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Breaking the Unbroken

Finn considered himself to be fairly sturdy, especially compared to other elven mages he'd encountered through the years…but even he was nearly getting blown about like a ship's sail in a storm, with the way the rain was pouring and lashing over Adamant's outskirts at the moment.

A part of him wondered why in hell it was raining at present. Wasn't this the desert? Did the sky just decide their battle needed a gloomier ambiance and the chance of being hit by a flash of white-hot lightning? Finn usually didn't mind cold or rain, but this was just silly.

The weather was a cacophony of sounds, of rain spitting and drumming, of lightning crashing, of clouds rumbling heavy and grey above. The sand had been soaked through into a soupy, silty mixture that kept getting between Finn's toes, and the dusky air was making it a touch difficult to see well. It must've been worse for the people all around them, the ones marching forward and the ones standing to survey the fort looming ahead of them.

They were surrounded on all sides by people and equipment at the moment—footsoldiers, archers, trebuchets, ladders, and of course a battering ram, which a host of soldiers with shields were pushing towards Adamant this very instant. It was such a cluster of bodies that Finn nearly lost Dorian a few times in the shuffle, but those few times he unapologetically grabbed the fellow mage's elbow and kept a hold.

Sure, separating probably wouldn't be fatal—probably—but what if Finn lost sight of Dorian during the battle and one of them didn't make it out alive? He just couldn't risk that.

Maybe he was getting over-attached. Oh well.

"This is all very macabre, isn't it?" Dorian said from where he stood next to Finn, only a couple inches away, speaking loudly over the din of voices and stomping boots. "And you're enduring this barefoot."

Finn—and just about everyone—had been outfitted for battle about an hour outside Adamant, and he'd staunchly refused any sort of footwear other than his own leather Dalish greaves with the wraparound arch straps. He'd relented to wearing lightweight bracers and pauldrons and a breastplate over his dark blue leather and silvery metal scout armor, though, just in case his own battlemage-ing put him in the way of a harsh blow.

"You're enduring this with your feet crammed into sweaty leather casings," Finn pointed out.

"They're toasty," Dorian said.

Finn shrugged.

Nani whistled and signaled them over, and Finn and Dorian threaded their way out of the crowd, towards where Nani and the others were beginning to cluster. Cassandra and Blackwall were already flanking Nanyehi, both armed to the teeth and sporting heavy metal armor. Varric and River were side by side, two peas in a pod, Varric looking vastly more grim than her; Sera was fiddling with the strap on her quiver of arrows, mumbling something about demons. Solas arrived and stood next to Finn, and then Shesi jogged up with Zevran and Ellie in tow. Finn caught sight of Iron Bull giving a last minute enthusiastic lecture to his Chargers, and there was Vivienne somewhere not too far off, instructing a group of allied mages.

Then there was Cole, a barely perceptible flicker of a being occasionally appearing amongst the soldiers, though few seemed to notice him. Finn spotted Cullen near the front of the mass of soldiers, shooting a glance Nani's way now and then.

Almost everyone was here—save those who'd stayed behind to manage Skyhold—and for good reason. This demon army was no joke. Any that had been frozen into ice sculptures by Finn had likely been replaced and multiplied even further.

"Listen up!" Nani said, getting everyone's attention. Her hair had been tied into a tight bun, Finn noticed, her face pale ivory under the pine-green marks of Dirthamen. "I think this is going to work best if we split up into smaller groups and spread out. Bull—you've got your Chargers. I need you to stay on the ground and help hold the bulk of the battlefield. And I'm sending Cole with you. Take care of him."

"Yes, ma'am!" Bull rumbled, saluting.

Nani briefly looked past them at where Adamant stood, much closer than it had seemed seconds ago. "The rest of us are taking the ramparts once that battering ram gets the gate open. Shesi, Zevran, I want you to lead one group and help the soldiers hold the choke points. Blackwall, Sera, Solas, Varric, go with them. And if I hear about any elf-related spats or injuries, someone dies."

Shesi bowed her head once.

"The rest of you…" Nani bobbed her finger through the air, pointing at Cassandra, Finn, Dorian, River, Ellie, and Stroud where he stood somewhere near Cullen. The older Warden noticed her gesturing and approached. "…you're all coming with me. We reach Clarel and Erimond no matter what and stop the rituals. Understood?"

