It was cold. Blistering disturbingly cold. And quiet. My fingers were the first thing I felt, burning like icy fire and I tried to grip the dirt below me. My head pounded, as I tried to remember anything except for cold and darkness.

Get up...

The quiet voice whispered, somewhere deep with in me, comforting and cradling in the cold. Andraste, or the spirit who called itself that. Somehow that voice which usually disturbed me was comforting in the bitter confusion. Alive...I was alive.

GET UP!

And then reality crashed down hard onto me as pain bloomed in my head, my side, my arm, my back, everywhere. The screams, the pain. Corypheus holding Maxwell and the mountain crumbling around us. My feet scrambled up, even as every bone in body resisted. I coughed as I inhaled, dust still settling from the wreckage in the underground cavern.

"Max," I cried out for, weakly, as my throat burned. My head was spinning, my vision blurry. Everything was white...white...white... Where was he? "Max! Max!"

A small groan echoed through the staleness of the cavern. There, under that pile of scaffolding. A hand. I forced my body to move, limping towards the hand. Praying to... I didn't know exactly who... The Maker? Myself? Annoying voice in my head? It didn't matter. I just wanted whoever was listening to let him be alive.

My rib was broke, that much was obvious. But with the strength of sheer will I flipped the large piece of wood off the body. Shaggy brown hair flushed over pale pale skin. The slim nose barely blowing out air. Max's Mark glowed a brilliant green, brighter than it had even when it had first bloomed all those months ago. What had Corypheus done to him? And what was the wretched thing?

It didn't matter. The Maker damned thing only caused chaos and death.

I shook him. He groaned, but didn't move. "Max. Come on, wake up. We have to go. I dont know where we are. It's not safe. Wake up!"

I was sobbing, I knew. Shaking like a leaf, and at a lost on what to do or how to cope. All those dead people. My fault... All my fault... And Max wasn't moving... and so much death—

ENOUGH! Andraste's voice boomed in my mind. Move. Go.

I jerked automatically. She was right, I had to stop thinking and move.

"Move." I repeated, a mantra to focus on. "Move."

I inspected Max, pushing aside my fear. I didn't know what was broken, or if he'd hit his head, or what ,leffect whatever had been done to the Mark had on him. Waking him probably wasn't going to be an option. He was pale, freezing and soaked, breathing shallowly and shivering. First stages of frozen death. I took off my coat, and placed it over him. Warmth.

Next, I had to solve the problem of moving. We had to get out of here. Corphyseus or those Lyrium Monsters could still be around. We couldn't stay and wait for help. We would freeze to death first. And our lives had been forfeited anyhow when we ran out into the chaos. No one looked for the dead. I had to get Max out of this tunnel. We were on our own. But how?

There wasn't much here, just rocky rubble from the cave and some of the pieces of the trebuchet and scaffolding. I searched the wreckage ignoring body parts of soldiers and the monsters alike. Not much was found but a dagger, some spare wood, rope, and pieces of cloth from the now tattered flags that once covered the outside of proud Haven. I set to work, using the dagger to create a sort of harness to hook to my torso. I could pull Max out on the scaffolding that had crushed him, and hope the cold didn't kill us, or at least it did before something else could.

I used the cloth to pull Max onto the wood. He moaned, as I set about using the rest of the rope to strap him in. "Dash..." Max's weak voice called, and I looked down to his grey eyes, blinking at me.

"It's ok. I can get us out here. I can do it. We're ok" I hushed him. He softly smiled, as his head lulled back.

I don't know how long I moved or how far I went. Time blurred, the pain slowly subsided into pure numbness. Everything faded but the white white white of the world and the deafening howling of the wind as the cave turned into mountains and blizzarding white. Cold fire seeped into my bones until I became one and the same with it. Still I moved. Looking to Max to make sure he was alive. I didn't have direction or destination. I didn't think of the horror of Haven or fear of almost certain death be it from demons, or wolves, or cold. I just moved, following small signs of human life. A small doll here, the remains of long forgotten and hastely covered campfires there. Hoping the mountains would save us, where faith and courage and justice had not.

And finally, as the sun came up over the horizon I saw it. Smoke of a camp, and the distant sound of the buzzing of life. Was this real? Or delusion brought on by the last few moments of life. I didn't know. I was tired, oh so tired. Just another ridge...just another mile... So close... I could almost hear Cullen shouting orders on the horizon. Would I ever see him again? Were they gone, like we'd soon be?

But I was so tired. I couldn't continue. This was it. This was my mind taunting me with what I had found these last few months. A home. A purpose. Something bigger than myself. And I would never reach it. Never finish this through. Max would die. I would die. Here in a mountain. Together. The cold wasn't so bad. The view niether, as I crumbled down beside Max. Thinking the life we could've lived together if only things had been different. If only we hadn't met in a world hell bent on being destroyed. Thinking of a love that could never be.

My eyes drifted closed, remembering the pale square jaw and slim nose and shaggy brown hair and strikingly beautiful grey eyes always full of reassurance. He had known. He had always known and hoped and believed. He was good, the best good. The light flickering on the horizon. My hand reaching out to touch him, one last time.

Together. We would finish this together.

Rest now. Andraste's presence soothed me to darkness, as what felt like warm hands carried me into the dark.