Chapter Twenty-Three: Justice Ruins Everything

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age 2.

The moment they landed in the Fade, Anders' eyes turned blue and his face was filled with lyrium cracks.

"Oh," Emma realized, unenthused. "Justice."

"It is good to be back here in the Fade and not the weak and corrupt human world," Justice said, not sounding at all pleased to be back there. "Emma Hawke. You are a distraction and not nearly as devoted to the cause of mages as you could be but you show more potential than anyone else Anders has met. I suppose that if he must waste his time not helping mages then he could do worse."

"I'm not sure if I should be glad to hear this or deeply upset," Emma admitted.

Carver, sensing the danger of Emma becoming even more committed to the mage cause, hurried over to her. "Don't worry about him, he's just trying to kill your love. And he sounds like a demon."

Emma nodded thoughtfully. "He does, doesn't he? I really shouldn't listen to him at all."

Carver breathed a sigh of relief. "That is the best idea you've had in a long time."

They ventured forth into the dream realm and were soon greeted by a demon of sloth.

"That's two forgotten magic in one day, I can't say I like this pace," the demon complained idly.

"This is a sloth demon," Justice informed them importantly. "It makes men forget their purpose and their pride."

Carver rolled his eyes. "Yeah, we know."

"I say we kill it," Aveline suggested.

"In a minute," Emma promised her. "I thought you were all anti-pride, Justice."

"Well…yes," Justice conceded. "But still."

"I'm just saying that I'm getting a distinct vibe of hypocrisy," Emma told him.

"It's better than the powerful odor of mendacity, I suppose," Aveline murmured.

"Call me Topor," the demon entreated.

"I'd rather not," Emma told him. "I don't like to humanize my abominations of evil."

"I have a proposition that might interest you," the demon enticed.

"No! Do not listen to him!" Justice howled.

Emma automatically opened her mouth to deny the demon and then to attack but then she stopped, glanced at Justice, and shut it again. "Out of curiosity, we know what happens to Feynriel if he dies here but what happens to any of us?"

Carver actually smiled at that. "See, I knew you wouldn't think to ask and that's why I did. According to Marethari, we'll just wake up in the real world and be perfectly fine."

"Good to know," Emma told him, nodding in what might be considered thanks. "I'm listening demon. And even before I know you're bargain, I'll probably agree to it. I'm feeling in a demon-dealing mood today and there's nothing that any of you can do to stop me. Mwa ha ha."

"Emma…" Justice growled.

"All the powerful demons around are vying for that boy's soul," the demon explained. "And they'd use his power to wreak havoc on your mortal world. I, as a sloth demon, am far too lazy for anything like that or to even try to gain this power on my own. If you gain this power for me then I promise that I will just use it to secure my own position and not do anything else."

"Don't listen!" Justice ordered. "Sloth demons prey on your trust."

"Although I have to say that it seems pretty reasonable to trust a sloth demon to be lazy," Aveline remarked.

"What would I be getting out of it?" Emma inquired.

The sloth demon shrugged. "What would you want?"

"THIS IS A MONSTER! HE ASKS YOU TO SACRIFICE AN INNOCENT TO ITS OWN AMBITION!" Justice roared.

"Do not listen to this tiresome creature," the demon told them. "He's a hypocrite anyway since he did that exact same thing and now seeks to deny me of the pleasure of a human host."

"Your words are meaningless to me!" Justice shouted.

Carver sighed. "Of course they are. The fact that they're true has nothing to do with anything."

"If you try anything, I will stop you," Justice warned.

Emma grinned. "Try it."

Justice took out Anders' staff and started attacking her.

Aveline and Carver moved forward to help while the demon just stood there waiting.

"Stay back," Emma ordered. "I've got this."

With more glee than she probably should, she struck down her possessed boyfriend.

Emma then turned back to the demon. "Upon further consideration, I've decided not to make a deal with a demon after all because I'm not stupid nor am I crazy."

"That is up for debate," Aveline muttered.

"Then I will try to kill you though I don't have much hope for my chances," the sloth demon informed them.

"Good," Emma told him. "I was going to kill you no matter what and killing someone who won't fight back almost seems mean. I mean, I'd still do it but really."

Emma, Aveline, and Carver together soon made short work of the demon.

"Would you like to explain to me what exactly is going on?" Carver demanded.

"I would have thought it was obvious, Carver. I was about to make a deal with a demon and then I thought better of it," Emma replied.