There were general noises of understanding and approval, and then everyone began the most morose thing Finn had ever experienced—the pre-battle goodbyes.

River was kneeling to hug Varric tight, loudly making Bianca promise to keep him safe and whatnot, and Ellie, Shesi, and Zevran had already grabbed each other in a three-way hug and were whispering things Finn couldn't hear. Then Finn nearly lost his footing when Nani tackled him in a tight embrace, burying her face in the crook of his neck.

"We're going the same way, Nani," Finn reminded her.

"This could still be goodbye," Nani said, tightening her hold.

Finn snorted. "Don't be such a wet blanket. We're going to get in there, open up a big can of arse-kicking, stop that shit ritual, and go home."

"Shit ritual," Sera repeated. "Shitual?"

"That's why I like you," Finn said over Nani's shoulder to her, chuckling.

"You're easily amused, aren't you?" Dorian pointed out.

Nani eventually let him go, although her aquamarine eyes were glassy and tight with unease. This was the first big battle she'd really led, Finn knew; at least she had Cullen.

Who was heading over now, coincidentally.

"We're about to reach Adamant, Nanyehi," Cullen said, reaching her and letting a hand rest on her shoulder. She looked willowy and small next to his heavily armored form. "I can guarantee the Wardens up on the ramparts will start pelting us with ranged attacks once we're close enough, so be careful. We'll get you a way in and keep the main host of demons occupied for as long as we can."

"I'm always careful," Nani reassured him. "You know that."

Cullen took both of her shoulders in his hands now, squeezing them, obvious concern flickering all over his face. He kept his eyes locked on her for a moment, and she held his gaze unwaveringly, and Finn watched them, recalling Dorian's words on the matter of his sister's new human paramour.

Seemingly noticing Finn's attention, Cullen glanced over at him, and Finn did what any self-respecting big brother would do—stared him down and cracked his knuckles one by one.

Cullen's face was priceless. Whether he knew Finn was just messing with him or not, he let go of Nani's shoulders, awkwardly cleared his throat, and said, "our men will be at your back, Nanyehi. Be safe. I—we need you coming out of here alive."

"I'll do my best," Nani promised.

She reached for his hand, which he seemed to gladly give, and squeezed it once; then they parted, and he turned his back to run back to the head of the army, and she returned her focus to everyone standing with her.

"Are we ready?" Nani asked them all, wringing her hands together. "This won't be easy. You all know that. We'll have to be at our absolute best right now."

"Not difficult, for those select few of us who are always at their best," Dorian said, his usual pre-battle-cockiness seeping into his voice.

Nani rolled her eyes.

"Have you got that can of arse-kicking ready, Finn?" River asked him, pushing to her feet.

Finn grinned. "Always do."

Was it minutes, hours, or days before they reached the doorway to the central courtyard? River didn't rightly know.

Her skin was crawling with residual demonic ichor and ash, and now she braced her hands on her thighs and coughed, trying to get the magic-sickened air out of her lungs. This was just like the Gallows during the Kirkwall Rebellion, except there had actually been some sun overhead when they'd taken down Knight-Commander Meredith. This weather here, the pounding rain and lightning booms and frigid grip of the air, seemed to be gradually weakening everyone but Finn.

Ice-devil, that one. But even the usual snowy white of his hair was all streaked through with the gray of demonic ash and a few crimson rivulets of blood—no one here was completely unscathed.

It reminded her of Fenris, how his hair always told the story of what they'd been fighting and where. White was such a stain-able color. Yet thinking of Fenris made her wish so fervently he was here that she had to shut off her thoughts and focus on the Inquisitor instead.

Ellie briefly grasped River's shoulder; River looked over when the elven healer's grip tightened and saw her cough into a subtly shaking hand. It seemed the (false or not) Calling and the blood magic in the air was affecting her badly, and she was using River to steady herself for a moment.

"I don't like it either," River said softly.

"The air feels so…sick," Ellie said, leaning for one last moment and letting go.

Nanyehi grasped the door handle in one delicate porcelain hand, glancing at the rest of them. "It's almost over," she said, her voice sounding more confident than she appeared. "I know we're all exhausted, but there's a ritual going on in there that has to be stopped."

"We are with you, Inquisitor," Stroud said firmly.

Nanyehi swung the heavy door open and led them inside.

Even amongst the shrieking of demons and the crackling of magic, River could hear the telltale slice of a knife and the thump of a body hitting the ground; she ran after Nanyehi and skidded to a stop in the courtyard when the elf did, looking all around her with a growing sense of unease and disgust.

