The days went on and Diana was constantly cycling through different feelings. One moment she felt nothing; she was eerily calm, quiet, and there was a kind of disconnect between her thoughts and the reality of the fact that Cullen would be here in a few days. Panic kept rising within her thoughts and her mind flicked it back down with a simple no. No, this wasn't happening. It was fine. Nothing was changing.

The next moment she was tense, angry at herself, slamming doors and cabinets and dicing carrots with such vigor that Alec gingerly took the knife from her hand and shooed her outdoors.

And then she would be panicked again. Cullen was coming. She couldn't see Cullen. She needed to leave. But she couldn't leave, because Rosalie and Alec had been so good to her and she promised she would be their baby's godmother. She had to stay. Had to repay them for their goodness.

She tried to distract herself. Banished from the indoors by Alec, she found herself outside with her daggers and her throwing knives. She chucked them one by one into a tree, hitting nearly the same mark every time. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Diana pried them out of the bark with a satisfying crackling noise.

"Impressive."

She hadn't heard Alec approach her. The snow had all melted by now; there was no crunch to warn her of someone coming, only the soft squelch of mud occasionally. Her past self was clicking her tongue disapprovingly; how did Diana Trevelyan the Great Rogue manage to have someone sneak up on her without trying?

"Thanks," she mumbled to Alec.

"Where'd you learn that?"

"I was…" she wrenched the last one from the tree. "In the army."

It wasn't a lie. Not really. Her stomach knotted. So many lies she had to keep track of.

When she finally turned to look at Alec, the knot in her stomach tightened. His eyes, so large and brown, looked sad. When he finally spoke, he was quiet. "Must have been hard. A lot of folks don't come back. And some that do…don't."

She swallowed hard, tears pricking her eyes for some reason. She just wanted to be a simple person again. Diana Trevelyan, youngest child of Bann Trevelyan. A promising talent, but no more than that. No mark on her hand, no Corypheus. No decisions, no pain.

"Must have been hard," he repeated.

Her throat felt like it was swelling shut. She was the Inquisitor, she had to be strong and perfect. She had to mourn the loss of every soldier, every person who died for her, but she couldn't be distracted. Couldn't feel, had to be strong, had to be perfect, couldn't be hurt, had to be strong, had to be strong, had to be-

"It was hard," the words left her like a gasp, barely intelligible.

"S'okay," Alec said, voice low. "You did your best. You're strong. I could tell the moment I met you."

She let out a snorting, skeptical laugh. A tear fell from her eye onto her cheek and she quickly turned away.

"You did your best," he repeated. "You're strong. You're a good person."

Diana could feel her head nod involuntarily, but then she just gathered her daggers and went inside.

The rest of the day went quickly. Alec and Rosalie were both very busy preparing food or cleaning the inn or pulling out extra cots and mattresses for Rosalie's family, who would be arriving later that night.

Diana had briefly considered pretending to be sick in order to miss the homecoming feast (and therefore Cullen and therefore her Inquisitor reveal) but Rosalie had told her that they would be having three feasts on three consecutive nights. There was a slim chance that she could get away with being "sick" for three days in a row and an even slimmer chance that she wouldn't somehow run into Cullen some other way at the inn.

Alec eventually brought her up a tub and filled it with buckets of steamy water for Diana to bathe and as she did, she thought of Cullen. She hadn't known him very well. He was nice, she supposed. Firm. A commander through and through. The only time he had shown her any inkling of a weakness was when he shared with her the information about templars and lyrium and asked for her opinion. She had told him to stop taking it. That was… maybe the last non-Inquisition related conversation they had ever had.

Until now. Until tonight.

Diana sank lower into the tub, drawing her knees to her chest and letting the water rise to her throat. Maybe he wouldn't recognize her. Rosalie had given Diana a small hand mirror to make herself look "presentable" for tonight and she had hardly recognized herself when she had looked into it. During her time in the Inquisition she had kept her curly dark hair short and cut just below her chin. Now it brushed past her collarbones and was more nest-like than curl-like.

She half-heartedly used her mouth to blow bubbles in her tub water, which was rapidly cooling.

I can't stay in this tub forever, she decided unenthusiastically, groaning as she pulled herself up to a sitting position. Her hand reached out to grab some oil that Alec had brought with him when he delivered the water. It smelled like smoky sandalwood, faint but good. She used it to detangle her curls, which took so long that by the time she was done her water was nearly ice cold.

"Lena! Everyone's here already. We're in the dining room when you're done," Rosalie's words were accompanied by loud knocks on Diana's bedroom door. "We're going to start eating; Cullen's men won't stop complaining about how hungry they are."

Cullen. Cullen's men. Were they also former Inquisition men? Would they recognize her as well? Maybe they'd look at her with hatred. Or disappointment. Or, worse, pity. Or maybe, by the grace of the Maker, they would somehow not associate her with the Inquisitor at all and she would get to be Lena Ward all night long.

Diana dried with a towel and then found herself staring down at her own body. She used to be firm, toned. Her body had been sturdy, rippling with power every time she moved. Now, it felt like a stranger as she ran her hand over her body. Her muscles were still there, but were smaller, weaker. They seemed to be reluctantly clinging to her body in the hopes that someday she'd remember how to use them.