Carver snorted. "Please. This is you. You may have your problems but being tempted to make a deal with a demon has never been one of them. Even that time you were dating that desire demon you didn't actually make any deals with her."

"I think that's what precipitated the break-up," Emma confided. "But…yeah, you're right. I was never actually going to make a deal with a demon and I don't want people thinking that I was even tempted. I have an image to maintain, you know. I'm going to have to think of another cover."

"If I give you another cover will you tell me what's really going on?" Carver asked her.

"I suppose," Emma agreed. "So long as you can keep it to yourself."

"You can tell people that you were never actually going to work with the demon but you were lulling it into a false sense of security so that you could have an easier time killing it," Carver offered.

Emma's eyes lit up. "Oh, I like it! Who would have thought that you'd be so good at coming up with a story on the spot, Carver?"

Carver smirked. "I was raised with two mage sisters and a mage father, remember?"

"So all of that was pretty much just because I wanted a justifiable excuse to kill Justice," Emma explained.

Carver's brow furrowed. "Emma…you know that Justice isn't actually dead, right? He's just back in the real world with Anders. Because if that could have killed him then I would have struck him down the minute we arrived. Demons disturb me."

Emma smiled at him. "You say the sweetest things sometime. So yeah, I totally knew that. That's why I asked, after all, because it wasn't worth attacking Justice if Anders would be the one to pay the price."

"So you goaded him with that phony deal since you knew that, as fanatical as he was, he wouldn't give you the benefit of the doubt like Anders or I would," Carver concluded. "I guess you really have a big problem with Justice, huh?"

"What gave it away?" Emma asked dryly.

"I know why I wouldn't want to date a man possessed – or a man at all, really – but what are your reasons?" Carver inquired. "I'm sure they're vastly different from mine."

Emma shrugged. "I don't know about that. I just am sick and tired of Justice trying to talk Anders into staying away from me. I lost three years of Anders-dating time because of him and the fact that Justice is around and this is Kirkwall I really don't know how long I'm going to have with Anders. I kind of resent so much wasted time."

"That…is almost a rational answer," Carver marveled. "But how do you think Anders is going to take it? For all he knows, you just killed him and Justice so you could let the demon possess him. And I'm sure Justice is feeding him that line as we speak."

To his surprise, Emma smiled at patted him on the shoulder. "Fortunately, I was just trying to trick the demon, remember?"

"Can you two hurry up?" Aveline demanded. "I'm getting bored and another demon could show up at any moment. Not to mention that poor Feynriel might not have much time left."

"I think your priorities might be slightly skewed, Aveline," Carver told her. "So nothing new, then."

They continued moving. Emma walked through a doorway and was immediately transformed into an older, male elf.

"What's going on?" Emma cried out in a voice that wasn't her own.

Aveline and Carver followed her in and were somehow not changed.

"Oh, I recognize him. He's Orsino, the First Enchanter here in Kirkwall," Aveline informed her.

Emma saw red. "What? This damn demon turned me into a Circle Mage? He is going to die even more than he was two minutes ago!"

"It might have been Feynriel," Carver tried to point out but Emma wasn't listening.

The scene before them was of a proud Marethari standing next to a beaming Feynriel in a forest with a bunch of translucent and thus clearly fake Dalish surrounding them. "My people, I present to you...our hope. His features may mark him as human but in his heart beats the blood of the Dales."

"This is so fake," Emma complained. "The Dalish would never really except a human. Even Merrill was calling him a half-breed earlier. But that doesn't matter. Demon, you have made me look like a Circle Mage and for that you're going to die."

Feynriel blinked a few times in quick succession. "Wait, what? A demon…Run away!" With that, he ran through a wall.

'Marethari' glared at Emma. "Why did you interf-"

She got no further before Emma started whacking the demon with her staff. There was a flash of light and suddenly the demon was a lot bigger and Emma was Emma again.

The three of them defeated the demon and then continued on.

"This would be a lot easier if Feynriel didn't run away again," Carver remarked.

The next room with a scene going on had what they could only assume was little Feynriel sitting at a desk "That's it, Feynriel. Hard on the down stroke, then lift. Good!"

"He wants to be a child again learning how to write?" Emma couldn't believe it. "I hated being a child."

"Well, maybe this is the father who abandoned him," Carver suggested, hoping that Emma wouldn't notice that she'd been turned into Arianni or she'd throw an even bigger fit than she did before.

