His blood is on fire. Anyone with common sense would want his own life force inside of him, safely pumping throughout his body, but not him. He wants it out now. One stare into the demon's dark crimson eyes sends his blood melting like liquid lava and thickening like molten steel. He tries to reach for his fingers, but all he can do is stand as his muscles spasm and his brain goes absolutely numb.

He watches helplessly as the horned creature steps into the jail cell, which suddenly seems more and more like a cage. He tries to gulp when her footsteps bring her in front of him in two simple steps, the eerily quiet qunari easily towering over him, a full grown man.

A cold, iron-clad hand clasps over his neck, thoroughly circling it as she effortlessly lifts him off the ground and slams him to the iron bars that trap them inside. It rattles with the force, and he suddenly finds himself able to move again. The first thing he feels is the crushing pressure on his throat, and he sputters and coughs uselessly as he makes a futile effort at prying the fingers off. Her skin is hot with unspoken rage, and her eyes are angry yet cold.

She slams him again, this time dissuading him from even trying to save his neck. "How many times?" Her fingers tighten as she speaks, her voice shaking with pure disdain.

"W-What?" He looks at his companion, who's still frozen where he stands. He sees panic and fear, and a little gratefulness that he's not the main recipient of the demon's attention.

"How many time did you fucking touch her?" She doesn't hold back this time, the force of her voice making the man flinch as she digs her palm into his throat. He chokes again, but he knows better than to try and escape.

"Y-You're not a demon..." He takes in a deep breath as she slackens her hold to let him speak.

"Wrong answer."

His blood curdles in his tightening veins and his muscles are being torn from the inside out. His eyes bulge and he tries to call for help, but he can only gurgle incorrigibly as his neck spasms in sync with the rest of his body. It's like very liquid that keeps him alive is spiking and bouncing frantically within him, alternating between snapping into icy shards and and boiling with a heat so cruel that it can only come from that.

He mouths the words, but no sounds leave his paling lips. Blood magic.

The first drip of blood drips onto the cold floor, followed by another and another. They escape through his nose, his eyes, his ears, everywhere he can think of, pushing out into the open air. He can actually hear his heart thumping wildly in his chest, pumping out the blood that steadily streams outside.

"Answer." Adaar's command is simple.

He flinches under her sight, the glowing red eyes flashing like a judge's ruling the final verdict on the very scum of the Earth. "I-I didn't do it, I swear. That was the first time I was gonna do it! She's just a kid!" His teeth are swimming in blood, blood that splashes down onto Adaar's wrist as he opens his mouth.

Adaar doesn't even consider asking for some sort of confirmation. It doesn't matter, she's going to make him hurt. "What else?"

"W-We took her food sometimes." He thinks of lying to her, but the blood still pulses out of his skin and his feet are still off the ground. How long has she been lifting him? He doesn't want to know. "And then we ate them in front of her. Sometimes we put them just out of reach before we took 'em away. But that was it, I swear! We just called her names and-"

That was it? She's heard enough. "No one messes with her." She growls, inching her face closer to the bloody mess that's his face. He's so close that she can smell the tears that have swirled together with his thick blood, feel his terrified breaths on herself. "No one."

The pulsing within his veins escalates into a full pounding. He can feel his tendons ripping apart inside him, being flooded with red hot blood, pressing down on his bones and joints like his own insides are closing in and turning inside out.

He screams. This time, only a ghost of an agonized croak leaves his throat as everything in his eyes go dark.

Adaar takes her eyes off him for just a second to grasp at the air towards the second guard, whose feet dangle uselessly in the air as he is lifted up by what certainly feels like his very own blood. He can feel them pressing him upwards as if they have a mind of their own—but he knows that's not the case. He flunked the exam he needed to pass to become a templar, but he knows exactly what's going on here.

Only a blood mage of high skill can pull off something like this, a blood mage who has had plenty of practice and people to practice it on.

Then Adaar waits. She waits until the floor is coated with slick, hot blood that sloshes from the guards' hanging forms. She watches as their skin contract and squeeze like they're rags being wrung to dry as they spasm in place, unable to pierce the night air with their calls for mercy. The thick, dark red that spreads throughout the entirety of the floor steams into the air. Every breath she takes is her inhaling power personified, power that she intends to use.

