The door opens slowly. The better, smarter part of Savreen's mind wonders whether they shouldn't wait, plan, strategize. Anything could be beyond that door. But she cannot stop herself. Hespith's appearance, her words, her revelations, her death—they have all set something in motion, in Savreen as well as the others. She can feel it: some sort of unstoppable tide of urgency, tugging at her with the inexorability of a wave's pull out to sea.
It is the smell that hits first, of flesh and decay and sweat and, above all, hopelessness. It almost burns in the back of Savreen's throat, and she tries her best to hold her breath. There is nothing else to do. Reluctantly and yet not at all so, warring with herself, Savreen crosses the threshold, into this space which used to be some sort of great workshop at the heart of Caridin's own city. At the center of the room is a figure she can only guess to be Laryn. Or what is left of her. Savreen's heart would break at the sight if it could, at the way—
No. She will not give credence or thought to it. Savreen squeezes her eyes shut for a moment. When she opens them again, she finds Laryn staring at her, a mindless rage and hunger in her eyes. But they are her eyes, and they are all that Savreen need look at.
"I am sorry." What else is there to say?
Tentacles and blood. So much blood. Limbs like a spider's. A stench like a hundred fetid corpses. Sweat rolls down Tali's face, wicking into the cloth of her undershirt. It is too fast. It is agonizingly slow. Her arms ache. Her body is bruised. Her lip is split. She stumbles to her feet yet again from where she's been swept aside. Then Savreen leaps forward, and her blades strike home, and too many things happen all at once. Is it dead? Is she dead? The blood, on her face and neck—it burns, it burns. It's sliding down her chest under her armor and dripping into her undershirt. The Darkspawn pour into the antechamber. They discover Hespith. They feel Laryn's death. They roar together, a thunderous rage. We're done for. But there's a door, only one door forward, into the darkness. Morrigan pulls the ceiling down with straining arms and a staff ringed in purple. Laryn is returned to the stone, and Hespith, and they are all alone in the dark.
Tali finds herself again then, finds her body and her mind. Everything feels disconnected inside her, from the erratic thump of her heartbeat to the way her limbs seem to move too slowly. Sounds, too, are muddled, and she can barely hear her own whispered apology to the others as she turns away from them and walks blindly, tottering, into the dark. If any of the others speaks to her, she can't hear it, either. She needs peace, she needs peace, but Laryn—the broodmother—her blood burns. Or maybe it's Tali's fingers, scratching at her skin. Maybe it's the way she claws at herself, trying to wipe the Darkspawn blood from her body, to strip the skin from her flesh so that she needn't remember the feeling and the smell of it all. It's strange, but for all the time that's passed since the Joining, this sensation, the scent—they remind Tali of it intimately. It almost feels as though the pain has never left her.
Tali should be calm. She should be able to be calm, here in the near pitch darkness of this chamber. They are out of danger, they are alone, and the way behind them is sealed. But the blood still feels as though it burns on her, in her, all over her. Abarie whines in the darkness, her eyes barely glimmering nearby, and Tali's breath catches in her chest. Tears run, hot and stinging, down her cheeks. Someone's voice rises in frustration, back at a hastily assembled and dimly lit camp. They're trapped here. They're trapped, beneath the rock and the rubble, and Tali cannot bring herself to care.
She tries to breathe. If she cannot be calm now, she must become calm. There is a pool of water to the left. She can hear it, water dripping from somewhere. If she focuses on bathing, on cleaning herself, it will help. It will help. And then she will rejoin the others, huddled around their remaining and unbroken lamps, and they will figure out a way forward.
Her eyes are adjusting to the lack of light, now, and she can see the greyish shadow of the water reflecting back the meager glow of the group's lyrium lamps. An indistinct shape nearby must be a bench, or a table of some sort. Does it matter? Not terribly. Tali starts shucking off her armor, kicking her boots from her feet as she yanks at the buckles of her chair-aina. Her bracers hit the floor with a series of clangs, and the buzz of conversation from the others falls silent for a moment, highlighting the jingling thump of her mail shirt as she lets it fall. She should care about alarming them. She does care, in some part of her, but the desire to be clean is beginning to consume her utterly. Though the stone is cold on her feet when she pulls off her socks, it feels like a blessed relief, a promise of what the water will feel like on her skin, replacing the blood still burning on her cheek, her throat, her collarbone.
