This place reeked of death. We exited the cell with the key Lilia found, I refused to touch it, even with my gloves on.

"Is that red lyrium?" Lilia suddenly stopped. I looked over to where she was pointing; large formations of red lyrium were jutting out of the walls, an ethereal red aura poured off of it in waves.

"Apparently so," I muttered, grabbing Dorian's arm and pulling him away, "Don't even think about it."

The mage huffed and continued on down the hall. We found Bull singing, naturally.

"Twenty-two bottles of beer on the wall, tw-"

"Four!" I shouted.

"Twenty-four bottles of be- Fuck!"

"Yes!"

Dorian rolled his eyes at me. I just can't believe it actually worked. The Iron Bull was standing in a small cramped cell, barely even big enough to fit his horns in, although I would imagine they did not design these with Qunari in mind. He was staring at us in wide eyed shock.

"You're dead," he said bluntly.

I looked at him properly; the spark of humour that normally occupied his eye was replaced with defeat and a grim acceptance, and red. In fact, his entire body was giving off the same red aura the lyrium formations were. His normally purple-grey skin now had an extra tinge of red, giving him a disconcerting glow.

I pulled myself back into the conversation to hear Bull describe a freaking army of demons.

"You're kidding," I muttered, running my hands through my hair."No I am really now, they destroyed everything," Bull was almost growling the words out.

"Sarcasm, my dear," I replied dryly. Bull muttered something to himself in his own language.

"Bull," I said. "Your heads not making a lot of sense right now, can you show me?"

He stared at me.

"Just think about from where we disappeared, the rest will follow," I prompted and took off my gloves and moved towards him. He took my hands, looking at me grimly.

We had tried to run. Alexius' face was a mask of fury, and regret? Why is he angry? He won.

Felix stood in shock, with the rest of us, staring at the burn mark where they disappeared with the 'Vint.

We ran, they will find us, I know.

I was sitting opposite Varric at camp, what now?

The empress was assassinated, an explosion, the sky. The breach was everywhere now, the sky was beyond healing, even for Trevelyan.

So many demons, an army marched onto Haven, onto Val Royeaux. They had Leliana; we were going back to Redcliffe.

They caught us, Varric is here somewhere. Dead? Alive? Who knew?

Venatori guards came, the red lyrium infecting me from the inside out. I hear the song, tempting me. The only remote comfort and company in this place is its twisted song carrying me along. Will they not just kill me already?

I stumbled back, breaking contact with bull. Dorian steadied me.

"Lewis?" Lilia looked at me in concern.

"Celene was assassinated, the breach was torn open by the Elder One, a demon army took out everyone, and everything," I shuddered, trying to force the images from my mind. I turned away, "Let's just go find Varric."

He wasn't that far from Bull, I barely paid any attention to the conversation that followed. Varric and Bull fought with a surprising ferocity, figures, this is their last chance to fix things. And ours it seems.

Dorian was furious. Alexius could not have wanted this. He just wanted to find him and vaporise him. I am not too sure if he could but I was not willing to ask.

Fiona did not look so good. She had red lyrium growing out of her. A quick, if out drawn out, discussion with her revealed it had been over a year since we had left. That is all it took. One year for this whole world to go to crap. It may not be my native world but like hell am I going to let some madman destroy it.

"Your spymaster, she is here," Fiona forced out, wincing slightly. Her entire body was slumped against the wall in exhaustion, the lyrium growing out of her being the only thing that was keeping her upright. I looked over to Lilia, her face holding a similar expression her gaze continuously flicked back to Varric and Bull before her expression turned into one of fury and sadness before looking back to Fiona.

We heard Leliana's screams from 5 rooms away. A year's worth of torture had taken a very visible toll on the woman. Gone was the youthful glow of her cherub like face, replaced by a gaunt, hardened shell of her former self. She was far from defeated; anyone could see the anger boiling beneath the surface, barely contained. The only other emotion that I ever saw cross her face was a flicker of surprise at out entrance into the room. She used the moment's distraction to break the torturers neck with her legs, her face twisted into a satisfied grin.

We walked in silence, Leliana's general vibe and unwillingness to answer any questions effectively shutting us all up.

"Maker," Lilia breathed as she peeked around a door. It was the sky. I had already seen it in Bull's memories but actually seeing it? That is something else entirely.

Random structures and bits of rock had decided to say 'fuck you' to the idea of gravity and were currently floating through the air smugly. I looked away from the sky ducked out of the way of the rifts that the others had gone charging towards. I might be able to incinerate things but I still have no idea how I even did that before, I doubt that will be much use here.

"Let's go back to the main hall, I think I know how we'll open that door," Dorian mused. I dropped the rocks that I had been using to pelt the Venatori and made my way down the scaffolding, I misplaced a foot and screeched as slid the rest of the way down the ladder.

6 glowing rocks in the door later and Alexius launched straight into his sob story. Leliana had grabbed the man that was kneeling on the floor. He barely even looked human by this point, Leliana was effectively holding his entire weight, and he could barely even stand.

"Felix," Alexius gasped, a hand outstretched towards his son. I saw it now, the armour he was wearing had not even changed, still that same mustard yellow.

"Leliana, put him down, he is not what we are here for," Lilia said slowly.

"Please don't hurt my son, I will do anything you ask," the once proud magister, begged her.

