I fully confess to choosing Surana's name so that I could make that joke. Amell has the shortest name in the fic, but only because it fit her joke. Cookies to whoever figures it out!
o.O.o
The Unholy Fail
o.O.o
The first thing Alistair noticed was the cold.
He was inside a building now, nowhere near the soothing fire, with looming walls and tall windows. It sort of reminded him of the monastery, but this place radiated the deliberate air of a dungeon, not the kind of cage the templar quarters – Spartan, but livable – had been.
He remembered pictures of this kind of place, but thought he'd never see the inside after his conscription. There was a bookcase nearby, so he went to check if his hunch was right.
Why Is It Always Toads? An Idiot's Guide to Magic. Yep, he was right.
Alistair had actually been inside only once, for that one terrible Harrowing, but he remembered the distinct architecture of the Tower of Magi. Dark, cold stone, curves instead of angles, windows challenging that of a cathedral… funny how a place that was intended as (let us be honest) a prison for extraordinarily empowered people the Chantry abhorred was architecturally stunning. He supposed it had something to do with the fact that the mages didn't choose to be what they were; the templars were the ones who had willingly (for the most part) confined themselves to the spartan quarters reserved for them in the monasteries.
Or perhaps the interior decorator understood that mages liked to dress… vividly… and wanted to make it seem that such color choices were normal, rational and sane.
There was noise from the large central chamber, though; he seemed to be in one of the corridors; a section of the library, perhaps? In any case, where there were people, there had to be the exit, and maybe another of these potential Wardens he was supposed to meet.
The room was large, circular and mostly empty, aside from glowing, fiery lava-coated things that he had only seen on pictures – oh, look, demons, wonderful – then some templars who moved a little too stiffly to be in full possession of their senses and the solitary figure of a young woman facing them, her hands glowing with magic.
Which she used to blast the nearest demon's head off.
It was the elf from the portrait; what he had (very stupidly, in retrospect) mistaken for a high-necked dress were the robes of a mage. However, this oversight could be justified by the fact that Alistair had mostly encountered apprentice mages (blue robes) and Senior Enchanters (red robes). He honestly couldn't for the life of him remember what yellow robes meant, other than maybe victory in the Most Obvious Mage contest. Also, elves apparently wore a different variant.
Normally, mages tried to look regal and stiff-lipped, from what Alistair knew, or went for the full-out insane look. Thus it was downright peculiar to see one of them grin with truly vicious satisfaction as the now-directionless puppets charged at her in blind rage, weapons raised high.
Now, if Alistair were to ever do something like that in a training exercise, the instructor would have whacked him on the head with the flat of her sword. The first rule of successfully subduing (read: slaying) a mage was to negate their powers. Luckily, demon possession and then the loss of its (his? her?) instruction apparently negated all training and common sense.
It wasn't a surprise that the mage's hands began glowing brightly, but Alistair honestly couldn't remember seeing that much non-figurative fire at once. Not even when he had accidentally set the soup on fire at the abbey – it was a long story, not terribly relevant to the situation.
In any case, the elf literally tossed her spells as if she were hurling things at the templars, using a simple but effective strategy. She aimed at the knees, the opening in their helmets – if they were wearing one – and the joints of their armor. Aside from that, she tried an additional move after a few strikes and – Alistair winced a little at this – aimed directly below the belt and grinned rather nastily when it had some effect.
However, when she managed to literally blow one of the possessed templar´s head off, the mage finally cracked and let out a truly stage-worthy cackling laugh; the kind that old grandmothers probably used to scare children by tales of the Witch of the Wilds. In short, not a sound anyone in full possession of their sanity or natural social inhibitions would ever be caught dead using.
Then again, mages…
"Mwahahahahaha! Eat moar dakka, Gondor army rejects!"