There was a swirling green miasma choking the courtyard's air, sizzling and spitting as if it burned, barely affected by the continuous drum of the rain. Only Finn and Nanyehi were in front of her now, making it not-so-hard for River to see the two figures up above them on the courtyard's upper level, separated by a low, decorative wrought-iron fence—Erimond and Clarel.

River bristled.

The Wardens standing nearby faced them and moved a few steps towards them, putting themselves protectively in the middle, but didn't attack. Yet.

"Stop this!" Nanyehi yelled, stepping forward; everyone's attention was fixed on her. "Clarel, you're playing right into Erimond's hands!"

"By doing what?" Erimond snapped back, playing the innocent, even though at the ritual tower he'd spilled every bit of his nefarious plans like the most corny of villains. "Fighting the Blight? Keeping the world safe from darkspawn? Oh no! What a preposterous thing to do! Whatever could Thedas need world safety for?"

River rather wanted to tear the smug look right off his smug Tevinter face.

"So the ritual requires blood sacrifice!" Erimond continued his monologue. "Hate me for that if you must, but do not hate the Wardens for doing their duty!"

"We make the sacrifices no one else will!" Clarel said. "Our warriors die proudly for a world that will never—"

"Just like they did during the Fifth Blight?" came Ellie's voice, and the small Warden stepped ahead of Nanyehi and Finn, her shoulders squared. "Just like they ignored Loghain's orders and saved the world anyway?"

River half expected the Wardens near them to attack her, but they didn't—Warden Surana had been in Denerim during the final battle of the Fifth Blight, and that put her and her companions at close to a heroic level with the other Wardens. They glanced among themselves, looking conflicted, but didn't draw their weapons against her.

Clarel, it seemed, had nothing to say to Ellie's words; River knew she herself had let the Orlesian Wardens be turned aside at the Fereldan border, let only five Fereldan Wardens lead the country against the Archdemon. She was staring at Ellie with a sort of bleak confusion on her face, obviously thrown off.

"Knife-eared bitch," Erimond spat. "You dare come here after turning traitor to your brothers and sisters?"

Ellie winced, but didn't back away. "I've looked an Archdemon in the eye!" she said, causing a wave of murmurings among the Wardens standing there. "What my companions did on the top of Fort Drakon was 'heroic'! What the Dalish and the dwarves of Orzammar and the knights of Redcliffe and the mages of Kinloch Hold did was 'heroic'!" Her voice raised in pitch ever-so-slightly. "You want your Wardens to be 'heroes', Clarel? Call of the ritual and stop feeding your men straight to Corypheus!"

"Corypheus?" Clarel repeated, her eyes widening. "But he's dead—"

"Don't let her shake your confidence, Clarel!" Erimond said, pointing a finger down at Ellie. "She's the Inquisitor's pet now. She'll say anything to take down the true faction of Wardens."

Clarel passed a hand over her forehead.

Silence. Waiting.

"Bring it through!" the Orlesian Warden-Commander shouted.

Shite. Really?!

Five Warden mages stood in a circle in the middle of the courtyard, pointing their hands inward, unleashing trails of vivid green magic that sparked, bursting into a telltale rippling green scar…

A rift.

And there was something just inside it to, something massive; River could only get a glimpse of its hide through the wobbling green shimmer of the rift. Nanyehi moved upwards with a frustrated growl and stood beside Ellie, and the Wardens closed ranks around them, ready to attack. River stepped up to join them, her features involuntarily constricting into a sneer.

"You don't want to do this!" she said. When she took another breath to speak, the miasma burned her throat. "I've seen enough blood magic to last all of your lifetimes! It's never worth the cost!"

"I trained half of you myself!" Stroud shouted. "Do not make me kill you to stop this madness!"

The demon within the rift made a rumbling snarl, rattling River's bones; she braced her feet, clenching her jaw.

If she brings this through, Corypheus wins, River thought. Normally she had a rather unshakable sense of things turning out all right in the end, but… There's no way we can take this thing down. It's huge.

Now, more than anything, River ached to have Fenris at her side.

"Ellie—" Nanyehi said.

"No one knows the Wardens' sacrifices more than I do!" Ellie said. "Or Shesi! Or Palla! Or Warden-Commander Corvis! Or King Alistair!" She threw her hands in the air, as if to emphasize the words. "Do you honestly think all of us would stand against our brothers and sisters if we didn't think you all were being misused?"

