Disclaimer: Bioware owns all, except what I most humbly imagine. While, at times, I will take verbatim from the game, I mostly use the events of the Dragon Age games, expansions and universe as a loose structure around which to construct my re-imagined tale. If you are looking for a strict canon piece, I have no desire to offend, and so I warn you upfront!
When reading this tale, I hope you can easily imagine it being told by the very best of storytellers in Varric Tethras (from DA:2). In my version of events, Varric meets "The Hero" (Elissa Cousland) in Kirkwall during the time period of DA:2. I mention this only so that readers can understand his connection along the way, and so I don't have to mention and rehash it again and again as I make my way through the tale.
A/N: Antivan Translation: Brilliant, brilliant, beautiful man.
Muse Music: 1980 by Groove Armada and Come Back to Me by Razed in Black.
Thanks to my readers, followers and reviewers - and to my wonderful betas artemiskat and Snarkoleptic.
Happy Reading!
-Frayed One
Chapter Thirty-Two: Letting the Monster Back In
Elissa spent the whole of the long journey to Orzammar reassuring Anders that she didn't hold him responsible for her near death in Amaranthine. And even still, their interactions were hampered by his guilt and her frustration at being unable to completely alleviate it. None of this was helped by the other tensions running rampant within the group at large.
Velanna snipped at Nathaniel whenever she was given a chance, though Nathaniel did his best to avoid her. Sigrun's usual perky demeanor waned with each passing day, and eventually she was responding to Velanna's hateful words with pointed quips of her own. Nathaniel had no kind words for either Elissa or Anders, which was unsurprising but did nothing to relieve the pressure that continued to build. Even Zevran seemed to be in a foul mood and had said little to Elissa since her return from her city excursion.
The only members of her company seemingly unaffected by a mood swing were Oghren and Jowan, though Oghren's non-reaction could just as easily be contributed to his – once again – increasing consumption of alcohol.
She was thrilled to see the massive stone gates of the dwarven capital looming at the top of the hill, if only for the shift of focus entry would allow them. Elissa dismounted and helped Jowan down behind her, handing the reins over to the mage and sending him off with Zevran to pay one of the surface merchants to tend the horses while they saw to their business in the city below.
"Hail, Warden!" the guardsman's smile was broad and he offered his hand to her in a quick salutation. "What brings you back to the stone?"
"I wish I could say it was a social call, Jotha. Unfortunately I'm headed straight down to the Dead Trenches to meet up with Kardol and the rest of the Legion." Elissa held her hand out, and Oghren reluctantly turned over his axe for her to hold until they'd reached the tunnel entrance at the far end of the city. "I sent word to King Harrowmont several weeks ago, but received no response."
"Word hasn't reached the surface then?" Jotha continued when the look on her face made it clear Elissa had no idea what he was talking about. "The king has fallen ill. Whispers suggest it to be poisoning, but Harrowmont's men claim it's nothing more than simple fever. Either way he's been sequestered away in the palace for weeks now. Shut down the city to outsiders as well. If you weren't you, I'd have standing orders not to let you pass."
"I'd offer my services to help find the cause, but if I know Harrowmont, I'm probably on the short list of people he believes responsible for his condition." Elissa shared a brittle laugh with the guardsman who knew her words hit far too close to the truth. "Probably best that we make way straight for the mine entrance."
Elissa traded one last smile with the dwarf before he opened the gate to allow them inside.
A descent this far into the bowels of the earth was never going to be easy. But with two Wardens newly made and suddenly exposed to a massive concentration of darkspawn on top of Anders' usual reaction to confined spaces and the influx of nausea that seemed to accompany his exposure to large collections of tainted blood, Elissa found this particular trip to be exceptionally stressful.
She attempted to work with Velanna on learning to read the call that now pulled hard within her blood, but the elf had no desire to speak with her on any subject so Elissa eventually just left her to find a way to manage the nausea on her own.
