NOTE: Blood and Gore ahead. You've been warned.

NOTE II: Also, certain elements of the in-game event are shifting a lot in terms of what happens when/where for this part . So, there's that, too.

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Dance, when you're broken open.
Dance, if you've torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of the fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance when you're perfectly free.
~ Rumi

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The bell for the ball was ringing as she opened the door to the servant's quarters and slipped inside, her feet in their soft boots quiet on the floor. Melori's nose wrinkled as she entered, the faint scent of death on the air in the immediate corridor. Not a good sign. The corridor led into a series of rooms; commons, kitchen, and sleeping quarters - all dark but for the firelight. Lifting her hand, Melori summoned a small globe of light into her palm and held it up, only to suck in a deep breath of shock, her stomach roiling. Dead elves lay scattered through the rooms, most appearing as though they'd had no chance to fight.

"Fenedhis!" she cursed quietly, skirting the edges of the room, looking for anything that could tell her why they'd been killed. A journal on a table in the back of the sleeping area gave little information, and she left it behind, heading toward the exterior door and trying not to think about the horror at her feet. The garden lay beyond, and she extinguished the light before exiting, keeping to the shadows along the trimmed hedges. It would have been a lovely place had there not been bodies strewn along the ground here, as well.

A fountain played just ahead, and Melori crept forward to the edge of the terrace above and she peered down. A body, this time not an elf and dressed in fine clothes, lay beside the fountain with a dagger in its back. None of the other corpses were so deliberately murdered, she thought, trying to calm her pounding heart. Where the others were the obvious result of opportunity, this was deliberate violence. She inhaled and closed her eyes for a moment, steeling herself before she dropped down to the gravel below, waiting and listening to see if anyone were nearby.

Voices murmured a little way away, but no one had taken notice of her. Melori could see the body fairly well from her position, and noted the dead man wore the tabard of the Council of Heralds. The dagger in his back had a crest on the handle, but she could not quite make it out. The last thing she wanted to do was go out in the open to study that dagger, but ... "Mythal protect me from myself," she muttered as she moved forward, bending over the body for the briefest moment, memorizing the heraldry there and then continuing forward around the fountain on the opposite side to the voices she'd heard.

When she felt it was all clear, she made a dash for the columns along the side of the building, ducking into the shadows and gasping for breath. "Why did you let them talk you into this?" she whispered to herself. "You're a Librarian, you idiot. Not a Bard. Not even a spy."

Figures walked past her hiding place, and she held her breath, identifying them as Venatori. It made sense, considering all the dead servants, but she alone could not take so many. Her only option, she thought, was to go where she could better hide, to search what she could, then get out to tell Leliana what she found. There was a tall casement window behind her, and she pulled a knife from her bodice. Varric would have been better for the job, but she'd learned a few things traveling with him. She slipped the blade between the window frames, hoping to catch the latch and lift it. Her breath escaped her with a sigh when it worked.

Gently, she pushed the windows in and slid into the room beyond, her skirts shifting in a soft rustle as she dropped down to the marble floor. The room was some kind of office, dark and empty, but well appointed - she was no longer in the servants' quarters. The knife went back into her bodice as she looked around the room, going over the letters on the desk with a quick eye, taking two and tucking them into one of the pockets sewn into her sash. A sound on the other side of the door, and she froze, taking a moment to murmur, feeling the flicker of magic across her skin as she set her wards.

The door popped open and she moved, grabbing the Venatori by the face and slamming her back into the wall, power flooding through her palms and into the woman's head, causing her to jerk and twist, then slump. The scent of burning rose, and Melori turned away, letting the body fall to the ground, shaking her hand and trying to catch her breath. Footsteps sounded on the stone ahead and she swallowed drily. Her only chance was to take them one at a time, working her way from room to room.

Kneeling, she pulled the sword from the dead woman's sheath and lifted it, testing the weight before edging out into the hallway, the blade glittering as frost fled down the metal. The Venatori was walking the wrong way, so she stepped back into the room, positioned herself at the door, and kicked over a vase. As the ceramic shattered, the steps returned toward her and she waited, one hand on the hilt, the other pressed against the pommel.

