Sorry, pretty slow at updating. I lost this several times. Also, warning for swear words. Probably nothing most of you havena heard before.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. It was such a stupid, rookie dumb mistake. Oh hey by the way Luke, I am your father. Seriously. I was trying to get the guy on my side, was trying to help them. Not this. Whatever my inner monologue had to continue with, which was plenty I assure you, I realised I had slid down the wall and was yanking hard at one of the beads in my hair. And Jowan was looking at me. Like I was the one who had signed a dastardly pact with a demon and did magic fuelled by blood…

"Maharial?"

Tentatively spoken. Probably didn't want to puncture the miasma of gloom that had descended upon me. I lifted my head and released the death grip on my hair. Yep, still me. I frowned even harder. What the hell was I supposed to do now? As I braced my hands on the floor to stand up, awkwardly of course, I felt it. I thought it was just nothing, but then I realised it was like I was cold. Like my heart was shivering. It made me want to spew, it made me so afraid. And I realised what it was. Magic. And not happy magic. I knew it wasn't Jowan, but I darted a glimpse to the guy; who looked as uncomfortable as I felt. It didn't seem to be coming from us, from down here. But from up the dark stairs. Of course it was! I thought my body would freeze, that I would be useless; after all Finn and Alistair weren't here. But I wasn't. I didn't have time to think anything other than,

"Perth, gather your men! Send someone for Sten and Morrigan."

I looked at Jowan, his hands clenched into the tightest of fists.

"Jowan, I don't know what you can do, but by the Creators I hope it is impressive."

I heard running feet, the stamp of steel boots on stone. I heard screams and terrifying crying. But I was cool. Not sure if that was a good thing. I had never encountered this before; the game part. You know the whole Connor demon upstairs thing; I had no idea how this was going to go down. And the fact that the demon had enough juice to continue an attack was so out of left field I should still be a stunned mullet on the ground. Instead I praised Maharial/My thinking of never wanting to be unarmed. I had my bow in my hand and an arrow to the string before Perth arrived. I flicked a glance at him as he entered the hall,

"Teagan, Isolde?"

"Both at the Chantry ma'am."

I breathed out slowly. I couldn't remember body numbers upstairs, or anything about upstairs other than raiding the armoury. Fuck!

"The castle on lock down?"

"Yes ma'am."

I swallowed, hard. Man I hoped we could stop before we found Connor, Demon lady thing. Because this was no longer following the game and I didn't like it. They were all looking at me. ALL OF THEM! Because I had thought yeah, let's totally pretend to be a Warden, there is no way that wont end well.

"Stay away from the stairs past the armoury, take down the zombies but do not take those stairs."

I think by this point there was no point in trying to remain oblivious of what was happening. Of how I knew about stairs and armouries and stuff. It was about keeping these guys alive.

I gestured to the dark doorway,

"Let's go hunting."

Yeah, let's just do that. I berated myself every time I took a step. Let's sound cool and stuff, 'let's go hunting'… Ick. Anyway, Perth and his men had done most of the 'hunting' so far. I kept up, firing an arrow every so often. More often that not just slowing down each zombie so they could wreck it with massive swords and hard shields. As we moved, clearing out rooms and halls, I kept my face averted from the space above us, from where that hateful feeling was coming from. One of Perth's guys, Owen? I think his name was, kicked open the next door. It was Connor's room. The original boy Connor's room. Inside the zombified remains of his nurse/Governess lady, her fingers boney talons, jaw unhinged in a scream. She lunged for Owen who retreated fast. He slid on the congealed mess of another zombie. My arrow was fired with equal parts hate and sorrow. She had been probably the closest to the Arl's son, now she was reduced to this monster. It struck her head; I am unsure where I was aiming. It spun her head to the side, loose jaw clacking. Her arms went limp and she staggered. Not sure why I still gave her that attribute. She. I guess she was more 'whole' than the zombies of the night before. Of the bodies I had had burnt before the Chantry. But perhaps it was because she had been shut up here, in was what was so obviously a young boy's room. The wooden carved horse, the books, toys scattered around. Strangely untouched by magic and zombies, though she had been roaming inside for weeks. A streak of blue zipped past us all, it struck her and she fell as if strings cut. I looked at Jowan, his face stricken; at this reminder of a consequence of something he had started. Something that needed to end. And I could do it. All it would take to begin the end would be me heading towards those stairs. And would result with the death of that little boy.

By the Creators, I wasn't supposed to make decisions like this! Shouldn't make decisions. There was nothing about me that was equipped for this sort of shit! Elgar'nan, there was no way even Marethari would never have delegated this sort of decision to anyone, let alone me… Oh, Morrigan. I flicked my head at her, gesturing to Sten who seemed to understand that as stand at point with your big mother fucking sword to scissor those BAMFs who would interrupt with their stupid zombie faces. Worryingly Morrigan had a tense expression on her face as she gripped her staff.

"Is this gonna go down like I think it is?"

"I would think so. Yes."

I sighed,

"So, it's a Desire demon, that is more powerful that what you and Jowan thought, who is egging us on for a confrontation."

"Us or you, Ana?"

Wasn't sure how to take that. I didn't think poking my tongue out at Morrigan was fair play or entirely appropriate.

"She knows that I want to kill her though, right? Why would she jeopardise the foot hold she has here in Connor to converse with me?"

"You should have thought this was a probability when you saw the demon first!"

"I fucking did! Sten is here isn't he? You are here, all ready and able to kill what needs to be killed."

