Disclaimer: I have no claim over any Dragon Age works, I'm just playing in their sandbox and no profit is made from this work.
(Not) Your Housekeeper
By Mage-Alia (Auraion)
Mkay... so... This started as a genuine Hold my beer moment. Then Guards Guards happened and this one kinda got pushed to the side
I'd spent waaaaay to much time in the Worm Fandom as it was and now my headcanon Inquisitor has what amounts to the unholy love child of a weeping angel, a house elf and Mrs Hudson (with a dash of Nezuko) as a companion. Or to be more accurate... his housekeeper. It makes the inquisitor the most scary fucker in the room simply because he's NOT afraid of the eldritch horror that sleeps on his desk chair.
People who actually read Guards Guards might remember that the Assassin's style of helping was "Distant and Eldritch". Well this was the inspiration for that. XD
(p.s: Right as I finished editing this I hit save and it logged me out, wiping all my progress. I had to do it twice. *cries*)
-x-
Modifiers:
You're a wizard Dobby: You got the magic. All the magic. But you can't use it unless you're using it for the one you bond too.
You can't see me: You freeze up when someone's looking at you. No one can tell what you really look like though.. just as long as you... don't... move...
Can't let you do that dave: You know the future, foresight is fun, but you're mute, You can't communicate with anyone but that doesn't stop you from helping.
-x-
Mahanon didn't like being Herald of Andraste. He barely believed in his own gods as a Dalish please and thankyou. It's not like he needed companionship from other people either.
But, if there was one perk that came with the job. It was the housekeeper.
-x-
Mahanon stopped...
and stared...
There was a human woman curled up at his desk, sleeping peacefully with her face planted uncomfortably against the wooden top.
...
He stepped back outside the cabin and shut the door before closing his eyes and counting back from ten before opening it again and stepping through.
The woman was still there. Still curled into an incomprehensible knot of limbs.
She hadn't been there when they'd left for Val Rouyux
He just heaved a long put upon sigh and went to wake her up, make her leave. But nothing he did make her move, not even when he poked her.
He gave up, too tired from the road to deal with it and just went to bed.
-x-
The next morning he woke and she was still there. Still sleeping like the dead as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and scratched himself.
Where as last night the desk had been clear there was now a neat stack of reports. Before he could think about how they'd gotten there he picked them up and started reading only to realize they were his. In his hand no less, describing all the actions from the Orlesian city in a neat easy to understand format.
Mahanon stared at it blankly for the longest time, before shrugging and putting the package of papers under his arm as he wondered toward the chantry later that day.
He wondered around haven, visiting the others, checking on the soldiers, making himself busy before his hand started to ache and he decided to call it a day. Venturing back to his cabin.
Stepping inside he noticed the tub in the bathing area was full and steaming while his house guest was still curled in the desk chair. A makeshift curtain had been slung across the entry to the bathing area blocking it from casual view.
He took the bath and by the time he got out over an hour later there was food waiting for him.
The human hadn't moved.
He shrugged to himself, ate and went to sleep.
And thought nothing more of it.
-x-
He got used to his house guest fast.
Well, less house guest and more housekeeper these days.
She never really moved, and if she did he never saw her. But in the space of looking away she'd magic reports onto the desk and food into the room and any other number of menial tasks and chores that he should have been doing himself. He didn't mind it though. Being Herald was stressful enough without the mystery of his roommate.
He was thinking how much he'd miss the help when he returned to the hinterlands only to realize that she'd somehow got there before him and situated herself in the corner of an inquisition camp.
No one else seemed to realize she was even there and he suspected that whatever strange power she had was a bit more complicated than he could comprehend.
But he was definitely thankful.
(and he couldn't help but be amused at the others as they camped out and he was the only one who didn't need to worry about virtually anything as his reports kept appearing and his needs where met.)
Walking into Redcliffe he noticed a ribbon on a market stall and brought it. That night before they left for haven once more with Dorian he tied it into her hair in a side swept braid like he'd once done for his sister and was glad to see it there the next morning.
-x-
Dorian, as it turned out, was the first to be introduced to his housekeeper.
