A/N: Omg. I'm so sorry. This is the right chapter. Very sorry for that. That was chapter 33 of Burning Legion 2. Sorry.

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Therinfal Redoubt had been truly terrifying.

While Vivienne was not one to show her fear—such a pointless display would only feed her enemies, and she was in no habit of giving them such leverage over herself—it was hard to keep one's reservations to oneself when there were beasts about that honed in upon magic and sought to unmake anything with it completely.

And there was no doubt in her mind that the red templars—a rather simplistic yet succinct name to call them—were anything but beasts.

A real templar could be swayed with words. A real templar's fears could be addressed, mollified, manipulated. These creatures had no such capacity for thought. They were mindless aggressors, with naught but a singular purpose in their heads: destroy all magic.

It had been unnerving to fight such things, and yet not as terrifying as it could have been. The creatures could not even be considered on par with demons. Demons might suffer that same tunnel vision, but they were still capable of grander schemes. Of dreams, so to speak.

These red templars knew only how to destroy. Be it their enemies or themselves by pushing themselves beyond what they were physically capable of didn't seem to matter to them. So long as something ended, they had fulfilled their purpose.

With the way they operated, it was easy to think of them as savage monsters.

Better, really.

After all, there was no cure for that corruption. If there was still a mind trapped beneath all that red, Vivienne pitied it unconditionally. Pitied it and saw it her duty—hers and any other fighter worth their salt—to show the creatures a mercy.

She would not have wished such a dismal fate on any of her enemies.

Not that she'd admit that.

No, pity and such things were easily misinterpreted, and she didn't have the time to deal with such petty misunderstandings. Let people think her an uncaring bitch if it helped them. She had her own work to do.

Especially considering the disappearance of the mages.

They would definitely need to be found and something done so that this ridiculous bloodshed came to an end—while the fighting had somewhat lulled with the Templar Order disbanded and the mages missing, Vivienne didn't doubt that it would start up again if someone didn't step in.

With the whole matter of the Conclave, the Breach, the red lyrium appearing more and more frequently, there was enough to do without her fellow mages making it harder for mage rights to move forward by terrifying the general populace and reinforcing those age old terrors of magic that had just been renewed.

It was like stabbing a wound that hadn't even scabbed over yet.

Messy, detrimental, and tasteless.

While Vivienne had intended to serve as the example that mages could be trusted via her work with the Inquisition, to court public opinion by presenting herself and the Herald as respectable and dutiful, it seemed more would be required. It always was.

She wasn't sure why it surprised her so much at this point. After all, if one wanted something done right…

However, disgruntled as Herald Finley was—and insistent as she was that they continue to let demons pour from the sky until their fellow casters could be found—the mages would have to wait. Regardless of what the Herald might feel, the Breach was the priority. Closing that would win them good favor with the non-magical majority of the world, and it would be an important victory. For the Inquisition, for mages, for Vivienne.

After their little adventure at Therinfal, Vivienne felt that she had a better feel for Herald Finley, and that she would be able to convince her to do what Commander Rutherford and Seeker Pentaghast were having such difficulty with: march with the templars.

Hence her current search for the Herald. She might have an odd way of thinking, but Vivienne had a feeling that if she heard the arguments from a fellow mage, she might be more likely to consider them.

Honestly…

Vivienne had expected plans to go awry, but since the emergence of the red templars, the hiccups seemed excessive.

When Herald Finley had been taken, it had gone without saying that she would need to be rescued. Ser Yorric—a bright man, despite his easily formed infatuation with the seeker—had offered to escort Vivienne back to Haven before the dust had even finished settling. Under his logic, the red templars could interrupt magic and seemed quite obsessive when they discovered a magical opponent on the field. It was sound enough, she supposed, considering they had witnessed the way the monsters' attention was drawn toward her in several attacks that followed the initial one, though none of those were nearly as chaotic or drawn out as the first.

Upon hearing his offer, Vivienne had given him a cool, reassuring smile and pointed out that the templars, red or otherwise, had yet to interrupt a single one of her casts—it wasn't completely true, but he had been too caught up in the fighting to know otherwise. While he'd paused to admit that her words rang true, she'd asked him to be a dear and keep a look out while she worked on some spellwork that might help them.

Honestly, she hadn't had any actual spells in mind, but she hadn't wanted him to think that she was at a loss for what to do.

In light of the fact that they had originally been going to see the mages, Vivienne had thought it prudent to make certain they could defend against any magical attacks.

She and Herald Finley had been working on those fire wards on the way to Redcliffe, when they weren't going over etiquette and cultural oddities that seemed specific to Circle mages. They were slowly gaining a better understanding of how each other's magic worked, which led to ideas on how to alter those wards to affect others.

The dear Herald had seemed almost as though she wished to start her own Circle, in all her enthusiasm when it came to collaborating magically. It was a shame she'd never been taken to one. She would have made an excellent enchanter. When she, Solas, and Vivienne had been stuck on a part of the spell, she'd recruited one of the Iron Bull's mercenaries, an elf that went only by Dalish, to join their little endeavor.