"We didn't waltz out here just to get some sick thrill out of harming the Wardens!" Finn shouted, coming to his sister's side. "None of us wanted to do this!"

"Stand down!" Nanyehi ordered. "We'll do anything it takes to avoid hurting you!"

"Except for Erimond," Finn said, quietly, sotto voce. "Knobheaded gobshite can choke on a bucket of dicks."

River snorted a laugh before she could stop herself. She'd been deliriously swapping Finn's slightly smaller image with Fenris's, she realized now, doing it without thinking, but that shattered the delusion pretty quick.

Their words (at least, not Finn's last words, the Wardens didn't seem to have caught those) had gotten through to them—River could see the impact flash across the Wardens' faces. They looked at Ellie, then at each other, then turned fully to stare at Warden-Commander Clarel up above them.

Clarel's faith in Erimond was visibly crumbling, like an old slab of sandstone—chipping away, each chunk bigger than the last, until the slab was nothing but a pile of dust blowing away in the wind...

"Perhaps…perhaps we could test the truth of the Inquisition's claims," Clarel said, turning to Erimond. "It wouldn't be too much—"

"Or perhaps I should have found myself a more reliable ally," Erimond said, grimacing. He pounded the butt of his staff against the stone beneath him; it sent up little red sparks on each impact. "My master thought you might come here, Inquisitor! He sent me this to welcome you!"

River knew the keening roar and the surging of strong wings above, knew intimately the way the hair raised on the back of her neck. She'd only fought a bona fide dragon once, but she'd foolishly hoped that time had been her final excursion into the dragon-fighting world.

The dragon's great black wings lashed the rain in all directions, made everyone spread their feet apart and brace hard against the ground to avoid being blown over. It swept low over the courtyard, spitting out an electric stream of red magic; River grabbed Stroud by the elbow and yanked them both out of the magic's path at the last minute.

"Some gift," Nanyehi growled after a moment, scrambling back to her feet.

The dragon made another sweep over the courtyard—all while Erimond looked on with the expression of a proud, gratified parent, the wanker—and settled its clawed feet on a section of ramparts. It studied them all from above, its jagged rows of teeth bared, dripping with acidic spit.

River reached for her bow, eyes on the dragon.

There was a commotion behind her, up where Clarel and Erimond were, that she ignored—because, really, who in their right mind took their eyes off a giant-arse dragon because of a little bit of noise—but soon enough something else caught her attention: a purplish ball of lightning striking the dragon's hide.

River snapped her attention back up at the magister and the Warden-Commander, watching Clarel fire another lightning ball at the dragon. Her spells weren't powerful enough; they glanced off the black dragon and rippled around it, probably serving to make the creature angry rather than injured.

What luck.

Obviously agitated—or annoyed, possibly—the dragon took flight, its wings beating the rainy air into a frenzy as it took off away from them, circling over the fort. River had been distracted by its raw might, but a sharp cry from Nanyehi brought her attention back to the group.

"That way!" Nanyehi yelled, pointing. "They're running off!"

Clarel and Erimond were, indeed, no longer at their previous places. River had barely comprehended this before Nanyehi took off like a shot after them, and Finn sprang after her, catching up in no time at all.

River considered herself a fast runner, but she was no match for those two. She fixed on Finn's white hair as a beacon in the darkness, trusting her own legs and feet to keep her upright as she careened after them, upwards, her pulse heavy in her ears.

Never mind the whipping winds up here and the stray blasts of red electricity from the dragon; Nanyehi and Finn weren't backing down. River nearly lost them around a corner, skidded around it, and slammed to a stop behind the two elves just in time to see Erimond go down into a shower of sparks; the magister immediately curled into fetal position, his form smoking as he rocked back and forth.

Clarel seemed to have trapped him on the edge of the broken bridge out here; there was no way for him to go, save back where he'd come from, and River and the others were blocking that. No escape for him; River felt a bit of triumph take hold.

She couldn't catch what was being said, but it was impossible to miss when the great black dragon landed heavily on the bridge's cobbled stones, snaked its head down, snatched Warden-Commander Clarel in its jaws, and pushed back into the air.

So much for triumph.