The elf had a low-pitched, smoky voice, but now it was positively bubbling with glee. She wasn't even using a mage staff, for Maker´s sake – when one templar got too close despite having his sword arm nearly blown off, her hand instinctively curled into a fist and aimed for the unfortunate bastard´s eye. The physical force behind the blow might not have been much, but the lightning bolts cracking around her knuckles…
Ow.
Every time an armed templar collapsed, their armor made a clunking sound that seemed to very much satisfy the elf.
Finally, there were no more enemies left to fight, and the mage stilled her movements. There was just the hint of a disappointed pout on her face, even as her ears quivered just a little, as if she had heard something.
Of course, Alistair realized too late that what she was hearing was the quivering of a vase he managed to nudge in his desire to get away from the many, many corpses.
In a whirl of magic, the vase exploded before it could hit the ground. In a fit of good sense, Alistair quickly ducked back under the table and raised his hands.
"No no, wait, I'm on your side!"
The elf's manic expression actually hardened when she frowned, but at least it was an expression of sanity. "Hmm… you aren't wearing that stupid potty-shaped helmet… but you smell like a bucket-head." she pronounced sagely, her face still distrustful.
"But- hey wait; how can you smell that?" That was a badly worded question, but completely justified. Still, Alistair climbed out from under to table, thanking the Maker for his splintmail. Was that a mage thing? "Templars have a smell?"
"More like a stench." the elf admitted, and Alistair was most glad to see that her favored casting hand was now down. "Kind of like fake flower soap mixed with really bad cologne. My class has a theory that it's a cover-up for the lubricant we found in one of their rooms." Luckily, she was too busy wrinkling her nose to notice the depth of Alistair's blush. Or perhaps she just didn't understand the implication… but that was impossible. "Personally, I think they´re just sissies that way."
"I… really didn't need to know those things." Alistair said at last, as diplomatically as possible. It was a little easier when he saw the mage's hands drop. "But you could be a little friendlier; I did save your life a minute ago."
"I've been trapped in this tower with a bunch of skirt-wearing humans and sexually frustrated apprentices for most of my life." The oddly adorable pout she had been sporting for a few odd seconds was cancelled out when the elf rolled her eyes in a highly exaggerated manner. Of course, she was obviously biting down the desire to berate him about taking down one of her possible targets. "What, you expected me to start cheering for you or something? Grow up!"
"But what happened here?"
"You mean you didn't come to the wonderful demon-infested Kinoch Hold willingly? I'm shocked, I really am." The mage's eyes snapped up at the slightest noise; before Alistair could count the number of lava-like rage demons slithering their way, something cold and wet tickled his scalp. Once he saw the chunks of ice flying towards the half-melted abominations, he had the good sense to duck. The elf, for her part, seemed to be having the time of her life. "EAT MAGE BULLETS, SUCKERS!"
Well, at least someone was finding this enjoyable. The demons certainly weren't, considering that even their lava-slime froze and the mage had enough time to almost bounce towards the nearest wall and get an actual weapon fit against enemies of this caliber.
Alistair was actually somewhat stunned that all one needed to permanently defeat a rage demon was setting off a fire alarm.
Well, a sequence of spells designed to react to an emergency, anyway. That left only a few of those who were impervious to such mundane means of getting them out of the way and the elf very enthusiastically fireballed them back where they came from. And then, she just dusted off her hands, as if she had taken out the trash or something.
"Wow." Alistair blinked. Craziness aside, this was definitely Grey Warden material. "I mean, you're highly cacophonic, but damn."
The elf grinned; apparently, this was the right thing to say. "I guess you're not one of them."
"Who- oh, templars." She certainly had a penchant for changing her mind. "How did you come to that conclusion?"
"Well, most of those I know would be crying for their mommies too much to notice they wet their lovely skirts. You're still…" The mage's lips mischievously twitched. "Solid."
And when she didn't look like a raving spell-happy lunatic, she was certainly pretty. It was a step-up from the paranoid Princess Stabbity.
This time prepared to make an effort at a good impression, Alistair didn't even have to force his smile. "I'll take that as the highest of compliments from you, my lady."