At first, both Cremisius and Dalish had come by, stating that it would help to have non-mage input on such creations. It had only taken a moment for Vivienne to realize that Dalish was adamant about not being a mage—she even had a staff that was actually shaped like a bow. It seemed ridiculous at best, but Vivienne didn't feel like arguing about something so trivial. If the apostate wished to deny something so obvious, let her.

And so, after the first day, it had been the four mages who had met once or twice, reviewing spells and discussing ways to alter them.

Dalish's magic was more akin to Herald Finley's. Both had a wild, untrained feel to them, though they were still starkly different, day and night. And then neither of their spells were even remotely close to the way Solas' worked.

That was the problem with wild magic, though, wasn't it? Without the proper training and guidance, it twisted and turned into something highly unpredictable, something highly un-shareable.

At least, Vivienne had always thought of it that way. It was one of the principles that the Circles taught, one that had seemed infallible.

Now, she wasn't so sure.

Solas and Dalish had promised to keep working on the spells from their end, while Herald Finley and Vivienne had worked on it on the road.

However, it hadn't been until after Herald Finley had been kidnapped that Vivienne had had her break through.

That first night after Herald Finley had been taken, Vivienne had been angry. Angry at herself for having been so careless as to let someone so precious be taken—truly, the Herald mattered more than the whole lot of the others she'd been traveling with—and she'd been angry at the rest of them that they'd allowed it to happen, as well.

The thought had briefly occurred to her that their opponents had simply been that formidable, but she'd dismissed it. If their guards had been doing their jobs, this wouldn't have happened.

That was the way it always went, wasn't it?

If a lot of people had done their jobs properly, a great many inconveniences wouldn't be happening now.

However, Vivienne could not control everything, as much as it would help. And so she'd gone to bed early. She hadn't wanted to have to keep her mask on—figurative as it might have been—all evening. Thus, at an appropriate hour that wouldn't make her look like she was retreating or hiding, she'd headed to bed and then quietly seethed.

Again, she'd had plans go awry before, and a hiccup or misstep was hardly something she was unacquainted with.

Even so.

That things could go this wrong...

Worse, there'd been nothing she could do to fix matters, and there was nothing she could do in the immediate time to further things along. There were no messages that could ruin a noble's reputation before they could reveal something critical, no simple appearances that could squelch any dissonance. This was not court where she could play the Game she knew so well and come out on top. This was the woods, with mindless creatures having somehow managed to steal their most valuable asset.

Vivienne had considered a tracking spell, but she hadn't anything of the Herald's to use. Not even a hair.

All Herald Finley had left behind at the end of the day was her spell. Her fire ward.

And so, with nothing else to do that could be remotely construed as productive, Vivienne had turned to that.

She'd gone over what had been reviewed to death when, as she was falling asleep, it had struck her. It wasn't that they needed to add clauses or twist phrases in the spell—the longer the spell the less stable it tended to be. It was simply that the subject needed to be changed. It had been attempted before, but not in the way she was thinking of.

While she'd considered calling for a person to come assist her with her experiment, she didn't want to draw any unwanted attention to her magic. People were so easily panicked, and with the Herald already gone, nerves were bound to be on edge.

Someone getting frightened and lashing out had been the last thing she needed.

So instead, she'd cast the fire ward on her pillow. Then, she held it in her hand and conjured flames. While her strong suit was frost, she did know enough to make the very basics of the other main elements, not that she typically used them. In all honesty, she'd had to check her spellbook before she even cast the spell.

The way her fire had danced around that cloth and wool without so much as singing it had been most pleasing.

The fire ward could be cast upon others.

Her triumph had been short lived.

What good did that do her when it was templars she had to fight against rather than a wayward mage or two?

She'd gone to bed in a poor mood and woken up little better.

Not that any of her traveling party had ever known. She'd kept her wits about her, stayed calm, and been every bit the mage she wanted them to see. Someone who could be trusted, someone they needn't fear so long as things stayed cordial.

And then, despite it all, the ward had come in handy regardless.

After all, one of the few things red templars still seemed acutely aware of was magic.

So what better way to distract them from her than with what they sought? A warded pillar drove them crazy. Vivienne adjusted the ward to be self-contained so long as she wasn't casting it on herself. That meant it would fall apart after a certain amount of the appropriate damage—i.e. fire to a fire ward—a little faster than if it was refreshed with an open channel to her mana, but it would not continuously draw on her mana pool.

That meant that the demons couldn't use the ward as a means to whisper in Vivienne's ear, as well. She was sure the Herald would appreciate that.

Most of Herald Finley's spells seemed to have that sort of thing in mind. Be quick, connect to the Fade as swiftly as possible. Don't let the templars interrupt, and don't let the demons in.

It was a little grating how the Herald dismissed any idea that made spells longer to cast, but Vivienne could overlook that.

After all, Herald Finley was used to combat magic, even if her spells were healing oriented.

