Wintersend 14

The Fade is still quite a puzzle to me, not matter how hard I try to unravel it's mysteries. Forgive me if I've got it wrong...

Nevertheless, enjoy!

Evelyn took a gulp of air, at least she hoped it was a gulp of air. She considered it a pre the environment hadn't instantly killed her. She was entirely aware where they had ended up; she was a mage after all. She just hadn't anticipated that opening a rift in a last desperate effort to save their lives would lead them to this realm. It boggled her mind and that was not the only thing her mind had to cope with. Humans and elves only entered the Fade in their dreams; it was absurd that opening a rift would catapult them into the domain of demons and ghosts. And although she knew perfectly well what she had done, she didn't know how she had done it. For now she was grateful her decision hadn't taken her life and hoped fervently the same counted for her companions, that they hadn't ended up as bloody corpses smeared all over the floor. At this moment her own state of mind – and body took too great a deal to inspect to check on them as well although she struggled hard to get a grip. Her head was still reeling. To be honest she at first didn't know up from down and when she finally found out, down actually turned out to be up.

What happened to Cullen? She had no idea and it haunted her already tortured mind. She still heard his desperate cry and saw his frame as an afterglow standing out against the fiercely lit battlement, or what was left of the battlement, poised to jump. In her wild swirling fantasy she actually saw him jump. Jump to his death. She imagined she had screamed to him to stay put but couldn't remember she really had done that. Things very quickly had become a blur, or better a dazzling cyclone. Even now she still was too dazed to think clearly.

The first sound that came through to her was a low protesting grumble. Despite everything it made her smile.

'"Join the Inquisition, Boss," he said. "They follow a just cause," he said. "It will be good for your soul, Boss," he said.' And all the while the at starters soft rumble regained volume. Evelyn's newborn smile was very fragile. Just let him rumble on, you know how he is. A big softy. She cringed. Big? Yes. Softy? No. But he needed to blow off some steam. Let him. 'Damn bastard. Never told me it would lead me through a bleeding tornado that tried to rip my innards inside out. Where the fuck are we anyway?!'

Yes. Indeed. No person better than the Iron Bull to jerk you back to reality. Whatever that meant down here. Or up here.

At last Evelyn ended on her feet. Or scrambled onto her feet. 'We are in the Fade,' she said, sounding as steady as she could manage, 'I can only imagine the rift took us here.' She looked around. 'Although, to me the Fade never looked like this.' What this looked and even more felt like, was a hostile and sinister place. In dreams the Fade could be difficult, harsh even. But never so completely ripped from reality with the threat of something ominous waiting around the corner. This place resembled a child's deformed nightmare.

'Ah yes, that makes it so much better,' Bull complained, 'let's fall down a spinning abyss and end up in Demon Town.'

'Would you rather you'd be dead?' said Evelyn pointedly, 'if I hadn't opened that rift people would by now be scraping your remains off the ground.'

The Bull just groused something unintelligible under his breath although that expression hardly did credit to the rumbling loudness of his voice.

'I must say, the times I roamed the Fade the place didn't look like it was knocked together by someone with such an appalling taste of architecture,' Dorian remarked dryly, 'not to mention the repulsiveness of the applied decorations. It goes against every form of aesthetics.' He didn't seem much upset by the circumstances or else he masked it well. He looked around with slightly furrowed eyebrows as to express his disgust.

'I don't think whoever made this place has the intention to impress us with his impeccable feeling for style,' Varric reacted. He hazarded a glance at Fenris; he feared the elf would get a lethal outburst. He had already been as strained as it was and Varric couldn't imagine this would help to ease his state of mind. Not only because they found themselves in the last place the elf wished to visit but also, perhaps even more, because of the shameful memories connected to this very place; or more precise to the moment he had fallen for the promise of a demon and had betrayed Hawke by doing so. Back then Hawke had been very lenient about the whole situation but Varric knew it had bothered Fenris for a long time. His wary askance peek however learned him nothing about the elf's inner thoughts. Fenris's face was unreadable; at best his overly alert posture gave away something of his distress but then again, he always was alert. Typical warrior behaviour, alert and composed. Perfect poker-face. Which had cost him more than one precious sovereign during Diamondback. Damn elf.

Stroud rolled his shoulders and flexed his muscles. 'I don't care what it looks like around here; I'm more interested in getting out. Can we use the same rift?'