He hadn't expected to see her there in Redcliffe castle but it was clear that she'd been waiting for him when they managed to climb out of the flooded dungeons. She'd been waiting by a door, before a junction that lead them left or right to different areas of the keep. She looked ragged, her ribbon faded in her hair, but still clearly the one he'd given her that morning. Her clothing was tattered and she was curled into a tight ball, but by her feet was a small stack of potions, food and weapons.
(she's been waiting for a year)
He recognized them as the weapons Cassandra and Sera had been wielding when they walked in with him.
Dorian for his part was startled at the sight of her.
"Kaffas! What is she doing here?" He blurted out when Mahanon stopped to kneel next to her. As if seeing her for the first time and startling.
"She's my keeper." Mahanon introduced absently as he restocked.
"A keeper? I thought they were elders?" He waved at Mahanon's face, confused.
"Ah, no. Not a Dalish keeper. My housekeeper." He explains as he stands and goes to leave her behind.
"Wait? You're leaving her there?" Mahanon just looked over his shoulder and rolled his eyes.
"She's fine. Let her sleep. She'll meet us ahead when we need to restock." The tevinter mage just scratched his head and they moved on. They found Fiona and his team and discovered the date. When they came back to the junction she was still there, dead to the world. But there were more potions at her feet and Dorian was mindboggled by it.
(He was confused further still when she popped up by the door to Alexius' chambers with much the same setup while they searched for the keys)
When the others went to buy them time Mahanon had turned his eyes away for a moment and looked back to find his housekeeper kneeling at the base of the dais stairs right behind where Leliana waited, tense and praying. The girl was sitting straight. Her eyes were closed but she felt like she was on the cusp of... something as the doors where kicked in and the bodies of his teammates displayed and he found himself looking away, a cold feeling slipping through his scalp.
"Whatever you do..." He muttered to Dorian, his eyes fixed ahead on the Arl's throne. "... don't look back." They both flinched, but Dorian didn't stop his casting and Mahanon heard the sounds of battle pick up further as something tore into the writhing mass of demons.
The green portal opened before him and right as he jumped through, he looked from the corner of his eye. There were no demons behind them. Just a carpet of gore leading to the doorway and his housekeeper, kneeling primly behind where he'd stood, an unyeilding guard between him and shadows.
-x-
They get home. The King had come to redcliffe shortly after they'd arrived back from the future and he'd extended the offer of alliance to the mages. Everyone else is so terribly confused by their disappearing act, but they've returned in one piece and Alexius has given up so they simply go home.
Mahanon is exhausted when he walks back into his cabin after the whole ordeal, but there's a bath waiting and food by his bed and reports of everything bar his trip into the future neatly written on his desk and his housekeeper sitting in her spot. The ribbon still shiny and new in the braid. Without much thought to the action he drops his bags and heads over, wrapping his arms around the bundle of human in a tight hug.
She doesn't move. Doesn't acknowledge him. Remains curled in a ball sleeping. But he feels better for having done so and proceeds to talk out loud to her as he goes through his routine and getting into bed. He blinks over at her sleepily as his head hits the pillow and smiles.
The housekeeper is slightly less curled in on herself than before.
-x-
When they close the breach he knows something is up when he notes that his bags have been packed and his Housekeeper is not in his house.
It puts him on edge and it means he's the first to react when the other shoe drops.
A boy yells at the gate as a bannerless army comes streaming over the hills and suddenly they're in the thick of the fighting as Red Templars come pouring into their camp. They manage to buy themselves more time before they get the nasty surprise in the shape of an archdemon. Mahanon isn't impressed in the least but he recognizes his belongings in the chantry beside his housekeeper as she sleeps curled by the base of a pillar.
Checkpoint reached then.
There's a strangled conversation with the boy from the gate, Cullen and Roderick and suddenly he's standing out in the cold again next to the trebuchet waiting as 'The Elder One' bears down on him. The signal is launched and he sets it off with a witty one liner like he isn't terrified of the avalanche bearing down on him as he catches sight of an opening in the snow. A mineshaft!
He throws himself into it as the snow roars overhead and hits what feels like a dozen obstacles on the way down before he lands with a thump. It's a trial to sit up, but there right in front of his nose is an out of place lump beige fabric and it takes less than a second to comprehend who it is.
