A/N: Not sure who is still in this fandom, but I'm hoping there are a few of you all! I'm on my 100th playthrough of this game, and I just had to write this. Hope you all enjoy!

Evelyn

Evelyn had a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She had been born a mage, a fact that left her religious family disappointed. Born into the wrong family. House Trevelyan were known for their templar sons and chantry sisters. It was a mark on their house that one of their own had become a mage. When she had been carted off to the circle, tears streaming down her face, her family had never looked back. She had only received two letters from one of her sisters in the twelve years since, and only to tell her when her mother and aunt had died.

Being at the conclave, she thought she would be doing some good, helping to bring peace and order to a war torn nation. That had gone belly up rather quickly, and now she was being heralded as some sort of religious idol, maker blessed. Andraste herself had delivered her from the fade. Oh, the irony. Her family wanted to claim her now, her father so proud of what she'd accomplished.

Accomplished. Like she'd done something to earn the title. All she'd done is accidentally survive.

Since the conclave, all Evelyn knew was death. It seemed to follow her wherever she went, and she fought against it, trying desperately to help people. But death answers to no one. And even when Evelyn expected it, wished for it, it never took her.

When did she ever get what she wanted?

It had been hard, after the explosion at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, to grapple with the fact that she had been the lone survivor, that her friends, mentors, people she respected and cared about from the Circle were gone. Dead. It helped that she didn't remember a lot of what had happened, and the pieces she did remember came and went in fleeting images when she thought back on it for too long.

Evelyn had been confined to the Circle tower for twelve years. She wasn't conditioned to be running or fighting or making life and death decisions every day. She was a nobody who only got to go to the conclave because of who her family was.

The weeks and months since the conclave had been rough. Cassandra and Bull could run circles around her when she thought she was running as hard as she could, and she knew her slowness irritated Cassandra. She was trying to keep up, to not complain when their pace was faster than she could handle, or when she was forced to forage for her own food, or watch Cassandra or Bull kill, gut, and clean the fish they would eat, or sleep in tents.

She knew she had lived a sheltered life. She had traded one prison for another. She wasn't free, not truly. The shackles were just invisible now.

They had said her being with the Inquisition was her choice, but they all knew it wasn't. She doubted they would have let her walk away. At any rate, when she knew she could help, it hadn't really been a thought to what comes after.

Now, as she was staring down an army of templars invading Haven, Evelyn wondered when the fighting would stop, when it would stop getting worse. The breach that had turned the world into chaos was sealed; Cassandra had even been nice to her just minutes ago. Weren't they all due some good news?

Then the dragon appeared, and Evelyn wondered why she bothered hoping at all.

Holed up in the Chantry, she looked to Cullen, the leader of the Inquisition forces for an idea, something to get them out of this mess. Commander Cullen was something of a mystery to her. A former templar himself, she didn't fear him like she had a lot of the templars at the Ostwick Circle. He wanted to do better, and she commended him for that.

If ever Evelyn had to describe what made a man, a man, she'd describe Cullen. Tall, broad shouldered, muscular. Curly, blonde haired, honey glazed eyes. He practically towered over her, but he never used his size to intimidate her. She was open minded, understanding, and dedicated. He slept in the tents with his own men, refusing to be set up in a room in the chantry.

Evelyn was smitten with him.

Whenever they were at the war table, she'd try to catch his eye, holding his gaze longer than necessary. After each mission, she made it a point to check in with him; she enjoyed listening to him talk about the Inquisition, and his life before. He talked to her like she was a person, not like she was some savior to be worshiped.

When time allowed, and when she wasn't totally exhausted, he had worked with her to help get her conditioning up. He was a good teacher, patient but stern. As much as she hated the workouts, she enjoyed having those stolen moments together. She wondered if he did, too.

They had a plan now, leading the people of Haven out through the mountain path, but someone needed to stay behind as a distraction. It wasn't even a choice. "What do I need to do?" she asked, gripping her staff tighter.

Cullen looked at her, his grim face softening. He looked like he wanted to argue, but then he said, "I'll send some men to load the trebuchets. Keep the Elder One's attention until we are above the treeline."

"And you aren't going alone," Dorian told her, stepping forward. Cassandra and the Iron Bull stepped up, too. She smiled, knowing that they would risk their lives with her, to help her, meant the world to her.