She holds them tighter within her magic's grasp, until she finally drops them down. Their faces are white as snow, only visible through the small patches of skin that's not tainted with their own blood. Their cheeks are hollow and their eyes are open, as if screaming to make up for the silence of their voices. They seem much too small for the armor that their bodies still don, but that's natural—they did have the blood squeezed from their own flesh, and by their own tendons and muscles, to boot.

Only now does Adaar notice the sound of a breath resuming it's pace, light and sudden. A middle aged elf woman stands with her broom in hand, still and quiet—at least, until the qunari takes a step forward and her foot makes a splash as she begins to make her way to her. She drops the broom.

Adaar doesn't care for her, but when she looks at the floor, Sera is nowhere to be found. "Where is she?" Adaar's asks, the red in her eyes finally fading away. The only sounds she can hear are the sounds of blood being parted as she walks and finally ducks under the cell door.

"I don't know." The servant timidly blurts. She'll say everything she needs to say, although the dried bodies on the ground give her that much extra motivation.

"Why didn't you help her?" The judgment is clear in her voice.

The servant instinctively backs off to the wall behind her. "I-I can't. They'll throw me in here too. I've got to feed my son, I can't do that if I'm behind bars."

Adaar clicks her tongue. She has no time to figure out if she's lying or not. "Go."

And she breaks out into a hard sprint, not even pausing before she opens the door that leads to some other room. Adaar jogs through the halls, wondering why exactly the guard barracks are so empty and run down. The wooden floors seem like they're going to fall at any second under her weight, while the paint on the walls are faded and scratched out in some places. The place looks normal, otherwise, but it's not until she leaves that she figures out why.

Shit, is smells horrible. Her nostrils are immediately assaulted by the foul stench of what seems to be a combination of trash and rotting food, which undoubtedly comes from the piles of miscellaneous items spread around. The buildings around her look like they're going to fall over if an even slightly strong gust of wind passes by.

She's in an alienage, and Sera was in an alienage jail. Of course there were just two incompetent guards there and just one servant. Of course the place is falling apart.

Sera is slumped over next to a rickety old bench by a tall tree in the middle of the deserted space. Adaar can't bring herself to care about how that tree is far too large to be from anywhere nearby because she immediately rushes to her aid. The qunari scoops her up in her arms far too easily, it's as is she weighs nothing at all. The dull blonde hair that sits messily on her head is falling out and Adaar can feel the bones under her skin.

That's what she is: a bag of bones.

Adaar cradles the little girl close to her chest, correcting herself. She's not a little girl, she's almost a teenager. The small but developing breasts are there when Adaar presses her palm to the elf's chest to check her heartbeat. She must have starved for so long to look this small. The Inquisitor could hold her with one arm and still have room for more. Sera's eyes aren't opening and her breaths are shallow.

The mage can't even fathom how she managed to crawl out in the midst of her rage, but she doesn't have to—she sees one lone inn with the lights still on. The faded wooden sign reads 'inn', obviously. Whoever owns the place must not be very creative. As her steps grow longer, Adaar tells herself that she has more important things to take care of. She'll wonder about everything later, when she has the time.

The inn looks absolutely dingy and old, like everything in the alienage, but it will have to do. Adaar's fingers have no difficulty turning the comparatively tiny doorknob. She lowers her head and makes sure not to bump little Sera's head as she enters the place.

"How much?" Adaar fumbles with her money pouch, absolutely not caring about the innkeeper's blatant staring.

"T-Two sovereigns." He stutters, as two gold coins clatter on his counter. He fetches a key that hangs by the several others on the rack beside him and slides it closer to his customer. "Go up and take a left."

"Bring me food. A lot of them." Adaar doesn't thank him and snatches the key, the walk up there cut short by her brisk pace. She has a little difficulty with the small keys and the equally small keyholes, but when she makes it in, she immediately lets Sera down on the hard bed.

