Alistair never knew who dealt the final blow to their gargantuan foe. His own sword bit deep into the beast's belly from below even as Hawke launched a savage flurry of attacks into the center of its hideous collection of eyes. Perhaps each strike would have been insufficient on their own to end the monstrosity of the Nightmare, but combined, their blows against the swaying, staggering hulk of their enemy ultimately proved to be just enough.

Both of them still had to scramble out of the way when it fell, with Alistair needing a little extra help from Hawke given his position under the thing. Once they'd retreated to a safe distance, they leaned on each other, panting heavily, as they watched the monstrous demon topple onto its side and collapse into a pile of limbs, blood, goo, and general ick.

For a good long moment, they simply chased their breath and stared at the corpse, making sure it wouldn't move again. It had pulled the trick of playing dead twice already, nearly killing Hawke the first time. Finally, after enough time had passed for their breathing to return to normal, Hawke said, "I think… I think it's really dead this time."

"Maker, I hope so." Alistair worked his tongue around in his mouth in a desperate search for moisture, then finally gave up."Feel like collapsing?"

"I thought you'd never ask," Hawke groaned. "Spiders. Always the Maker-damned spiders…"

Knees buckling, they slowly slid down in a tangle of limbs and weapons until finally they separated with a loud clang as they hit the ground. Time seemed to float in the distance, unimportant, as Alistair tried to ignore the many signals his body sent to his brain about everything that was wrong with it. The pain from his wounds blurred into a large, single ache, but at least nothing seemed to be missing-except possibly a lot of blood. After a few deep breaths, he gave a loud roar and raised the sword tightly clenched in his fist up high.

"What was that for?" Hawke asked with a startled glance.

Alistair grinned. "I don't know. Just… felt good, I suppose."

"Oh? Let me try." Hawke raised both of his daggers, though one of them had broken in half during his final volley, and let loose a booming shout that ended up turning into a full-bodied laugh. "We're alive! I never thought we'd survive that beast."

"Wardens aren't supposed to survive killing the Archdemon," Alistair said with a chuckle.

"Well, that wasn't an Archdemon, and I'm no Warden," Hawke looked at his broken dagger with distaste. "That's going to be expensive to fix. There's only one smith in the world I trust with these things."

"And you will see him again." Alistair let his arm fall back to the ground with a clatter. "Maker, we're alive."

Hawke grunted as he pushed himself into a sitting position. "I appreciate the sentiment, Warden, but I'm going to go ahead and ruin the mood here by asking What now? We don't have the Inquisitor and his handy dandy little rift maker anymore."

As the high of survival slowly waned, Alistair frowned. "Oh. I hadn't thought of that."

"I didn't think you had," Hawke said. "And our prospects aren't very hopeful."

Alistair groaned and stared upwards without really seeing anything for a moment. "You're no fun," he complained.

"I'm a realist. Being a politician does that to you," Hawke noted wryly.

Hearing a series of grunts, Alistair turned his head to watch as Hawke slowly pushed himself to his feet. When he saw that blood still seeped from a large rent in the side of Hawke's armor, he frowned. "We should do something about that cut."

"Just a flesh wound," Hawke said with a dismissive shrug. "Anyway, we've got more important concerns right now." Looking at his weapons with another grimace, he shoved them into their sheaths without bothering to clean them and walked over to Alistair. With a quick motion, he reached down and hauled Alistair to his feet. "Let's go. The Fade's not getting any smaller."

"Does the Fade even have a size?" As a wave of dizziness overwhelmed him for a moment, Alistair quickly stowed his sword and shield and put his hands on his knees until the world stabilized. As he did so, he glanced at the carcass of their foe. "Maker," he breathed, gesturing to the demon. "Look."

One of Hawke's eyebrows rose as he surveyed the quickly decomposing demon, then suddenly frowned. "Come on. We don't have much time."

"Time for-"

"No questions!" Hawke barked, hooking his arm around Alistair's as he dragged him back towards the stairs.

Still confused, Alistair let himself be propelled forward. When the ground rumbled under his feet, though, he picked up the pace into a half-hopping, half limping trot. The rumble turned into a sharp grinding, and as they ran up the short incline leading away from where they'd fought the Nightmare, a sharp crack echoed beneath their feet.

"Run!" Hawke yelled, even as he accelerated.

Not wasting time or breath on a reply, Alistair pushed himself forward, uncaring of the effort or the pain of the motion. Even so, they barely made it onto higher ground before the entire section of the Fade upon which the Nightmare had perished broke away with a sound almost too loud to comprehend, tilting and turning as it fell away from their new vantage.

They both paused long enough to catch their breath once more, Hawke's hand falling on Alistair's shoulder as he panted, "Well, that was exciting. I guess the Nightmare is truly dead."

"Dead enough for its realm to change," Alistair guessed. "Lucky for us."

Hawke gave a sardonic chuckle. "I suppose that means we're in the normal Fade now. Whatever that means."

Alistair glanced around them. "It does look different," he conceded. "Less terrifying. More creepy, though.."

"I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to fully appreciate its nature," Hawke said dourly. For a moment, he turned and looked at the receding platform they'd come from, face unreadable. Finally he shook his head. "Well. Standing around isn't going to solve anything. Here." He tugged a couple of potions from his belt with a clink and offered one to Alistair. "Let's drink a draught for luck."

Alistair grabbed the bottle and popped the cork out with a practiced flick of his thumbnail, then held it up for the toast. "To luck."

