A/N: Thanks to zoestar1, I'm glad you love it! I wanted to address the guest review posted by Urazz that 1: I made an adjustment to separate the POV switches 2. While I love all (its hard to get reviews) feedback, I do feel the need to justify myself because I did give a disclaimer in the beginning I wasn't going to focus a ton on all the missions. Because I want this to be more character based, and I'm over writing really long fanfiction just for the sake of 'covering' every single thing that happens in the game. It's tedious, and its not what I want to do with this story.
More author notes at the end of the chapter.
"At last." Lucius jerked Maxwell through into the Fade, the power behind his hands was overbearing. Everything happened so fast, the warrior didn't even have time to breathe before he found himself in another realm. Fear was Maxwell's best friend at this point when he observed his surroundings.
Maker…
Maxwell's thoughts echoed from his mind out into the chamber, the word repeated several times. Maxwell couldn't move his feet! Before him were four columns and in the center were several burning bodies encased in fear. He struggled to move, his feet felt like someone had poured cement over them, but there was nothing covering them.
"You have failed me, son. You will never be the child I wanted. If only you could be more like Evelyn." A vision of their father appeared in front of him, Max was forced to listen to the mocking. Bann Trevelyan never actually said those words so directly, but his lack of interest in Maxwell's endeavors had always made that clear.
"Everything I've done has been for you! You…" Max's face grew hot, but had to stop himself, this was not his father. "Get out of my head!"
"Ha! Finally got some guts to stand up to me. I am getting to know you better now…" The vision faded away, but still Max could not move. Evelyn appeared right behind him then, her daggers dangerously close to his throat.
"Dear brother, what have you gotten yourself into this time? Tsk, tsk." Evelyn's visage was cruel, her voice dead with a coldness that he knew was not truly hers.
"Who are you?" Max asked bewildered, starting to lose his grip on the situation.
"We want to know you better." Cassandra appeared out of thin air next to Evelyn, the pair smiled wickedly at his helplessness. Their voices dripped with disdain, their tone took on a demonic note that sent the hairs on Max's neck to stand up cold. Cassandra ran a finger along his jawline teasingly before returning next to Evelyn.
"You are not Cassandra. And you are NOT my sister!" He let his anger overtake him, he was furious at the impersonations and mockery.
He found the strength finally to move when he surged forward and pushed the women away from him. They disappeared in a puff of smoke, but their taunting laughter lingered in the hall as it echoed away from him.
"Finally…" Max whispered to himself, glad he could finally move on and find a way out of the prison. Behind him was blocked by some sort of red lyrium, so the only way was forward. He passed through the columns and found Cullen and Josephine standing idly by before Leliana appeared.
"Is this shape useful? Will it let me know you? Everything tells me about you. So will this: watch." The impersonator walked behind Cullen and held a knife to his throat.
"I know what you are, demon. Am I supposed to yield to your tricks and scream in terror next?" Max did his best to keep his composure, he didn't want to give the demon any more power.
"Scream in terror next." The demon slit the throat, Max had to stifle a look of disgust watching black blood spurt out before it proceeded to imitate his words. This demon enjoyed changing forms; it was tricky, yes, but Max had no intention of paying mind to its attempts to rattle him.
"Being you will be so much more interesting than being the lord seeker." The demon had switched to Josephine before briefly disappearing. "Do you know what the Inquisition can become?" Her voice startled him from behind. "You'll see. When I'm done, the Elder One will kill you and your sister and ascend. Then I will be you."
"Elder One?" He had no idea what that name meant, but he was about to find out. No doubt the reason behind the Divine's murder.
"He is between things. Mortal once, but no longer." She laughed before coming back to his side. "Glory is coming. And the Elder One wants you to serve him like everyone else: by dying in the right way."
"Keep talking, then. This works both ways."
"I am not your toy! I am Envy, and I will know you!" This time it was Cullen's form. "Tell me, 'Herald', in your mind. Tell me what you think! Tell me what you feel!"
