Leliana stood in the jail room, body and face frozen in fear. She stared into William's eyes, and he stared back. Impossible. Improbable. She had seen him die. She had seen his corpse burn. He had been dead for... this had to have been some sort of nightmare. She wanted to pinch herself, so that she would wake up, but she couldn't move to do so. That was when she realized that it was no dream.
William wanted to speak, to say anything, but all that he could do was stare at the face of his beloved. Her blue eyes, red hair and fair Orlesian skin shone like a beacon in the darkness of the room.
He was dead. There wasn't a snowball's chance in a flame that the man before her was actually William. She finally gathered the will to move, and the first thing that she did was act.
"Get back, Cassandra!" She said. Stepping forward quickly, she reached down to her side and pulled a dagger from a sheathe hidden at her side. The slight look of happiness that washed over William's face was quickly replaced by surprise. Lady Pentaghast backed up, confused, but then she looked to the knife.
Leliana grabbed William by his thick bronze hair and pulled back, pushing the blade to his throat.
"What are you?!" She demanded.
"Leliana, what... why are you-" William sputtered.
"Answer me, beast!" She hissed.
"Leliana!" Lady Pentaghast shouted. "Let him go! This is the man who walked from the Breach!"
"Leliana, for the Maker's sake, it's me, dammit!" William yelled, gritting his teeth together. "It's William!"
"That's enough!" Lady Pentaghast said.
"William is dead!" She shouted, pushing the knife against his throat harder.
"...Dead..?" William asked, terrified. "That isn't possible... I-"
"He was killed in the Fifth Blight. You, on the other hand, are alive." She said. "How did you do it? Did you take his form? Are you a demon of some kind? Rage? Envy?"
His heartbeat ran extremely fast. The sharp steel blade had broken the skin of his neck, and a tiny droplet of blood ran down from where the blade cut through. He felt it trickle down as he tried to find something to respond with. "I-"
"That's enough, I said!" Lady Pentaghast shouted. Leliana pulled the knife away from William's neck and backed up. His chest was burning again, not as painful as last time, but he could feel it spreading as if something was inside of him.
"That is no man!" Leliana said. "'Tis a demon!"
Lady Pentaghast eyed William carefully. "If he were any sort of demon, then why has he not displayed his true form?" She asked. "Why go to such complex lengths in order to infiltrate us, and with one? A demon so weak would have crossed through the fade through one of the smaller rifts, not the Breach itself."
Leliana stared William down in disbelief and rage. How could it know his shape? His voice? His words?
"What are you?" She whispered.
There was a silence, perhaps seven or eight seconds in which no sound came from any of the three. Lady Pentaghast was confused, unsure of Leliana's grudge with the man. She knew deep down that he was no demon. She knew what one possessed by a demon acted with. Greed. Hunger. Not fear. Never once had she encountered a fearful demon.
"I'm alive." William responded.
Leliana backed up several steps into the door. She reached for the knob, pulled it open, and ran through, slamming it closed. Lady Pentaghast took a step towards the door, as though to follow her, but hesitated, and before long she decided to let Leliana go.
William's heart raced. He had been... Dead?
She looked to him. William was breathing heavily. He looked to her, and bore a look of terror.
He swallowed, his deep breaths escaping after as though his lungs had never worked before. He looked down to the glowing, crackling scar on his hand, then looked again to Lady Pentaghast's eyes.
"How long ago was the end of the Fifth Blight?" He asked.
Her mouth refused to shut entirely closed. "At least a decade." She replied.
He stayed silent, shutting his eyes lightly as he took the information in. After a pause of several more seconds, he opened his eyes and looked up.
"Show me this Breach." He said.