The mage rolled her eyes at the form of address, but didn't turn violent once more. "I swear you humans are like dogs. You get one scrap of kindness and latch onto me like a leech. So who are you, anyway?" she asked, genuinely curious as they both stepped over some of the corpses littered around to try and have a proper conversation without shouting from across the room. "If you're not a templar and not here by choice…"
"Oh, right, apologies. I'm Alistair, a Grey Warden."
At this, the elf let out a most unladylike chortle. "Yeah, right."
"In all seriousness."
"Really?" Up went the golden eyebrows as the mage folded her arms. "Prove it."
Alistair blinked blankly; due to travelling with Duncan, no one had ever doubted his Wardenhood, nor asked him to prove it. Part of him supposed the elf had a point, but… "Prove it? How?"
"I don't know! Aren't Grey Wardens supposed to have some special abilities distinguishing them from other random warriors?"
"Well… other than being immune to the Taint and sensing darkspawn…" Truth to be told, he had been much too excited by the thought of finally leaving the dingy cloister to actually listen to Duncan's talk about responsibilities and possible advantages in battle. "I don't really think so…?"
"That's a pathetic excuse." the mage proclaimed, evidently unimpressed. "You don't even look like a Grey Warden!"
Alistair actually wondered what her image of a Grey Warden was, but didn't try to ask that yet. "You don't look like a mage and I don't doubt you being one."
It was supposed to be a compliment, given the rather horrid images of mages he had been shown during templar training and the wizened old men present during that one Harrowing, but the way the fireball was rotating above the mage's hand suggested she didn't quite share this opinion.
"How 'bout now?"
"I believe you, I do." Alistair said hastily, not trusting the way she happily watched the swirling of the flames. This was a whole new brand of crazy. "Take it easy… what's your name?
The elf blinked, and the fireball extinguished spontaneously. "Some call me… Kim?" She sounded rather uncertain about that.
"Kim? That doesn't sound like an overly elvish name to me." Compared to the previous one, though, he was more than willing to get something so easily pronounced.
The mage scoffed. "Try saying Bankimchandra five times fast and see how you like it, wise guy! Eyes up!" she yelped suddenly, recreating the fireball and tossing it at the nearest demon appearing from the ground.
Why couldn't flowers grow from the ground in the mage tower, like in normal places, Alistair thought as the two of them both ducked behind the nearest toppled furniture. Damn were those arcane horrors ugly, with their spider-like fingers.
"How did this happen?!" he shouted over the whirlpool of roars and the mage throwing any spell at her disposal over their improvised barricade. "Is this a regular occurrence?!"
"Damned if I know; I was about to go see my friend and blow this popsicle stand-" Here the mage tossed him a worried glance and quickly amended the last bit. "Eh, help him with his girl problems-"
Alistair excelled at pretending to be an idiot, but also at picking the completely wrong moment to start debating serious issues. "You wanted to break out of the tower?!"
"Of course not!" the mage countered, raining fire and ice upon the demons. The table was hit with the impact of a spell, but didn't crack yet. A statue toppled nearby, crushing a smaller demon, but they both still had their hands full. "Burn down the doors was more like it! Anyway, it just started up like this, random demons popping up! It doesn't even make sense! But I don't really care – I get to blow stuff up!"
"Where are the other mages?"
"Scattered around, I guess!"
Almost right on cue, another mage stumbled through the door the demons had foolishly left open, looking rather dazed by this sudden development. For a moment, she looked rather as if she had accidentally stumbled into the wrong bathroom, then gave a helpless giggle and ducked behind a toppled statue of Andraste when the nearest demon let out a decidedly un-welcoming roar.
Of course, that might have been because the elven mage at Alistair's side wasn't exactly rolling out the welcome wagon herself and used the momentary pause in combat to blast it to smithereens.
The human finally recognized the furious casting frenzy and even risked one of her pigtails to send her comrade a message.
"Oi, Kimmie, help a tad, will you?!"