Jowan did surprisingly well, all things considered. He managed his nausea as best he could, and picked up on the tips the others gave him for shifting focus with an easy grace. Elissa found herself struck once again by just how much his strength had been underestimated.
When they popped out of the long length of cave onto the edge of the Dead Trenches, Elissa was staggered by the weight of her memories and went back to a time when she had stood with Alistair on the brink of the abyss and felt it as the Archdemon peered into her soul.
"Fond memories?"
She turned to see Anders approaching her with a slight smile, the strain of this journey evident in his unusually pale skin and shaken demeanor. "Not unless you think facing off with the Archdemon across the teeming river of the darkspawn horde counts."
"That was here?" Anders crept closer to the edge of the gorge, peeking down to see what was now no more than a trickle of activity far below.
"It was." Elissa replied, shaking off the past and reaching over for Anders' hand. "Come on. Kardol should be with the Legion just ahead. I want to get you back to the surface as soon as possible."
"I'm not going to argue with that." Anders chuckled, squeezing her fingers as they moved along.
Kardol was just ahead, not much further beyond where Elissa had predicted he would be found. He bellowed out a greeting to her as he and his men finished off the wave of darkspawn they'd been managing for the last little while.
"Atrast vala, Warden. I trust your trip down was… pleasant." The dwarf chuckled, sharing a nod with Sigrun and with Zevran who had traveled this path with Elissa before.
"Oh, yes. Occasional pods of darkspawn, tainted brontos, and you know how much I love the giant corrupted spiders you keep down here." Elissa smirked, shaking the man's hand before making introductions among those he hadn't met.
"Come on back. I imagine the men can hold off the next wave while we have ourselves a chat." Kardol moved them off toward a bare bones camp against a nearby wall, tossing her a half empty bottle of clear, bitter alcohol.
Elissa took a pull from the bottle and relished the burn. It was the first drink she had taken since Anders had confiscated her drug and alcohol supply following the debacle with her brother, and she tried not to prickle under the weight of the judgmental look he passed in her direction.
"So, letter said you had questions about the 'spawn. Seems odd a Warden would need to seek out answers with regard to that particular subject." Kardol accepted the bottle she passed back, taking a seat on a large slab of fallen stone and watching as Elissa settled at his side.
"I suppose it does." Elissa chuckled, trying not to think about the lecture that was coming as she took another drink from the re-offered bottle. "But unusual circumstances call for unusual tactics."
Kardol's face flashed confusion before settling back to impassive and waiting for any further explanation that was offered.
"Have the darkspawn down here been acting… strange?"
"Strange in what sense?" Kardol asked, tattooed brow raised in question.
"Those beneath Amaranthine seem to have somehow developed the capacity for higher level thought, planning, and speech." Elissa explained, watching his look turn from curiosity to concern.
"Ancestors, no! You have witnessed such a thing?" Kardol held her eyes long enough to read the truth, and then finished off the bottle to calm his nerves that such an impossibility could have come to pass. "Nothing good can come of that."
Elissa let her eyes linger out on the latest wave of battle within which the Legion stood locked and tried to reach out and sense them, but even the pulse of these darkspawn's tainted blood was weak to her dulled senses. She suspected this had little to do with The Architect expanding his influence and more to do with the tonic she was forced to consume in order to contain the beast that slept inside of her.
Several more hours of conversation with Kardol gave her little new information to go on and only reaffirmed her belief that her connection to the taint had been dulled to unacceptable levels. Kardol gave his word that should he see any sort of shift within the darkspawn population beneath Orzammar, he would contact her immediately, and with that promise - Elissa took her leave.
As she led her company back to Orzammar, Elissa struggled to find a path to answers that would not require her to once again open a doorway into the darkest parts of her soul. The longer she thought on it, the more obvious it became there were no other roads left to travel – and as she gave herself over to the weight of this decision, she realized she had never felt more isolated.