"To luck," Hawke said, tapping his bottle gently against Alistair's before raising it to his lips. Once it was empty, he heaved it up into the sky. As it kept moving without falling back down, he tilted his head. "I wonder how far it will go."

"In this place?" Alistair asked as he followed suit, then watched the bottles until they both disappeared from sight. The potion helped him feel better, even if their future was still uncertain, and an ember of hope flared to life deep within as he straightened and took a deep breath. "Maybe they'll reach the Black City and become poor little blighted bottles, haunting the dreams of mage apprentices for Ages to come."

With a snort, Hawke gave Alistair a curt signal and set into motion. "Let's get going."

Time - or what passed for time - slowed to a crawl as they wandered the Fade, but Alistair stubbornly refused to stop putting one foot in front of the other. Not surprisingly, their surroundings changed significantly following their former host's fall. The horrors and graveyards and eerie twisted statues of torment were gone, replaced by an empty stretch of formless land and a dim, dreary sky. Rocks of varying sizes floated above them, and if he squinted hard enough he could make out the dark remains of a great city. There was nothing around them, though. No hill or valley or rock or tree or ruin. There was simply... nothing. Eventually, he just stopped looking, concentrating only on moving forward.

After a while, the person he was following slowed and came to a halt. He followed suit, staring dumbly at the back in front of him and struggling to remember why the large wet stain was bad. When the one in front of him turned to stare at him, he blinked dully in return. "Alistair. That's your name," the man said.

"Alistair," he repeated, then nodded slowly. "Yes. Yes, I think so."

The man's eyes narrowed. "I have a name. Don't I?"

Alistair thought about it for a long time before a word suggested itself. "Eagle?"

"Almost." WIth a frown, the other man ground his teeth together as his face creased with concentration. "Hawke. Viscount Hawke. No." He shook his head. "No. Garrett Hawke. And Alistair... Alistair Theirin."

For a long moment, Alistair considered that. "Garrett Hawke. Alistair Theirin. Yes. That's who we are."

Hawke reached forward and set his hand on the back of Alistair's neck, meeting his gaze so intensely that some of the grey fog which had settled over Alistair's mind shifted and receded. "They're trying to take us away from ourselves," he said softly. "Focus on the names, Alistair Theirin. Don't forget them."

"Right. Don't forget us. Them. The names." Alistair nodded as an odd feeling fluttered in his stomach, a hint of nausea. "We're... we're in the Fade."

"Right. The Fade." Hawke took a deep breath. "And we need to get out." Taking a deep breath, he let his hand fall away. "Let's get moving, Alistair Theirin."

Alistair nodded, falling into step behind Hawke once more. He tried to wonder for a moment who the they were that Hawke had referred to, but the curiosity quickly dulled as he began to simply concentrate on moving one foot in front of another.

My boots are wet. Why are they wet? he wondered idly. He lifted a hand to stare at it, trying to make sense of the red splotches that covered the gauntlet, or the red drippy bits that dribbled along his arm and dropped off onto the featureless ground. With a mental shrug, he focused on the man ahead of him, matching his pace with every limp and stagger.

Not man, he reminded himself. Hawke. Garrett Hawke. And I'm... I'm... Alistair Theirin.

The words only helped for so long, though. Soon his existence became little more than setting one foot in front of the other, one plodding step at a time, with no thought of why he was even doing so. A vague notion entered his mind that he should want something, or be looking for something, but the only thing that came to his mind was an image of a woman with vibrant red hair and beautiful blue eyes. He struggled to figure out what it meant, or who she was, until finally even that faded away.

Where am I going?

Step after step, each slower and more laborious than the last, he struggled to answer that question. Whispers started to echo in his ears, and he absently reached up to scratch them, hoping to get rid of the insidious sounds. At first he couldn't understand the words, so he concentrated harder on them. Slowly they became more audible, but the more he listened, the slower he walked. After all what did it matter?

I'm... I'm me. His brow furrowed as he stumbled. What does that mean?

One foot in front of another. Yes. That's what he had to do, even though he'd forgotten why. When the not-him man in front of him groaned and slowly toppled to the ground, he kept moving until he tripped over the body and fell on his face. For a long time, he simply lay there, unmoving and uncaring, wholly indifferent to his fate.

Silence settled over him for a long time, and he let his eyes close. This is... this is fine. "This is fine," he repeated out loud, with a voice dry and dusty with disuse.

"No."

His eyes opened in surprise, and he turned his head just enough to find a keen pair of eyes staring at him. Blinking slowly, he croaked, "What?"

"I said no," the other repeated. "You're... you're Alistair Theirin."

And again, the words and the intensity shoved hard against the apathy which had wrapped around his mind, and Alistair gasped, "Hawke." He struggled for a moment, then added, "Garrett Hawke."

"Champion of... of..." Hawke's eyes closed as his brow furrowed.

A word whispered through Alistair's mind. "Kirkwall."

"Yes," Hawke breathed."Kirkwall." He pushed himself laboriously into a sitting position, then thumped Alistair on the arm. "Get up," he ordered.

"But-" Alistair began, defeated for no reason he could name.

"Get up," Hawke repeated, hitting Alistair with a bit more strength.

Grumbling to himself, Alistair pushed himself up, first to his knees, and then to his feet. "What about you?" he asked Hawke.

"I'll need help," Hawke said curtly, holding up his hand. "And we need more than to just keep walking. We need a plan."

"A plan to... to what?" Alistair asked as he hauled Hawke to his feet.

