A/N - I have this thing about the blue glowy eyes from the shorts...so, I used that imagery. Also? Not so good at the angry bitter Cullen. Apologies.

Mage Reconnected - Return to the Tower, Return to Hell

She is reeling when they enter the Tower, having browbeat Carroll into bringing them across the lake. It may just have been easier to swim from Redcliffe, damn it! Greagior pulls her into an embrace, murmuring into her hair how very happy he is to see her alive, that they had heard all the Grey Wardens had perished with the King. The Tower had grieved the night word came of the fall of Ostagar, the fall of the Wardens. But the Tower is bleeding now.

She can feel the twisted power riddling the building around her. There is corruption here, and death. She can almost smell the dark corners of the Fade, brought out in open view. She feels the demons as though they were darkspawn, linked by the taint in her blood, but by the taint of magic.

She will fix it, she tells him, save all who are left to be saved.


Neria pushes the heavy door open, trying and failing to wipe the spatters of blood and gore from her robe. She huffs loudly in frustration as she flicks a glob of…something from the back of her hand. At Alistair's amused glance, she growls, and flicks the next glob at him. He snickers as it spatters against his already coated breastplate, and she rolls her eyes. Wynne scowls as she watches them, and Neria can see she is itching to take them to task for horsing around.

If she lets it, it will tear her apart. She can only keep moving by making it unreal.

A shimmer of blue catches her attention as she rounds the open door, standing out starkly against the grey stone that is crusted in red and black tainted fleshy bulges. She cocks her head as she tries to puzzle what new twist this is. She wipes the bloody slop from her eyes and refocuses.

Her breath catches in her throat, is torn loose in a broken cry. Neria darts to the shimmer, and crashes into it. She slides down the barrier, palms pressing against it, trying to reach out to the kneeling man inside. "Cullen…" her whisper cracks, choked and breathless.

"This trick again?" His face is tight and worn, and Neria thinks he hadn't slept since the Tower debacle had started. She whimpers to hear his voice hoarsened, and her fingers press harder into the wall that isn't, trying to touch him. Even as his words deny her reality, his hand begins to rise; his own fingertips meet hers against the barrier. "Please, if anything about you is still human, kill me now. I am weary of these games…"

She throws a desperate glance at Wynne, who shakes her head. "I've never seen a prison like this before." Her look is pity. "The poor boy is exhausted."

Liliana speaks softly. "He has been denied both food and water." She frees her water skin from her belt, moving forward. "Here, I have-"

"Do NOT touch me!" His body flinches away as Liliana approaches, but his fingertips remain. Neria thinks that he hasn't realized it, or he would have pulled away from their not quite touch.

"…the one thing I always wanted…" His hollow eyes lift slowly to meet hers, his whisper reaches only her ears. "You come to me each night," he hisses out through clenched teeth, desolation swimming in his gaze. "I know it isn't you, but it seems so real. "

Her boy-Templar stares out at her from this burning man's visage, this man whose soul has been set alight within him, and nearly everything he cares about is rotting around him.

"Please Cullen, I'm here now." She begs his haunted eyes to believe her, to trust her.

"Indeed you are, my love. My weakness." His laugh a taunt. "My sin. The Maker knows my sin, and I pray that he forgives me." Cullen's words slide through her, a blow, a slowly weeping wound. Neria jerks back onto her heels. She covers the movement by flowing onto her feet, no longer kneeling in supplication before the shattered Templar.

"Why does it cause you so much pain, to love me?" She nearly spits, blinking desperately to deny the tears she can feel coming to betray her. Jowan's lies, Duncan's death, darkspawn hounding her dreams, none of this had broken her. This burning man, who already stands inside her defenses, was now intent on tearing her down from the inside, and she knows she cannot fight him.

"You are a mage, and I a Templar. I am to oppose everything that you are!" His gravel voice scraping her skin raw, but she watches his eyes, and beneath the terrified darkness, she sees. In seeing, her heart explodes. His love is huge and raw, and has been wounded by the demons' tricks, visions dancing in his head, desires that were his, paired with fade realities that were not.

She drops back to her knees before him. She rests her forehead against the near invisible wall, and sighs as the tainted tears begin to flow.

Ice and sharp edges, her words grind out "I cannot do this with you now, my Templar. Let me see what I can save, if anything. Let us say nothing that cannot be taken back."


The demon that was Uldred taunts her, threatens her, but Alistair is by her side, and he will keep her safe, and even if he cannot, Cullen is…trapped. He can't help her. Won't help her. Her anger fuels her spells, and Wynne and Alistair both gape at her as she brings the elements out to play, decimating the Abominations, toying with the demon. She dances dangerously close to losing control, but the hate in her will out, and she uses it to shred the demon slowly. The screams now come from it's corrupted throat, the remaining mages held back and safe by Wynne's use of the Litany.

Even after Uldred falls, she feeds the spells. The triple storm fills the Harrowing Chamber. Alistair stands next to her, until she motions him away, telling them through clenched teeth to help Irving down the Tower, that she will catch up. Unsure glances fly among the group, but Irving agrees with her, and uses his old man state to chivvy them from the room. She lets the ice and lightning die, but funnels the power into the firestorm, trying to burn clean the chamber, burn clean her mind. She still sees everything tinged in red, and she feels the taint in her blood react, a rising need to destroy.

His attempt to dispel her storm is gentle, a mere tugging at her magic, his hand a mere ghost of a touch against her ear tip. Has her power grown so much, then, that he asks her to obey, or is he so exhusted that he has no choice? She holds her breath, not sure if she is waiting for an onslaught of accusations or affection, but neither is forthcoming.

He watches her, shoulders slumped in exhaustion, but he finds he can't stand for long, he is swaying, so close to done in that he may as well be. He is grateful that this last time, she was her, not the demon come back for another round. With each rejected dream, each vision that failed to break him, it learned a little more of him, and sooner rather than later, would have found the key to him. When he felt her power rising beneath him, he was certain that it had.