The elf blasted the remaining demons with newfound vigour; Alistair was actually beginning to feel somewhat redundant. He couldn't use his magic-neutralizing talents, since the elf was obviously less than pleased with templars, and none of the demons got in close enough for his sword to cut them down. Moreover, getting between the elf and her target seemed unwisely suicidal.
Wiping her forehead, the other woman flounced toward them, short hair happily bouncing. She was doll-like, almost, even a little ditzy, and Alistair had the distinct impression that he had seen that brown hair somewhere before.
"Damn it, Bel!" Kim blew off the smoke rising from her fingers, sending the human a put upon look. "Klutzy as ever!"
The human shrugged this off, practically skipping over the various bodies, as if she were prancing in a meadow. No dead demons and possessed templars here, oh no; just flowers and kittens and ooh, shiny!
"Thanks for that!" she chirped, but then directed her almost protuberant eyes towards Alistair. "Ooh, who's the hot templar?" The question was much too eager, and how the hell did every mage seem to know that anyway? "I'd definitely remember another one who forgets his helmet…"
"I'm not actually a templar, not really." Alistair protested when the cooing mage circled him, a very discomforting look on her face. It was rather as if she were looking at a rare and expensive toy, really.
"Bollocks! You have the look down – innocent to mildly crazy, sexually frustrated pretty boy. I know the type precisely!"
"Pretty boy?" Was that a compliment or an insult? The way Kim was rolling her eyes in the background, it was impossible to tell.
"Oh yeah!" Bel nodded eagerly, fanning herself with her hand. "There's something about a celibate guy in a magenta skirt and a cuirass with a phallic symbol on it that that's completely my type. And the blond hair… yep, definitely." There, out of the blue, she jumped him, giving Alistair only a moment or two to catch her. "It's like we're meant to be!"
In the background, Kim just rolled her eyes in a distinctively unhelpful fashion. "Just ignore her; she does this to every vaguely attractive templar she encounters. Well, mostly it's Cullen, but I condone that." she amended.
"How can you condone such a thing?!" Meanwhile, Bel was being far too enthusiastic about trying to claw her way past the armor M-my lady, please, I don't really think-"
"Oooh, call me that again!"
"It keeps a stalker busy if their stalker is crazier!" Kim noted matter-of-factly, but then ignored the progressing molestation, because a new surge of demons caught her attention. "Oh no you don't, sparky! YOUR BACKSIDE-EQUIVALENT IS MINE!"
"Do those things even have a backside?" Alistair asked, still trying to disentangle himself from the touchy-feely mage who was cooing over him and holding on tighter than a straightjacket. "I mean, they just sort of crawl or glide or whatever."
"I don't think any of us wants to go into that too deeply."
Bel only shrugged before resuming her ministrations. "Oh, well, anyway… my wuv!"
Needless to say, it was downright disturbing how easily she knew where exactly to pull or wheedle to make pieces of armor give. She managed to get through the first tier of resistance, causing the Warden to yelp, blush and accidentally shrug her off. Notably, the mage didn't look too disturbed or upset by these rough movements, but pouted a little.
"Aargh! Look, I'm sorry, but I-I don't really know you well enough to do this kind of thing, what I mean to say is-"
Kim, already weary of this melodrama, took pity on him, though just this once. "Go back to keeping the stalker at bay, Bels, m'kay?"
"Noooooo!" Bel wailed dramatically, as if this was the epitome of heresy. "He isn't a stalker! He's just sooo in luv with me that he can't bear to be parted from me! Anyway, he's hot, so who cares?" she added, matter-of-factly, shrugging easily.
Alistair was sort of beginning to understand the situation, but still decided to ask the saner of the pair (for the moment) to clarify. "A templar is stalking her?"
"If you want to be technical about it, she's stalking him." Kim mused, twirling a strand of hair absent-mindedly. "She just assumed that he was stalking her when he actually tried to make a move on me."