Hawke's hand whipped around and slapped Alistair across the face, sending him sprawling on the ground. Angrily Alistair turned on him. "What was that for?"

"Andraste's flaming tits, Alistair," Hawke snarled. "You're giving up! You're letting them win! I won't have it, not from you. Not again."

The words sparked something deep within Alistair, and he rose to his feet much more quickly than even moments ago. "I will not give up!" he growled through gritted teeth, then charged Hawke and slammed his shoulder into the man's chest, knocking him down.

As Hawke lay there struggling for breath, Alistair straddled his chest, then struck a blow across his face. Rage burned deep within him now, and he couldn't seem to control his hand as it reversed course and struck Hawke again. "You know nothing of what I went through!" he roared, emphasizing his words with repeated blows. "No one does! Not you, not Amell, not Morrigan! Not even Lel-Leliana..." The fact that he remembered her name gave him pause, and the thought of those steady blue eyes made the rage dim a bit. He shook his head, trying to keep the anger at bay as he stared down at the bloodied, battered face beneath him. "H-Hawke?"

"Do you see them yet?" Hawke growled, though his words were a bit slurred now due to his cut lips and swollen jaw.

Alistair blinked, then slowly raised his eyes. Within the mist around them, shapes had formed: misshapen, twisted figures that stared at the two men with a palpable greed. One of them, a hulking, red thing made of living fire, raised its hands and roared, and Alistair felt an echoing surge of rage that made him look down at Hawke with a sneer of anger.

This time when his fist flew towards Hawke, however, the man's hand caught his wrist. "Fight, Alistair. Fight against it."

Alistair struggled against Hawke's grip for a moment, then looked up at the red thing again. Demon. That was a demon. With the realization came an awareness, knowledge borne from his time training as a Templar, and he forced himself to pause and take a deep breath. The fury still roiled in the pit of his stomach, but with every passing moment the emotion felt more and more foreign, as if it were being imposed on him. "They're demons," he whispered. "Rage, sloth, and..."

"Despair," Hawke grated. "Sloth and despair found us first. Tried to make us give up. It's why I hit you. Rage is weaker than they are. Easier to break you free from its grasp."

Looking down at Hawke, Alistair nodded slowly as his arm finally relaxed. "Good plan. Crazy, though."

Hawke snorted. "They don't call me the Champion because I frolic in fields of flowers and have a sound retirement plan," he told the other man. "Now that I have your attention... do something about it."

"Do what?" Alistair asked, puzzled.

"You were a Templar. You figure it out," Hawke quipped, even as the demons around them started to converge on them.

"Oh. Right." Alistair felt a bit sheepish, then frowned as the rage demon again raised its arm and pulled on the tenuous connection between them, trying to capture Alistair once more. "Not this time, demon," he snarled.

He used the remnant of the demon-fueled rage to buttress his smite, giving it enough force to stagger all of the demons for a moment. As they reeled from the unexpected attack, Alistair rose to his feet and drew sword and shield, then charged into their midst. Hawke vanished as he struggled upright, only to appear soon after behind a despair demon as his blades sunk into its back.

One by one their foes fell, though each slash of his sword cost Alistair in terms of pain and energy, until finally all of them lay still on the ground around the two men. Alistair and Hawke stood back to back, each using the other for support as they struggled to remain upright.

"I can't do that again," Alistair admitted in a strained voice. His arms felt like lead, and he knew he had nothing left to give, not to a fight, and not to resist a demon.

"Neither can I, not right away," Hawke admitted. "Maybe we should… rest a bit."

"Good idea," Alistair said with a groan as he collapsed into a sitting position.

After a few moments of mutual gasping for breath, Hawke looked over his shoulder towards Alistair. "Not that I want to appear ungrateful or anything," he said, "but why in the Void did you stay here? I just needed to make sure the Inquisitor escaped and slammed the rift shut behind him. You weren't needed for that."

Alistair chuckled breathily. "You're welcome."

Rolling his eyes, Hawke said, "I'm serious, Alistair. You had a lot more to go back to than I did. I saw the way you were cozying up to Leliana at Skyhold. That, and you'd finally be the hero you've always wanted to be."

The last words dripped with a bitterness that made Alistair's eyebrows rise as he stared at Hawke. "I didn't realize you hated heroes so much."

"I despise the entire concept of them," Hawke said with a sneer. "There aren't heroes, there are just people who get forced into positions where they have to choose between what's popular and what's necessary. Sometimes they're even the same thing, and then the bards write a song about them and their name lives on forever, even if they were an utter, gutless bastard who liked to burn down women and rape houses."

Alistair blinked at the man's vehemence, then blinked again as the order of the words as they were actually spoken settled in his mind. "Did you reverse-?"

"Never mind," Hawke said, flicking his hand dismissively. "The point is that staying here to be a hero isn't worth it, so I hope that isn't why you stayed."

"And it wasn't," Alistair said. "Believe me, traveling with Amell and then hearing him called a hero once the Blight was over pretty much took any shine off the word for me. I didn't do it because I wanted to be remembered as a hero, or to be one. I did it because it was the right thing to do."

"How so?" Hawke challenged him. "I was already taking care of the problem."

"And what if it wasn't enough?" Alistair shot back. "No one can save the world alone, Hawke, not even the Champion of Kirkwall."

Hawke grunted. "I've been trying to convince people of that for years," he noted in a sardonic tone. "You're the first one to believe that I can't, I think. Be that as it may, being bait for a monster isn't anything new. That, I knew I could do. I would have preferred you to go with the Inquisitor."