Dorian had become her instant friend after their harrowing time-traveling adventure they had together when Evelyn had gone to make an alliance with the mages. She'd known him for less time than anyone else, yet he seemed to understand her better than anyone else. She didn't like the idea of bringing Dorian, or any of her companions into danger with her, but she also was afraid that without them, she'd fuck it all up.

"If we are to have a chance- if you are to have a chance- let that thing here you," Cullen told her.

Nodding, she hurried for the door of the Chantry, hesitating at the door for one last look at Cullen. He was still watching her. For a fleeting moment, she thought about confessing her feelings, but she might be dead in an hour, and it didn't seem appropriate. Let her feelings die with her. So she turned on her heel, closing the doors behind her.

The cold wind blew through her, but she hardly felt it, calling on her fire magic for heat, and with the adrenaline pumping through her, she was numb to a lot. She just had to get to the trebuchet. She repeated the sentence over and over as she fought through templars, the Iron Bull and Cassandra did well clearing the path, keeping the templars from getting too close to her. If any got to her, she'd be over no use in hand to hand combat. Cullen and her hadn't gotten through much training in that regard yet.

When they reached the trebuchet, she worked on the levers to get it into position. But before she could fire it, she heard the dragon's roar overhead. They needed to get away from the trebuchet. If the dragon destroyed it, this would all have been for naught.

"Move!" she cried out. "Now!" she hurried them away, back towards cover. Maybe if they could get to the chantry again, Dorian, Cassandra, and Bull could hurry after the group. Alone, she could sneak back to the trebuchet and do what needed to be done.

The thought never even made it to her lips when the dragon started breathing fire, separating her from the group. She saw them racing towards the Chantry as she'd hoped, but Dorian stopped, looking back for her. When he saw her, he made to turn back, but she cried out for him to go when an explosion went off beside her, throwing her off her feet.

She bounced on her shoulder before falling onto her back, the breath knocked out of her. She couldn't hear anything but a ringing for a moment; she was only able to feel the throbbing of her shoulder, the cold, wet snow tickling her neck and cheeks. Groaning, she stood up, glancing back towards where she had last seen her friends, but they weren't there.

Good. They'd gotten away. She hoped they'd catch up to the others quickly. A twisted part of her was sad they had left her. It wasn't that she wanted them in this situation, but she had felt left behind, stuck to do this on her own. What if she couldn't?

All thoughts died down when she saw a figure walking towards her through the fire that surrounded her. He was unlike anything she had seen before, like a demonic corpse, with something that looked like red lyrium burnt into the sides of his face. The dragon landed, running up behind her, cutting off any hope for escape.

"Pretender," he called her. Pretender was exactly what she was. Pretending she knew what she was doing, pretending like she could help. Pretending.

He had come for the anchor, and as he held the orb in his hand, he was able to activate the mark in mine. Searing, sharp shooting pain shot up from the palm of my hand, up through the arm. After a moment, the pain dimmed to a pulsing pain. The mark always hurt, like a low hum, something she could ignore if she didn't think about it. But this was different, it was being drawn to him, Corepheus, he called himself.

She didn't know what he was doing, but it was like he could control it, making it flare, pain radiating through her. She grabbed at her hand with the other, but nothing could help. Finally the pain drove her to her knees. Think, Evelyn. She looked for her staff, but it was nowhere to be found, and she didn't think she could summon magic with her mind consumed with the pain.

If she were Cassandra, she'd have thought of something by now, or probably wouldn't be in this mess. If she was like the Iron Bull, she'd be able to ignore the pain, endure and push through it.

Suddenly, the Elder One had grabbed her wrist, lifting her off her feet. Prattling on about how the anchor was a certainty that he would always come for her, for the anchor. As he held her above the snow, her legs swinging to be released, he talked about having gone into the fade, seeing the throne of the Gods empty. He was talking nonsense, nothing I cared to really listen to. He lifted me as though I weighed nothing, then he threw me into the side of the trebuchet, my already bruised shoulder protesting. Landing hard on my butt, I leaned my head back against the wood, watching Corepheus.

Would he kill me by taking my arm off and letting me bleed to death? Or would he feed me to his dragon after.

Seeing a sword off to the side, I stood up, grabbing it between shaking fingers. The pain in my hand had subsided, he wasn't controlling it for the moment.

He shook his head, his dragon drooling behind him. "So be it. I will begin again. Find another way to give this world the nation and God it requires."

As he spoke, Evelyn noticed a flare, a fire tipped arrow being shot up from the mountain. They'd made it! The people of Haven had made it past the treeline. She had to end this now.