With a strangled sob, Tali nearly rips at her clothes in her haste, pulling her salwar from her legs with too much force and fumbling at the buttons of her kameez and the ties of her undershirt. The fabric crumples to the floor, a whisper in the dark, and Tali stumbles toward the edge of the pool in her smallclothes, her kachera and her breastband. For the briefest of moments, she wonders at the danger of slipping into water she cannot see in darkness that is nearly all-consuming. The fear is small and unimportant in the face of her panic, though, and she pulls the last of her clothes from her skin before feeling her way forward into the water with shaking hands.
There are steps down into the pool, cut into the side of the rock wall, and Tali clambers down them, splashing into the water until her toes just brush the bottom. But her noise has drawn the attention of someone else, and the clanking of armor heralds his arrival even before he speaks.
"Talvinder?" Alistair's voice is cautious and questioning at first, but when he squints and raises his lantern, when he sees Tali in the black water, her shoulders shuddering with her sobs, his tone quickly turns to one of panic. "Tali, you don't know what's—there could be anything—" How can she say that the possibility of something horrible in the water is preferrable to the agony of her uncleanliness? Preferrable to the sights and sensations she has to scrub from her very eyes? The wail in her chest circumvents her efforts to stifle any sound, escaping her lips in a pitiful, whispering moan. "Tali? Tali, are you alright?" Moving quickly, Alistair sets down his lantern and begins pulling off his armor, too. Tali can hear him, even though she can't turn to him, can't focus on anything but running her fingers through her hair and trying to satisfy herself that there is no more of Laryn's blood on her scalp.
There's a splash behind her as Alistair clambers into the pool, missing the steps, and then a series of splashes as he half walks, half swims toward her.
"Tali." He says her name again as he touches her lightly on the arm, and she can't keep herself from shaking. She's crying still, and she's not sure that any of this should be happening. How foolish is she being? After making a pact with herself to hold it together?
Laryn, whispering Hespith's name with her dying breath.
When Tali doesn't move, Alistair eases her closer to himself, his arms loose around her as he holds her against his chest.
"I've got you, Tal. You're safe." His words are gentle, comforting. Tali thinks about her sword, the sensation of bringing it down into Laryn's flesh. She does not think she deserves his comfort. "I've got you." Softly, though, Alistair's heart beats against her back. She can feel it through the barely there fabric of his undershirt, soaked through by water. It sets something off within Tali's chest, down in her belly: if she does not deserve his comfort, his gentleness, perhaps oblivion is what she deserves, something she can give him as well as herself.
With a twisting motion, Tali faces Alistair. Her palms are on his shoulders and she yanks him toward her, closer still, before kissing him as hard as she possibly can. She wants to forget, forget where she is, forget what they've seen, forget the panic in her body, forget everything but him. Under the water, she can feel him against her—solid, hot, warm. Hard, and hardening. The heart in Tali's chest sparks back to life, joining her mind and her body back together. The only thing that matters is him. They can lose themselves together, in the shadows of this cave. After all, when they might die here, what else is there to do?
"Tali." When Alistair manages to break the kiss, he has to pant for breath. Tali tries to take this chance to pull his shirt from his body, and it seems like the first time he realizes she is really, truly, fully naked, pressed against him as closely as though they're one. He groans, long and low and full of wanting, but instead of kissing her again, he stops her hands with his own. His nostrils are flared, teeth gritted, eyes closed, and he brings his forehead gently to rest against hers. Water laps at the tops of Tali's breasts, cool and soothing but not enough, not enough to forget the blighted corpse behind them, not enough to assuage the guilt of their failure to save Laryn, not enough to erase the possibility and the promise of Tali's own twisted and corrupted body, of an unending nightmare.