Mahanon just drags himself closer and lets his face drop onto his kneeling housekeeper's lap, closing his eyes.
He's too tired and sore to move right now... he'll just take a quick nap...
-x-
There's a line of empty potion bottles in front of his face when he wakes and he feels a lot better than he had when he passed out. His housekeeper is still frozen under his head and from this angle he can finally see her face. It's plain, round and freckled, and ultimately forgettable. She's at least dressed for the weather. The undyed beige of her outfit is thick and warm and the only spot of colour is the green ribbon he'd put in her pale hair. It's with a distinct *shrug* feeling that he gets to his feet and pets her on the head before making his way into the tunnels of the long forgotten mineshaft.
(Something flutters behind him and ice creeps into his scalp. He won't look back. He refuses to look back.)
Demons are waiting for him in a larger chamber and his mark, now changed, stronger, is used to dispatch them.
The snow outside is still roaring, but now it's a blizzard instead of an avalanche. He's not all that certain how long it's been since the attack, he has no easy way to tell time and he can't see the sky, but his housekeeper is suddenly a lump in the snow ahead. He bundles his armor tight to his body and drags himself through the blizzard toward her. He passes without acknowledgement and a few minutes later she appears out of the snow again. His path meanders slightly as he trudges on but she corrects his course.
Sometimes he finds her next to a dwindling fire and the brief moments of warmth drive him onward, but there's only so much he can take before the cold seeps into his bones and he's not sure he can go much further. He doesn't see his Housekeeper anymore, but he doesn't need to. The sky has cleared somewhat and there's only one pass through the cliffs ahead. A fire remains unlit but the embers still have the tiniest traces of sapped warmth and he just knows that he's close enough, hearing the voices as his consciousness slips away.
-x-
Mahanon is relatively certain that she's fucking with people on purpose.
It's the aftermath of the chantry goers singing and he's standing in the middle of the snow with Solas telling him about a fortress when she startles the other elf by appearing in his shadow. He nearly trips over her huddled form after they finish their conversation and Mahanon is bemused as to why people are so surprised. She's been around him for months. She'd saved his life after the avalanche, and they're only just seeing her?
He shrugs as Solas tries to twist his mind around the puzzle.
"She's just my housekeeper."
The mage doesn't quite seem like he wants to believe him.
His housekeeper for all intents and purposes goes into hibernation in the back of a cart. Curled into a tiny ball she covers her face and sleeps. Mahanon knows it's because there are people watching. Always watching. They panic when she vanishes and he's annoyed because it means she can't get his meals or potions or anything else he needs. Things only happen when he's alone in his tent and closes his eyes and suddenly the backlog of chores is done.
(He can tell Housekeeper is annoyed too.)
They travel through the mountains for over a week before they find themselves staring down at a long lost keep with something like hope for the first time in a while. Skyhold had indeed been waiting for them and he is relieved to finally be in a building. Out of the cold.
As people unpack, the scouts lose sight of his housekeeper and later he finds her and his belongings in a tower off the main hall.
It's roomy with a great view, a bed, fireplace and desk, with an overstuffed armchair behind it and curled into the old fabric is his Housekeeper, resting against the chair's wings.
(Its in better shape than any other room in the keep. Better than it should logically be. But he's used to the small miracles his Housekeeper pulls off and honestly can't bring himself to care for the difference.)
But first...
Bed.
-x-
There's always a flurry of activity behind him whenever she's feeling bold.
Mahanon puts his face behind a book and only see's shadows cast against the wall as she works around him.
After the last few weeks spent getting Skyhold into shape they've worked out a system. She's active in his presence rather than completely still and silent and he feels like she's less of a statue and more of a person. He talks to her constantly, he knows she can understand him and it makes for some awkward interactions with the others when they notice that he's started talking to himself even outside his rooms.
(he never see's her but she's moved before so it's not entirely unlikely that she's there.)
And so life goes on.
They visit the fallow Mire (Whatever she does to his clothes to get the reek of the swamp out of them is godly), mop up the last of their operations in the hinterlands and branch out into Orlais. They have two objectives.
One, to prevent the death of Empress Celene.
and Two, to stop the demon army that they're not sure where it came from.