"And what if that thing got out after it squished you beneath its… its… paw? Claw? Talon?" Alistair shook his head. "Whatever a mountain-sized spider calls its foot. Besides, even if the Inquisitor closed the rift so tightly it couldn't pry it back open, what was to stop it from controlling the Grey Wardens again? There was no rift in Adamant when all of my fellow Wardens suddenly started to hear the Calling in their bones." Sighing heavily, he added in a softer voice, "Anyway, I couldn't leave without seeing it through. Not again."

"If you'd seen it through in the Blight, you would have been a puppet King instead of a pathetic Warden," Hawke pointed out acidly. "Not much of an improvement."

"What does it matter to you, anyway?" Pushing himself to face Hawke more directly, he met Hawke's gaze with hard eyes. "Why does any of this matter to you? Sometimes I forget why you even offered to help the Inquisition at all."

Hawke glared at him. "Because Corypheus is my responsibility."

"Oh, riiiight. Because you failed to kill him properly the last time, now I remember," Alistair drawled, then winced as Hawke flinched and looked away. "I-Look, I didn't mean that, not really."

"Yes, you did," Hawke growled, then suddenly sagged where he sat. "And you're right. I failed. As I have so many times before."

Alistair coughed and rubbed his neck a bit self-consciously, not really knowing what to say to that. Finally, he asked in a quiet voice, "Why do you hate me? When Loghain brought me to that first meeting with you, you looked like you'd swallowed a lemon. You didn't even want my help, despite the fact that I was willing and able. Why?"

Nostrils flaring, Hawke stared into the depths of the Fade for a moment. "That isn't a subject up for discussion."

The answer quite suddenly made Alistair angry, though he couldn't pinpoint why. He just knew that he was tired, frustrated, and in pain, and Hawke still wouldn't give him an inch. "Why?" he demanded, not letting Hawke wiggle out of it this time. "Why have you always treated me like I'm not even worth the air to curse my name? Did I offend you somehow by singing off-key in the Hanged Man? Did you have to step too far out of your way one morning to get around me as I lay sleeping in the gutters of Lowtown? Why, Hawke?"

Hawke didn't answer him immediately, didn't even turn to look at him for a long, silent moment. When he did, a rage burned in his face that made Alistair instinctively pull back from the man. "After you left Kirkwall, I met a knife ear, a former Crow called Zevran Arainai," Hawke said in a voice that was too controlled, too steady. "Perhaps you've heard of him?"

Alistair swallowed harshly as a faint echo of the elf's cruel laughter rang in his mind. Over ten years had passed since he'd been in the elf's clutches, but some memories, it seemed, didn't fade. "More than heard of him," he said quietly.

"He told everyone he was in Kirkwall for some random business of sorts. I worked with some Crows to find him. They thought they were playing me, the local errand boy, into helping them find an escaped Crow. It turns out we were all the fools, dancing to Zevran's tune so that he could meet me without raising any suspicions about why." Hawke took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "He offered a special Antivan massage. I accepted and sent everyone away so as to enjoy it in private. Nothing wrong with a bit of fun, after all."

"Hawke," Alistair breathed as he squeezed his eyes shut. He remembered those special massages, all right. He still bore scars from them, in fact. He'd also never told anyone the truth about them, not even Leliana. Some things were better kept deep, deep inside.

"Towards the end, when I struggled for breath and simply wanted the pain to end, he patted my head and called me almost as good as Alistair. Later, that's what stuck with me the most. And when we met again?" He gave Alistair a glance. "That's all I could remember about you. His voice. His touch. His heated dagger."

"The brand below your navel?" Alistair asked in a hushed whisper.

Hawke's jaw rippled as he nodded. "Even Anders couldn't heal it entirely. Once I let him touch me again."

"Arainai wasn't always like that," Alistair whispered. "I actually liked him at first, after we got over the whole you tried to kill me part of our first meeting. But then he started to share Amell's tent, and... I don't know." Alistair bowed his head. "Amell warped anything he touched, or killed it if he couldn't." Like Leliana. The thought still made him boil inside. "He only didn't kill me because he thought he could use a bastard Prince to rule Ferelden. Then I balked when he wouldn't kill Loghain-or found my spine, I'm still not sure which-and left to become a bastard drunkard. Not that it helped Ferelden, of course. He still got a Queen." Shaking his head, Alistair looked off into the distance. "I never told anyone about what Zevran did to me, not in detail. I would always just... wave it away."

"Yes, well. It's not something you bring up in polite conversation, is it?" Hawke noted bitterly. "Anders scolded me for not paying attention to his warning, of course, but he didn't press the matter beyond that. He'd been a healer in Darktown long enough to recognize it for what it was. I got in over my damned head, but I moved on from it. Or so I thought."

"Until we had to work together," Alistair said with a sigh. "Fair enough. Too bad you didn't tell me until now."

"I couldn't tell you before now," Hawke told him seriously. "Amell sealed my tongue on the matter when he walked my dreams. But now that I'm here in the Fade outside of my dreams, that seal seems to have been broken."

Alistair turned his head sharply. "Amell?" he asked, a bit more harshly than he'd originally intended.

Hawke closed his eyes for a moment. "It's a long story," he said at last.

"Well, so is mine," Alistair reminded him. After a long moment of staring at his hands, Alistair tugged off his gauntlets and dropped them to the ground. Holding up one hand, he pointed to a long scar on the back of it. "First one," he said. "Not even a week after Duncan died. It was only him, me, and Morrigan. I don't even remember why he needed my blood, or why he left the scar except to claim me. But it was the first."