Elissa laid her head back against the cool stone curve of the wall behind the table she'd taken for them in Tapster's Tavern. It had seemed only natural to seek out this spot as she'd sat here so often in the past, but now that she was in it she found her thoughts lingering in places she didn't want them to go.
"I know what you need, my Warden."
It was the first time she'd heard even a hint of Zevran's jovial nature since her trip into Amaranthine unescorted had nearly turned out fatal. "I doubt Anders would be any happier about that than he was about the two sips I took from Kardol's bottle, but I appreciate the offer."
"I was not suggesting illicit substances. Merely illicit activities." The elf's smile was cheeky when she rolled her head to the side to look at him.
"I doubt he'll allow that either." Elissa winked at him, and turned back to her inspection of the ceiling.
"Straight into the gutter. How I do love your dirty mind." Zevran chuckled, drawing her attention again. "Again, I was not suggesting that I bed you – rather that you and I take a trip down to the arena and—"
"The Underprovings?" Her eyes lit up at even the thought of such an unfettered stress release, and she reached over to plant a kiss flush against his forehead for thinking of it. "Brillante, brillante, uomo bellissimo!"
Elissa was on her feet and making her way out of the bar moments later, stopping with the press of a hand at her arm just as she reached the door.
"Where are you going in such a hurry?" The tone of Anders' voice gave the appearance of a light heart, but Elissa knew that to be far from the truth.
"You aren't going to like the answer to that, so... shall I tell you now and have you be upset when I choose to go anyway or wait for you to be angry when you figure it out later?" Stress had been piling up on Elissa as they'd made this journey, and that feeling had only been compounded when Kardol had no new information to provide her with a path to The Architect. She knew she shouldn't be taking it out on the man in front of her, but he was there and had already set her temper on edge with his reaction to the few drinks she'd taken in the trenches.
"I'd always rather have the truth up front, Elissa. That hasn't changed simply because you're cross with me for caring about your well being."
"I'm not..." Elissa sighed, rubbing at the bridge of his nose for a moment before tugging him out the door to grab a moment of privacy away from the noise. "I'm not cross with you, Anders. I'm cross in general. My temperament has never lent itself to proper behavior, and I've cut loose all my vices at once. While I don't disagree... completely... that it needed to be done, I-I... I need a release valve. I have to get out some of this tension or I'm going to explode."
"I can think of a number of things we can do to relieve your tension that don't involve you disappearing somewhere with the assassin you hesitate to even speak of." Anders leaned in closer, tracing a finger along the curve of her jaw to stop on her mouth, intending to follow it with his lips.
"The release I require involves drawing blood and dodging punches."
Elissa's words halted him in place, and he pulled back absolutely certain he'd find himself staring into the blank void of the beast's eyes once again.
"I thought the tonics had put an end to that particular desire." Anders waited for her to quell his fears, but the sentiment never came.
"I had to adjust my dosage." Elissa tried not to flinch as he withdrew from her further.
"What do you mean adjust your dosage?"
"It worked too well, Anders. I wasn't dreaming. I couldn't even sense the swarms of unaltered spawn here in the heart of it. It had severed my connection to the taint entirely. I cannot function as Warden-Commander when what makes me a Warden is made silent." She watched him starting to pace as he processed the information she had given him.
"And you don't think it's dangerous to tweak this balance unsupervised?" He wasn't looking at her, but through her, and his hand gestures were becoming increasingly agitated. "It's no secret I don't care for Avernus, but he seems to know what he's doing when it comes to managing your—"
"I don't have a choice, Anders. Don't you see that?" Elissa tried again, though she knew he was unlikely to listen – not here and now when he was already so far beyond his comfort zone. "Something is happening with the darkspawn. Something that links back from The Architect to me – and I can't fight what I can't see coming."
"You don't have to become a monster to fight a monster, Elissa." Anders attempted to reason with her one last time, reaching up to hold her face as though his touch could convince her to change her mind.