Mahanon just wants it to be over.
Varric brings in an old face and Housekeeper is a curled stone on the battlements when they meet. There's a distinct tang of amusement in the air, in spite of the dire situation.
He thinks she might be a fan.
-x-
Crestwood is wet and depressing.
They'd taken out the bandits and reclaimed the fortress and set up camp before Housekeeper arrived. She showed up before the scouts and made herself comfortable in one of the back rooms where people couldn't casually see her. Mahanon was glad to see her even if the other members of the inquisition began to avoid the room entirely. They'd gone on to drain the dam and discovered the tragedy that occurred within the town. It had been a gutpunch of a day and when they'd returned to the town itself to find the Mayor gone Mahanon had been enraged.
It was with a clenched jaw that he'd turned on his heel and marched outside, only to see Housekeeper kneeling on the ground in the middle of the dusty courtyard.
Behind him Dorian, Varric and Bull stopped short.
He went to one knee, leaning close toward her down-turned face.
"Could you help me my dear?" He asked.
(Attention)
"The mayor drowned the refugees of the last blight by flooding the lake. He needs to answer for his crimes. Will you retrieve him for me?"
(Affirmative)
"Thank you." It was entirely on impulse that he leaned closer and planted a kiss on her hair before getting to his feet.
(Amusement)
He warned the others to look away and in the second that there were no eyes on her he felt the familiar cold talons in his hair and when they looked back there was no sign of her passing. Not even footprints in the earth.
"Boss?"
"Yes Bull?"
"You sure that's not actually a Demon?"
The elvish inquisitor just laughed and didn't answer.
(He wasn't even sure himself)
They went to find their contact then. With the curse lifted on the lake it was no longer pouring down with rain and they found Stroud and Hawke exactly where they said they'd be. It was maybe a day later that they returned to the Keep, preparing to head back to Skyhold, and discovered a neatly tied Mayor in the scout's custody.
"Don't know where he came from. He just turned up all gift wrapped a couple of hours ago." Charter tells him. He can't help but smile.
"I had an agent retrieve him for us. He has a lot to answer for." The scouts are confused but generally accepting. Mahanon just goes to the back room of the keep where Housekeeper is curled on top of a crate in her usual fetal position, her face pressed into her knees.
"Thank you again." He hugs her for the sake of it.
(Contentment)
-x-
It's hard.
He's discovered.
To have an intimate relationship with anyone when they're terrified of coming to his room. Well, more specifically any partner he finds wants to avoid Housekeeper. Mahanon isn't sure exactly what the problem is though. He's used to quick affairs in or around his clan's camp where unless you leave the safety of the watch there's never quite enough privacy for more. You got used to the occasional eyes, lived with the ribbing and moved on. It's not like Housekeeper was even looking either. She was dead to the world for most of the day and her face was almost always concealed when there was company.
Still, he found himself creeping around more often than not on his own and in spite of the genuinely positive relationships he had with his Inner Circle and a couple of the scouts, they never seemed to want to come near his tower.
(It was a little bit lonely. He had to admit)
But he comes back every night regardless and everything is waiting for him and his Housekeeper is a solid presence in spite of her stillness. He continues to talk to her to fill the silence and drifts off to dreams of his childhood and cold fingers running through his hair, only to wake the next morning with a braid of his own.
(His nightmares of Haven and Corypheus are kept at bay. Its one of the many reasons he returns every evening regardless of what company he might find elsewhere.)
It's funny how simply asking her to step out of the room is never actually considered an option.
-x-
"Don't blink."
Mahanon starts when he notices the odd pair near the Library. Cole is crouched, his position a mirror to that of housekeeper as they have what appears to be a staring competition. Never mind that one of the contestant's eyes is closed.
"Don't blink?" he parrots in confusion and the spirit nods, not taking his eyes off the woman even for a second.
"If I don't move they won't see, won't see what's on the inside." Cole babbles and the inquisitor can see his eyes rimmed with red and he wonders how long they've been there. He looks at Housekeeper and she's not alarmed. If anything she feels amused by the spirit so he leans against a wall and watches them. "... Magic, powerful, too powerful, can't control it alone, want to make a difference, there, that one. Be my family and I'll serve you forever and ever - ." The boy falls silent and there's information to parse in those statements, somehow, he knows from the lack of reaction that it's housekeeper reflected in those thoughts and he makes a decision.