Hawke stared at it for a long moment, then raked his gaze over the rest of Alistair, or at least the parts that showed. There were other scars, of course. Most would simply assume that a Grey Warden with a sword and shield had earned those scars in battle. Most would, anyway. When Hawke's eyes rose to meet Alistair's, though, he knew that Hawke did not.

Pulling off his thick leather gloves, Hawke traced a similar scar on the back of his right hand. "I woke up with this one day not long after he first appeared in my dreams," he said quietly. "Before I was sharing a bed with Anders but after I moved into my estate. At the time, I didn't know why it was there and figured I'd gotten into a brawl at the Hanged Man the night before. Now I know better."

Alistair nodded. "That sounds familiar, too," he said grimly. "Poor Isabela never could look me in the eye after a night I don't even remember, though she helped me willingly enough when I approached her later."

Hawke winced. "So that explains her reaction to the bard singing about Amell in the taverns. She would just… shut down, or leave, even if Fenris were there." Eyes narrowing, Hawke straightened and met Alistair's eyes with unflinching strength. "We can't stop. Not now. Besides, we won't get another chance to talk about this."

Slowly, haltingly, the two men shared more of their past with each other, their common experience with Arainai and Amell giving them a foundation they both had thought deeply buried. It wasn't easy to unhook those barbs, sunk into their souls as they were, and try to release the poison that was Jorath Amell, but since time didn't seem to matter in the Fade, and there was no way of knowing if they would even survive, they never really found a reason to stop. Dry throats were eased by the last of the potions tucked into the belts around their waist as they each revealed what both had formerly resolved to leave as secrets they would take to their graves. The longer they spoke, the more they came to understand the nature of the burden which had been placed on them, a combination of guilt and shame which they never could have faced alone.

"I have to admit," Alistair said after they'd both finally run out of stories and had sat alone in their own thoughts for a few minutes, "that if I ever had to pick a confidant, you would be the last man on that list. Or… almost the last. Third from the bottom."

"Above Arainai and Amell?" Hawke asked with dark humor.

Alistair nodded. "So at least you're not the worst person I've ever met."

"Thank you," Hawke said dryly, then pushed himself to his feet. A sizable pool of dried blood darkened the ground where he'd sat, but he ignored it as he swayed a bit before bending over to retrieve his daggers. "But sitting here talking won't get us out of the Fade. Let's go."

"Hawke," Alistair said, even as he rose to his feet.

"Yes?"

For a moment Alistair hesitated, but only a moment. He truly wanted to know. "Would you want to leave if I wasn't here?"

Puffing some air into his cheeks, Hawke gave a little shrug. "I have a lot of sins to pay for. Staying here would at least be sufficient punishment."

"You could try to fix some of them if we get out," Alistair pointed out.

"Or risk getting controlled by Amell again," Hawke sneered. "Not a pleasant thought, that."

Alistair looked down, unable to really answer that honestly. "The Inquisitor would help you, I'm sure of it."

"If anyone could, yes. But he's a little busy saving the world from Corypheus." Suddenly Hawke's expression hardened. "Corypheus. Now there's a reason to return. Sending that thing to his permanent rest… Yes." He nodded. "That's worth returning for."

"That's the spirit," Alistair said weakly.

WIth a snort, Hawke looked at Alistair. "Hoping I'd value redemption over revenge, were you?"

"The thought did cross my mind," Alistair admitted.

"Who knows?" Hawke twirled one of his daggers, then sheathed both of them with a flourish. "Maybe Andraste will let me find both."

"Or maybe you just need a friend to slap you when you start to get all revenge-y," Alistair suggested.

Hawke hesitated, then looked at Alistair. "You're not volunteering, I hope. Either to slap me or to be my friend. Bad things happen to my friends, and worse to my family. The Nightmare was right about that, at least. I am a failure."

Reaching out to rest his hand on Hawke's shoulder, Alistair said, "Never let a demon do your thinking for you. I'm an ex-Templar, after all. I can say that with some authority."

"I think I already knew that, but thanks for the advice," Hawke said sardonically.

"Fine. I guess you don't need me, then," Alistair sighed as he tugged his hand away.

"I didn't say that." When Alistair gave him a sharp glance, however, Hawke had already turned away and was surveying the Fade around him. "We need a plan, though, like I said before."

"Right." Alistair frowned in concentration. "How do we do the impossible? Seems simple enough."

"Don't give up," Hawke said, an edge to his voice. "We've come too far for that."

Alistair nodded, then gave Hawke a stern look. "Promise me that whatever we come up with won't make me hit you again. You're starting to look like chopped meat."

"So that's what I feel like," Hawke said sardonically. "Focus, Alistair. Remember what Solas said? How the Fade shapes itself around what we want? That's probably why we couldn't make any progress. The demons took our resolve and will away."

"Effective tactic, you have to admit," Alistair pointed out.

"Not good enough, though," Hawke said with more than a hint of smugness. "But I think that if we both concentrate on nothing except finding a way out, the Fade will provide."

Alistair reached up to rub his neck, then winced and looked at the new blood he found there. "And hope we don't run into any more demons," he said with a sigh.

"That goes without saying." Eyes narrowing, Hawke looked at the featureless plain around them, then shrugged and started forward again. "Any direction will do, I suppose. As long as we remain focused, we'll find our way out."

With a sigh, Alistair nodded and fell in beside him. "All right. Focus, then."