"Wait, he's stalking you? Why don't you report it to the Knight Commander or First Enchanter?"
"It's Jowan's fault." the elf muttered, crossing her arms grumpily. "Stupid guy was too chicken to come up with a good retort when I told him his girlfriend looks like she's got a pretzel on her head and he… eh… made it seem that I'm interested in Cullen."
Assuming that was the templar, Alistair was rather confused. No templar would trust the word of a mage on such things; moreover, most of the templars he knew would rather jump off the top of the tower and land on their own swords than admit an infatuation with a mage – or believe that one of them was honestly taken with them.
"How can you do such a thing? I mean, I don't think a second-hand word would be enough…"
"Oh, no, definitely not!" Bel chimed in helpfully, finally sniggering and getting out of her princess façade. "He wrote a very expressive letter and poured about half a bottle of perfume on it."
"That's not too convincing." After all, anyone could fake that. Though Alistair did wonder how one could get perfume in a mage tower.
"The smallclothes he stole and sent with it might have made an impression, though." Kim looked like she was about to pop a vein as she forced the words through her gritted teeth. Her best lingerie… and desecrated thusly. "That's when Cullen started stuttering whenever he saw me."
"I'm asking again; why didn't you report it?"
The elf snorted. "Don't you think Irving and Greagoir know? They're having a hell of a time with this! Like it's some twisted joke!"
"It's kind of funny." Bel noted honestly.
"It's stalking!" Kim pressed her hand to her forehead, feeling that age-old aneurysm coming in to say hello once again. "It's that stupid book she got for her last birthday that did this to her." she muttered, glaring at the other woman.
"Did not! It's romantic that he'd want to stare at you for hours in the library!"
"This is what happens when you order stuff from Ye Olde Crossovere Shoppe."
"Shut it!" Bel flushed, entirely ready to defend her fandom to the core. "Les Miserables is a great book! Besides, it did make me less miserable in his tower, so I got my money's worth! And now I have a new true love!" This point was punctuated with the mage once again dexterously trapping Alistair in her embrace. Momentary confusion crossed her face, though. "Eh, what's your name, darling?"
"Oh, look, it's Cullen." Kim noted, looking towards the door.
The reaction was instant and would have been that way even if she had been bluffing; Bel immediately let go and raced towards the door, practically crashing into a young templar who froze when he spotted the elf in the room and thus didn't notice the impact.
"Dearie!"
Alistair stretched a little, relieved by this shift. "Thank you, I-"
"Eyes front, skirt-boy!" Kim yelled, spotting another wave of demons. Her features twisted back into psycho elf mode. "Kill it with fire! Mwahahaha!"
No, this definitely wasn't his day, Alistair concluded as there was enforced snuggling in one corner and fire and death in the other. Things didn't quiet down even with the end of the demons, because a band of templars and mages stormed into the room – finally, what took them so long? – and their apparent leader immediately identified the troublemakers.
"Surana! I should have known." Grey eyes narrowed at the elf, then moved on to the human, ignoring her assault on one of his templars. "And Amell, of course."
"Aww, Greggy, I told you so many times, those helmets are just wrong for them!" Bel cooed, already flouncing from one templar to another.
Green robes usually signified the First Enchanter, if Alistair remembered correctly, so it was no surprise that it was, indeed, a wizened old man that approached Kim. "Is this your doing, apprentice?"
Well, if she had the power to summon so many demons and slay them, then Maker help them all.
"No, sir, I just cleaned up the mess while someone was too busy for templar time." Kim noted, not so subtly glaring at the various templars, but mostly at the Knight Commander. "Has anyone seen Jowan, by the way?"
Right on cue, a dark-haired mage was dragged in by two helmed templars and almost tossed into the middle of their little circle. "Here's the culprit, Knight-Commander."
"Hey, let's not get worked up about it!" Jowan protested, sulking a little. He didn't mean to summon these demons; he was just having a nice nap and then… well, apparently, demons came in all shapes and forms. Even offered chocolate. "I mean, how was I supposed to know that they can get here if you as much as take a cookie in the Fade! That's just harsh!"