"Okay, that's enough Cole. You'll never win a staring competition with her." He moves closer and Cole looks visibly alarmed.
"If I look away she'll move!" He squeaks even as Mahanon slides a hand over his eyes and closes his own.
The cold scrapes over his shoulders and just as suddenly it's gone.
He opens his eyes and Cole is now blinking furiously. He claps him on the shoulder.
"It's okay Cole. If she's my family then there's nothing to fear from her." He spirit just stares at him.
"How do you know?"
He didn't, not really. But he'd long since decided that his Housekeeper was nothing if not special to him.
-x-
He slips into the side room off the ballroom, exhausted after spending all night running around the palace. The music is still going somewhere in the distance as he stops to lean against the door with a sigh.
(Cold itching lines crawl down his back)
He opens his eyes and there she is. She's been working overtime all night and there's a distinct air of exhaustion around his housekeeper as she kneels on the rug in the center of the room. Today's dress is black, bland and functional with a plain black face mask he'd given her, but the green ribbon still stands out against her hair.
"Thank you." He tells her, moving over to stand in front of her. "I don't think I'd have managed all this without you."
She doesn't say anything, naturally, and he doesn't expect an answer.
"I don't suppose you'd like to have the last dance?" He offers out of impulse more than anything. Holding out his hand at chest height before closing his eyes. At first he isn't sure that she'd even take the offer. He's never actually touched her while she's moving. Never had "Proof" while he can't see.
The moment stretches between them and he goes to open his eyes again... only to stop-
(cold cold cold and "Warmth")
-as a hand is placed in his.
He almost opens his eyes anyway in surprise, but keeps them tightly closed out of sheer will as he offers his other hand and it's guided to a waist. Then, to the beat of the music in the other room they start to move. It's no proper dance, not like the ones that they do on the dance floor, but Mahanon didn't have the energy for more than the one two three sway that they're doing now. Although it's not like he cares enough to learn the dances blind. (but maybe he should.)
It's nice though... to set aside the inquisition and the Game and everything else for just a little while.
(contentment)
The music comes to a close and they slowly swirl to a stop and he keeps his eyes closed for just a moment longer.
Lips. Feather soft and warm. Brush like a breeze on his cheek before they're gone and the cold feeling recedes.
He opens his eyes and he's alone.
A hand raises and there's still warmth on his cheek and a smile steals across his face.
Nice to know he's appreciated.
He lingers for a moment more before he goes back to face the music.
(Next he sees her, Housekeeper is sat on the roof of the carriage, curled into a small ball between the baggage. She doesn't move for anything, even when Vivienne screams upon finding her there later that evening and Mahanon doesn't mind doing his own work for once. She's earned the night off.)
-x-
-x-
Morrigan does not like his housekeeper.
At all.
The sheer disturbed look on her face when she notices her around the keep is enough to make Mahanon laugh at her when he walks into the garden and finds the witch staring fixedly at the bushes beside the gazebo. Housekeeper is curled up, partially under a bush, and from the feeling he gets she's actually genuinely sleeping for once and the Witch of the Wilds is in near danger of disturbing her nap.
"A problem Morigan?" He asks, voice low.
"That. Is not a human." She states with utter certainty, still not taking her eyes off his housekeeper.
"Hmmm. Don't say that. You'll hurt her feelings." Morrigan finally turns to look at him incredulously. Even though she's now mostly unwatched, the subject of their conversation doesn't move. She's still soundly asleep.
"Do you not feel it? How it does not belong in this world? I felt it in the Winter Palace as well. I am well educated on the topic of demons and spirits. But that is the furthest thing from them one could find!" Mahanon has to resist the urge to roll his eyes at her diatribe. It's not like he hasn't heard the same arguments before from the other mages in Skyhold. And that was before the peace offerings.
(Although Solas has started to check his drinks for fear she'd slipped him Tea again)
"Housekeeper is an integral part of the inquisition, as welcome here as you or I." He states rather more diplomatically than he feels. Morrigan opens her mouth to continue, only to stop when someone else approaches the girl in the bush.
