4. Wonder
"You shall make yourself ill," Morrigan says disdainfully to the younger mage. They have been traveling together in the direction of Lothering for two days, and her opinion on Faye is not quite set – but the fact that the woman stands outside gaping at the sky in the midst of a storm does not speak well for her sanity.
"It's...beautiful," Faye whispers, wonder infused in her voice. "We heard the thunder even inside the Tower, of course, but I couldn't even imagine what all this wind and rain might feel like. Or lightning! Real lightning from the sky..."
Morrigan groans and returns to her own tent with the knowledge that Faye would lose her awe for rain once she had to travel through the mud in the morning. She is, unfortunately, quite right.
32. Sorrow
The red-haired woman clad in the genteel robes of a Chantry sister smiles and names herself as "Leliana". Her Orlesian accent is soft, lilting, and pleasant to the ear. She is devoted to her faith and possibly a little more than mad, but she wants to help and it seems unwise to turn down anyone willing to assist.
It doesn't hurt that Morrigan despises her on sight. Anything that Morrigan disapproves of is good in Faye's book.
Still, amongst all the other small details – the well-kept state of her humble wooden bow, strange for one pledged to the Maker – the most distinct thing is that mantle of sorrow that seems to hang around her shoulders.
Leliana is beautiful, but Faye recognizes someone who's been broken. She'll be her friend, she decides. It's impossible to ignore the haunted look in those eyes.
40. Solitary
In the midst of demons and abominations, Faye remembers that Anders had been placed in solitary just a week before her recruitment. His imprisonments lasted from a couple months to – the worst one of all, a year – and she had little doubt that the Templars had forgotten him, in his basement cell.
Wynne gives her a look – the look, the one that says "You are acting childish and I am going to be the wise, responsible one here," – and tells her that the important thing to do is to save Irving, who is likely up in the Harrowing Chamber. Faye finds herself struck with fierce resentment – Irving deserves to be saved just because he is First Enchanter, because Wynne wants to live and won't be able to without his word. Irving is an old man who has lived his life and placed power games above the wellbeing of his students. [She remembers, all too well, going to Irving with blind trust and thinking that he would surely sort Jowan out, convince him that escaping was a terrible idea -]
She thinks about the cold, hollow feeling that followed after Alistair struck her with a Holy Smite in practice, and tries to imagine staying like that, drained of her mana, for months on end. Huddling in the darkness behind bars as screams float above and wondering when the monsters would come for you, alone and defenseless, without any sense of how much time was passing.
"I will not leave him," she scowls, and dashes for the stairs.
44. Near
They find Cullen - mind-shattered, but alive.
She sinks to her knees in front of him, wanting to scream; but her throat locks up and she chokes on his name. He looks at her, but his eyes catch a vision somewhere over her shoulder that has stolen her voice and face. She feels as if she is underwater, her senses warped. His words burn through the haze like acid. Faye presses herself against the magical barrier until he's so near that if they weren't separated she could probably count his eyelashes. It hurts. She doesn't care.
Her friends pull her (Alistair picks her up, his armor cold against her clammy skin, and she screams at him for his trouble) away from the barrier before she wastes all her mana – or bloodies her hands by beating on the magical shield. "I'll save you from this I swear," she whimpers, clawing wildly at the gauntleted hands around her waist. "Uldred will die."
3. Wishes
Leliana comes to sit with her by the fire at camp that night after they returned from the Circle Tower. "Would you like to talk?" the bard asks her after a moment of silence, her lilting voice gentle. "The man we saw today, the one who survived the Desire Demon...you knew him, yes?" Faye grimaces and nods, slowly.
Knew him. Cullen had been her friend, he had stayed with her the night Surana never returned from her Harrowing and he had touched her arm the last time she left Irving's office -
"I used to wish...that he might care for me," she breathed, scarcely daring to voice the words. "But I never wanted that. I never wanted him to suffer..."
"Sifting through my thoughts, using my shame against me... my ill-advised infatuation with her... a mage, of all things."
Later, in the light of the lantern that hangs inside her tent, Faye cries. Just once, she tells herself - for the boy she had known and loved, the man who had been destroyed by a demon wearing her mask