"Tali, I know you want—I—Maker's bollocks." He swears, and as he does so, he opens his eyes once again to search Tali's. "I want you, too. But just—I have one question, and then I'll shut up. Okay?" Tali can't speak. There's only room for wails and tears on her tongue. Instead, she just nods. "Are you sure? Are you sure that you want this right now? Because if you really do, then I'm here, and I will give you what you need. But if you don't—if I'm right, and you don't know what you want—tell me."
For a long, long moment, Tali stares at Alistair, back into his searching eyes. She stares down at the spot where their chests, pressed together, his clothed and hers naked, disappear into the water. She stares at the places where she knows their hearts beat, anxious and afraid and yet still alive. Alive, for as long as they have. The tears begin once more and she slumps, burying her head in the crook of Alistair's neck as he holds her tight.
"I want to leave this place," she says, and all she can think of is Laryn, Hespith. Molded and changed. Did it taste the same as that Joining chalice? Did it?
"We'll make it out." Alistair says it like he believes it, and at the moment, it's enough for Tali. She squeezes her eyes shut and gives herself over to the emotions inside her, letting them go. Alistair lets her cry, lets her stifle her wails into his shoulder, and later he runs his fingers through her hair and unknots it painstakingly. And when Tali can finally cease the hiccupping in her chest, when she's finally done, he kisses her head and murmurs promises to her until she feels safe enough to leave the water once more.
Exhaustion weighs on every part of Savreen's form. How she would like to let it pull her down to the floor, let it close her eyelids, let it still her chest and the air within. Those thoughts, though, are just wishful ones. She stares a moment longer at Morrigan's magical fire, and then she tries to bring her focus back to the conversation around her.
"There should be one," Oghren is saying, gesticulating as he talks about something Savreen should know. A shake of the head. That should do it. "No dwarf with any lick of stone sense would build a Thaig without more than one way out." It does not do it. It sets her head to throbbing, instead. The noise that accompanies Alistair standing, mumbling about something, and hurrying away doesn't help. Tali—he's going to check on Tali.
"In a cistern? What would be the point?" Ranjit's voice is skeptical. Savreen is sure there's a good reason, though what it is, she can't tell. Deep breaths. That should help. In through the nose, out through the mouth. A waterskin is presented to her, and she blinks at it for a heartbeat before realizing its Ranjit's hand that holds it out. Water would be good. Savreen takes the waterskin, bringing it to her lips and trying to rein in the thirst that suddenly roars forth as the water hits her tongue. When did she become so parched? Or, rather, when did she last drink anything?
"This is the heart of the fortress. They'd come down here in a siege, and they'd want a way out. Wouldn't you? A door, a passage, a tunnel—it only makes sense." It takes a bit, but the water does help, and Savreen begins to feel as though she can decipher her own thoughts once more. She thinks she understands, too, what it is they're speaking of, and there's room in her mind to permit a question of her own.
"Morrigan, we aren't in any danger of rockfalls, are we?" The witch blinks before responding archly to Savreen's question, trying to hide her apparent confusion at the sudden change in subject.
"How should I know? We have a dwarf among us. Ask him." Shaking her head, Savreen tries again.
"What I mean to ask is—you brought down the ceiling in Laryn—in the other room. Is there any chance that would have made this one unstable?" She hands Ranjit's waterskin back to him, tapping idly on his hand in wordless thanks.
"I see." There's a pause as Morrigan cranes her head up and narrows her eyes, as though trying to find the ceiling of the cistern in the darkness. "Well, 'tis my assessment that, were any such instability to manifest, 'twould have done so far sooner, yes? We have been here for…how long? Half an hour?" It's a good enough answer for Savreen, despite Morrigan's combative tone. She thinks, considering their situation in silence as the others watch her. The sound of quiet crying wafts on the air, accompanied by gentle shushing. Alistair and Tali, no doubt. Savreen doesn't begrudge them. It's understandable, even if she does not yet feel the desire to cry over all they've seen. There are too many people around her, besides.
