For the first time in her life, Finley was too cold.

She stumbled as the blizzard winds whipped her hair madly around her, like a banner. The way the orange dipped and curled through the air, it felt like she was trapped under Haven's lake's ice, watching diluted, spilled blood sully the waters that held her back and made her movements sluggish.

There were times when she thought she could smell blood, too, freshly spilled, and she had to remind herself that she was a grown woman, lost to an avalanche, and not a little girl, curled up beneath a tree, praying that they would leave her alone today.

The snow stung wherever it hit her, leaving her eyes narrowed. She might as well have walked forward with her eyes closed, for all the good it did her. The winds and snow were too strong.

Her body was numb, and her ward was failing. She'd already dispelled everything but her frost ward and a single regeneration spell that was growing weaker by the minute, hoping to conserve her mana pool until the winds died down. The weather was too much, though. It was eating away at her mana, and with each passing minute, she was weaker for it.

Her cloak nearly choked her as the wind somehow managed to pick up, harsher than before. She was tempted to just unlatch it and let it go. The way it billowed back, even when she tried to clutch it around her, was more of a hindrance against going forward than anything. It certainly wasn't keeping her warm.

Had Corypheus summoned this blizzard? It seemed so perfectly timed.

She stumbled forward again before gasping when the wind caught her cloak just right and dragged her backwards a few feet. Her fingers numbly clutched at the clasp, trying to undo it. It felt like the damned dragon had her by the cloak, trying to lift her into the air.

Such a miserable way to end her day.

This was possibly the end of more than just a day, though, wasn't it?

For her, anyway.

At least…at least everyone else had made it, hadn't they?

Her mind wandered back to the different people she'd come to know over the last few months, lingering on one or two faces she was better acquainted with as she tried to remember how badly others had been injured, and how likely they could fare well within this miserable storm.

Adan had borne an injured leg when she and the others had found him while retreating to the Chantry. While she'd healed it, she still worried that too much stress on the newly mended bone might make it unstable. A re-fracture would be the last thing he would need.

Most of the others had fared better, with only minor abrasions in places that wouldn't hinder their retreat, so surely they were alright.

Though…

How many injuries had she—or any healer—not had time to check properly?

Chancellor Roderick…he'd had part of a blade in his wound. If she'd had time to remove it, she could have healed him, but they hadn't… Someone else could get it out though, couldn't they? Solas and Adan and some many others were adequate healers—some were better than she was, unsurprisingly. The chancellor had always been one of the more annoying people at Haven, but he hadn't deserved to die.

None of them had…

~"~

Song birds chirped softly in the trees, and Finley inclined her head so that she could watch their little forms flitting above her. They were so high, so far out of reach. But they were easily the prettiest things she'd ever seen. The light filtering through the branches caught on their wings, making the black and yellow of their feathers shine brilliantly.

It was the most amazing thing to see, and she hoped she could watch them forever, when something rustled near her. Abruptly, the little birds took flight, soaring off, out of sight. How they could do so escaped her, she was too small to understand, but it was beautiful.

They were so free.

A hand brushed her arm, and she flinched as she brought her gaze down to meet her mother's.

No. It wasn't her mother today.

Today it was the inky black eyes of the demon inside her who stared back as it twisted her mother's lips into a smile that wasn't quite right. Perhaps it was just the eyes…

"Time for you to be a good little lamb," it whispered to her, lightly taking her hand and leading her over to the fire, where her father had already laid out his tools. He didn't need much for his time with her, just the knife and bowl to catch her blood with.

Fade-touched blood was more potent, or so they said. She thought that they just said that because they were too selfish to spill their own.

"Remember, not a sound." The demon put a finger to her mother's lips, that wrong smile still in place.

As she held her arm out, she closed her eyes, letting images of the little birds soaring away fill her mind. She imagined she was one of them, flying away, off into that big blue unknown.

For the first time, she didn't even notice when the blade cut into her wrist.

~"~

The winds had stopped.

Finley wasn't sure when, but she was still walking, still trudging forward through the snow.

Her cloak was gone.

She took a moment to stop, thinking to look down and make sure she'd healed all her injuries. Numb as she was, she couldn't tell whether she was just cold, or if she'd lost too much blood. She should have waited in the mine shaft until the winds had stopped. Until the blizzard had stopped.

She barely stilled, looking down to see that her clothes were torn and bloodied, before she felt the cold settling into her limbs. It had never gone so deep before, and she jerked her legs back into motion, half afraid that if she stopped again, she would freeze in place.

It was too cold.