A Child, one he's never seen before in Skyhold.
It's the work of a second to imagine himself waking up Housekeeper and he feels it the moment her awareness goes from Grey thrum of sleep into alert.
"Hello." The boy talks to her like she can hear him and Morrigan tries to speak again but Mahanon holds up a hand to stop her, his eyes on the scene.
(Acknowledgement)
"You are a long way from home." The boy states, much in the same way Morrigan does but with less emotional inflection.
(Agreement)
"You have a lot of chains. They tether you to the inquisitor. His blood is old."
(Agreement)
"You tie yourself on purpose?" The boy looks more confused as he puzzles over the link, but this is the first time Mahanon has received any insight into the puzzling existence that is his housekeeper outside of Cole.
(Agreement)
"Ah. I see." Mahanon's not sure what he understands, but the boy steps back and closes his eyes and Mahanon makes himself look away. The leaves on the bushes rustle and there's a clatter at the other end of the yard and by the time anyone looks back to where they're standing, Housekeeper is gone. The boy is now turned to them, looking at Morrigan.
"She could not move while others saw her." He states like a fact again to the woman beside him. "She did not want us to see her true face, but she won't hurt me mother, she can only do so if the Inquisitor tells her to." Two pairs of Yellow eyes look at him now and Morrigan is still infinitely suspicious by the time he manages to excuse himself.
(And if he lets Housekeeper know that she's more than welcome to play with Kieran as much as she likes to piss off Morrigan, well, that's their business.)
-x-
At first he's not to sure about what kind of offering his Housekeeper has brought him. It feels an awful lot like a cat that's brought back a bird for it's owner when he finds another elf tied up in the middle of his room. He's bound and gagged and his eyes haven't left Housekeeper. She's knelt in front of her desk, hands covering her face but entirely alert in spite of the fact her eyes are closed behind them.
A piece of paper is sat in her lap and he picks it up in spite of the bound elf's sudden increase in struggles.
"Well then. What do we have here?" He muses out loud, reading the briefing. "You are a spy."
They were well aware of most of the ones in the keep, well... Leliana was. But he didn't recognize this one from anywhere. He could feel his eyebrows crawling higher as he read the name and he let out a huff as he finished the summary.
"You do like to bring me the best presents." He pets the Housekeeper on the head. "Thank you."
(pleased)
The elf looks on, terrified.
He's a spy for a faction that no one here has recognized. But he's Dalish, he knows the implications of the name Housekeeper has given him. He lets his eyes wonder to the man's wrists and sure enough there is a bracelet with six red beads that he remembers. He's seen it around the keep before.
"Hmmm... what to do with you..." He muses.
It's too late now to let him go. No doubt he's terrified already by what Housekeeper has done to catch him and the side effects were blatantly obvious when you knew what to look for. (The former mayor of Crestwood had been inconsolable and the impression had stuck) He had to be disposed of, but how? He turns his back on housekeeper and the other struggling elf. Her indistinguishable amorphous shadow looming against the wall by his bed as she approaches the fireplace. The elf can see it too. He's screaming around the gag in his mouth. Mahanon just reaches out with his own shadow on the wall and the cold claws reach back.
"Would you make him disappear?" He asks.
(The shadow embraces his and the screaming intensifies.)
He doesn't look, and prepares for bed. Before long Housekeeper has returned to her seat and there's no sign that anyone else had been there. It's not certain that the agent would be missed, but plans could wait... for now anyway.
-x-
-x-
They all perceive the little nightmares differently, but for Mahanon the little nightmares struggle to pick a form. One minute they're a spider, one minute they're wolves and somewhere in between they become shapeless lumps of grey stone. The nightmare is confused. It could have just picked a form and stuck to it, but it's like it can't decide. He's not afraid of spiders, he can kill those easily. He's not afraid of the wolves either, multiple eyes or not.
But the stones.
They don't move, they sit blankly, but it's like the Nightmare itself is unnerved. Like it can't quite bring itself to finish crafting the shape, like it doesn't know what the stones are supposed to be, but it knows that somehow they're something to be afraid of.