Evelyn drummed with her fingers on her thigh. Resolutely she chased away the last residue of her dizziness and anxiety. Time to become practical and act like a leader. 'That could well be the case.' She looked upwards and through narrowed eyes she could discern, far up, a greenish vortex. 'But we'll have to reach it first.' She offered the others an encouraging smile. 'I suppose everything is better than hanging around here.'

Fenris took a determined step forward. 'Then we better get started.' His heart was stammering in his chest and he knew for certain if he didn't undertake something right now he would turn into a pool of despair. He had ridden with the Inquisition to Adamant to rescue Marian from whatever it was she had fallen prey to, including her own anguish, but right now he seemed farther away from that goal than ever.

'You know,' Hawke said pensively, 'I had expected scores of demons to cluster around us by now, if only out of curiosity. I mean, I can't imagine it occurs often that a living soul, let alone two, takes a leisurely stroll in their horror park.'

Anders chortled. 'Leisurely?'

Hawke shrugged her shoulders. 'As a matter of speaking.'

'Perhaps that's the reason why they're keeping their distance, for now. They don't know what to make of us.'

'Hm.' She rose and started to pace up and down. 'You might be right. But they won't keep their distance forever. Not after they find out how vulnerable we in fact are. And I have no doubt they will find out very soon. And besides that ...' She turned to face him and stopped pacing. She folded her arms in front of her bosom and began tapping her foot. 'You know what I don't understand?' She caught Anders's amused expression. 'Amongst lots of other things, obviously,' she forestalled a little irritably his predictable response.

'Sorry.' Anders stifled a smirk. 'I just feel somewhat giddy since Justice's absence. Don't mind me. What do you not understand?'

She took a breath. 'If Flemeth wanted me to teach the others how to overcome their fears, why on earth did she send me here? How am I supposed to teach them anything when they're not around?'

'You have a fair point,' Anders had to admit. 'But maybe she meant you have to conquer your own nightmares before you can start to play the teacher?'

Hawke rubbed her chin with her knuckles. 'That makes sense, I give you that. Didn't think about it that way.'

'And? Did you?'

She looked up, frowning. 'Did I what?'

'Conquer your nightmares. Maker's balls! What happened to the bright, sharp-witted and intelligent woman I used to know?!'

Hawke smiled apologetically. 'I suppose I feel a bit giddy myself.' Apparently too giddy to adequately notice the change in Anders, she thought. 'But to answer your question: yes I did. Though I had help. I'm quite certain I couldn't have managed on my own.' Suddenly she wondered where Cole had gone. The solution to that riddle presented itself not a moment later when she saw Anders's eyes widen while he spotted something behind her back. She swirled on her heels, instinctively reaching for the staff that didn't rest against her back but she relaxed when she spotted Cole showing up from behind one of those ugly rough pillars. Her brows knitted together when she recognized the creature he had in tow. She was fairly sure it was the spirit that had floated around her just after she had entered the Fade. The creature was surrounded by a faint light but it was flickering, as if she was having difficulties with keeping it going on. As if she was about to extinguish.

Anders had jumped up and was already wielding his staff. Hawke's hand shot out and clasped around his wrist. 'Don't; they represent no danger. I know them.'

Before she could say anything else there rolled a low rumbling noise that resonated almost painfully in every part of her body; the air (by lack of a better word) pressure increased considerably for an indefinable amount of heartbeats until it seemed to push the very wind out of her lungs; a fountain of flashing white spots erupted behind her eyes. Defencelessly she sank on all fours, struggling for breath, hoping her brain wouldn't dribble out of her ears. And then there sounded a clap as from a far away thunder and as sudden as it had descended the pressure lifted. Blissful silence floated back.

When she heaved her head, panting, she looked into the serene smiling face of Cole. 'They have arrived,' he said.

Cullen groaned; even in his own ears it sounded pitiable. It felt as if all the bones in his body had been crushed and his innards twisted or torn apart. He got the impression his head got incessantly hit by a blacksmith's hammer and a wave of nausea threatened to overwhelm him. The last time he had felt this way he had been young, foolish and very drunk, or rather terribly hung over after a night of boozing with his fellow Templars to celebrate his formal initiation. Since he was positive he couldn't be drunk, he came to the other evident conclusion: he must be dead. He opened one bleary eye and was surprised to find he wasn't lying in a puddle of blood.

If this was the afterlife there would be a whole queue of pressing questions champing at the bit with impatience waiting to be answered.

He tried to come to his senses and to track back the trail of occurrences.