Their progress was slow, hampered by their fatigue and the injuries they'd sustained in their most recent fights, thought their potions had helped a bit. It quickly became apparent to Alistair that his greatest enemy would be himself in a race against his remaining strength. Between his pain and the situation and his yearning for the real world, he had to keep tugging his thoughts back to the task at hand.

A way out. A way back. Not what he yearned to see once they had escaped, but an actual path out of the Fade back to where they came from. Eventually his head started to ache along with the rest of him, and inevitably his thoughts began to wander back to what he most wanted to see on the other side.

Ahead of them the mists roiled, then pulled back, and Hawke's arm shot out to stop Alistair in his tracks before reaching for his daggers. When he spoke, his tone was icy. "I said a way out, Warden," he snapped as he started forward. "Not your next fuck."

Alistair, meanwhile, could only stare at the beautiful red-haired, blue-eyed woman standing in their path, clad in such a manner that he had to blink and clear his throat ferociously. "Leliana?" he asked, then shook his head. Of course it isn't Leliana, he scolded himself. It had to be a desire demon, acting on his confused, inchoate longing rather than what he should have been concentrating on.

As Hawke moved towards the demon, however, she tilted her head. "Do you think your own thoughts had no effect, Champion?" she asked in that lilting Orlesian accent. "Perhaps my appearance at the moment is due to his thoughts, but my purpose is something else entirely."

Hawke's eyes narrowed as he came to a halt. "Explain yourself, demon."

"What if I could show you a way out?" she asked with a smile.

"I don't believe you," he said bluntly.

"Ah, but did your thoughts ever waver?" she pointed out. "Follow me, Champion, and I promise to show you a way out. And if I do not, you can kill me where I stand." Her hands wrapped around herself, cupping her breasts as she leaned forward. "Or you could have some fun with me, and then kill me, hmm?"

Hawke gave a tired sigh. "Take that up with the Warden," he said acidly. "But fine. We'll play it your way for now. You have two hundred steps to lead us to the way out, and then my daggers drive home."

"That will be more than enough, Champion," the demon assured him, With a little twirl, she turned and led them off in a different direction from where they'd been heading, sending them a come hither look over her shoulder as she did so.

Alistair hurried to reach Hawke, then kept pace with him as they moved forward once more. "Sorry," he muttered.

Hawke grunted. "I'll forgive you if this works. Only if this works, mind. In the meantime," he added, tilting his head, "at least the view is nice."

Alistair had to admit that his eyes had locked onto something rather curvaceous in front of them. "She is beautiful."

"She?" Hawke chuckled. "Oh. Right. Leliana. I suppose he still looks like her to you, hmm?"

With a blink, Alistair squinted at the swaying hips in front of them. "Um… Yes?"

"Good. Then I can pretend to enjoy his ass all on my own." For all his salacious comments, however, the skin around Hawke's eyes remained tight, and his gaze darted around them. "One hundred," he muttered to himself.

"Right," Alistair said with a nod, trying to pretend he'd been counting. "And we're only letting her-him-it have up until two hundred?"

"That was the deal," Hawke said, then added sharply, "And for Maker's sake, keep thinking about a way out and not what you want to do to whatever it is you're seeing."

Snapping to attention, Alistair forced his thoughts from boudoirs and white petals and flushed skin to where they should have stayed. It was difficult, but knowing that Hawke clearly saw someone different helped to remind him that it was just a demon trying to entice him. Rather successfully, he had to admit, but at least he was able to keep that firmly in mind.

Just as Hawke murmured, "Two hundred," under his breath and tightened his grip on his daggers, something loomed out of the mist ahead.

"Hawke," Alistair whispered urgently, but the man simply nodded and moved towards the demon as she turned to face them with a smile of satisfaction on her face.

"And here you are: your way out," she purred.

Alistair frowned as he looked at the object to which they had been brought. At first glance it seemed to be a mirror which showed only a mist of blue and grey light which swirled in the depths of the glass. It was over twice as tall as they were, and a bit wider than Alistair could reach with his arms straight out to his sides. All in all, simply looking at it made the hackles on Alistair's neck rise, and he frowned. "What is it?"

"That looks… uncomfortably familiar," Hawke noted with a grimace, then nodded and looked at the demon. "You're right. This could be a way out."

She smiled seductively and moved in close to him. "I kept my promise," she murmured. "Do I get a reward?"

A half-grin came to Hawke's lips. "Well. I suppose I could give you a little something." He grasped the back of the demon's head with one hand and hauled it into a searing kiss. The demon melted into him with a moan, seemingly fully enjoying the kiss - right up until Hawke sank the blade held in his other hand deep into her back.

With a screech, the demon pulled back, trying to reach over her shoulder to grab the dagger, but found it to be just out of her reach. As she writhed and twisted, Leliana's likeness faded away to reveal a sight with which Alistair was much more familiar: the horns and lavender skin of a desire demon.

"Put it out of its misery, would you?" Hawke said casually as he turned away.

Alistair nodded, his sword swinging even before Hawke finished speaking. The demon's head flew into the mist, and the decapitated body collapsed face down on the ground. It twitched a few times, then lay still.

"An ugly business," Alistair muttered as he prodded the body with his foot.

Kneeling next to the body, Hawke wrapped his hand around the hilt of his dagger. "It always is," he said softly. "And honestly, that's one reminder I could have done without." Alistair gave him a puzzled look, but Hawke ignored it as he yanked the dagger out before moving to stand in front of the mirror. The way he sheathed his dagger with a bit more force than warranted showed that something was wrong, but Alistair knew better than to ask.