He came around the door, pausing at the sight of his dead companion, and Melori thrust as hard as she could, the flat of her hand on the pommel giving her added weight and the energy of her magic flooding through her body, adding strength. He gave a gasp and crumpled. Melori let go of the blade, her nose wrinkling as blood sprayed across the floor in an arc around him and over her skirts and hands. Bile rose, but she turned and edged out the door into the hall, checking to make sure she wasn't leaving tracks behind before moving on.

That was how it went through the various halls and galleries. She avoided the larger groups, sometimes waiting for them to break apart, catching stragglers and then moving on. Almost she was caught by a larger group as she crouched behind a dining table, heading toward the stair in the corner. Her skirt caught a chair leg and it moved, squeaking slightly. Melori held her breath, resisting the urge to shut her eyes, and gathered her energy, but someone mentioned a mouse and they turned back around.

More bodies lay on the stairs and throughout the upper stories, most of them elves. It was like a nightmare where the only way out was up, so she pushed forward step by step, trying not to consider what she was seeing, not to dwell on the dead and the smell. There were significant papers in a few of the rooms, but nothing shattering. The upper floors seemed quieter, less crowded. It was easier to deal with the Venatori she found, using distractions to catch them unaware. The few who fought were subdued by magic - draining, but effective. She thought, perhaps, she had underestimated herself - maybe Leliana had been right to trust her with this task.

Melori edged cautiously through an archway leading into a hallway lined with bright windows, a sword she'd collected out of one of the rooms in her right hand, still bloody from a previous encounter. Moonlight streamed into the space beyond, casting silver panels of light along the floor. Blood splashed one of the walls and there were more bodies here than she'd seen anywhere but the servant's quarters, most piled near the doors at the opposite end of the hall.

Seeing no enemies within, she took a few cautious steps forward, stopping when she heard a mocking laugh ahead. A lithe figure, dressed in checkered white and black dropped out of one of the windows into the room, blades flashing in her fists. Not a Venatori, but certainly not friendly ... not by the way her lips curved beneath her mask or by the blood splattered across her pristine white clothing.

"Ooh, a curious cat has come to play," the Harlequin murmured, her Orlesian accent turning the words into a purr. "I've been waiting to see if you could make it so far."

"Lovely," Melori muttered, "I suppose you're part of yet another faction, killing off whoever the Venatori don't slaughter?"

"Oh, no," the other woman shook her head, stalking on soft soled boots toward Melori. "We have a ... mutually beneficial partnership."

"That's unfortunate," Melori said, lifting the blade and concentrating. Sparks and pops of energy ran along the blade and she exhaled. "I suppose you're going to want to add me to your ..." she frowned toward the pile of bodies. "Collection?"

"That is the idea!"

The Harlequin made the first move, and, for a breathless moment of terror, Melori forgot everything, staggering back across the floor under a barrage of cutting blades. But then she felt the power running through her body, remembered the endless lessons with Cassandra, and she stepped into the attack, her blade clashing as it met the rogue's. Every miss meant a cut and the Harlequin was fast, parrying and slicing with deadly precision. Every blow caused a wound, leaving no time to think.

All that stood between her and death was magic - and that was not infinite. She thought of the bodies along the hallways, of the elves who had died, and gritted her teeth, ducking as a blade skimmed past her cheek, drawing a line of blood. Her sword blocked an off-hand thrust and she tripped backward, nearly falling to her knees. But there was no time, no space for breath, and she felt her sleeve part. Cuts were blooming as quickly as the they could move, and, though she scored several, it was all she could do to keep herself standing.

A smoke grenade erupted and Melori yelped as a shoulder was thrust into her side, slamming her against a wall, leaving her coughing and dazed. She dodged the oncoming, inevitable thrust of blades, but not soon enough and staggered sideways, feeling her dress grow hot and wet where the steel had cut through fabric and past the metal sewn into her bodice. She paced away, pulling herself up by force of will, eyes darting around the smoky room.

The only sound was their panting and the slash of steel, the slip of fabric as they closed. She hooked an ankle around the Harlequin's leg and brought her down, slashing hard at the woman's chest only to see the other woman roll away, a crimson stain spreading over her shoulder. A kick to the knee and Melori landed hard on her back, barely blocking one blade only to feel another skip past her arm and bury into her side. She gasped at the icy pain of it and thrust her knee forward, catching the other woman in the stomach, knocking her halfway across the room.