"Pretzel time again?" Kim sniggered, waggling her eyebrows.
Jowan flushed, but whined nonetheless. "Kiiiim, I so don't need that right now!"
But his retribution was to come swiftly, Jowan saw with a wicked grin, because no sooner than Kim tried to speak again, Cullen had materialized at her side, blushing and sweating profoundly, but apparently intent on at least speaking with her.
"M-miss S-surana." Always the same start. Alistair, forgotten in the background, could actually sympathize. The guy had it bad. "You're all r-right…I mean I-I knew you'd be, but y-you were…"
"Hot?" Jowan and Bel suggested at the same time, taking pleasure in tormenting their friend.
Cullen had been about to say something complimentary, but beaten to the punch like this, he could only do something less gentlemanly and neutral. "Your f-fire balls have gotten bigger." The elf blinked, digesting the accidental innuendo while Bel and Jowan chortled in the background. Once the templar realized it, he flushed further. "Ah, I mean…"
Fortunately, as always, Greagoir was there to keep order, even if a well-placed kick in the shin was necessary to do it.
"Blasphemous sexual tension! Back to your self-flagellation, infidel!"
Kim used the temporary templar rituals to sneak away to where Bel was – the human sighed. "Maker, Kimmie, a pity one-nighter wouldn't kill you!" Then, she grinned wickedly. "Or are you too hot for him?"
"Belva Amell, you're a sick, sick person."
"Yep! And the only cure is some templar lurve!"
The scene of one templar punishing another with the torturous device of a plate and a fork screeching against it, one mage jumping templar after templar, another muttering about his precious pretzel and the third sharing a mutual facepalm with the First Enchanter was enough to convince Alistair that he had been right about mages making him nervous.
But before he could reach for his ring, Kim grabbed him and dragged him down under the nearest table.
"LOOK OUT!"
Alistair dutifully ducked, ready for the demons this time, but all he could see beyond the table was… a white nug. Yet everyone seemed to be in hysterics, interrupting their actions to duck and hide screaming.
"What, why? It's just a little white nug… ugly, though." he added, but then again, all nugs were ugly.
Kim gasped and whacked him over the head. "You imbecile, don't say that! That's the dreaded Killer Nug of Calenhad! Don't tell me you've never heard of it!"
"It's just a nug."
"Right." Bel muttered, ducking behind him for safety. "And Kim is just fond of fire spells."
The elf wasn't listening; after she overcame the initial fear, she rose up to the challenge of facing down the nug. In fact, it was indeed an epic battle.
"Burn the abomination! It cannot stand against the FIRES OF ALL INFERNO!"
The epic battle of elf vs. nug with cheering all around was just something Alistair couldn't bear watch any longer. Bel blinked once, twice, and found that she was only clinging to air. She would have pointed out this sudden absence of the hut templar snugglebear, but her attention span was much too short. Especially since demons were around and, more importantly, sweaty, young, armored templars…
Cullen was closest, watching the insane laughter of his elven ladylove with a thoroughly besotted expression.
"She's so beautiful…"
"Yeah, and if you returned her underwear and quit following her 'round the tower, she might actually give you the time of day!" Jowan muttered, almost causing the templar to burst into tears.
Bel seized her opportunity at once. "Ooooh, Cullie needs a hug!" And a glomp. Definitely that. "Don't worry my cuddlemuffin, I can get some fake pointy ears for special nights together…"
"Hey, watch it, Kim!" Jowan shouted when a fire spell almost singed his hair. The Killer Nug noticed him and latched onto his robe, sending him on a wild run across the room. "I'm on your side!"
"Oh, shut it, pretzel boy! You need to man up and the only prescription for that is more dakka!"
In the background, Irving wiped a tickle of sweat off his temple. Maybe it was time to reconsider that job offer from Hogwarts.