They radiate an aura of icy cold that slashes past him with a ghostly tug on his skin. He's not afraid of it.
(It's a feeling he associates with comfort, with safety, even as a shiver wracks his spine.)
An idea shapes as they follow Faith toward the Nightmare.
His housekeeper was something magical, something powerful. With help from Cole and Kieran he hasn't communicated with so much as learned about the woman. He knows three facts about her that seem to rule her existence.
One: She couldn't move when others looked at her. "Don't blink." Cole had tried to warn him in his own way.
Two: She was bound to him. Although she had her strange abilities they were only ever used to his well being and safety.
and Three: She would do anything he asked of her.
They needed a miracle and maybe... just maybe...
When they stopped their slog through the fade to rest he stepped around a wall and out of sight. She slept, constantly, when she wasn't needed or busy she was a grey presence in the back of his mind and right now, he felt for that connection. She had magic, so logically, like any mage she could reach the fade, reach him. He closed his eyes, found the link and "called".
The fade shuddered and splintered as something vast and horrifying squeezed it's way into existence.
The green of the fade was drained of colour and life until he opened his eyes again and saw nothing but grey... but there, at his feet, was a stone representation of his housekeeper. She knelt on the ground, warping reality with her presence and rather than simply sleeping she held her face in her hands.
"Do you know what I need?" He asked, not sure himself.
(Affirmative)
The acknowledgement was stronger here, not a whisper... but not a cry either. Pure emotion transmitted loud and clear.
"Please help me get everyone back home."
The responding emotion nearly took his breath away as it translated into something like-
(Always)
It wasn't until he returned to the others and found them staring at him in varying stages of awe and horror that he realized they'd all felt it. Stroud and Hawke were ashen, Vivienne was giving him an odd look, Bull looked alarmed and Varric was equally as unsettled as the grey seeped away from them, bringing back the unnatural green of the fade. His companions know what he's done, who he's called.
"What did you do?" Hawke asks, the horror not as old as it is with the others.
"I called for help." Mahanon answers him grimly.
They continue onward to fight the aspect of the nightmare and faith uses the last of her power to hold back the main part while they fight. It's more powerful than any demon they've fought thus far but they do it, they win... but then they need to escape.
"Run. Just RUN!" Mahanon yells at them when Hawke and Stroud argue about staying back.
"But the nightmare! We'll never make it!" The inquisitor skids to a stop and grabs Hawke.
"No, she's already here, she's going to cover our backs, right now though, we need to run." Hawke looks at him and is clearly confused, but finally nods and throws himself through the portal and for once, Mahanon dares look back.
It's colder than he's ever felt, but the nightmare is stalled, stymied by a statue. Made of grey stone it bears great stone wings that are spread like a shield across the way, other statues emerge from the shadows when he blinks, their hands twisted into claws and one is turned just far enough that he can see teeth in a hollow maw snarling at the Beast.
And the Beast is Afraid.
It's form ripples and changes, eyes appearing all over it's form.
(Don't Blink.)
The statues taunt with gleeful intent.
(Don't Blink. Don't Blink. Don't Blink.)
And there behind the shielding statue stands his housekeeper. She has her hands over her eyes, but she's grinning.
And in her mouth is a maw of needle sharp teeth.
The affectionate wave she sends him is jarring by contrast, her powers cold, but her feelings warm as they push him gently toward the rift.
Finally he goes, dropping through to the other side where the others are shouting and talking and it's with an almost negligent wave that he closes the rift behind him. His companions are arrayed around him and the ones that went with him are ashen faced. More so than usual.
"What? Was that?" Hawke asks, his tone strained as he gives voice to the question that haunts them all. Mahanon just stares at them, arrayed out before him, but he's fighting and losing to the urge to grin. It stretches out across his face and it just seems to make the others that little bit more terrified.
"That, was my housekeeper."
It's a simple answer, and he doesn't elaborate, but the shudder runs through the gathered companions in a wave.
They scatter, each going to find ways to distract themselves from what they'd witnessed and he doesn't tell them that she's already there once more, curled in a ball and leaning against the back of his legs. Her feelings aren't the powerful sensation they are in the fade, but they're strong enough.
(Amusement)
-x-
In the Hissing wastes they find a statue.