"If I had known you were such a bright lad, I would have brought you into the business years ago," the demon said.

Emma snorted. "Please. 'Bright'? He must be at least ten and he's just learning how to write? My siblings and I were six when we learned. And why would you want an Orlesian in your life anyway?"

"He's Antivan," Aveline corrected her.

Emma shrugged. "Same difference?"

Feynriel stood up and ran off crying.

"Was it something I said?" Emma wondered as she changed back and the desire demon resumed its normal form as well.

"I am going to make you pay for that," the demon growled.

"Whatever," Emma said, yawning. "I'm just going to kill you, you know."

"Maybe," the demon allowed. "But first…What would your dear brother do for the chance to get out from your shadow, to gain the acknowledgement he that he has always been seeking and so richly deserves?"

"Carver, if you make a deal with a demon I'm going to have to kill you," Emma warned him. "Not to worry, though, you won't be dead-dead any more than Anders is."

Carver rolled his eyes. "Not to worry yourself, Emma. I'm not going to take her up on her offer."

"Are you so certain?" the demon asked silkily. "You've been with these people for three years in some cases and your entire life for others. Has anything really changed? Do you think anything ever will? These people are toxic to you and you know it and yet somehow you've never been able to turn your back on them. What if I could change all of that? What if I could make it better, give you everything you've ever wanted?"

Aveline was eyeing him suspiciously and her hands kept twitching towards her sword.

Carver just shook his head. "No one's that good and I'm not going to be the one to screw something up that even Emma can get right."

The demon drew back, stunned. "That usually works…"

"Wow, Carver," Emma said, pleased. "Between this and that story we're going to tell Anders I might actually have to start willingly acknowledging our relationship before too long."

Carver laughed. "You're too kind."

"Wait, let me try again!" the demon said quickly. "What would your noble knight do to reclaim what she lost?"

"Noble? Aveline?" Carver asked, unable to believe it. "And she probably would kill Emma. She kind of hates her for killing her dying husband."

"I said that I was going to do it," Aveline said defensively.

Suddenly the demon became Aveline's dead husband. "You spent your whole life trying to be the chevalier your father wanted. The one thing you chose for yourself, and the darkspawn took him. And her."

"That might have been a more realistic dream if you had lived in Orlais," Emma remarked. "And if you were a man so you'd have an easier time raping people. Still, I suppose you could always steal and pillage the land. Not that I've really noticed you do any of this. You're actually a pretty terrible chevalier, Aveline, and that's a pretty high compliment."

"And what kind of Ferelden was your father to want a chevalier for a daughter?" Carver demanded. "Or a son if he gave you gender issues that way."

Aveline had eyes for no one but the demon. "Wesley?"

"Is that seriously his name? Because 'Wesley' is a stupid name," Emma declared.

"I've been waiting for you, my love," the demon said softly. "All your doubts started when we met this apostate."

"Only because you didn't realize the signs of Blight sickness like we did," Carver insisted.

"Your failure can be erased, that moment rewritten. I promise. Just kill her," the demon instructed.

"This is so stupid," Carver complained. "Demons can't time travel."

"And did you somehow not notice that two minutes ago 'Wesley' was a desire demon and…oh, she did not just transform back into demon form! Look around, Aveline!" Emma cried out.

"I don't even care," Aveline realized. "Maybe this will work and maybe it won't but either way I really want to kill you both."

Well, if that was what she wanted…

The Hawke siblings took out first Aveline and then the desire demon.

"Let's just go and find Feynriel already, I'm getting annoyed," Emma groused.

"Though I did enjoy killing Aveline. Not as much as I'm sure you enjoyed killing Justice but it was still very nice," Carver said, much more cheerfully.

"If this takes too much longer I might just make him Tranquil out of spite," Emma admitted.

"Then we should really hurry," Carver said, speeding up.

They went back the way they came and found Feynriel pacing around, looking to be just about at the end of his rope.

"I can't spend another moment in this place. The screaming! Everywhere, all I hear are the nightmares of people dying, fleeing, gnawing their own arms off to escape," Feynriel complained. "Are you two demons? Please tell me you aren't demons."

"Like any of the others were honest with you," Carver snarked.

"Please help me escape. Help me die," Feynriel begged.

Emma frowned. "Okay, I'm confused. Do you want to escape or to die?"

"I've decided that there is no other escape for me but death," Feynriel clarified.

"Well that's stupid and if I were going to kill you then I wouldn't have bothered coming here," Emma replied.