"Yes, Anders. Sometimes I do."
Anders' shoulders dropped in resignation and he took in a long breath to keep himself from saying more. He kissed her forehead before turning away to return to the bed he'd assumed they'd be sharing. "You know where I'll be if you change your mind."
Nathaniel turned in sometime before dawn. With Sigrun off seeing those friends that remained in the city, and Elissa having disappeared with the assassin several hours before, there was nothing to keep his attention elsewhere. Still, he was nowhere near tired enough to sleep as he counted the corners of the stone tiles that made his ceiling.
"It's either very late, or very early... depending on how you look at it. Aren't you tired?"
Nathaniel looked up to find Elissa leaning against the stone archway that marked the entry to his room. He'd seen the smile on her face before, and subconsciously moved his hand to trace over the scar he had to remind him of it.
"What do you want, Elissa?" He tried not to be unsettled by her low laughter as she closed the distance between them and settled down on the bed at his side.
He wasn't sure where the armor she was wearing had come from, and wasn't sure he wanted to know considering how little of her it covered. The sheer amount of skin exposed when she pulled her knee up onto the bed and leaned across his legs had him wishing he'd decided, for once in his life, to wear something to bed.
"I need for you to tie me up." She traced a long finger along the outline of his legs, never quite making contact, though he could feel the amplified heat coming off even that small expanse of her skin.
"I'm sorry?" He swallowed hard against the lump which continued forming in his throat the longer she spoke to him.
"I'm certain you heard me, though I can repeat the request if that makes you... happy." She chuckled again, and refreshed her predatory smile.
"It isn't that I didn't hear you..." Nathaniel pulled himself to a sitting position a bit further out of her physical reach. "It's more that I'm not sure I understand why you would request such a thing."
"What's the matter, Nathaniel?" Elissa pressed her full lips out into a pout and drew a nail down across his abdomen to the pool of cloth at his waistline. "Haven't got the equipment?"
"We both know I've got the equipment." He replied, reaching down to grab her hand before she could go any further. "If you give me a moment, I can go and collect it."
She leaned back and allowed him to stand, eyes anxiously watching his movements just in case his hastily draped covering happened to drop. When he turned back to the bed she had laid back against it waiting for him.
He sat down and went to work binding her ankles together first, using every bit of willpower he had not to allow his eyes to travel up the open expanse of her legs to whatever she might, or might not, be wearing beneath the short leather skirting of her armor.
"Are you certain you want to bind those?" Elissa smiled down at him, darting her tongue out to slowly wet her lips before continuing. "Any access you might seek later won't be easily attained."
"I doubt I'll be seeking access to anything beyond whatever nonsense is at work in that head of yours." Nathaniel assured her, moving up to take her wrists in his hands and bind them before anchoring the whole thing to the heavy stone head of his bed frame.
Once she was secure, he met her eyes once more, only to be further unsettled by what he saw there. He was attempting to process his thoughts when the edge of a rolled slip of parchment caught his eye from where it had been tucked carefully into the dip of her cleavage.
Elissa purred when his fingers made contact with her sensitive skin at its retrieval, and Nathaniel tried to ignore the brush of her legs against him as he unrolled the paper to read the message written within.
Nathaniel,
If you've found this, than at least I can rest assured I have made it to the right place.
I've stopped taking the tonic. I need to dream to find The Architect and the song has fallen too silent. To hear it again, I've had to allow the beast to wake from its slumber.
Do what is necessary to keep the others safe. Use the conduit, it is the only way to know if I need to put back under or simply put down.
Whatever I say, whatever I do – you must allow this to continue until I get the answers we require. I trust you and only you to do what must be done.
There is a strong sedative in my ankle pack along with a vial of Avernus' tonic if I should manage to survive and regain my sanity.
Thank you.
Elissa
He opened the conduit for just a moment before the massive surge of desire for violence and sex forced him to stifle it again rather than fall victim himself.
"Elissa… what have you done?"