A dark copy of the herald stood before him, one doubled over in pain, and then next a knife appeared in Max's hand. He had to remind himself none of it was real, but it was hard. "Tell me what you see." And then, finally, the demon was gone.
But Max was still stuck, he had to get out. He wasn't going to let Envy take over his body and hurt anyone. At first Max wished Evelyn was with him, but he quickly struck that thought down. He wouldn't wish this prison on anyone he cared for.
Max painstakingly made his way through several rooms with familiar faces. The first was when Cassandra had interrogated the twins in the chantry dungeon, the second was of a future where Envy posed as the Herald.
"Our reach begins to match my ambition-but we will strive for more."
"I wouldn't say that!" Max couldn't help but scrunch his nose indignantly by the pompous showing.
"Are you bothered by imperfection?" Max mentally kicked himself for giving Envy anything as it laughed to his dismay.
Max continued through the dark realm, ignoring the best he could even though Envy's voice was all around him. He suppressed the urge to reply when it asked him why he chose the people's flag over the templar and chantry's, despite the choice surprising even himself.
At one point the former two were all he saw himself doing, but he lost the passion to follow those paths, they weren't what really made him happy. Although both careers helped people in some way, he wanted to help people on his own terms.
"Envy is hurting you." A soft, youthful voice called out to Max when he entered an empty room. It was invisible, like Envy's, but he sensed it was something else.
"Mirrors on mirrors on memories. A face it can feel but not fake. I want to help. You, not Envy."
"Who are you?" Max searched out, waiting for whoever it was to show themselves.
"I've been watching. I'm Cole. We're inside you. Or I am. You're always inside you." Max more or less understood what he was getting at. Usually when an invisible boy shows himself standing upside down on the ceiling, one would freak out, but Max was stuck in some weird Fade prison ruled by a demon, so no questions were asked.
"This 'Envy' is starting to get really creepy. It wants to be me!"
"Yes. It twisted the commanders, forced their fury, their fight. They're red inside." Cole moved to sit right side up. "Anyway, you're frozen. Envy is trying to take your face, I heard it and reached out, and then in, and then I was here."
"Well, you haven't tried to mess with my head the way it has, so how do I get out?"
"It's your head. I hoped you'd know how to stop it." Max laughed, just when he thought he had help, he really didn't have anything.
"Well, I don't."
"All of this is Envy. If you keep going, Envy stretches. It takes strength to make more. Being many, too many, and Envy breaks down, you break out." It would appear that Cole really did know, why he didn't say that to begin with was beyond Max.
They were going to tire Envy into submission and break back into reality.
X
"Aww shit!" Hawke exclaimed when he happened to land conveniently in a cell somewhere in the castle's dungeon. Hawke groaned from the impact, he was definitely going to be bruised all over the next few days.
"What the hell is going on here…" He looked through the cell doors and saw how everything was in disarray, and there was red lyrium! Thankfully there was none in the cell he was stuck in, but it appeared to be in all the others. Where was Evelyn? And the others? Whatever that portal was they were drawn into, he should have been with them.
"Who's there?" A scared familiar voice called out next to him. It sounded distorted, pained.
"Is that you, Warden Blackwall? It's me, Hawke."
"You must be playing some cruel joke…" Blackwall's voice sighed, confusing the mage.
"Uh, no. Garrett Hawke here, here to woo the ladies. Although I am having a bit of a bad hair day." Garrett mentally patted himself on the back for the opportunity to use the line, considering his hair was drenched in sewer water.
"Maker's breath, it is you! Only Garrett Hawke could sound that vain. You're supposed to be dead!" Before he could explain to the bewildered mage what he was on about, Dorian and Evelyn finally showed up. Hawke breathed a sigh of relief.
"Hey, over here! Get me out of this stinking hole, will you, beautiful?" Hawke flashed his winning smile to the relieved woman.