"I will not suffer even an unknowing rival. You must die." She was going to die, Evelyn had no doubt. If this elder one or dragon didn't do it, then the avalanche surely would. It mattered not. As long as her friends made it. The inquisition didn't need her to carry on. She was expendable. Cassandra or Cullen would lead in her stead.

"Your arrogance blinds you. Good to know," she said, and then she kicked the trigger, and the trebuchet went off. It was silent for a moment, as they all watched the boulder hurdle toward the mountain side. When it landed, Evelyn turned and started running, for where she didn't know. Just away. She could hear the snow begin to fall, the dragon roaring behind her, but she didn't stop, didn't look.

The snow was upon her and suddenly she was falling, landing hard, hitting her head and then the black took her.

Her eyes shot open and she couldn't believe she was alive. She didn't know how much time had passed, but enough for her tired limbs to feel sore and stiff. As she sat up, her ribs protested the movement. She'd probably cracked a couple from the fall. Her shoulder felt numb, and when she used that arm to try and get up, her shoulder flared with pain, her arm gave out, and she fell backwards.

Blinking back tears, she realized it was probably dislocated. She needed to pop it back into place if she had any hope of getting out of here alive. Grabbing her wrist, she tried to lift the arm to slide it into place, but the pain was too much, and she couldn't do it. Stopping, she looked around to find something, anything to use as leverage, to help. Just cave walls created her.

Evelyn was not a medic, and did not know how to get it back into place. She knew people with dislocated shoulders usually wore a sling, but she didn't have anything she could utilize for such a thing at the moment.

Holding her injured arm to her side, she got up and started walking forward. Maybe these tunnels would shoot her out to her people and they could fix it for her. She just had to make it to them. She had one good hand, and it would have to be enough.

Moving forward, there had only been a couple demons she managed to dispatch with her magic. She had lost her staff, but she could channel without it. When she emerged from the tunnel, a blizzard greeted her. The wind whipped through her disheveled hair, the locks having fallen out of the braid she had been wearing. The snow stung her skin, and the cold seeped into her bones.

The howling of wolves greeted her as she stepped out into the knee high snow. Looking around her, she tried to determine which route to go. She didn't know the mountain, and the area she was currently in was flat. It was too dark for visibility. Picking a direction, she started forward. It seemed to be uphill, and she thought that would be good. Maybe she was following the people of Haven.

Progression was slow, as she was bone weary, and injured, Her ribs protested any jarring movement, and more than once, she'd stumbled upon fallen trees buried in the snow. After one such stumble, she fell onto her injured shoulder, and slid back down the mountain a few feet before stopping.

Evelyn closed her eyes, unable to get up through the pain. She was starting to not feel the cold so much, and she didn't think it was because of her fire magic. She knew that wasn't good.

It would be so easy to let it end here, to close her eyes and let the exhaustion or the cold take her. She wanted to. Who knew how far she'd have to walk to reach her group- if she even could. Maybe she was wandering in the wrong direction. Maybe she'd fall off the mountain. Even if she made it, it was only going to get harder from here.

The Elder One was still out there. He needed to be stopped.

Dorian. Cassandra. Varric. Bull. All her new companions. She wanted to see them again.

Cullen.

Thinking his name made her get up. She swore that if she made it out of this alive, she'd tell him how she felt. She'd train harder, work harder to live up to everyone's expectations. She'd be a better friend, a better person.

Pushing herself to move again, she found a campsite, which made her want to cry. She was going in the right direction! She wanted to stay and stoke the embers, start a fire, and get warm. But she made herself keep going. Maybe she was closing in on them.

After a few more feet, her steps were faltering, her legs shaking with each step. Did she just hear voices? She took another step and fell to her knees, the joints giving out. Listening, she thought she heard Cullen's voice. Was she hallucinating now?

Unable to go on, she closed her eyes and let gravity take her into the snow, which she barely was the end, and no one could say she hadn't tried. She had given it her best, but sometimes, that wasn't good enough.

Cullen

As he sat in his tent going over the scouting reports, his mind went back to the last moment he had with her, when she had paused at the doors of the Chantry. Had she been waiting for him to say something? Maker knows he should have. He didn't know what he would have said, anything was better than looking into those beautiful, purple eyes and seeing the resignation there.

She had gone out there thinking that was the last time she'd see him. She had known it could be her death. And she'd gone anyway.

