"You cannot fight it
All the world denies it,
Open up your eyelids:
Let your demons run."

Beat The Devil's Tattoo – Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

"… his raptures were,

All air, and fire, which made his verses clear,

For that fine madness still he did retain,

Which rightly should possess a poet's brain." – Michael Drayton

There was a cup being held out to her: It was a large but unadorned goblet of simple make, and one could not escape the morbid reality of the contents it held.

There was blood in the cup: It reflected blackly in the starlit night and looked nothing like the natural red, liquid substance she had come to know well in the years since her first bleeding as a woman. More than anything it looked like poison and it smelt like death. It is death, she concluded, eyes passing only with the vaguest interest over the still form of Daveth – there was blood on the rim of the simple cup too: The last imprint of life left by a dead man's lips.

She wordlessly watched Duncan slay Ser Jory with silent brutality, a small, somewhat frail voice inside her own mind remarking that he agreed to enlist and that his death was a fair price for his cowardice. His death was well-deserved, she told herself… until she realized her own knees shaking slightly. The voice in her mind shut up and with the skitter of claws on the inside of her skull, vanished.

She studied the glistening fluid in the chalice, feeling far calmer than she thought she would. There was a vigour in her, and rather than staring potential death in the face with fear, she was filled with a curious sort of duty and pride at the knowledge that her Father trusted that she would get this far. Likely he did not know about the drinking darkspawn blood part, but nevertheless, Elissa couldn't help but think that Bryce Cousland would not like to see his daughter falter now.

Elissa took the goblet from Duncan's hands, pausing momentarily before speaking: He had given her honest warning in time; it was only fair that she do the same for him. "On Tuesday I will rise at dawn and be your friend." She tilted the gore and watched it slide up the side and then back down when she levelled it again. It left a red-black film on the side of the cup that made her stomach turn. "I will prepare a hearty breakfast without complaint and I will jest and make merry. I will roll my bed and pack my tent and set off down the road, whistling with you a happy tune. If I am especially joyous, I may even sing a little as we travel." Despite the darkness of her revelation, she spoke pleasantly as she removed the stopper from her own vial of blood using her teeth, spitting in an incredibly unwomanly manner when the bitter taste fouled her lips. "Euuuurgh..."

She dabbed her lips clean daintily, restoring her femininity before continuing. "On Thursday you won't find me: I will retreat to solitude whenever opportunity allows; I will lurk in my tent, silent, apart from the turning of pages and the sound of quill on parchment. I will seek no companionship, nor pleasure. By this night, I will find myself devoid of sleep, for dreams escape me in exchange for a passionate and waking muse: I care little for the affairs of life by Thursday. I wish only to live in the world of Faerie and partake in the drinks of heathen gods, not to take up arms and fight." She looked up at the stars and took in the wonders she saw – the ones that were rarely seen and truly loved by anyone else - The ones that oft drove the breath from her lungs with their majesty. She then tipped the vial downwards to the earth and the dark blood flowed eagerly from the opening, joining what remained in the cup. She looked up and switched her gaze with deliberate and practiced pause between Duncan and Alistair; she knew how to ensure her words were never forgotten. "Come Saturday, you will find me dead." She promised. "Or perhaps Sunday, or the next Wednesday to follow; the day and time matters little – all that you must know is that you will eventually find me cold and asleep 'til the ages end, and you must know now that it is through no fault of your own." Her lip curled at Alistair's expression that indicated he was deeply disturbed in some way by this reality, and Duncan's own practiced look of indifference; she had to admit, the man was a fair leader, keeping his personal feelings far off to the side. Or perhaps he cared little for Elissa's monologue and self-given-prophecy of suicide. She lifted the cup to her lips.

"I am already bad in the blood... how now will I find toil and misery aligned twixt mine own curse and this abrasive stain?"

She tilted the cup and welcomed the thick blood into the open space between her lips, willing it in her mind to taste like a fine wine, but pushing on when it still tasted foul and rotten and not tart and fragrant. Somehow, despite being collected hours earlier the blood was still warm and she clenched her eyes shut and denied her body the instinct to spit it out by forcing her breathing to still as the un-holy substance coated the inside of her mouth, becoming increasingly hot with each second that passed.

Swallow, she urged herself. Just swallow and have done with it...

With effort that caused her tremendous physical pain, she forced the muscles in her throat down, falling to her hands and knees, the un-blemished surface of her armour scraping against the rough ground like a butcher's saw through bone.