He knew he had jumped from that battlement after Evelyn in raw panic. He also knew it had been utterly stupid; he was the first to admit it. He should have refrained himself even in the state he had been in before that fatal leap into black uncertainty. If he would still be alive and able to think clearly he would have scolded himself. He should have listened to that tiny piece of his being still capable to think sensibly just before that critical moment, that tiny piece that had tried very hard to prevent him from jumping into that eerie spiral in the first place. That tiny piece that had told him he was the Commander of the Inquisition. That he shouldn't give in to his feelings, give in on a feeble whim. Give in to the love he carried ... carried for ... for her. For Evelyn... He clenched his jaw.

And yet he had done precisely that.

He groaned once more. Louder this time. Idiot he had been.

But at the same time a sound of protest raised it's at first feeble voice. What now idiot. What was wrong with giving in to love? He recognized it was his education that tried to get the best of his conscience. Or perhaps, and even worse, it was the screeching voice of Knight Commander Meredith that in a malicious echo rasped down his brain, trying to feed all his prejudice and the manipulated rubbish he for such a long time had believed was true. The voice of protest became louder and shook him back to – yes, to what exactly.

Now he opened both his eyes. Was he really dead? This, whatever this was, didn't feel like death. It felt more like he was in the wrong place. A very wrong place at that. A place that tempted to play havoc on his mind.

Where the hell was he?

He corrected himself.

Where, or what for Andraste's sake was this place?

Then he got the prickling sensation someone was watching him and he jerked his head up. That was a mistake. Immediately dark specks blurred his vision and to make it worse the someone obtained a voice and said, 'I know how you feel, old chap. I was quite confused myself at first to be honest. And I chose to come here. Never thought, though, it would be like this.'

He knew that voice. Like Meredith's it was an echo from the past and just as unwelcome.

Cullen stared in utter surprise and bewilderment. Slow but sure the smudged curtain before his eyes parted and he could see clear. 'Anders,' he breathed. Red smoke and screams and blood ... a horrifying explosion...

'Yep,' the mage nodded, 'the one and only.' He radiated a nasty sort of cheerfulness. 'And in the flesh no less.' He stretched out a hand to help him up, a hand Cullen forcefully declined. Smoke and screams... Wobbly he managed to get onto his feet. He glared unfocused though menacing at the other man. 'Are you dead?' He felt silly for asking. 'Are we dead?'

To his dismay Anders started laughing. 'Not yet, Knight Captain. No wait, Commander it is nowadays, isn't it?'

Cullen rubbed his brow, trying with all his might to dismiss the horrible memories this voice brought up. 'I should arrest you,' he mumbled, 'bring you to justice.'

Anders laughed even harder. 'Sorry to tell you, Commander, you just missed him.'

For some reason or the other Cullen got the feeling something was amiss. Well, a whole range of things were amiss, but this Anders didn't act at all like the mage he remembered. 'Who are you?' he murmured. Demon, shot through his mind, but he decided that was another foul echo. He accepted Anders's hand in the end, to lead him to some rock on which the other man planted him down with gentle determination.

'This may come as a shock,' he warned him, 'but you are in the Fade.'

'So I'm dead after all,' Cullen concluded, now completely dazed.

'Not in the least. And as far as I'm given to understand neither is your woman. But you arrived here shortly after her. She opened a rift, you know, to prevent she and her companions would be smashed to pulp. I think you caught the tail-end of whatever she created and so you ended up in another part of the Fade. And with a much tougher impact, I imagine.' He looked him over. 'I at least hope she's in better shape.'

Helplessly Cullen leant back and covered his eyes. His ears still pounded agonizingly. But then Anders's words hit home. 'Evelyn is still alive?' Hope arose.

Anders cocked his head and scrutinised the other man. He hadn't been his biggest enemy in Kirkwall but had represented the order he had fought a considerable deal of his life. Back in those dark days he would never have believed he would ever feel sympathy for him. And right now he did just that. His expression softened.

'Yes,' he said quietly, 'she is alive.' Now Justice and his everlasting menacing words had left him, he could remember how love had struck him. More than once. And how that had influenced him. Not in a bad way, he had to admit, far from that. Not even his unanswered love for Marian Hawke would have left a bitter taste in his mouth. It was Justice who had twisted those tender feelings and had disfigured them by pointing out they were leading him from the just cause they were aiming at. He had fed his jealousy, his envy of Fenris. He had poisoned him with his hatred. Anders closed his eyes. No, that was not fair. Justice had not borne any hatred at all in the beginning. He grimaced. They had been a bad influence upon each other, to put it mildly. And even though he knew he was dying, he was glad they were now separated, if only for this short lasting time. It was good to experience his old self again. It was good to die as his old self.