She was thinner now, too, her cheeks pointier and the dark circles under her eyes seemed to be a permanent feature of her face. Where before her body had been strong and thick, it was now the skinniest it had ever been before. She couldn't quite see her hip bones or her ribs, but she imagined if she kept going on like this, unchanging, they would make an appearance soon.

Diana frowned, grabbing her dress off of her bed before she had any more time to think about the consequences of her wandering path around Ferelden. The navy dress was new, made by Rosalie just for the feasts. The sleeves were long, like Diana liked, and it was simple but warm and fit well.

Her hand shook as she straightened the dress and then slid her feet into some soft slippers Rosalie had given her. These weren't new, but they fit well and went with her dress better than her rough old boots did. These also didn't have the laces that her boots did, which made getting dressed on her own much easier.

It was only once she was about to leave her room that she realized she had forgotten to put on her wooden arm and a string of curse words left her mouth as she pulled the dress off. Fastening the prosthesis to the remnants of her arm took longer than it usually did; her shaking hand kept fumbling and dropping the straps. Finally, she pulled the dress back on and straightened her hair, trying to smooth down the fuzzy flyaways.

Diana was thankful, in some way, that she felt nothing at this moment. No nervousness, no excitement, nothing. Her chest felt vast and empty and cold and as she walked down the stairs to the dining room she wasn't even sure she could feel the thud of her boots or the wooden handrail sliding in her palm.

Was she really here? Was she really-

"Lena! Finally. I was worried we'd run out of food before you were able to eat any," Rosalie said, standing from her seat at one end of the table. Her cheeks were flushed and she looked happier and more radiant than Diana had ever seen. "Come sit by me."

Her breath was shaky as she began the seemingly miles-long walk to the empty seat to the left of Rosalie. As she walked, her eyes raked over the people who were already seated. She recognized Alec at the other end of the table. He was speaking rapidly to a woman who had the same coiled black hair that he did; Diana had met her before and knew her as Sorcha, his sister.

Branson and his wife were there with their son, who was determined to shove some mashed carrots into his mouth but smeared them all over his cheeks on accident. Near the middle of the table was Mia, her cropped blonde hair and beautiful smile illuminating the room.

And to Rosalie's right, seated with his back to the door through which Diana had entered, was a familiar head of golden hair.

"This is my brother, Cullen," Rosalie said as Diana shakily sank into the chair next to the innkeeper. "Cullen, this is Lena."

Diana slowly looked up from her lap into the eyes of the man who now sat directly across from her. She felt like her chest might burst into a thousand embers. Embers like the fire of Corypheus, the singed breath of dragons, the fiery dissolution of her arm as it melted from her body with Solas' vice-like grip. The fires would destroy her peaceful slice of life in Holmfirth and she-

"Ah, nice to meet you, Lena," Cullen gave a small, polite smile and if he recognized her he did not show it. Maybe… maybe she had changed too much. Maybe her gaunt face and her long hair was too different. Maybe her long, wood-filled sleeve moved convincingly. "Rosalie has told me about you. She considers you one of her closest friends, if I'm not mistaken."

"I-I hope you're not mistaken," Diana managed, reaching for the water-filled cup that had been set before her. "I consider her one of mine, too."

Rosalie beamed, moving to fill Diana's plate with all kinds of meat and good vegetables. From there, the evening unfolded at a very relaxed pace. Her empty cup was filled with wine or mead or ale or whatever was nearby and the fear that had been beginning to grip her throat was finally letting go. Cullen's conversation was polite and friendly, but not anymore polite or friendly than he would have been if he had been speaking to anyone else.

He truly did not recognize her.

One by one the large dining room table was emptied as the guests and family members rose from their seats to retire to their rooms. Soon even Rosalie was yawning, trying to stifle it with her hand. "Excuse me," she murmured, standing. Alec stood with her, his hand moving to rub soothing circles on his wife's lower back. "I think we need to go to bed."

"I should, too," Diana said, standing. She thought she saw Cullen glance at her wooden hand poking out of the bottom of her sleeve, but when she turned to look at him he was adjusting his shirt with a little too much interest. "Goodnight."

Alec and Rosalie's room was on the lower floor of the inn, so they bid goodnight to Cullen and Diana at the bottom of the stairs. Evidently Cullen's room was also upstairs; he followed Diana as she walked up the creaky steps.

She felt calm as she touched the knob on her bedroom door; she had actually done it. She hadn't panicked or had to leave, she had hardly thought about everything she had been through with the Inquisition. She had fully been Lena for an entire night. The victory was small but triumphant.

It was also short-lived.

Cullen caught the wrist of her right arm as she reached for her doorknob. She gasped slightly, startled by the sudden movement in the dark stairwell that was lit only by a few wavering candles. "Why are you Lena and not Diana?" he asked, his voice low and quiet. She couldn't see his expression; a dark shadow hid his face from her.

She stammered. A thousand different excuses were in her mouth. Lie to him. Lie. Lie. Lie.

She couldn't. The truth fell from her mouth just as quickly as the tears came onto her cheeks. "I don't want to be," she said, her eyes focusing on a dark shadow near her feet. She could feel herself going numb again. "It's - it's too much. I can't."

He released her. Whether her answer satisfied him or not, she would never know for she opened the door to her room and retreated inside too quickly to see how sad he looked.