"You said this looked familiar," Alistair reminded him. "What is it?

"I think it's an eluvian. They're some sort of magic portal to another place, or something like that. I knew someone in Kirkwall who tried to repair one once. I told her not to, but she kept at it anyway." Hawke rubbed his face for a moment, absently picking off a newly formed scab and dabbing away the blood that seeped through beneath. "Let's just say it didn't end well for anyone involved."

Alistair frowned as he looked at the eluvian. "Well. Whatever it is, it seems to be our only option. It has to lead somewhere better than here." He paused, then looked at Hawke. "Doesn't it?"

"I'd say we'd be fools not to find out." Hawke stepped forward and reached out to touch it. A frown came to his face as his fingers found only glass to touch. "Damn. I'm not sure how they work, exactly. I've only ever seen mages use them."

"Wouldn't that be just my luck," Alistair muttered as he stepped forward, but a quick jab at the eluvian only confirmed Hawke's finding. With a sigh of frustration, he banged his fist against the surface, causing a sharp ringing sound to echo around them.

"Careful!" Hawke told him. "This may be the only chance we get. There must be a trick to it or something. Keep prodding it, but don't hit it again."

"All right, all right." Alistair grumbled as he began to work his way along the surface of the eluvian.

Just as he reached the frame and was starting to wonder if maybe his sword might get better results, the mirror suddenly made another sharp ringing sound. Both men jumped back warily, and Alistair's eyes widened as a hand emerged from the blue and grey swirling mist. It was an unremarkable hand, clad in a scarred, worn leather glove. Once through, a single finger curled to beckon them closer before it turned to face palm up and opened.

Waiting.

"Well. If that's not an open invitation, then I've really abused the hospitality of the gentlemen at the Blooming Rose," Hawke noted thoughtfully.

Alistair couldn't help but laugh, albeit nervously, at the remark. "Though I notice you're not moving."

"Neither are you." Hawke pointed out, then sighed. "There's only one hand. We need to both take it at the same time. I'd rather that than have one of us get dragged through and the other left behind."

"And here I thought you didn't like me," Alistair said with a chuckle.

"At first? No, I didn't." Hawke turned to look at Alistair. "You were a drunken fool who wasted a good portion of his life lamenting that fact that he couldn't kill a man. It took you a while to convince me that wasn't still true. Besides, I know you don't like me." With a shrug, he grabbed Alistair's elbow and dragged him forward. "Regardless. My blade needs repair, and there's a certain redhead you're missing. And the longer we wait, the more chance there is that we won't get back at all."

Alistair shuddered. "Stay here for the rest of my life? No, thank you."

"See? Not such a hard choice after all." His hand slid down to take Alistair's, then raised both of them to hover above the waiting hand. "I'm not a religious man," he told Alistair quietly, "so I'd appreciate it if you could pray for both of us."

"I'll do that," Alistair quipped, though a sweat had broken out on his forehead. He'd had hope turn into despair before, after all. Still, it can't possibly be worse than the Fade, can it?

Hawke inhaled sharply and held his breath for a moment, then brought their hands down in a swift, sure motion.

The leather-bound fingers wrapped around their own firmly-almost a bit too firmly-and yanked them with surprising strength through the mirror. Unable to fight the sudden tug, both men stumbled forward and fell to their knees once they reached the other side.

When Alistair's hands hit the floor with a wooden thunk, he stared at it incredulously for a few long moments. After a bit, he poked it with one bare finger, only dimly realizing that the weight of his armor and weapons were gone, and his injuries were but a fading dream. Slowly he rose to his feet, looking around him with wide eyes at the homey comfort of the wood, brick, and smoke which all small town taverns seemed to possess.

"What'll it be?" a rough voice asked from his right, and Alistair turned in a daze to look at its source. A stout man with a weather-beaten face stood behind a worn counter of old but well-polished oak planks, absently running his cloth over it as he awaited an answer. His clothes spoke of no country, yet no one would mistake the simple homespun as anything noble or fancy, and he looked like the barkeep of many a town Alistair had passed through in his travels throughout Thedas, whether in Orlais, Ferelden, or Nevarra. The only notable aspect of him seemed to be a tattoo of a pair of curved lines swooping down the left side of his face, but Alistair couldn't quite recall what that meant.

"Ah... Fereldan whiskey?" Alistair finally managed.

"And I'll have an Ander stout," Hawke said with rather more certainty.

The man behind the counter nodded and turned to pour their drinks. "You can wait out there on the patio," he said, nodding towards a door leading outside. "Someone'll bring the drinks out."

Suddenly desperate to see the sky again, Alistair nodded. "Thank you, my good barkeep," he declared, then strode to the door, followed closely by Hawke who, he noticed, also seemed to lack armor and weapons. In the next breath, he wondered why Hawke would ever need them, safe as they were in this place.

Wherever this place was.

As they stepped outside, Alistair took a deep breath to catch the scent of the sea they saw in the near distance. Both men moved to lean against the railing, eyes shining in wonder at the beauty the vista offered. The sun was setting on the opposite side of the building, causing long shadows to fall over the land even as they watched. A flock of cormorants took advantage of the shift in light to dive for fish in the water, coming away with beaks full of thrashing bounty.

Hawke was the first to turn as footsteps approached from behind, smiling as he reached out for the mug of stout carried by a man in a more than familiar uniform. "My thanks, guardsman," he said as he took the drink.