Deep in a ravine below the sands there's a Camp, a Dog and a statue that sits crouched in a coil of rope with a maw of needle teeth and it's hand's over it's eyes as it grins.
Most of the present companions are deeply disturbed at the sight of it and Mahanon is wondering as he compares it to the vision of his Housekeeper that he'd seen in the fade. As the others turn away she appears in his shadow, her face turned upward like she's examining the effigy through her fingers as she covers her expression.
(wonder)
"Maybe there have been other Housekeepers." He suggests, shifting his hand to tangle in her hair.
(indignant)
"Oh, yes, I agree, you're much prettier."
(Satisfaction)
He doesn't actually know what she looks like. He's relatively certain that she's something (other), but it's not something he needs to be concerned with.
-x-
Morrigan is certain that their enemy is after a Device called an Eluvian. An ancient device the Elvhen empire used for travel over long distances.
(Which makes sense. For all the Elvhen ruins there are, they'd never actually found any roads.)
What for, she can only speculate. But going through one takes the Traveler anywhere there's another mirror, via a place known as the crossroads. It's a labyrinth of walkways and mirrors that meander and wend their way through a forest with little rhyme or reason. There's evidence of people everywhere. Cups and cushions, curtains and benches. Everything rests there among wildly overgrown flowers and trees like they'd been set down with the expectation that the owner would return... only they never did. The scene is as sad as it is fascinating.
Housekeeper joins them. Given her physical presence in the fade-that's-not-quite-the-fade she's as solid and still as normal. She sits in his shadow, just out of Morrigan's line of sight as she shows them around, speaking her theories. They're sound, enough so that he doesn't mind calling in the Favor that Celene owes him for letting her keep her throne so they can march an army into the Arbor Wilds.
What they find there is elves.
Ancient Elves.
If that wasn't bad enough they're fighting both sides and it's only by sheer virtue of having at least two so called experts that they manage to even get in. Mind, while they argue Mahanon feels the cold along his scalp and turns to find his Housekeeper standing by a platform of raised tiles. Her face is in her hands but she's clearly indicating the way.
The others startle when the door opens ahead of them and look around to see what did it.
The housekeeper just makes herself scarce.
They navigate the rest of the temple until they're stopped by it's guardians.
"You have walked the petitioners path. You may pass. But you must leave the abomination here."
No one even needs to guess who they mean. And the inner circle members with him all turn as one. He stares back blank faced and agrees. It's not like they can keep her out. She appears between one breath and the next, curled between the fore paws of the Statue to Fen'Harel.
The inquisitor resists the urge to smile at her sense of Humor...
Just barely.
-x-
-x-
In the end it was a last minute choice. More an act of desperation than planning.
But the flare had blinded all of them. No one looking at the battle from that lofty height could see them and with no eyes on the fight.
(Ice clawed at his scalp and he welcomed the feeling as a breeze passed before him.)
When the light cleared, Corypheus was no longer holding the orb. Fragments of grey stone lay on the ground and he reached out. He didn't quite register his own words as he opened the rift inside the magister's chest.
He watched as a stricken Solas all but wept over the loss of the orb and deliberately (didn't look, didn't dare) turned away, bracing himself as the ruins of the temple of sacred ashes fell back to the earth.
They were rushed back to Skyhold. Solas vanishing along the way.
But in spite of that hollow place forming in his heart he trudged his way up the stairs of his tower and opened the door.
A bath was drawn, warm food waited...
There behind his desk, eyes closed in eternal sleep, ribbon in her hair, was his housekeeper.
... and in her lap, above hands neatly folded...
Floated the orb of Fen'Harel
It glowed with pale blue light, not the green of the Mark, nor the Red of corrupted Lyrium, as it twirled serenely in her grasp, undulating frequencies of mana, washing over it's surface.
He smiled.
He dropped his weapons at the top of the stairs. Left a trail of armor to the tub in front of his fireplace. Throwing himself in until his ears rested under the water.
And he laughed.
He laughed in that soundless void until his throat hurt.
And in her seat, his housekeeper, the sleeping nightmare that she was...
... Smiled.
The Dread Wolf may have thought himself clever.
But Mahanon had a Housekeeper.
XD