Maker, how he admired her strength. How she found the will to keep pushing herself through everything the world put her through, everything the Inquisition put her through, he had no idea. He knew it was hard for her, but she never complained.

Cullen was all too familiar with the Circle, he knew what sort of life they led. They trained with their magic, and that was carefully watched and scrutinized by the templars. She had never had to fight for her life as she now seemed to have to do on a near daily basis. She had been short and plump when they had found her after the conclave. The stress and the fighting were getting to her, as she could now be described as short and stocky, muscle forming even as she lost some weight.

The day he had first met her, she had been radiant, her long, blonde hair pulled back into a braid down her back, her baby hair sticking up around her face, tendrils falling loose. She looked scared but determined. A look he saw from her often.

Evelyn doubted her self worth, her abilities, her decisions. He supposed life in the circle could do that to a person. The hardest decision she had to face in the circle was in her classes, her training. Here, decisions affected the lives of many people. It was a hard change for her, and one he understood.

Running a hand over his face, he tried to ignore the searing headache in his temples. He needed to find her. The only one more distraught than himself was probably Dorian, who stormed into Cullen's tent every so often for an update. Cullen knew the man hated having to leave Evelyn behind. The Iron Bull told Cullen he and Cassandra had to drag him into the Chantry, away from Evelyn. It was a decision that was hard on all of them.

"Anything?" Speaking of the devil, Dorian burst into the tent.

Cullen wanted to be annoyed at the constant interruptions, and had it been anyone else, he might have been. "No. I was just thinking of going out and looking for her."

"Then I'll come, too," Dorian nodded and left the tent, expecting Cullen to follow. Which he did.

Cullen grabbed his gear and headed out of the tent. It was still dark, though dawn was right around the corner. He told a couple soldiers where he was going, and he asked them to relay the message to both Leliana and Josephine when they woke up. He met Dorian at the edge of the camp and they were about to set out when Cassandra caught up to them.

"I am coming, too," she said, falling into step with them. Cullen could tell she felt more guilty about leaving Evelyn behind than she let on. Nodding, they set out, heading back down the mountain going back the way they had come. He noted their footsteps had already been cleaned up by the snow, like a whole village hadn't walked up the mountain together.

They were about halfway down the mountain when they saw a figure in the distance. "Maker, do you see that?" Cullen asked.

"It's the Herald!" Cassandra exclaimed, and the trio hurried down the mountain. "Thank the maker!"

"Dorian, go back ahead, alert the camp, get a healer ready!" he said as they drew near and she fell into the snow.

"On it!" Dorian turned and ran back the way they came.

Cullen pulled off his mantle, falling to her side. He helped her into a sitting position, and she tried to speak. He thought he heard his name. Draping it around her, he tried to put his hand under arm, but she cried out, and the mantle fell away as she fell backwards. Reaching for her, he realized her shoulder was dislocated.

"Cassandra," he said, "Her shoulder. We need to set it."

"Do it," she nodded, shifting to hold Evelyn still.

He grabbed her arm, and pulled it across her body until it moved back into place, causing Evelyn to cry out again in pain. Tears fell from the corner of her eyes, even as she lost consciousness. Bundling her up his mantle, he picked her up in his arms and trudged back up the mountain with Cassandra in tow.

Cullen could carry her the last bit of the way. She had done enough.

When they got to camp, everyone was awake, and Dorian was waiting with Leliana, Josephine, Varric, Bull, and Solas. As Cullen neared, Dorian rushed forward, checking on Evelyn in Cullen's arms. "The healer's hut is this way," he motioned, and Cullen followed close behind.

He set her on the cot the healer indicated as gently as he could, and suddenly a trio of healers were stripping her, and working to get her warmed with their magic. He hurried out of the tent before he saw things he was sure Evelyn would not want him seeing, but not before he saw the bruises that dotted her body.

Maker's breath, how had she lived?

"How is she?" Dorian asked, and Cullen looked at the group around him, her companions, her friends.

"I think she'll be alright now. The healers are doing their job. She was still unconscious just now. We just need to allow them more time," he told them, and they nodded.

As the camp awoke, Cullen could hear their chatter. If ever people doubted her as the Herald of Andraste before, they were a believer now. She'd come back. Andraste had delivered her back to them. Again. And Cullen wasn't sure they were wrong, though he knew Evelyn would have something to say about that when she awoke, he was sure.

For now, he just thanked the Maker she was alive. Anything that comes after, they would deal with. Together.