Morrigan's magical fire flickers in a faint breeze, and Savreen sighs, watching the flames undulate further. How lovely it would be to be alone, in this moment, alone and—Savreen sits bolt upright, watching the fire as it flickers again, feeling the breeze that ruffles against her hair.
"Oghren's right," she says as she makes her way to her feet. Sher stands with her, ready to move with her, almost as though sensing her thoughts. "There's a way out. There's a draft." Blinking in the dark, Savreen reaches for her lantern—banged up and damaged as it is, the lyrium still glows well enough. When she holds it over her head, she can see the faint outlines of the room, huge as it is, but she can't see a passage, or any indication of the breeze's origin.
"A draft?" Oghren asks, sounding more surprised than Savreen would like given his earlier confidence in finding a way out. "Really? I-I mean, I knew there would be. 'Course I did." The urge to roll her eyes overtakes Savreen. Normalcy, that.
"Of course you did," Morrigan says, satisfying Savreen's urge for her. "Are we to search for a door in all this darkness, then?" The witch's words jog Savreen's memory, too, and she remembers something Hespith had said. The only way out was forward, into the darkness… into the darkness and through a door hidden there.
The crush of hope on Savreen's shoulders is sudden and almost unbearable. It takes her breath away, but a smile rises to her lips all the same. Hurriedly, she makes her way to a far wall while the others scramble to keep up. Someone shouts for Tali and Alistair, but there's no need as they reappear in the small circle of light, Abarie at their heels. Savreen is too busy running her hands across the stone in front of her to really notice, searching for something, anything.
"Savreen, 'twould be good of you to say something before you begin petting—"
"We're on the right track. Branka came this way." Silence. Savreen is still the only one searching the walls, moving at a pace that is just short of frantic and yet feels far too slow.
"How d'you know that?" She can't blame Oghren's hesitation, nor his curiosity. They've seen no sign of Branka's trail of samples, no trace of her. Perhaps it's foolish to trust in the riddled words of a dying woman gone mad. But somehow, Savreen doesn't think so.
"Because it's exactly as Hespith told us. The only way out is forward." All her exhaustion is forgotten. They will find a way out of this cistern, and they will find Branka—of that Savreen is certain.
That certainty does not wane as the minutes pass. Not even as they pile together, closer and closer to becoming an hour, and then beyond. Savreen moves as if animated by some new bottomless source of energy, seeking some sign of a door, a passage, a tunnel, anything at all. She knows she'll find it, the question is simply when? How long will it take? The others have all split up across the cistern's walls in an effort to cover more ground, though they remain within earshot. The place is, unfortunately, far bigger than Savreen had expected. But at least they haven't run into anything down here: no Darkspawn, no spiders, not even a lone deepstalker.
What's more, there have been no sounds from the rubble-choked staircase leading down from the workshop above, no indication that the Darkspawn horde is seeking to follow them. With air and water, they have as much time as they need to find their way out—as much time as their provisions will allow them, that is. It wouldn't do to starve here in the dark, underneath Bownammar and a pile of Darkspawn corpses, thousands of leagues from the sun and the sky. So Savreen redoubles her efforts, absorbed in them. At least, until the sound of someone clearing their throat echoes from behind her left elbow.
She jumps, startled, and wheels about to face Oghren, who watches her with a sheepish expression.
"You—you startled me," Savreen says, and she finds herself glaring at Sher. Usually, the dog would warn her of a person sneaking up on her, even a member of their party, but for now, he only gives her a tired wag of his tail. She can't be mad, not at Sher or even really at Oghren, and so she lowers her lantern just a bit, bringing her free hand to pat Sher's head softly. "Is there something you want, Oghren?" Maybe it's just the dim bluish light, but he looks worse than he has so far, with eyes more bloodshot and skin even more sallow. The circles beneath his eyes seem larger than ever, and he shakes as he swallows, preparing to speak.
"What…what Hespith said, about Branka…" This isn't necessarily what Savreen expects. It's certainly not something she's prepared for. Oghren, though, continues. "It can't be true." Wincing, Savreen turns back to the wall. She will be gentle—she would never be anything but—but it is easier not to have to look at the man as he lies to himself.