As she stumbled toward some scraggly pines that poked out of the snow, she looked down, hugging her arms to herself. The blood she could see appeared to be frozen or dried, nothing fresh. She picked at some of the holes in her shirt, but moving the frigid fabric just let the cold reach places that hadn't gone completely numb yet.

She hissed softly, rubbing her arms and forcing herself to keep moving.

Her frost ward wouldn't last much longer.

She wondered if Sera and the others were alright. Bull, Warden Blackwall, and Solas had gone with her to aim the trebuchet, to bury Haven and make sure that their attackers didn't get the victory they'd hoped for. Sera had tried to come with them, but Finley had insisted the elf help the little people. They would need her, and if things went sideways, there would be no one to stand up for them. Sera had looked like she hated Finley for her logic, but she'd gone with the others, evacuating what was left of the town.

The rest of them had headed to the trebuchet. It had been a bloody fight, but it had been against mages, and that was something Finley could handle well. Granted, she didn't like killing her fellow magic users—unless they were blood mages—but at least she could easily counter any stun a mage might try. And there had been no red lyrium to nullify her magic and make her useless.

She'd focused mostly on healing, truth be told. With the four of them against wave after wave, it was better to keep the others up and let them handle the bloodshed.

It felt a little callous to force their blades as she stood back, casting heals, but had been necessary, hadn't it? She'd needed to make sure the others could get away.

She cared.

Dammit, she cared.

What had happened to pretending so that she could extricate herself safely when the time came? What had happened to keeping her senses about her? Things always ended like this. She was always left alone to face whatever might come.

So how could she have gotten caught up in this mess of feelings again?

At least this time it had been her choice.

While a small part of her wished that Solas had insisted they stay, that she not be left so alone, he had been a good friend. He'd listened to her plan and done his part.

There were too many Venatori, and each wave broke them down a little more. They weren't going to last long enough to see the signal. If Finley was a group healer all her life, her task would have been easy.

But she wasn't.

She was used to healing herself and no one else. The longer the fight went, the harder it was for her to keep track of everyone, despite her best efforts.

That was how the damned red templars had gotten her. They'd made things so chaotic that she'd forgotten to keep track of her own surroundings as she'd struggled to keep her companions alive, some small part of her assuming that they would do the same for her. Which they hadn't.

Finley had felt trapped. She'd felt like all her experiences were useless in this situation, when it had occurred to her that she was fighting mages, not templars.

Templars knew her tricks. They knew the way apostates shifted odds to their favor, the way she and her kind could hide and what signs to look for.

Mages didn't. They weren't hunters.

She'd told Solas to take the others and go. She would make an illusory spell, much like her leaf birds. She'd put enough magic in it to heal a few injuries before it dispersed. It would fortify them on dispersal, encouraging them to keep going.

They would retreat, and the Venatori would follow them, thinking everyone trying to escape. They wouldn't expect to find Finley waiting behind, because they would see her fleeing with the others.

The most important part of the plan was that her illusion couldn't take damage. The further from her it was, the weaker it would be, and so much as a jostle would undo it. Solas had promised to make sure it lasted as long as it could, and Finley had started the retreat, telling them that she knew a spell that would let her fire the trebuchet from a distance.

She'd gone a few yards with them before letting her illusion take over—a bundle of pine needles and dead branches mostly—and slipping out of sight.

She'd wound her way back to the trebuchet alone, careful to watch for any more Venatori.

Careful to watch for the signal.

And then the damned dragon had found her. She'd had wards up, detection wards in particular. And the damn thing had still sniffed her out.

Dragons were not to be trifled with.

Silly that she could have forgotten that.

At least, with no one around to see her use her magic, she'd had a bit more liberty to really fight back.

Finley staggered a little, nearly toppling over in the snow. She shouldn't have fought back so hard. It hadn't done any good, and now she could barely move.

A rueful smile sent cracks across her chapped lips as she considered how easily a templar would be able to catch her, if one stumbled across her now. Though…threats of a Circle life didn't seem so bad, in comparison.

To have a roof over her head, walls to keep out the cold…

It sounded almost like a dream.

~"~

Finley sat in a big armchair, pillows all around her. There was one she liked to hug more than all the others. It was the one that Sister Genevieve had given her the first day she'd been brought in. It didn't have any of the special stitches on it like most of the others, but it fit perfectly in her little arms, and she liked the way it squished against her chest, soft and big.

Beside her sat the best man in the world, the tall and broad Ser Caudry. He was writing his stories down for her, and she was leaning over the arm of the chair watching the way his hand moved and those scrawling letters just magically seemed to be. The way he simply made stories up as he went was some sort of magic, she was sure. Not like what her parents had done.