"Shite," Nanyehi spat—a commonly uttered word these days—and took off down the bridge, even though the dragon had already cleared it. Aiming for Erimond, possibly. He didn't look dead. River followed her, trying to keep mental tabs on the dragon as it circled above and landed on a higher section of battlements to shake Clarel about like a chew toy.

If she survived that…well, River wasn't sure if anyone could.

Cassandra and Stroud both had their shields at the ready, watching the dragon; River had to admire their bravery. Even Finn looked ready to charge the thing, mage or no. Ellie's skin was paling rapidly, and Dorian just looked thoroughly displeased by the whole situation.

Erimond, near them, wasn't moving. River resisted the urge to kick him while he was down.

The dragon gave Clarel's body one last bone-breaking shake and flung her down to the bridge, just ahead of them; River winced at the audible crunch. But somehow, miraculously, the older Warden was rolling onto her back, sparks flickering around her fingers, as the dragon hopped down to the bridge and began to step towards the rest of them with a snarl rumbling in its throat.

"Stand your ground!" Cassandra yelled. "The dragon will catch you if you run!"

"In war…victory," Clarel groaned, as the dragon's steps rumbled the stones beneath them.

"I think—" Ellie started.

"In peace…vigilance," Clarel said. The dragon was nearly over her, its red eyes honed in on Nanyehi.

"Stay still," Finn urged.

"In death…" Clarel raised a lightning-covered hand.

The dragon stalked a step closer.

Boom.

The dragon hurtled past them, off the lip of the bridge, with a deafening roar that made River cover her ears. The bridge beneath them quaked, and quite suddenly, there was no bridge. The stones gave way in massive chunks beneath them, and River bit back a shriek as she realized they were falling.

She tumbled towards the ground far below, sharp wind whistling past her ears like shrill screams in the darkness, rainwater whipping her body. Try as she might, she couldn't even tell if anyone was falling with her. She flailed her arms around her, grasping at empty, wet air as she spiraled out of control, losing vision, the air sucking right out of her lungs…

She found herself thinking of Fenris, searing hot pain blooming in her chest; she'd promised herself she'd come home safe to him one day, and yet here she was, falling to her death, never given the chance to say goodbye.

I'm so sorry…

Above her—a flash of green. A weird, stomach-twisting, flipping sensation. Then the air buffeted her like a giant swatting a fly, the force knocking the wind out of her, and in a matter of a few heartbeats she was hitting the ground.

Nani's left hand was burning.

Spitting, sizzling, trembling her whole arm like the limb had a mind of its own. The pain was blinding, choking her vision with a film of spotty black. She barely knew she was sitting cross-legged, trying to grip her left palm with her right hand, desperately attempting to smother the white-hot agony pulsating just under her skin.

"Ssh, ssh," someone was murmuring, attempting to sooth her, and delicate hands gripped her left palm, coaxing away her iron grip on herself; there was a surge of cooling magic, like she'd dipped her hand in a fresh mountain stream, and Nani slumped her shoulders, opening her eyes.

Warden Surana was kneeling in front of her, softly kneading Nani's palm with her thumbs, her eyes big and brown and fixed on Nani's face.

Nani took in a shuddering breath and looked around, a jolt of panic making its electric way up her spine.

The sky above was a sickly dark green, rippled through with shifts of smoky black. All around were jagged, craggy peaks of slick, oily black rock, reaching high into the green above. The air smelled of decay and despair, if despair was the noxious smell Nani was picking up at the moment. The ground she sat on was gritty and dark, the dirt so hard-packed it barely gave way under her weight. A tendril of a vivid green, scratchy, thorny plant poked up idly from the dirt and began to curl around Nani's thigh; she flinched, smacked it away with the back of her hand, and resumed her wide-eyed taking in of the surroundings.

"Is this…?" she started.

"The Fade," Ellie answered, sinking back on her rear and letting go of Nani's palm. "I don't know if you triggered your mark at will, but here we are."

Nani took in Ellie's appearance, her throat constricting. The Warden hadn't looked nearly so ill just a moment ago, before they'd fallen off the bridge. But now Ellie's skin was parchment-white, thin trails of bluish veins all over like watered down vallaslin, and her eyes—they were clouded, out-of-focus, the pupils a sort of deathly grey rather than the usual stark black.

"Are you all right?" Nani asked, even though she knew Ellie was most definitely not.

"Just a little tired," Ellie answered, her brows furrowing. "Why?"

