(Maven)

"Think you're ready?"

"More than I was before." She brushed me off and I could tell she wanted to stay focused and hold on to whatever feelings the nightmare had given her. I don't even know if she heard everything that was going on around us as we went through each gate, destroying all the keys we found, and I had a feeling she was just going through the motions of the dialogue here until the big showdown.

I was starting to worry for her because I recognized these signs. Her withdrawing and throwing herself into work. Usually, it was alright and I just had to make sure she ate enough and drank enough water. Doing that here could get her killed.

"Remember, if you see the floor light up with blue streaks, move and move fast. Just a bunch of dodging...like the rock tentacles. This thing is going to look really weird and hit hard. Just...pretend we're fighting a really messed up looking dragon made of rock and lyrium that also can't fly. It will try to knock you from the platform with sweeps of its 'wings'." They all seemed to get the idea now.

I hadn't actually been prepared for everything to unfold and that discovery hit a little late. Witnessing as Valta and Renn were thrown away from the fight and Drusilla charged in with Bull and Odessa. She aimed her hits at the lyrium cluster and Varric, like instructed, stayed back with Solas. They were out of the way of the shorter arms and worked to take the same ones out at the same time as they kept moving.

"Maven! Move!" Odessa called out as the floor under me got brighter. Obeying her absently, I lept away and moved in towards a tentacle, trying to make my movements more fluid so I could slide around the arms without having to jump back. This way I could also avoid having to worry about ground or pincer attacks from the Guardian. It wouldn't risk hitting itself. I was even enjoying myself and, for a moment, wished Cassandra was here to see my progress.

"Shit!" I heard Drusilla yell and I fought myself to not glance back and see what was happening. Then I heard a grunt from Solas and I assumed she shoved him out of the way of something. There were too many loud noises to really be able to tell them apart from one another and make anything from them. With Odessa and Bull dodging and then whaling on the flails, I could only see them because they were a short ways away from me.

It was impossible to tell how much time had passed as we fought, and I could only tell it had been awhile because most of its flails were gone.

"Bull!" Odessa cried out and I took the thud to be him getting knocked into by something. I figured the Qunari Reaver could handle himself well enough.

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" Definitely Drusilla.

"Veil!" That's when I couldn't take it anymore and I glanced around the back of the Guardian to see Bull beaten up and knocked out and Drusilla skid dangerously close to the edge of the platform; unconscious. Weapon discarded somewhere, I didn't look away from her form. I needed a sign of movement- of breathing- anything.

Solas may have struck the final blow but I was moving for Drusilla, checking her pulse, only to yank my hand back as she rolled towards me onto her back and coughed harshly.

"I hate...this fucking...place." She strangled out between hacks.

"Is anything broken?" I tried to avoid moving her much. She was quiet for a moment and I took that as she was trying to pinpoint something. Then she looked at me.

"Feel carefully along my rib cage...towards the bottom. I think one...one or two of them...ar-are broken. My left arm...dis-located...fuck. Gonna need you...fix it."

"When I find the rib or ribs, can you heal them?"

"Mmhmm." Her voice was tight; pained. I followed her words and moved slowly up along her rib cage, starting from the floaters.

"Eight...shit...and five. Give me a minute while I heal them." I sat myself down on the unharmed side of her and held her hand, feeling her grip it tightly and grunt before she sucked in a breath and held it.

About five or ten minutes probably passed when she said she was good.

"Alright, now." She sat up and dragged herself away from the edge and I followed her. Keeping my eyes on her bad arm, limpy moving with her.

"Okay, pop it back in but don't warn me when you're gonna do it." Drusilla then turned her head over to where Bull was. Those with us seemed unable to figure out who to go to and they just moved their eyes back and forth, from Bull to her. Solas, however, was checking Bull for injuries and healing some superficial ones.

"Hey, Iron Bull! You alive over-ow! Fuckstars!" Drusilla leaned back and rolled onto her good arm, nursing the pain in her left.

"Still breathing." He rumbled back with a cough of his own.

"I really don't know how you guys do this shit." Drusilla grunted as she attempted to stand.