"I want the world back," blood sprayed from Felix's neck as she drew the knife across. I gagged slightly at the gurgling noise that escaped the man's lungs.

"NO!" Alexius' cry was filled with grief. He slammed his staff down and sent us flying backwards. Crap.

"Stay behind me!" Dorian yelled, twirling his staff. I nodded and took out my little dagger Harritt had given me all that time ago. Lilia was flitting in and out of sight, her daggers everywhere. Varric was not too far from us, Bianca was apparently not pleased.

"Dorian!" I shouted in panic. He glanced behind and shot a fireball in a wraiths face. There was a rift, a freaking rift. I grabbed him and pulled him away from a shade demon that was lurching towards us.

Bull yelled and smashed his axe into it. The air filled with the familiar sound of crackling and popping as Lilia closed the rift. Alexius let out a cry of rage and rushed back into the fray. I was pushed back against the wall as Dorian had thrown me out of the way of a forming fire glyph. Alexius fired.

"Shit," I yelled, making my way to Dorian's side. His body was twitching uncontrollably, not surprising, that was a bolt of lightning that just smacked him in the chest. Alexius fade stepped to the other side of the room.

"Wake up, wake up," I chanted frantically. I lay my hand against his chest, his heart was going crazy.

I whirled around, Alexius. He raised his staff and readied another spell. I screamed in rage, "I won't die here!" I drew on the power around me, there was so much here, it was overwhelming. I gritted my teeth against the pressure building up and released it at Alexius. My magic was out of control, there was too much too fast and it always seemed to be fire. The result being that half of the hall was now on fire. I breathed heavily, glaring into the flames where Alexius had disappeared.

Dorian was rising shakily from behind me; he reached down and grabbed a blue cube amulet.

"Lewis?" I vaguely heard Lilia say from behind me. A hand came onto my shoulder and squeezed. "I think he's dead. You can let go now." How? "Lewis. Let go. He is dead. He can't hurt anyone any longer here. We need to go; we can stop this from ever happening."

I sucked in a deep breath and nodded. She dragged me away from the burning tapestries and towards the other end of the hall.

An ear splitting screech pierced through the air, I winced and covered my ears.

"The Elder One," Leliana breathed. "Cast your spell, you have as much time as I have arrows."

"I won't let you sacrifice yourself!" Lilia cried.

"Look at us, we are already dead," Leliana smiled humourlessly.

Dorian was casting his spell. Leliana recited what could only be a prayer. I blinked the tears from my eyes as Bull's carcass was tossed into the room, the doors bursting open. Lilia took a step forwards, "You move, and we all die!" Dorian grabbed her arm and shouted.

We were all interrupted by a shout from outside the doors, "CHRISTINA!" I froze, the blood draining from my face so fast my legs nearly gave out. Leliana screamed in pain as she died. The small rift Dorian's spell had brought forwards finally opened up and swallowed us, my last look of that nightmare was Leliana, her now lifeless eyes looking directly at us as we escaped.

"You'll have to do better than that," Dorian said lightly, his voice was surprisingly steady, the shock having delayed the fear in his mind. Lilia stepped up beside me, her small frame easily supporting mine as I continued to sway.

"You've won, there is no point in continuing this charade," he hung his head in defeat. "Felix."

"It's going to be alright father," he said gently.

"You'll die,"

"Everyone dies."

"Well I'm glad that's over with," Dorian chirped. Guards marched into the room in a perfect formation and stamped at a pillar for a second before turning around, staring straight ahead. "Or not," Dorian sighed. I did too. Those kinds of guards normally mean someone important, once again, I was so glad I was not in charge. Lilia groaned quietly as she saw who was coming in.

"King Alistair, Queen Anora," Fiona bowed clumsily.

I bowed myself and backed out of the room, muttering my excuses. I need a drink.

"Thought you would be here," Dorian said, letting himself into the room we shared. I had propped open a book, paper and quill in one hand and was attempting to make my way through the unfamiliar script.

"At least we don't have to write the report for that," I commented, I placed the quill and ink on the stand and buried my face in my hands.

"Was it that bad?" I looked at him, aware he was not asking about the reports.

"Yeah, Bull has a very vivid imagination," I said, staring at the scribbles on the page.

"It's late, you should try to sleep, we are heading back to Haven tomorrow after all," Dorian commented.

I laughed dryly, how can I sleep like this? I nodded though, he was right.

The room was silent as we had gotten ready for bed, the candle was blown out and we just lay there in the dark.

"Listen," Dorian said into the darkness. I did, the village was still quiet outside, the only sounds being the merchants packing up their wares and the tavern patrons downstairs. Then I listened to Dorian, he was thinking of a Tevene lullaby his nanny used to sing to him. She was an aging slave elf, he missed her still. I listened to her voice, still clear as the day he had last heard it, until I eventually drifted off to sleep.

Author's note

Well that was fun, my brain had a bit of a mental block at the beginning I'm afraid and chrome is informing me of a few spelling mistakes in here. These are mostly American/British differences though as chrome is set to American English.

Anyway! Who knows her real name? Any guesses? Hehehe, this is where it diverges from canon a lot, warning you now.

Thanks to sandradee27, and Gemini-Fantasy for reviewing. And we got over 30 followers! *Squeals*