His was a gentler, older, more eternal magic.

After all, his stories would be on those pages forever. He wouldn't need new ink constantly, nor would he need more blood.

Finley liked that he never needed blood for the things he did.

He was telling her the story as he wrote it. This hero had scars on his arms, just like Finley did. Old scars that hadn't been his fault.

Because it wasn't a person's fault when someone else hurt them. Ser Caudry had told her that.

He told her all kinds of things. It was okay to be sad, to be scared. It was okay to dream. She could be anything she wanted in the world. She didn't have to let her past dictate her future. She could be like any one of the heroes in the stories he told her.

She liked his stories, even if they weren't true.

Finley had heard them talk about her when they thought she was sleeping. They said the same things about her that her parents had. She was broken. Too scared, too skittish. They couldn't send her to the orphanage. The way she could get so paranoid and jumpy aside, her eyes would scare the other children.

Ser Caudry never had stories about people with scary eyes.

But he wanted her to think that the world was big and open and there to welcome her, and she liked to pretend with him.

And who knew? If she pretended long enough, maybe it would become real?

It had worked with her freedom and watching the song birds, hadn't it?

~"~

It was too fucking cold.

She'd had to cancel her frost ward. Her magic had never been so close to being expended, and a small part of her was terrified to see what happened to mages who had no mana left. It was different from when the red lyrium had bound her magic. Rather than an emptiness, there was just exhaustion. She would have thought she'd prefer the latter, but it seemed to whisper that she would fall, that she was too weak.

The red lyrium's binding had taken one of her senses, but this threatened to steal them all.

It made the snow dimmer, the crunch of her boots softer. Her feeling was almost completely gone in her limbs from the frigid temperatures anyway, but she was sure some of the loss could be attributed to her dwindling mana pool.

This lack of magic made everything so much less.

Was this how those without magic saw the world? It was so…dull.

Truly, magic was a gift. An easily abused gift, but a gift.

She flexed her fingers slowly, the chill well through her gloves. Trying to keep herself moving, she reached up to run her fingers through her hair. There was too much ice and snow and snarls in it, though. It was heavy.

If only she had a knife, she could cut it off. Maybe she'd move faster.

Her regeneration spell ticked, bringing a fresh wave of feeling and almost instant numbness through her. It was her last spell in place. Low as her mana was, if she let it go, she would die.

Her breath escaped her in shallow, small puffs that burned her face as she walked into them. At least it still burned. When it stopped completely, then she'd be in trouble.

She would get through this, though. She'd found an old campfire earlier. How much earlier, she couldn't say. It could have been five minutes before. It could have been five days. Time meant nothing with the heavy clouds hanging overhead. Had it even been a full day since the avalanche?

She would have to remember to tell Commander Rutherford he was a bastard for that idea.

Bury the town. What could go wrong?

At least they'd gotten out. She hoped that they were safe, and warm, wherever they were.

She would be alright, too. She just had to keep moving. No matter how cold, how tired she got, she'd be fine in the end. She'd get out of this.

She always did.

Something would turn up, even if it wasn't a miracle.

~"~

"Well, well, those are some striking eyes, aren't they?"

Finley sat up slowly beside a campfire. The air was chilly, and she found herself looking around for the Chantry that had been her home for the last three years, ever since the templars had found her parents and saved her from them.

The woods loomed up all around her and that dimly flickering fire.

Even as her gaze snapped toward the speaker, half terrified that it would be what was left of her mother, that demon still moving her body, she saw a stranger.

A woman with dark hair, just beginning to gray around her temples, sat across from her, a young girl not much older than Finley sitting beside her with a spiteful look on her face, arms crossed, pout well underway.

The girl's eyes were pure gold.

Finley wondered if she'd had a demon for a parent, too.

The woman tilted her head. "Well then, girl. I believe a deal is in order. I have saved you from your hunter and shared my campfire. What reparations do you think should be due?"

Finley stared at her blankly. Then she remembered her book. The one Ser Caudry had penned for her. After he'd been hurt and everything had happened, she'd taken that book in her arms and held it to her, hoping that if she pretended hard enough that things might be alright. Things might go back to how they'd been.

The way things had been before her magic had come in.

As she scanned the area, most frantic, the woman crept around the fire to inspect her more closely. "Have you no tongue or mind for words?"

Finley watched her a moment, scared by what she could feel curling around inside her. There was magic. Old. Old, old, old.