"I can still heal. Might need your help getting over to him, though. Everyone else okay?"

"A little beaten up, but you might wanna help Tiny first."

"Can you tell if anything is broken?"

"Check my collar bone. Right side. It's that or my shoulder. Feels like I cracked it or something."

Her fingers felt along the crevice along his clavicle, over his deltoid, and examined his scapula before placing a hand over his first and last.

"You have what feels like a stable fracture in your scapula and clavicle. Minor. Lucky you." She was very much in doctor mode.

"I have had worse."

"I know. Seems like it'll take more than a thing with veins made of lyrium to do much damage to you. We'll have to see how you hold up to a dragon sometime." She joked before she quieted to concentrate on healing him.

I really hoped she was joking.

"That should do it. I'm really glad you stayed down instead of aggravating that injury. Would have taken longer. We should get out of here. If you can stand, that is." She offered her hand.

"You're kidding." Bull deadpanned.

"Humor me, I'm testing something. If I fail, I end up on top of you. Win-win, right?" She flirted and he chuckled. After a moment, he even accepted the help up...and she promptly yanked him upright.

"I did it again!" She cheered, beaming brightly at the stunned Qunari she all but lifted into the air seconds ago.

"That was awesome!" He agreed after he had returned to his senses.

"Right?! I did the thing I did with that Sha-Brytol guy earlier but without my…" Drusilla trailed off as she looked around. Her eyes finally landed on the two scraps of metal that were once her weapon.

"That's right. That fucker broke my shit before he flung me into the pillar..."

Then Valta and Renn woke up and I ducked towards the ground with Drusilla. No way we were risking getting thrown from this platform yet.

Valta and Renn both had hands that glowed blue before simmering down.

"What happened? I thought dwarves couldn't do magic." Odessa began. Drusilla was about to say something but she held herself back and shared a look with me.

'We have done enough here.' Is what we seemed to silently agree. Our knowledge could only makes things worse, right now. It was about time we learned how to use it. We were lucky that saving Renn hadn't ended in a falling out between them and they both decided to stay as Valta had in the game.

"Can we go home now?" Drusilla came over and rested her head on my shoulder. I was about ready to drop, but I willed myself to stay awake until we got to our last campsite.

(Sophia)

"Ugh, everything aches. Why does everything ache?" My legs and glutes from the ride to and then from the fissure, my back from the fall, and my arms from everything else. I would let this soreness stay, though. It felt like a lesson.

"Because you're really out of shape and you just fought something that doesn't even exist in our world. Let's not forget all the trekking and the riding. I'm sore too, so I knew you were going to be."

"Can I stay in bed for longer?"

"Yes."

"Small victories...can you hand me one of those books, please?" I felt like jello as I struggled to just sit up, but I didn't want to sleep anymore than I already had. None of my muscles seemed to want to move. Maven handed me the book from the top and gave me an expectant look.

"Thank you?"

"Did you remember to discreetly ask Varric about that favor you mentioned before?"

"Yeah, I did that like a week ago."

"Good. Do you need anything else?"

"I miss coffee." The withdrawals from that had been such shit.

"I'll bring you some food and fill up your waterskin."

"How are you feeling? Were you hurt at all in that fight?"

"My armor caught most of it, so it's just some bruising and most of that healed up during our trip back."

"Maven?"

"Hm?" She was almost out the door.

"You're the best."

"I know." Then she headed out to do who knows what.

And I was a big girl so I wasn't going to let it bother me. Instead, I was a terrible sister who didn't learn her lesson about telling people shit they knew and went off to see Blackwall...after I could actually get up and move decently.

"Good afternoon, Warden Blackwall."

"Lady Amell." He acknowledged.

"You know about me, don't you?"

"That is kind or our thing, isn't it?"

"If you know about me then why haven't you told the Inquisitor or anyone?" The man was rightfully suspicious of us and our motives.

"That's your secret and it's one that isn't a detriment to the Inquisition's goals. Joining or no Joining, you are a Warden to me and my sister. It has nothing to do with us...and we can understand one who does what you did to remake yourself and kill that old self. I kinda just wanted to come in and say hello because I haven't yet. No doubt there was a bit of anxiety brewing and I wanted to get any worry you may have had about us out of the way."