"You look…" Nani searched for the right word. "Blight-sick."

Ellie cringed, holding one arm out so she could study the sudden pallor of her skin.

"It shouldn't have come so fast," Ellie finally said, her eyes bleak. "Look at this. This is late stage Blight-sickness." She looked up, at the warped green of the sky. "And Corypheus's Calling was fake...wasn't it? But I shouldn't be surprised. We are in the Fade, after all. Anything is possible here. Anything is true."

"In the Beyond," Nani mused aloud. "Did we…die? Or did something pull our spirits here?"

"Neither," Ellie said. She wrung her hands together, then pointed up, at what seemed to be a floating plane of black spires off in the distance next to a slow black and green vortex, suspended in the sky. "We're in the Fade, Nanyehi. See that? That's the Black City, I'm fairly certain. It should—" She broke off, standing, and spun herself in a slow circle. "It should shift constantly so it's always in the same spot in your vision, but it's fixed. See? This is…wow." She sat down again, looking flabbergasted. "Your mark sent us physically into the Fade."

Those weren't exactly words that Nani heard very often—or ever—so she blinked, trying to make sense of it. "Are you…certain?" she finally choked out, her throat tight with a sort of panic.

"Mages are here all the time, in dreams," Ellie said, nodding. "Like it or not, I know what this should look like."

"Shite," Nani cussed. This was less familiar to her than anything she could possibly imagine, and she sat in a sort of dumbfounded silence, eventually craning her head around to search around her. "I don't see anyone else…did you see them fall?"

Ellie shook her head.

Not good. Not good at all. Trapped physically in the Fade, separated from everyone…foolishly hoping they were just out of sight, Nani cupped her hands around her mouth, lifted her head, and yelled "FINN!"

Her words echoed around the craggy black spires, desperate and fading.

No answer.

Nani dropped her hands, her skin suddenly clammy. Her Anchor throbbed with pain again.

"I don't know how I opened the rift that sent us in," she finally said. "And at the moment, I think my Anchor is too weak to do it again." Calm down, self. This isn't hopeless. It can't be. She stood, holding out a hand to Ellie and helping the slightly smaller elf to her feet. "We have to find them. No matter what. Then we all figure out how to escape the Beyond."

"I'm with you," Ellie promised.

Nani spotted her bow lying a few yards away, thankfully unharmed; another minute of searching yielded her quiver, and she was able to locate all but one arrow strewn around them. Their position was precarious, to say the least—no warrior, no mage with offensive spells, only an archer and a healer navigating their way through the Beyond. No doubt there'd be demons sniffing them out, too, since Ellie's mage aura would attract a few.

Not good. She kept repeating that in her head, and it just kept being more and more true.

At the very least, though, she wasn't alone. Despite Ellie's obviously advancing sickness, she was still here…and Nani could be thankful for that.

Her Anchor flashed bright green again, stinging with pain, and Nani flinched.

"Let's just start walking," she said. "I've got no sense of direction here."

Ellie nodded. "Nothing else we can do."

Finn smashed against the hard-packed ground with way more force than was necessary, and the impact was enough to snap a black veil over his vision; he rolled onto his back with a pained groan and lay there, reeling, trying to coax air into his lungs.

A long moment passed and he still couldn't breathe, although the blackness was beginning to drip away from his eyes. He clawed at the gritty dirt beneath him, as if the movement would actually help him sit up. But his stunned body wouldn't respond to any attempt, and a sort of desperate choking noise rattled in his throat.

A familiar voice yelled his name, then there was Dorian, sinking to his knees next to Finn with a thud and grabbing him to lift him up. He didn't lift Finn all the way, just propped him up in tightly-held arms, and finally, something jarred loose in Finn's chest. He sucked in a loud breath, chest heaving, then had a coughing fit into his hands.

"Festis bei umo canavarum," Dorian said, shaking his head, waiting out Finn's coughing spell, his voice rough and his grey eyes wide. The moment Finn took a steady breath—having cured himself of the coughing—Dorian's arms tightened around him with almost bruising force and he crushed their mouths together.

Finn stifled a noise of surprise, mostly because Dorian was kissing him hard, too hard to really focus on making any noise at all; if he did, it might have been a moan, which would really have been inappropriate. Dorian's muscles were taut as a hide on a tanner's rack, his fingers digging into Finn's skin; when he finally pulled away, it was nothing short of a miracle that Finn's lungs graciously started working yet again.