Jowan then took the time to step forward and of course opened his mouth to speak,

"Jowan, I swear to Falon'din if you are here to espouse going into the Fade using your damned blood magic you can shut up! You'll need to drain someone and I have no one to spare."

"You are running out of options Maharial, you have to listen to me."

Finally the awakening of Jowan's backbone. Right thing, so the wrong time. I rubbed my forehead, ignoring the arrow I still held in rigid fingers. I needed way more time than I had, I need Alistair. God help me I needed Finn. His presence, which had been like (I thought) a nagging blister, had actually been steady and reliable. There was no way I bloody knew what to do.

"Sten?"

His white brows didn't quirk up, but I swear he was like, WTF?

"Break it down."

Silence before,

"You kill the boy."

I waited, hoping he was leaving the best till last. But he was silent after those four words.

"No…"

Yeah, I know. I wanted to cry, this wasn't fair. To this family, to the little boy who just wanted his family, to me. I didn't know anything, I can't do anything. It isn't my place to make any decision. I turned to a wall, ignoring people, their weird looks at each other as the elf went even crazier. I pressed my forehead to the wood, trying to think of something. I sighed out, trying to breath slow.

"Okay, so I've got a desire demon, a magical boy, a tear in the Veil, zombies, no lyrium, blood magic and two mages…"

Purely just whispering to myself, until I thought could we actually do something with the Veil? It was already torn. What did the game Sophia warden chickadee do…?

The roar that came from upstairs had everyone retreating a few dozen steps back, even Morrigan looked nauseous. I however, snapped, stepping back to yell back at the ceiling,

"Give us a bloody minute you stupid whore face of a fucking cunt!"

I didn't even look at the others, at what they must think with that sort of outburst. Instead I looked at Jowan,

"Can you manipulate fade tears? As a normal mage or a blood one? Without killing someone? Bar the obvious one of course. Yes, you may talk among yourselves."

I flapped hand, a pale Morrigan turning to talk to a more thoughtful Jowan. Even though the initiating thought had been mine, I backed off. Unwilling to hear what they spoke of. Here was no way that I could hide my hands of their tremor. Thank God it was Perth who approached me. Jeez, he even placed a weaponless hand on my shoulder.

"My lady, what are you trying to propose?"

My grin was a split second long and oh so very crooked.

"All I want is to buy sometime for the others to get back."

"I fear we are on our own."

And though the words were full of gravitas and his face was strained and he looked like he was facing down the barrel of a gun, I loved that he had said we. But,

"'Swat I figured."

It was really going to come to that. Me or one of the guys killing that boy. And there as no guarantee that Eamon would awaken either way. I tipped my head back to try and get the massively tall Perth in my vision.

"Thank you, for moving with us."

And he smiled, and his strain broke.

"I follow you my lady. We watched as you stayed to watch the pyres burn. Held straight under the eyes of those you were fighting to save. And now, still you try to save those who need the strongest to fight for them."

"Well, if it comes down to a sword fight, I think I'll be looking at you and Sten both."

The haze you know I could work with, the smell pissed me the fuck off. As did the surprised look on Morrigan's face. I don't think that I would ever like the look of her being surprised slash completely out of her depth. Cos right now I don't think there should be anyone more surprised than me.

"I'm not supposed to be here."

"None of us are supposed to be here. What did you do?"

Why was it automatically my fault?

"I'm the only one who wasn't actually moving. Plus, I'm not a mage."

I brushed my hand against my forehead, it fucking hurt and when I brought my hand down there was a smear of blood.

"What?"

"Sten's handy work. For a Qunari he sometimes obviously even listens to a mage."

"You have barely a second to fill me in Jowan."

The three of us stood a little trio of insignificants in the blurry haze of a Fade clearing. Somewhere, else, I had no place being. I really wanted to spew, even bent over to you know 'assume the pose', it made me kinda scan the others on the way over. Morrigan was normal, like herself but clean, her hair freshly washed. But Jowan was a bit blurry, like his body was trying to shift, or really subtly vibrating or something… then I realised that was his demon. Or you know resulted from his deal with the demon for his blood magic. Totally made me forget about the whole explosion from the mouth thing. Especially when my hands went to my face and hair. Heart nearly pumping fit to burst (do we have hearts here…) No, no, still an elf. But I was as clean as Morrigan. My hair even felt damp. My ears still slanted up, still held beads in my hair and I could see the track of vallaslin on the backs of my hands and twining over my arms. I was no longer garbed in shitty leather armour, instead I wore a really simple sleeveless tunic and soft flowing linen-y pants. Elf civvies?

"You bloody did do something!"

It kind of fell out of my face. Jowan had the presence of mind to look a little chagrined.

"Well, you were onto something with the Tear, Maharial. I asked the demon for a favour. It took -."

"Are you whole? You didn't have to give it a limb or something did you?"

Jowan closed his mouth and said nothing. I narrowed a glance at him before swapping him for Morrigan. Nothing. Oh I would definitely be continuing this conversation later.

"And Morrigan?"

"Sten perhaps got a little bit carried away."

Jowan said, with a shrug. A bloody shrug. Carried away, I thought Morrigan would set alight anyone who got to close to her. Regardless whether it was Sten or not. I however simply subsided into silence. A novel experience. Here I was, in THE FADE, with Morrigan and Jowan. To confront a demon I had got a little lippy with previously; I had no place to be here, there was no way I was supposed to even do this shit.