'Where is she?'

Cullen's still hoarse voice drew him back into the here and now. With a jolt he opened his eyes. 'I don't know exactly; time and place are hard to define in the Fade. But I have some good leads. Do you trust me?'

The Commander of the Inquisition glanced askew at the mage sitting next to him. The Butcher of Kirkwall, he reminded himself but could see little of that sinister title in the man. It was all so confusing. He didn't feel much like a Commander at this moment, more like a new naive recruit, desperately looking for guidance. 'What happened to you?' he heard himself ask.

Anders smiled a little sad. 'You have a moment or two?' The smile obtained a small twinkle. 'Don't worry, time doesn't count for much in this place. We'll catch your dear Inquisitor in time.'

Evelyn was growing frustrated. She was supposed to lead this band of – how had Varric described the companions back in Kirkwall? She pursed her lips; she would be damned before she would ask the cheeky dwarf. Ah yes. Misfits. She exhaled relieved. The Band of Misfits. Come to think about it, apparently it had been Marian Hawke who had given that name to the unlikely group of at random collected people that for one reason or another had stuck together. She by now understood how the former Champion of Kirkwall must have felt on several occasions.

Silently she ticked off.

A tough, or at least acting tough Qunari who felt so out of place he whined like a toddler, a Tevinter mage who more or less did the same although he very hard tried to keep up appearances, a Grey Warden who acted like he owned the place simply because he figured after the disaster his Commander had created nothing worse could happen, a dwarf who thought that bluffing himself through the hard situation would benefit everyone around him and refused to see he was a hairbreadth away from being strangled for his too optimistic remarks. And one too stern elf who attempted so hard to keep himself in check she was afraid he would crack at any moment. She had to confess she understood Fenris the most. After she had come to the conclusion he was trying to save the love of his life, her opinion about him had took a whole different turn. Which didn't make it easier. She tried not to sigh out loud. Of course she appreciated they all did their best in their own way, their own somewhat strange and sometimes incomprehensible way but nevertheless it worked on her nerves. She felt ashamed at the same time. Was she so much better than them? No she wasn't. She also was riddled with dread and anxiety and downright panic. And like Fenris near paralysed with fear about the fate that had befallen the one she loved. She simply hadn't the luxury to show it. And, she mused, just that simple fact made her strong. Through the unshed tears she determinedly straitened her shoulders. She was the Inquisitor damn it. She could not falter, she had to lead on and not only make the best of it, but solve the godsdamned rotten situation they had found themselves in. She had put them in.

It was not a simple task.

They had been wandering around this depressing place for ages. Or minutes, or hours – she stopped herself. Mocking the character of the environment was growing old. And again she couldn't help another sigh escaping her mouth. She started when someone took her arm. She suppressed the sharp instinct to lash out and instead turned sharply to see it was Fenris but his attention wasn't on her. She followed his tense look and almost faltered.

'Divine Justinia,' she whispered, in shock and in awe. She was glad if not grateful the elf held her arm, otherwise she would have keeled over.

'Is she? Is she the Divine? Have you ever met her?' Fenris pressed. She felt his fingers leaving blue stamps on her arm in his anxiety. And again she couldn't blame him.

Evelyn blinked. 'I don't know,' she murmured, 'I must have ... at the Conclave ... I don't remember ...' There was one bright flash and then, to her frustration, her brain became once more clouded. Numb. She blinked again and leaned against Fenris's body, feeling sapped and suddenly so tired. He caught her in her near fall. Without thinking. She could have been Marian... The thought nearly passed his mind and made him swallow hard.

'Perhaps you better try to remember.' Stroud almost sounded aggressive, 'It might be very important right now.'

No-one paid attention to his heated words.

The apparition, an elderly woman dressed in the robes of the Most Holy made a step forward. She spread her hands and smiled reassuringly. 'I know you don't remember me, and certainly not what has happened at the Conclave, but that is why I am here.'

Fenris looked into those unfathomable eyes and staggered back, still holding Evelyn's weight. They both were flabbergasted.

Again, my dear Hollaender, thank you so much for your encouraging review. It gave me wings. I can only hope you like the outcome.

And for all of you, thanks for reading! But that goes without saying ... I hope.