"If I wasn't happy to see that grizzled face, I might savor seeing you in there a little longer." She crouched down to the cell and worked on picking the lock before going to Blackwall's who was still in shock.
In normal circumstances, they would have continued their flirting, but now was not the time. They learned they were thrown forward in time a whole year and everything had fallen apart. And worse yet, all three of them had 'perished' in this dark future they were in. Their only option was to get to Alexius and use his amulet to stop this Elder One's plan.
"Evelyn, are you alright?" Hawke looked at her concerned, she looked very tired.
"It's nothing, just a headache. Being pulled through that portal has me off my game." She rubbed at her eyebrow as the group travelled through the lower levels of the castle.
"It's probably because you're not a mage. Hawke and I feel fine." Dorian chimed in.
"Being stuck here, let's just use the term 'fine' very loosely!" Hawke gave a dry laugh before they heard another familiar voice in what was probably a torture chamber.
"Is that the Nightingale?" Evelyn asked, already drawing her bow as they approached the door.
"Only one way to find out." Hawke didn't bother waiting, he kicked down the door and their suspicion was correct as they witnessed Leliana strangling a Venatori guard with her legs since she was chained up.
What had they done to make her face look so...aged? She looked like an eighty year old woman that had been through hell. Hawke chose to avoid the bard's haunting, but still very much alive gaze and brought his focus back to their mission.
Everything about this place, this time was wrong for Hawke. This future was unnatural, made his skin crawl in ways he never thought were possible, and so it only served as a motivator to keep the group moving to the throne room. They had only managed to find Blackwall, Solas, and Leliana alive, a grim discovery that made Hawke miss his best friend. Probably all of his friends were dead…
"Hawke!" Evelyn's voice cut through Hawke's ruminations.
"Shit, sorry. This red lyrium is giving me the creeps." He shook off his worry, the only choice was to fight with everything they had to stop the Elder One.
"Stay by my side, I'll protect you." How the tables had turned that it was now her chance to tell him that. Evelyn shot a warm look his direction, maybe she sensed his stress, but Hawke was grateful. The pale green, almost grey tint to her eyes shined in the dim dungeon like a beacon.
"Protection from Evelyn Trevelyan, famed herald of the Inquisition? I can't turn that down." Hawke brought his guard back up, flashing her a confident smile. The Champion sure as hell wasn't going to let this future stand.
X
Max was almost out of the demon's prison, he was so close! Their idea seemed to be working, he turned up at a fog covered forest to Envy's chagrin. Max heard the same fighting from the templars in the real world, so he knew they weren't far off. His resolve and Cole's guidance had gotten him this far, he wasn't going to let Envy win this day!
"We're almost there, Cole!" Max's confidence was already back, he knew Envy's power was waning.
"Keep going up." Cole echoed in his mind as Max ran up stone steps back into Therinfal's sphere.
He easily cut through fake soldiers and demons, they disappeared almost as quickly as they appeared trying to hinder Max's path back to where Envy had originally trapped him.
"Blessed are they who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter." He recognized where he was now, so close. Envy let out a shriek in protest, Max had won. "Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just!" Max was now where he had started this whole mess.
"Unfair, unfair!" Envy's dark herald came up to him like a child having a fit. "That thing kept you whole, kept you from giving me your shape!" Despite its loss, it held out one last time, raising Maxwell up against the great hall doors. Max felt nothing, because he gave it nothing, so he wasn't nervous at this point.
"What could you have gained from being me?" He struggled in its grasp, fighting to go home.
"What could you gain? What...ugh!" Max almost wanted to laugh at the creature, it was pathetic. "We'll start again. More pain this time. The Elder One still comes." Envy conjured up a shadowed version of the being he spoke of.
"It's frightened of you." Cole spoke calmly, standing on the hand of a nearby statue, his size now minature.
"Get out of-" Max had had enough of this demon's charade. He shoved its hand down and landed a hard headbutt, and that was all he needed to escape. A white light changed everything, and instantly Max was back in his own body where he had left off in Therinfal Redoubt.
