Silence
Morgana
Morgana frowns at the sight in front of her: A stern-faced woman who won't see fifty again trying to talk to a group of mages, who swiftly turns to them as they enter.
A flash of familiarity hits her as she looks at the woman she and many others studied under for years, usually calm and controlled, trying desperately to hold it together for the survivors.
She realises that the woman's bossiness has survived, though.
The silence is deafening as they walk through the shell of what was once the Tower.
She remembers the laughing apprentices, often just children, excited and too eager to show off how they can use ice in the middle of the corridor, sending others skidding and trying out the swears they'd learned in books.
She remembers the older mages, heads cocked to one side, watching them with the hint of a smile, though if you talked to them, they'd lecture you about how irresponsible you were...
The Tower may not have been her home, but she knows that that doesn't apply to every mage - she doesn't understand why, but some mages were quite happy to stay in the Tower all their lives. She looks around her, and suddenly thinks, sadly, They did.
The Tower is not her home; she's wanted to escape most of her life. So why does seeing it all gone hurt so much? She swallows, says nothing, walks past more corpses clad in the familiar blue robes. She knows that she could have been one of them, but she refuses to say it, make it real.
Leliana has been throwing her what she must think are subtle glances, and she suddenly realises that she's been trying to gauge her reaction.
The only sounds are their footsteps, the occasional metallic noises of armour and her own breathing.
Where are all the rabid abominations, the demons? Shouldn't there be creatures of the Fade rampaging through the halls?
Alistair catches her eye, nodding once, and in that moment something is shared between them, two comrades on the field. They're on their guard.
They pass another body, and Morgana stoops to look at it - she wonders why she cares, since it is only a templar, but she looks back at Alistair and can't help thinking that before the lyrium and the indoctrination, this mangled husk might have been like him: laughing, joking, living. Just a man.
She wonders when she started to think like this.
"Morgana - " Alistair starts to warn her, but she eases the shattered helmet off anyway, trying her best not to take any of the ruined skin off with it.
The face is charred to the point where it is unrecognisable, and, even though she tries to tell herself she has a strong stomach, bile rises in the back of her throat and she has to swallow it down.
There is a hand on her shoulder suddenly, and she jumps at the unexpected contact, looking to her side to see Leliana on the ground beside her, giving her a small smile and reciting the funeral lines of the Chant. When she is finished, she says softly, "There will be time for a pyre later; we must keep going."
Morgana nods, standing up, and Alistair asks, "Did you know who he was?"
"No. Just a templar." She thinks she sees him flinch at the use of "just" a templar - not a person, then? - and she didn't mean it like that - this time, at least - but when she opens her mouth to explain, the Senior Enchanter briskly cuts her off with something about needing to make progress.
They come to the first door, and then the abominations are all around them, screaming, and the silence is gone forever.