"It's just Donnen these days," the man said with a chuckle as he offered the smaller glass of whiskey out to Alistair. "Kept the clothes because they're well-made and sturdy, but my time in the Kirkwall guard is over."

Donnen... Alistair paused with the glass halfway to his lips, brow wrinkling in confusion. I've seen that name before...

Hawke laughed as he turned and looked out over the lake again, mug held loosely in his hand. The light of the setting sun had dimmed enough that the sea in front of them now shone a deep sapphire. "It's never really gone, Donnen," he mused. "Kirkwall finds its way into your soul, and once it's there, you carry it always."

"Maybe so," Donnen conceded as he stepped in between Hawke and Alistair to lean on the railing with them. In the air above, seabirds soared through the last remnants of light to return to their nest, and above them the stars were just beginning to emerge from the indigo of twilight. "But the world could always use a Champion or a Warden wherever they happen to go."

Alistair looked sharply at Donnen, glass hovering at his lips. "How do you know-" he started to ask, but Hawke simply laughed and raised his mug.

"I'll drink to that," Hawke said, though he paused with the mug an inch from his lips to gaze up at the stars and the beautiful, full moon before he did so. "This really is a peaceful place, isn't it?"

"That it is," Donnen said with a contented sigh. "That it is."

"Pity." Without any other warning-or even a change in expression-Hawke backhanded his mug directly into Donnen's face. As the man went down, spitting stout and curses, Hawke grabbed him by the neck of his tunic and hauled him over the railing, putting steady pressure on the man's neck as he bent over him. "Now that I have your attention, tell me what's really going on, Donnen."

The man hocked out a mouth full of blood, then looked up at Hawke. As he did so, the left side of his face seemed to melt into burn scars, which marred the smirk on his suddenly pale face. "You should have finished your drink, cousin."

Hawke's eyes widened as he jerked away from the man, but that was all the time he had before a ring of red magic surrounded him, yanking him up to dangle in the air a few feet above the mage. With a yell, Alistair surged towards Amell's back as he prepared a smite, but something thin and tight suddenly wrapped around his neck, and a well-placed knee in his back drove him to his own knees. A silky voice tinged with the spice of Antiva whispered, "Hello, my little prince. I've missed you."

Suddenly the tavern was gone, the ocean was gone, everything was gone except for the four of them gathered in a featureless cavern with nothing but a tall mirror to one side which seemed an exact copy of the one through which he and Hawke had passed. His armor and weapons-never truly gone, it seemed-dragged Alistair down as he abruptly noticed them again, and he gasped when the agony of his wounds returned with a vengeance heightened by its brief surcease. The stout barkeep shrank down into a handsome blond elf with a now-familiar tattoo, and the guardsmen swelled into the familiar tall, thin form shrouded in a dark cloak.

As Jorath reached up to pull his hood into place, Alistair stared at the patches of bare scalp showing through the bright red hair on Amell's scalp. That's new. Pushing the curiosity aside, he heaved against the one holding him, hoping to catch Zevran by surprise, but earned only a hard cuff to one ear and a tightening of the cord around his throat.

While Alistair struggled to breathe until Zevran decided to relent, Amell circled Hawke as the man slowly floated down to the ground. A staff with a skull of red lyrium surmounting it glided through the air to Jorath's outstretched hand as he chuckled in that spine-curdling way Alistair remembered all too well from the years of the Blight. "Did you think you could escape me, cousin?" he drawled. "I'm hurt that you think so very little of my abilities. I will say, you didn't have to kill the little pet demon I sent to fetch you. He would have been perfectly happy to make you happy… for a while."

Hawke shuddered and closed his eyes. "Not… not with that face," he whispered.

As Jorath laughed mockingly in response, Alistair pulled his gaze away from the glowing red eyes, an old habit he'd sworn he'd left behind, and forced himself to look at Hawke. He wasn't sure what he'd been hoping to see, but the utter despair-emphasized as Hawke simply fell to his knees at Amell's feet when the red barrier was dismissed-hurt more than he cared to admit. "Fight, Hawke. Fight against him," he pleaded in a whisper, not even realizing he'd said it aloud until the choker tightened ever so slightly around his neck-a reminder of just who had control.

Amell sent his fellow Warden an amused glance, then dipped his fingers under Hawke's chin and lifted it up so that he could examine the man's bruised and battered face. "Hmm. Not so handsome anymore, are you? I can fix that. Just as I have fixed so many others." A cruel smile came to his lips as he stroked Hawke's cheek. "Don't worry, little bird. I'll perfect you."

When Jorath's hand lit with magic and Hawke screamed, Alistair once again tried to break free, only to be brought up short by the loop wound around his neck. "Ah, ah, ah," Zevran purred. "You're mine, and I will not let you escape again. I have so many plans for you."

Alistair's breathing turned ragged as each breath grew more difficult than the last. Desperately he tried to cling to the light he'd found since leaving Amell behind: the friendship he'd forged with Cullen, the peace he'd made with Loghain, and the purpose he'd found once more with the Wardens. His mind yearned towards the memory of silken red hair scented with Andraste's Grace, and the laughter captured in a pair of bright blue eyes.

Yet in the end, bereft of breath and hollow of hope, his strength failed, and the light slipped away with the last gasp of air from his lungs. In its place yawned an empty chasm of despair, and Alistair had no choice but to plunge headlong into the waiting darkness.

.~^~.

.~^~.

End of Act II - Revelation