Envy's true form was there, it was monstrous. Its long, lithe body contorted under itself, screeching at the group before fleeing past a barrier of magic in the great hall.
"The lord seeker!" Ser Barris said astonished. Max wouldn't have believed what they saw either if he hadn't been its captive.
"No. An imposter. I'm sorry. An envy demon replaced the lord seeker." Max gave his condolences, though he was busy in his mind thinking that this was long from over.
"Envy! Then the lord seeker…" Cassandra's voice was a lament, her connection to the order was still very much prominent. Nevertheless, Max refused to believe the order was done for.
"Is caged or dead. Maker." Barris only took a moment before moving onto the more important matter. "It used the red lyrium to corrupt the order, didn't it? I knew that miserable stuff was risky! They often give us new kinds of lyrium. Our commanders...some used the red stuff first, to prove it was harmless." This statement made Max glad he never fully joined the order, he wouldn't have wanted to put that in his body.
"The demon took down the order from the top, smart move." Iron Bull grunted, not in the least bit worried of the debacle they faced.
"We will fix it!" Ser Barris resolved, "Templar! What is Envy!" He addressed the untouched templars in the room.
"A coward, brother!"
"It studies, makes less mistakes. But most of all, it hides."
"What would you have us do, Ser Barris?" Max was ready for whatever came next. The templar order didn't deserve this end, they were a noble group worth preserving. They may be weak now, but Maxwell Trevelyan would help ensure they survived this day. And then the Inquisition would have its power to seal the Breach.
X
Evelyn was angry, but not her typical sort of angry she usually felt. It was a quiet anger that seethed beneath the surface, slowly surfacing like boiling bubbles in a cauldron. The more the group learned of this abomination called a future, the more her anger multiplied until it came to head when they arrived at the throne room. Her headache didn't help her mood either.
"Alexius! Look at what you've done to the world! All for what?" Evelyn wanted to throttle the man, screw using her daggers. She'd use her fists to pummel his face in, but when she looked at his side, she saw a very frail Felix and suddenly felt pity. He was in even worse shape than Leliana.
"For my country, my son. But it means nothing now. I knew you would come back for me. My final failure."
"Was it worth it? Everything you did, to yourself?" Dorian asked his former mentor.
"It doesn't matter, the Elder One comes." His voice was devoid of emotion, save sadness.
"I will undo this, Alexius. Just give us the amulet, we can still fix this!" Evelyn pleaded, but it didn't help when Leliana's impatience took matters into her own hands. She grabbed the weakened Felix, drawing her knife to his throat with no remorse.
"I want the world back." All of her pain and anger went into her action, and Evelyn felt it.
She felt guilt for letting Alexius get the best of them in the first place, he should have never been allowed to use that amulet. If Evelyn had only been quicker, drawn her bow, she could have prevented him opening that damn portal. She swallowed down the guilt, she had to act to make things right.
"Aww, shit." Hawke muttered, already drawing his staff out once Leliana took her vengeance.
"Barrier, please!" Evelyn cried out for help, knowing the magister's magic would first seek her and Blackwall out, the least protected of the group. Alexius's fury had already knocked Leliana back and out of the fight when she took his son's life, the only thing he still cared about.
Evelyn took the safe route and took cover behind a pillar, while Dorian conjured a wall of flame to keep the demons at bay.
"Demons on top of a pissed off magister, this day just couldn't get any better…" Hawke huffed through trying to multitask between Alexius and the rift that appeared in the center of the room.
Evelyn was worried they would become overrun until Leliana regained consciousness, allowing Evelyn to launch herself forward daggers blazing. Demon's blood dripped down them, splattering over Evelyn's clothes as she moved swiftly around her targets.