Finn blinked, staring up at him, not sure he could depend on his own voice.

"Don't. Do. That. Again," Dorian growled, shaking him gently for emphasis with each syllable. "Never again. You hear me?"

"Do what?" Finn said.

"Fall to your death, you clueless twit!" Dorian snapped.

"I'm not dead, you tosser," Finn shot back.

"You might as well be, since you forgot to put a barrier over yourself."

"…you fell too."

"I'm still cross with you. It's already decided."

"Turd."

"Finn." Dorian's eyes, by now, were narrowed into near slits.

"Dorian," Finn said, mimicking him, shrugging one shoulder.

Half of Dorian's mouth turned up wryly. "Look at us. The moment we fall into the Fade, we devolve into petty insults and imbecilic arguments, completely blasé about our sudden twist of fates." He gave an almost wistful sigh. "Things are never dull with you, are they?"

"What do you mean, fall into—" Finn pulled slightly away from Dorian so he could look around him, and the hair rose on the back of his neck. Green sky, black rock peaks, the not-so-enticing aromas of demonic ichor and sludge…this was undoubtedly the Beyond. "…fuck a big bag."

"Whatever happened to the usual bucket?" Dorian asked.

"Fuck that too." Finn stood, absently dusting off his armor.

Dorian stood as well, looking about with an expression that was half concerned and half undeniably fascinated. "You realize this hasn't happened since my idiot countrymen 'soiled the Golden City and turned it black' and all, yes?"

So they were here physically. Finn had suspected that; he'd been here countless times in spirit, after all. Still, no one really wanted to hear that. It wasn't Finn's idea of a joyous revelation.

"Nani's Anchor must've opened a rift," Finn said. That, of course, reminded him of his little sister, and a tingle of anxiety crawled along his spine. "I don't see her anywhere. Did you see her fall?"

"Regrettably, no." Dorian shook his head. "I haven't seen anyone else, as a matter of fact. Just you. Which is fortunate enough, considering your alarming tendency to sprint headfirst into suicidal situations without anyone there to smack you upside the head. Figuratively speaking."

"I've been working on that," Finn insisted, putting his hands on his hips and trying to think of where Nani—and the others—could've gone. "It seems like the blast from opening the rift separated us. Somehow."

A flash of deep red and aquamarine caught his eye, and he spotted his staff lying in the dirt—unbroken, thank the Creators. Finn rushed over and picked it up, the chill of its smooth wood familiar against his hands. It must've gotten flung apart from him during the fall, but at least it was here. Maybe he was being overly sentimental, but if he'd lost his staff…no, he didn't want to think about that. It was the only possession he really had.

He looked over at Dorian, another wave of relief washing through him. If Dorian had been hurt by the fall—or worse, killed—Finn wouldn't have forgiven himself.

A couple of silver linings there, at least. Finn trusted his own sense of direction and ability to track; he'd find the others. He wouldn't stop until he did. They couldn't be lost forever.

"I'd suggest making a lot of commotion with our magic to give the others our location…" Finn started.

"…but that commotion would undoubtedly attract demons to us," Dorian finished.

Lots of them. It was inevitable; Finn was just surprised they hadn't had any unwelcome demonic visitors already. Two powerful mages? They were both bound to be crawling with attention like a rich man in an uptown brothel.

"So, on that point," Finn said, "I think our best bet is to search for them. The blast can't have flung us leagues and leagues away from them. And if they get into a fight nearby, I'll be able to hear it."

He raised a hand to tug on the tip of his long, pointed ear, for emphasis, when the stark chill of ice against the rim of his ear made him realize his fingers were freezing.

Quite literally. Finn pulled his hands in front of his face, studying them. There was a thin layer of whitish ice forming around his hands, and when he flexed his fingers, the ice fissured with small cracks, flaked away, and formed again.

"What exactly are you doing?" Dorian asked, giving Finn a quizzical eyebrow lift.

"I'm not sure," Finn said, frowning. "I'm not doing this on my own."

Even worse, it was slowly creeping onto his wrists, too. Finn scrubbed his hands together, watching the bits of ice rain down from his hands and spatter against the ground. It was only a moment before his hands were thinly iced over again.

"Curious," Dorian said. "Your hands must be reacting to something in the Fade."

"…let's go," Finn said. "I'm starting to think this could turn into a much bigger problem than it is right now."