"Your sister and you hurt people in the past? Killed children or something?"

"Probably not Maven, but I have...not always by accident either. After working my job for long enough I have been tempted to put some dying people out of their misery. They request an end because they want to get away from the pain and some even grow to resent their loved ones for keeping them alive. Most have little to no chance of recovery and know that. The worst times are when it is children who ask to not make it. All in all, our situations are not the same but they led us to a similar decision."

"The Iron Bull knew too."

"Well, yeah. He's a people person." I grinned.

"I can see how Sera would be bothered by you. That was weird." At that, my grin evaporated.

"Yeah. I know. Anything not normal in her book and she's all 'arrows'."

"That's true."

"And she would hate that I know that...anyways, I wanted to warn you about something ahead of time. The Wardens are being manipulated by Corypheus. He's found a way to mimic The Calling and they all think they're dying so they're kinda getting desperate and doing stupid things. Pointless sacrifices and demon binding stuff…"

"You can't know that." He said after a moment of thought.

"How many lives would you bet on me being wrong?"

Silence.

"I don't expect you to be okay with this news, but I'm telling you now because seeing people you admire fuck up so bad can hurt."

"At least now I can expect it." He nodded, seeming to understand.

"Well, thank you for...um."

"Yup. No worries. Now, I need to actually do what I told Maven I would do and go study. See you later." Then I hobbled towards the exit.

"You know about the Joining?"

"I do."

"Would you mind telling me of it when you're less...busy?" He offered a slight smile at my struggling.

"Only as long as you can promise not to tell anyone about it. It's supposed to be a secret and you'll find out why when I tell you about it." This time, I made it back to my house.

'This really makes me wish I had made more mages. How did I set up Vivienne's build? Ugh, things would have been so much easier if Maven had been the mage.' Then I remember the ribs I had broken and the other damage we had both taken. She was best at offense and, so far, not getting as injured.

'Knight Enchanter was overpowered as fuck with the right spells being taught. It took me a whole month or so to get down how to augment my strength output and even that still doesn't work every time. I should study Spirit Blade little by little on the side and put my focus on…' I scaled my finger through the pages for another spell and my thoughts floated to possibly trying an electricity spell. It would take a while longer to learn than the fire or even the physical spell I've been learning.

'No, not yet. Maybe a passive would be easier...would it work that way?' I probably should have been asking Vivienne for pointers but keeping up with her and doing my damndest to not swear around her was too much of a pain. I did better studying on my own.

The physical spell took less time than getting the fire to move how I wanted. Maybe because it worked like healing but was more biological altering. Elements weren't natural for the human body and less so for my world…

'If that is even a factor...fuck.'

I considered barriers so I could work off of them and be less likely to end up with metal in me. As nice as self healing was, it hurt like a motherfucker.

The dynamics for creating a barrier were found in the fourth book I searched in and the back of my mind itched, wondering what Maven was doing. She said she would bring me a snack or something…

Having much less difficulty standing and moving about now, I peeked out the window to see if I could spot her and what I saw made me grin.

She was over by Cullen and she was…

'Awww, she's flirting.' Maven had a box of food in her hands and I wondered exactly how long she had been chatting the commander up. The bow appeared forgotten in her hands as she rested it against her hip like a clean laundry basket. It had been too long since she'd smiled like that. A moment later, it was like I had ruined their moment with my staring. Maven seemed to remember her delivery and hefted it onto her hip with a last sort of 'see you later' to the ex-templar.

I rushed to sit down and pretend to read before she could notice I was staring. Then she came in and set the box on the table.

"Hey, how are you feeling?" She asked in a tone more chipper than she usually gave.

"Better. I can move without everything hurting. You seem awfully happy." Her face colored.

"Yeah...Cullen and I were talking about strategies and then I brought up chess and he suggested we play a game some time when we were both free."

"Wow, that's almost like french kissing…" I said while stuffing my face with the sandwich I had made with bread, meat, and cheese.

"Don't talk with your mouth full."

She never had been good with retorts.