Using the fire ward, Vivienne been able to ward pebbles and toss them throughout the courtyard, leaving the templars confused as to where her spells came from, so long as she kept herself out of sight.

It wasn't a perfect fighting style by any means—honestly it was somewhat shameful to need to hide—but it did keep them from all coming after her at once. After all, a stunlocked mage was a dead mage.

And some of the red templars could literally shoot red lyrium out of their bodies, which Vivienne had no doubt would lead to her death, without any mage healers present to assist if she was hit.

And it helped that all of her companions expected mages to stand in the background and fight from a distance.

Knight enchanter that she was, she did not need to fall because of pride. She'd spent her whole life making sure of that, and if the demons couldn't take her, she'd be damned to let a red templar do it.

Yes, despite the horrors that had abounded in Therinfal Redoubt and the horribly convoluted mess it had led to, she and the Herald had come out of that in what Vivienne would consider a victory. Both mages involved had maintained their calm, kept their spells on point, been useful. While Herald Finley had fallen into neurotic paranoia after the envy demon was dealt with—it felt like a poor man's Harrowing to Vivienne, and she planned to use it as such, should anyone ever try to object to the Herald's lack of a proper magical education—Herald Finley had managed to keep her voice even and look most confident in front of the templars while under what had to have been great duress.

That stress had followed her back to Haven. While Vivienne had tried to address it once or twice on the road, she'd been a little miffed to find that it had been the commander who had managed to allay some of Herald Finley's panic in the end.

She supposed it didn't matter who helped calm the Herald in the end, so long as she was able to close the Breach and keep from giving the people of Southern Thedas more reason to hate mages.

Still…Vivienne had hoped to have the opportunity to fine tune her feel for the woman.

Vivienne had noted long before this point that Herald Finley's magic was not confined to healing. The weakness of her initial spells—impressive as they might be to those without magic—that she used in the infirmary had been a red flag since the beginning, and it left her curious to know what else the wilds' mage could do. However, when they'd discovered her there with the templars, healing spells and shields falling from her lips so naturally, it was easy to buy into the lie.

While it would be necessary to untangle her secrets eventually, Vivienne had contented herself to leave them be for now. Herald Finley was no blood mage, and that was good enough for the time being.

More than that, the mystery of the first ward had been broken, and the rest would likely fall in place easily now. They would be able to share their spells, ward their allies, and perhaps Vivienne might even learn why it was that Herald Finley needed a stone ward.

The fabled basilisk was said to dwell within the wilder places of the world, and it was rumored that their tears could cure most anything.

If Herald Finley had a working stone ward, did that mean she had actually encountered such a creature?

The others said she had a fondness for animals…

How had it not turned her to stone before she could develop the ward, though?

Such were musings for another time. Or, more preferably, unnecessary should she be able to get the dear apostate to open up and learn to trust.

That would take time, but she'd manage.

And things did have a way of turning up in her favor, didn't they?

After all, despite the Herald's decisions and the best made attempts, it was the templars that they would be working with. A well-established organization. People that the common folk trusted—or had trusted, before the Templar-Mage war and the abandonment of the Chantry.

However, the common folk would see that the Inquisition would return the templars to good graces and in doing so, they would prove that there were more than a few trustworthy mages. It might seem backwards to a more reactionary mind, but to Vivienne, it was clear. This was the path that would lead to betterment for mages in the end.

If they could be seen not as a force that threatened tradition, but one that upheld it, people would be more likely to welcome subtle changes.

Change did not happen overnight. The mage rebellion had proved that. People did not feel anything but contempt for the fools who ran blindly through the world, casting fire on a whim, destroying everything in their path and then demanding they be treated with respect.

There was so much potential for the betterment of mages with the Inquisition, but it needed to be handled with care.

Vivienne would make sure that it was.

After the Breach was closed, of course.

As she turned a corner, she found Herald Finley sitting with Varric and a few of the Chargers. From the looks of it, they were exchanging stories of some sort—conquests or past victories. Slipping past the others, Vivienne elegantly sat beside Herald Finley, smiling when the Herald leaned toward her to hear her over the crackling flames and conversations. "I need to speak with you in private."

Herald Finley frowned at that, glancing around the fire and then appraising Vivienne carefully. Ever so suspicious. "Now?"

When Vivienne nodded, she sighed and rose to her feet. No doubt Herald Finley knew what this was about. Likely, she'd already had quite a few people drawing her to the side to tell her to abandon her stubbornness in favor of a hasty victory.

The two of them moved quickly through the village, with Vivienne half a pace ahead of her, leading her through the bustle back to the Chantry.

"You're a bright woman, so I won't waste my breath tiptoeing around the subject," Vivienne began when they were comfortably alone in a small corner of the Chantry, near where she preferred to stay. "You have a certain naivety when it comes to the world beyond your woods, my dear, which is no fault of yours, but I don't think you see how what you're doing is hurting rather than hindering. I know the best way that we can help the other mages, and it starts with closing that eyesore…"