry of,"Daniel, what are you doing?!" But I ignored them. That same, strange detached feeling was back, but this time I wanted it. I was expecting it. I didn't know if I would be able to take back full control after this, but I knew that the big hulking mass of Pride would squish me in a second if I started to try and close the Rift instead of fighting it.

Fight fire with fire at this point.

The Pride demon's eyes, all seven of them, zeroed in on me as I began to literally glow, the veins of my body giving of a soft gold light, my eyes doing the same I imagined, though I couldn't tell. I didn't care really, there was only me and the now approaching enemy. I began stepping towards it as well, dropping my staff on the way carelessly. We both ignored the shouts of those around us, the arrows and swords flying through the air to try and dig into the Demon's flesh, and the screams of those like Varric to,"-get your ass back away from that thing!"

We stopped about twenty feet from each other, the Demon's head tilting to the side in curiosity, malice gleaming in it's gaze,"You...You are no mere Mortal. You feel of the Fade, yet I know you do not wear that sack of flesh like the rest of us would,"It rumbled out, crossing it's arms loosely. It's blades made the pose look like there was a massive 'x' covering it's form, but I found no amusement in it.

I was about to simply attack it, not really interested in trying to talk with a being that was literally the manifestation of Pride, but...

"I wear nothing. I steal nothing. This body is his own, I am just an...unwelcome tag along," Spilled from my mouth, sounding like a mix of my own voice with overtones of something other. Like the sound of an orchestra tuning, slightly discordant but beautiful, yet sounding wrong and strange coming out of the mouth of a single person. My eyes widened in surprise as my mouth moved, and my body tensed as I tried to move, but found that I couldn't. I felt my lips tug awkwardly down into a frown,"But...I also do not wish to perish. Nor, do I wish for him to perish either, so I must be the one to fight this battle," It continued, and it felt like the warmth that flooded my veins was like liquid metal, hothothot, yet just this side of painful, as if the pain was being dulled before it could actually reach my mind.

"...Did the Spirit just quote me?...I feel like I should sue for copyright." I heard someone grumble behind me, but it was getting harder to hear, to even see and feel as the warmth remained.

"Hah...Hahahahahaaa!" The Pride Demon chuckled, tilting it's head back to do so, before it suddenly grew serious, glaring at me. I could barely see it, my vision starting to darken and grow fuzzy around the edges, the sensation of being pushed gently, firmly to the back of my own mind making me panic. I tried to push back, which made the fuzziness abate for a moment, but the source of the warmth just pushed back harder, still trying to be gentle, but still overpowering me.

Soon, I was trapped in a dark little corner of my own mind, detached from all sensation. Everything but a set of dulled emotions that were giving me a weak trickle of fear and concern.

I hated it.

I waited in the darkness for a while, restless, trapped, unable to really do anything save think and worry. Though, the latter was hard when all I could muster was a vague sense of alarm that I was in a void inside my mind, while some other being was piloting my body, potentially fighting a Pride Demon.

I'd have to see about fixing that if I got out of here. I knew that I would be panicking about not being able to panic later, and it was much to troublesome to try and talk myself out of a future emotional response that I knew was bound to occur without my control.

No, best to focus on other things. This had been my only moment to really stop and think about what was going on around me, and with me. Perhaps I should organize it in a list form for my own convenience? Hm...No, it would do me no good if I was unable to properly reconstruct it later on when my emotions were fully restored and I was in full control of my facilities.

So, to begin with...I was in a world other than my own, where the entire planet was regularly under siege by a force known as the,'Blight,'. Said Blight was when Darkspawn, twisted creatures created by the Blight, found and corrupted an Ancient God, who were all to be said sleeping and bound beneath the earth. Then, the now titled Archdemon and it's growing horde of Darkspawn would flood the surface in an attempt to kill anything and everything. Lovely. So, the Blight originated when...The Tevinter Magisters, at the Behest of Old Gods, stepped into the Fade. The specifics are unclear...But this was the world that I found myself in at the moment.

Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the lore when I played the games.

Currently, the veil had been ripped open once more, though I do not think that the process of creating the Blight could be repeated, thankfully. My memories of the events surrounding this time period were...Fuzzy. As if there was a thick fog that came in to cloud my thoughts and create a sense of absent mindedness, eventually leaving me wondering what I was trying to figure out in the first place. Perhaps something external, or the Spirit that was currently in control of my body had been messing about with my memories, or I simply had hit my head a few to many times...I suppose I should get both avenues checked out, in case of a concussion.

It was quite boring in here. Was this what the Spirit dealt with while I was in control? How dull. I tried to bring up some memories of beautiful things I'd imagined, or seen, but...They all felt dull, leeched of color and life.

Hmm...Emotion must be restored quickly. It would not do for me to continue this way. Perhaps if the intruder in my mind and body willingly gave back control, I could maybe do some decorating or something for it?

Suddenly, there was a slight sensation that echoed throughout my mind, like the feeling of my body tingled, and I was getting just the very faintest hint of it. I pulled my best mental equivalent of a frown, noting how it seemed to fade quickly, but then was repeated a few more times. What was this, I wondered? I tried to focus on what it felt like to see through my own eyes, pushing and shoving blindly in the darkness to try and-

I gasped, looking up with wide eyes, something hot and wet dripping down my cheeks, my chest hurting like someone had taken a bat to it over and over, every nerve in my body screaming in pain as I was suddenly the only one in control once more. I could vaguely hear someone screaming my name behind me, but my eyes were locked on the beam that connected my hand to the trembling Rift in the sky, pulsing and thick like a cable unlike the ones before, the tendrils I had been using now ropes that yanked forcefully at the edges of the slowly shrinking tear.

It hurt. Oh gods, everything hurt, but my hand was the worst. It was like I was sticking it in acid, but I couldn't pull it out, couldn't even scream because there was so. Much. Pain!

My vision was fading fast again, but this time I could tell I was just losing consciousness instead of being suppressed, the shock my body was going through because of the pain making it start to shut down. I was...I was dying, and I might not even shut the Breach, or even make it stop growing, I was going to-

I took in a short, sharp breath, then shut my eyes closed tight, forcing away all those thoughts of dying, of failing, of the pain, ohgodsthepain! A-and...Just focused on the Rift. It was bigger than the rest, but my Mark had grown as well. It would take someone strong to survive doing this, but...I only needed to be strong enough to fucking close this thing before I keeled over. I ground my teeth, the sound barely registering as my consciousness wavered, and I gave one. Last. Pull.

Then, everything was green. Then dark.