"I had a book," she whispered.

The woman let out a low laugh, appraising Finley with a cocked head. "You will find all things fleeting in life, especially ownership."

"I have to get it back."

The woman watched her for a moment, her expression unreadable. "I'll tell you what. I'm feeling rather benevolent. I'll get your book back for you," the woman offered, "but first, I want to know how it is that you're so close to the Fade. It's drawn to you in a way I haven't seen in…ages. It's almost like you have a piece of the Fade plucked up and pressed into you, impossible as it would be these days. Though I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. I am in the business of the impossible, after all."

Finley stared up at the stranger, scared and empty.

She wanted Ser Caudry and Sister Genevieve and the others from her home. She wanted them to tell her it would be alright. That she could be anything, anyone.

They wouldn't come, though.

And even if they did…

"You will get my book?" Finley finally whispered. Her voice scratched against her throat, unwilling to come when called.

When the woman nodded, she realized that the stranger had gold eyes, too. Perhaps her eyes weren't as scary as Ser Caudry had always implied.

"They called me Fade-touched."

"My dear girl, I'm going to need a bit more than that if you want me to go back to where angry templars are hunting just for a bunch of paper."

Taking in a slow breath, Finley finally shook her head. "I don't think I know what you're asking. I've always been like this."

"That," the woman was smiling, "is a better story than I'd thought I'd get. Do start from the beginning. Or as close to it as you remember. And take your time. It's been a while since I heard a good story."

~"~

There was an outcrop of rock ahead, dark shapes looming in the distance. If she could get to that, she could use it to block the winds which had steadily begun to pick up again. She could wait out the cold. Wait for daylight or the clouds to go away or…something

At least the cold was letting up. The winds weren't even bothering her anymore.

The world teetered a little, and she slowed her pace, blinking as she found it harder and harder to concentrate. The rocks had gotten blurry as her vision slipped out of focus. She narrowed her eyes, trying to stay on task. Even as her world grew clearer again, she stilled.

They were gone.

Straightening up, she struggled to swallow, turning her stiff neck slowly side to side. There was no way she'd walked past them. She couldn't move that fast anymore.

Had they not been there? Had it been something else?

What could she have mistaken for a rock…?

The wind wrapped around her again, though she couldn't even shiver. It was almost warm.

Her regeneration spell ticked, not that it did much in her favor.

I have sat quiet long enough. You need help.

She thought she could hear birds singing.

And that voice.

Looking up, a clear blue sky spread out overhead, interrupted with boughs heavy with swaying leaves, letting the sunlight dance and play across her face.

Song birds twittered and flitted in the branches overhead. She reached out her hand, and one flapped down, landing on her finger, chirping away. It was different from the ones she remembered in both the memories from her childhood and her time in the Wilds.

It was considerably more persistent than the others.

She felt like it was telling her to move, but she couldn't imagine why she'd want to.

It was so…pleasant.

Her regeneration spell ticked. It would be expended soon.

That worthless… Listen to me, little lamb. Take my help.

Blood mages had never been here, never frightened the animals or conjured their demons. This place was safe, kind.

Finley let herself sit down, lush grass swaying around her, dew staining her clothes. More birds were flitting overhead, their voices chattering loudly.

A bit too loudly.

They hurt her head.

Another tic of the spell.

I know you don't like the idea, but it is impossible to find competent help without doing something oneself. I can fight back the cold for you. Just say yes.

Finley tried to tell the birds to quiet down, but she wasn't sure the words reached her lips.

It was such a sleepy day.

Slumping forward, she felt the grass prick her face in a dozen places, but she didn't mind. The little bird who had come down perched on her shoulder, squawking in her ear now. How did such a pretty little thing have such a terrible, deep voice?

No. Not terrible. Just, very odd for a bird.

Tic.

Listen to me! Let me help!

She opened her eyes—though she couldn't remember when she'd closed them—and saw a pair of amber eyes peering down at her, a mane of fur around a hazy face.

A lion?

She'd never seen one of those in her Wilds before. Perhaps he was what kept the more frightening things at bay.

Yes, she was certain that was it.

He was a protector of some kind, though she couldn't remember of what.

Regardless, he would keep things safe.

With one last tic, her spell dispersed, her magic too weak to keep it going any longer.

Stubborn child. You're lucky he's not as worthless as I thought. You both are.

She smiled faintly as her eyes closed again. With him on guard, it would be alright to sleep, for just a little while.

...-...

A/N: Thank you to everyone who reads, and to 0wallie0 and creepypasta-queen- on tumblr for beta reading for me!