Climbing shakily to her feet, she nearly slipped on the bloody tiles, not taking her eyes off her opponent. They were both of them bleeding badly, breathing heavily. Melori could feel her energy ebbing and had a bad feeling this was not going to end well if she could not bring it to a close.

"You fight like a cat," the woman said between gasps. Her arm was hanging limp at her side, though Melori knew she was still as deadly without its use. "All claw and fury. How do you move so quickly?"

"It's a ... thing I do," Melori answered and held up her hand. She saw the woman take a step back, fumbling at her belt for a throwing knife. Electrical currents raced and spat across Melori's palm as she concentrated. She was so tired, but ... she smiled as the scent of ozone rose around the room, and then the other woman screamed and tackled her to the ground, electrical energy shattering in all directions, some slamming into the Harlequin as she rolled across the floor with Melori, whose sword had gone sliding into the wall some distance away.

"MERDE! You are a mage?"

Melori grunted, fumbling to get a grip on the white checkered cloth, her hands sliding over the hilt of a throwing dagger. She worked it free and bucked upward, throwing the Harlequin to the side ... but losing the dagger as she did so. Rolling onto her stomach she crawled across the floor, trying to grab hold of it. Her ankle was grabbed and then yanked. She kicked, her fingers closing on the hilt, her breath coming in pants and gasps. Something hit her in the back, to the side and she screamed, the shallow blade sinking into her flesh.

Turning part way around she slashed as the other woman crawled over her, catching the woman in the eye. There was a scream of agony and then clawed hands grasped for her face. Melori turned her head and kept slashing, not sure when she caught the woman's throat, only knowing that, at some point, she stopped moving and lay limply across her in a rapidly growing pool of blood.

Humans are heavier when they're dead, even after they've lost most of the blood in their veins. Melori gagged and shoved the body off of her with an effort, crawling across the floor till she came to a wall and pulled herself slowly to her feet. Her hands left bloody prints along the fine white walls and streaks across the windows. Her skirts were sodden with blood, though they were already so black it was hard to tell what had wetted them. Her head was spinning with fatigue and pain, and she spent a moment leaning against the wall. She had to get to the others, to tell them about what had happened here ... but first she had to remember how her legs worked.

Eventually, knowing she had to move before anyone came, she staggered toward the end of the hall and back through the archway the way she had come before. Somewhere along the way, she remembered to look for a healing draught, the only one she'd been able to fit about her person, and she drank it. It took the bite out of the pain, and gave her strength to make it down a side stair she had seen earlier. It let out in a small courtyard nearer to the ball itself, and, from there, she found the attendant's rooms.

There were fewer attendants there than before, some of them asleep. None seemed to take any note of her as she moved past them to the toilet, her black skirts stiff with drying blood. The mirror showed her a white-pale face, blood stained, and wide green eyes that looked too large. She wiped the blood from her skin with a cloth - though the cut on her face would not be going anywhere. Her wounds ached deeply, persistently, even with the potion she'd taken, but she put the cat-eyed mask back on and stood shakily to her feet.

The Inquisitor needed to know what was going on in the servants' quarters.

A lot of stairs lay between the attendants' room and the Ball Room, she thought dazedly as she climbed a few more, pausing to rest at the top. No one was paying attention to the elf, which she found a little funny, a smile curving her lips. She'd been shown the side door used by the servants and she took it now, stopping again in the hallway to catch her breath. She was so tired, her heart pounding as though she'd climbed from the camp at the bottom of the valley to the Inquisitor's Tower at Skyhold on foot.

"Just a little more," she promised herself, pulling open the door and stepping round it, making her way past the bejeweled, ornate Orlesian nobles, her mask winking in the candlelit, blood marring the silver heraldry embroidered into her sleeves. It took a moment to find Leliana, and she paused for a moment, seeing the Left Hand standing in her elegant tunic and leggings, looking more a bard than a spymaster in the black and silver. The room seemed to tilt and Melori stumbled a little, catching her foot and straightening her back with a will. She would not fall in front of the court of Orlais. No. That would happen later, in private. For now, she had only to walk half the distance of the dance floor.

It seemed a very long way...

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NOTE III: The far away feeling is for real. I know from a recent experience with blood-loss related anemia. Everything goes into this Twilight Zone area and you feel disconnected from the world around you. Not really recommended for real life.

NOTE IV: this has been edited at the end / retconned a bit. So it is different. : )