"I always hate it when people with nothing stopping them from killing themselves try to put their death on someone else's conscience," Carver said, glaring at him.

"It's not so easy to kill yourself, you know," Feynriel shot back.

"And it's supposed to be so easy to kill an innocent kid?" Carver demanded. "How selfish can you get? I have no sympathy."

"If you won't kill me and I won't kill myself then what other options do I have?" Feynriel asked desperately. "Maker, I wish I was a dwarf. Dwarves don't have to deal with any of this nonsense."

"Just, I don't know, wake up and get over yourself or something," Emma said, shrugging. "I think Marethari suggested going to Tevinter or something."

"Tevinter?" Feynriel asked, his eyes brightening. "Yes, I want to go there. I can do this!"

"How very convenient," Carver complained. "He might as well have done this by himself earlier and saved us a trip!"

Feynriel just walked off and into a glowing blue light and then Carver and Emma were back in the real world.

"What happened?" Arianni asked immediately.

"He's mastered his powers or whatever," Emma told him. "He should be fine. He wants to go to Tevinter."

"How…nice," Arianni said, wilting.

"I must confess that I did not think what you did was possible," Marethari admitted. "You are a rare human indeed."

Carver twitched. "Then why did you send us in there in the first place?"

"It all worked out for the best," Marethari replied, not really answering his question.

"If you're looking for an apology then you're not going to get it," Aveline said flatly as Emma and Carve climbed to their feet. "I still don't like you."

"Newsflash, everyone, Aveline tried to kill us in the Fade," Carver told them.

"How gauche," Varric remarked.

"Emma, may I speak to you privately?" Anders asked, looking as if he were about to burst.

Looking uncharacteristically apprehensive, Emma slowly nodded. "Of course."

She followed Anders outside.

Anders was practically shaking with anger but was clearly trying to control it. "So, you've given him sufficient time - has your demon granted everything he promised? I have driven myself mad asking what it was. World-shattering power? Riches enough to buy all of Kirkwall? What was worth turning on me? Killing me? Did you even know that I would wake alive?"

"Of course I knew! You heard me ask Carver, remember?" Emma asked rhetorically, hoping that Anders would not think to ask why she wanted to know if people would be fine if they died before she had agreed to help the demon. "And I killed Justice and not you."

"Explain," Anders said flatly, refusing to be distracted.

"I was just pretending to help the demon so that we would have an easier time killing it," Emma lied. "Just ask Aveline. You know she won't lie for me and I doubt Carver will either, at least when it's not about me being a mage. But definitely not Aveline."

The incredulous look on Anders' face broke her heart. "You mean…?"

"Feynriel isn't possessed," Emma said with great relish. "I killed the sloth demon and a few other demons, too."

"I don't know what to say," Anders confessed, still wide-eyed. "I assumed you lied to Arianni."

"And you would have let me? That's so romantic!" Emma gushed.

A shadow crossed Anders' face. "It's not easy to dismiss the memory of you striking me down."

"Striking Justice down," Emma corrected. It was an important distinction. "I'd never strike you down. Besides, it's only been about twenty minutes. Give it time."

"Even had I known your plan, I suppose Justice wouldn't listen. He's not capable of subtlety or subterfuge," Anders told her.

Emma smiled wryly. "You don't say?"

"I've stayed out of the Fade since we merged, Emma. I don't like the feeling of being a passenger in my own skin," Anders said quietly. "I suppose that Justice feels like that every day. Shackled to my body and every decision I make. No wonder it's become a prison for him."

But most of Anders' decisions were Justice's, weren't they? All but his decision to be with Emma.

"I'm sorry, Anders," Emma said gently. "I didn't realize…I won't make you come with me anymore into the Fade. Carver and I and whoever else – probably not Aveline – will be fine."

"But I want to come with you, to protect you," Anders said earnestly. "I can take a little discomfort."

"And so can I," Emma replied. "I'm pretty indestructible, you know."

Anders smiled at that. "The perks of being a mage."

Varric came out of the house then, holding a book. "Observe the spoils of our exploits!"

"What's that?" Emma asked curiously.

"It's a super-rare book that belonged to the previous dreamer their clan had," Varric told them. "We all agreed that it would make more sense to give it to Feynriel but, well, Marethari insisted. I'm thinking about selling it. You game?"

"What else are ancient heirlooms for?" Emma asked rhetorically, surprised that he even had to ask.

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