"It's been a long time since she left Orzammar," Savreen says. The pads of her fingers catch on a crack in the stone, and she presses against it, hoping to have found a doorway, but her hopes are stymied. What's more, Oghren hasn't responded, and so she steels herself to continue. "She may not be the Branka you knew anymore, Oghren." She knows it isn't what he wants to hear. She's not stupid, after all. His armor clinks at the force with which he shakes his head; Savreen can hear it behind her.
"No," Oghren whispers, and then a little more loudly: "No." It's as though he's convincing himself, and Savreen knows no good can come of it. "Being out here that long, sure—it might change a person. But Branka's not just any person. She…she's stubborn, Warden. She's never let anything change her before, not when we were married, not when she became a Paragon, not ever."
"Laryn and Hespith didn't 'let' anything change them, either." As soon as the words leave her mouth, Savreen freezes. The words feel callous on her tongue, and she cannot believe she's spoken them. Swallowing, she continues. The unfortunate truth is that she's not said anything false, not yet. "Sometimes, the things that change us, the ways we change—they're out of our control. It has nothing to do with how strong a person is. How stubborn." If only such a thing were untrue. Unbidden, the smiling faces of her mother, her father, her brother come to Savreen. She knows that the person she is now, if they were ever to see her, would never have entered even into their wildest imaginations. Angry, uncertain, choking on the desire for vengeance that refuses to stay down and hidden within herself.
She hopes Branka is dead. It would be better for Oghren not to see her changed. It is always better. Just as it is better that her mother will never look in Savreen's eyes again.
"You're wrong," Oghren says, and Savreen finds herself looking around, surprised at her surroundings. For a moment, it had felt as if she were back in Highever, her mother's hands working fragrant oil through her curls. A silly, stupid figment. "Branka…you've never met her, you don't know what she's like. She…nothing is ever out of her control. Ever. Ancestors, that woman—you'll see." What's more painful: Oghren's insistent avoidance of the truth, or the vivid memories of Savreen's father and how he used to smile at her? Are they not the same thing?
Shaking her head, Savreen blinks back the wetness gathering along her eyelids. It's only tiredness. Nothing more.
"Oghren—" She makes to turn, swinging back toward Oghren, ready to tell him that he has to prepare himself for the worst. But as she does, the light of her lantern falls on a patch of wall, and something blue and bright reflects back at her. Hurriedly, Savreen moves her lantern side to side, searching for the blue glint once more. When her lantern finds just the right spot, completely through accident and luck, the bright glint returns.
"Well I'll be." Oghren whistles as the lyrium glow reveals the intricate outline of a door, engraved with dwarven runes. "Caridin was a crafty Paragon, that one." The pounding of Savreen's heart threatens to burst from her chest. When she calls for the others, they're already on their way, drawn by the sudden light.
"A runestone door," Morrigan says, and her voice is appreciatively academic.
"I don't see a handle," interjects Tali, a frown audible in her words.
"Here, there is a keyhole—if you would allow, I can open it—" Morrigan hardly lets Zevran finish his offer. In fact, she doesn't even wait for his pointing finger to land on the stone.
"'Twill take far too long. Step back." Savreen would argue, she really would, but the glint in Morrigan's eye is that of a caged and desperate creature, and already the witch is raising her staff.
"Are we sure that's—" Alistair's words are lost as Morrigan drives the butt of her staff into the center of the door, sending up an unnaturally loud concussive blast. For a fraction of a second, nothing happens, and then the lyrium-lit runes wink out as a spiderweb network of cracks races through the stone. Once more, Morrigan raises her staff. Savreen takes a step backwards.
When Morrigan hits the door once more, there's a screeching sound of rock tearing and crumbling, and a cloud of dust and rock fragments bursts forth. Savreen covers her eyes and turns away, coughing with the rest of the group. Once the dust clears, though, a passage is visible, leading into the darkness. Morrigan leans on her staff, panting slightly, a satisfied and smug expression on her face as she looks at Alistair shaking dust from his hair, still coughing.
"I did tell you to step back." If only Savreen could smile.