"Elissa?" A voice called out from somewhere in the murky haze that had overwhelmed her vision. "Elissa?"

But then it was all white, and the earth shook and rattled under her and there was sound... so much indescribably loud sound. Elissa was well accustomed to nightmares and the tricks her broken mind would often play on her were naught but an annoyance, but this was something altogether different.

She felt her eyelids tear open and the sensation of the now molten-hot blood spurting revoltingly from her mouth and rolling down her jaw and neck despite her best efforts to prevent this. She meshed her teeth tightly together, forcing herself to swallow again, even though it was now blood mingled with sick being forced down her throat.

Her own ears were filled with the sound of her groaning deeply and she felt her spine contract and curl away from the rest of her body like a serpent avoiding a hot stick might coil into itself to avoid being burned. The voices grew louder and with anguish she realized that none of them made sense; they growled not a single comprehensible word and with terror she realized they were the guttural thrums of many darkspawn – thousands in fact.. She hissed and thrashed around on the ground, unaware any longer of what composed up and what defined down and what was hell and what was reality. It didn't even occur to her that she might die lest the convulsions cease.

The dangerous and violent fit continued to wrack her body bred for the purpose of nobility until blackness along with the roar of a great dragon finally took her. Two Grey Wardens stood still and silent nearby, witnessing everything.

Alistair stared rather sadly at her very still form. "That never gets any easier to watch." He said softly.

"No." Duncan grunted, stooping and grabbing Elissa by the shoulder, flipping her unceremoniously onto her side, lest she vomit some more and choke to death. "But you didn't go through The Joining in a comely manner either. No one does."

Alistair laughed quietly and ran a hand through his neatly kept hair. "I suppose not. At least she lived." He crouched next to her, sitting into the balls of his feet. "Do you really suppose she meant what she said about finding her dead one day? Seems kind of dark." He did understand now what she was talking about in the wilds and her cold gaze and her hatred of blood. She lacked peace of any sort: That's what she had been trying to explain. Now though... now she was peace: She was all pale skin and light freckles and dark hair that might have been well cared for at one time. "She doesn't seem mad. A bit hopeless maybe – " He leapt to his feet when her eyes flickered open, if only out of instinct and fear that she might not be finished being sick to her stomach.

Elissa stirred dozily from her place on the ground, looking green, but still chastely proud in bearing. Alistair watched as her long, dark ropes of hair unwound from the ground as she lifted herself onto her palms, blinking slowly with unfocused eyes. He felt his stomach drop and a blush creep over his face as he watched her wordlessly return to lucidity. Her eyes flicked up to his but darted away immediately, almost in shame.

"That," He began, holding out a water-skin which he knew she would be grateful for, "Was impressively disgusting."

She swiped the water skin and began to gulp down huge mouthfuls of clear, cool water that drove clean rivers through the quickly drying blood on her chin. "Is that meant to make me feel better?" She gasped eventually, wiping the sweat off her face with the palm of her glove. "'Tis an ill jest, be that the case."

He taunted her with the lift of an eyebrow, "So noble in bearing, Lady Cousland." Why tease her? Why bug her about the way she talked right after such an ordeal? Part of him decided it was to see if she had retained her humanity along with her life. "It must be exhausting work, drawing out all of those 'can't's' and 'won't's and turning them into fancy poetry.'"

She did something then that genuinely surprised him as it was without a doubt the most spirited thing she had done since he'd laid eyes on her: She leaned over and shoved him, her face naught but a exhausted smirk.

"Shhh." She rasped in a voice made of sand.

"How do you feel?" Duncan asked, patiently observing her movements as she slowly came to her feet. "Do you feel any different?"

Wait. She wanted to say. Keep that question to yourself for now... I am still trying to figure it out for myself... she curled her fingers and batted her eyelashes and did a mental inventory of her brain and found that yes, actually, she did feel different: She felt angry but it was not the same impulsive and directionless anger that she was used to. This anger burned as hotly inside of her skin as the darkspawn blood had as it went down her throat. For the first time Elissa felt awake, aware and truly and unquenchably hungry for justice. She stared at the puddle of blood and vomit on the ground next to her feet.

"I – I drank it. It came back up but... but I think that I still swallowed some..." She observed distantly, mostly to herself. She looked at Duncan to answer his question. "I feel tired mostly, but... good." She sighed, her shoulders feeling heavy. "I apologize. Words escape me right now. I believe all I am capable of at the moment is asking, what next?"

She was so hot. So uncomfortably hot...