When she stepped on the glowing yellow spot on the floor, her focus blocked out everything and her pulse slowed. It felt like time was going slower as the demons attempted to react to her attacks. At the corner of her eye she saw Dorian and Hawke's slowed forms twirling their staves in a grace she envied. Despite the sense of slowed movement, Evelyn found herself blurring past the demons with a quick precision that they couldn't keep up with.
When she was done with the rift, Alexius lay dead by Dorian's hand. Alas, they weren't out of the woods yet.
The only thing Evelyn could say to Dorian was, "This Alexius was far too gone to save, but the Alexius from our time can still be reasoned with." She was still angry at the magister, but could tell his fall from grace deeply bothered her new ally.
"I suppose that's true." Dorian picked up the necklace from the floor. "This is the same amulet he used before. I think it's the same one we made in Minrathous. It's a relief. Give me an hour to work out the spell he used and I should be able to re-open the rift." That didn't sit well with Leliana.
"An hour? That's impossible! You must go now!"
"Well, we would like to leave as quickly as possible…" Hawke interrupted sarcastically, rolling his eyes.
She ignored him before a rumble rocked through the castle. "The Elder One."
"Something tells me we won't survive this encounter if that amulet doesn't work." Evelyn furrowed her brow, then felt her heart become heavy when Blackwall and Solas volunteered to lay down their own lives to hold the enemy off.
"We're already dead, the tainted lyrium in our blood saw to that." Solas grimly said, his face was pained but left no regret behind.
"Leliana, you're the last line of defense. Give them what you've got." Blackwall nodded to Solas before turning to leave.
"But…" Evelyn felt like a helpless child then, she didn't want to watch people die for her. Neither did Hawke. She had a feeling he had it happen too much in the past for comfort when she looked at his expression.
"The only way we live is if this day never comes." Leliana concluded, and their plan was set forth.
Evelyn watched the spectacle that was Leliana, chanting her favorite Andrastian verses when the enemy broke through the door. She was tempted to draw her bow and aid her, but Hawke's firm hand cautioned her to stand back, lest Dorian's spell would fail.
"It's working!" Hawke cried out, motioning Evelyn towards the portal. The last few moments Evelyn watched Leliana fight with everything she had, and something struck her.
Every action her brother and herself took affected these people, and that was not something she had been prepared for. Not three months past she had been readying her own long anticipated trip around Thedas. She saved everything she had, secretly stashing it away from her mother's prying eyes. Evelyn knew her parents wouldn't approve; they were always trying to groom her to spend the rest of her life in Ostwick running their estate when it was time for the Bann to retire.
She suffered through mother's attempts to bring young noble suitors around, the dinners were dreadfully boring, but she managed. Suffice to say, the idea of escaping from it all is what got her through the ugly frilly dresses, Evelyn endured.
Evelyn Trevelyan still hadn't let go of that idea of freedom and adventure she sought out, but she was stuck in this role beside her brother she didn't really want. And that troubled her as she witnessed what her role as Herald of Andraste truly meant.
As the trio entered the ready portal, Evie felt a sadness she had never felt, for she knew she was alone in these feelings. Trapped by a duty she never asked for.
A/N: So this chapter focuses (or at least I tried to convey this) the Trevelyan's motivations and hint at how they are going to assimilate into their future role with the Inquisition. Max is kind of finding his courage facing off with Envy, he wasn't going to let it win. He's very much the wannabe noble hero that has a moral compass he follows. Finding his own identity is a major theme with him I'm working on.
Meanwhile, in Evie town, she's practically the opposite. I tried to convey that the idea of her action/inaction has an adverse effect on the world actually bothers her because she isn't the hero type. She had things she wanted to do in her life, and getting the anchor has effectively disrupted her plans (just when she thought she was escaping her overbearing parents, don't worry I'm having them make a future appearance so there's a point).
I am thinking about making this into a little series and breaking up the story. Maybe Skyhold will be the second part for my Trevelyan's story, I haven't made up my mind yet.
Anyways, thanks for reading! If you love it/hate it, tell me! ;) P.S. I am always looking for a beta.