The over sized shirt flies to a nearby chair. Adaar turns Sera's body over as gently as she can, inspecting for sores and cuts or anything else that she might have endured in there. She feels her heart clench at the sight of her protruding ribs and hip bones, and then some more when she sees the dark bruises around the bottom of her fists and around her fingers. A few strange, cylindrical shaped ones line her shoulder, and the side of her face.

She must have gotten it when she tried to reach for food, trapped inside by the iron bars that she didn't have any way to bypass. Adaar can just imagine her reaching out to some half-rotten chunk of vegetable, pushing herself farther and farther, until the exhaustion finally gets to her and she collapses with her hand just inches away from the the only food she's seen in two days.

Soft green lights glow from Adaar's palms. The hands that had taken lives in every way possible, in the most despicable ways, softly glide across the marred skin of the unconscious elf. The soothing magic continues to work as a gigantic hand cups a familiar face that's pasty pale, with lips so light in color that the qunari has to check her breathing so see if she's still living. "How could anyone do this to you?" She asks. She really doesn't know how anyone, for whatever reason, would even dare or have the heart to do this to her, of all people.

What the hell is going on?

Adaar remembers Sera's story of the qunari who took her to an inn and fed her. If she follows the story, then she'll leave her pouch of coins for her to use, a certainly generous amount, especially by the standards of a poor city elf. But how did she get here and why?

Where is everyone else?

Where is her Sera?

She looks down at the limp body in her arms. This is her Sera, but what happened to the young rogue that she holds in her arms every night?

She fucked with time. Again. And now she doesn't have Dorian to bring her back, even if he knew how. Her head snaps upwards at the sound of a timid knock. "Come in."

The innkeeper slowly inches the door open, his hands not quite steady as he holds the tray of food in his hands. The plate of boiled vegetables hardly look very appetizing, but they certainly do look filling. A smaller plate next to it is filled with some sort of mysterious looking meat that seems like it was left a little bit too long on top of a fire. A large glass of water completes the set, but he has to stop shaking if he doesn't want it to crash onto the ground.

"Thank you." Adaar says, giving him an appreciative nod. She stands, and the man gulps as she reaches for her pouch. She drops a few coins into his hand, noticing the pleasantly surprised widening of his eyes. "That should cover for tonight's food and tomorrow's. Bring her the best food that you have."

"O-Of course." He forces a scared smile.

"Don't worry, I won't hurt you." Adaar reassures, but the blood staining her armor doesn't make her words sound very convincing. "Just take care of her for now. She's been through enough." Her eyes soften at the figure on the bed.

"Okay." He seems in a hurry to leave as he counts the coins in his hand. Adaar doesn't stop him.

It's only when the door closes does she notice a hint of caramel brown, so small that she hasn't noticed it before. Sera's eyes are open, just a bit, and they're looking right at her. The tired baby blues are faint, but unmistakably there. She takes a deep breath, undoubtedly roused by the sweet smell of food. Her stomach growls profusely.

Adaar fetches the tray from the side table, where the innkeeper left it before he exited the room in haste. She fumbles around with the spoon as she cuts a too stiff piece of meat up, scooping it up and nearly dropping it in her haste to bring it to Sera's mouth.

The elf girl's lips part slightly to allow the qunari to feed her, but she takes far too long to chew, and even longer for her to swallow. She almost grimaces as the sliver of brown goes down her throat.

Adaar brings the glass of water to her mouth, mentally kicking herself for not considering that the preteen's mouth must be too dry for her to even swallow or chew comfortably. Small trickles of water escape and trail down to the sides of her cheeks in her hurry to drink, half of it all gone by the time the Inquisitor resumes feeding her again.

A comfortable rhythm of the clinking of the spoon against the plates fills the looming silence in the room.


Also what the hell are Sera's eyes even

I see screenshots with her eyes blue and then they turn brown?

As usual, tell me if you see some typos because I think I may have missed a few. I've received the requests for the sweet sweet smut, which will happen ASAP after whatever is going on here gets sorted out. Look forward to mushy smut and more strap ons. Adaar may not be the one wearing it this time, you catch my meaning?