The figure in the corner of the room leaned forward, readying to stand, their long dress of chain-mail clanging against the tops of their greaves. Amaryllis only had a moment to attempt to breathe before the person stepped into the firelight.

Purple scarf, short red hair, and a wicked gaze, wild and blue, though her expression somehow remained aloof. Leliana.

Amaryllis' heart thumped once, painfully, then began to pick up speed. Leliana came to stand in front of her, clasping her hands behind her. Amaryllis tipped her head back to attempt to meet Leliana's gaze but found that it caused what seemed to be left of her brain to slosh against the confines of her skull. Pain shot forward and pricked at her eyes, not unlike the feeling of blood coming back to a limb after it had fallen asleep: a thousand needles, or the static of the white noise machine coming from under her parent's bedroom door. She fought to keep them open and instead glared, squinting her eyes against the light glinting off the steel of Leliana's thighs.

Amaryllis waited for the other woman to speak with bated breath. After a long moment of terrifying silence, just as Amaryllis had begun preparing herself to talk, the door creaked open, shuddering heavily against the wooden frame, and in stepped Cassandra.

Bloodshot eyes flickered from Amaryllis to Leliana. The Seeker's eyelashes fluttered as she exhaled loudly as if in exasperation, running the tip of her tongue across her upper lip.

Leliana was the first to break their silence, taking a step aside to acknowledge Cassandra's entrance. "She's awake."

"I can see that," Cassandra answered. "Why didn't you send for me?"

Leliana seemed to ignore the question and instead moved toward the table to their left, running the tips of her fingers across the tops of papers strewn across. Finally she leaned forward, pressing her palms into the parchment, and stared down at Amaryllis.

Cassandra crossed her arms over her chest, something Amaryllis was beginning to see was a trait of hers, and sighed again, long-suffering. Exhausted. She pulled a chair before Amaryllis and sat, then cleared her throat. "We have questions for you."

Amaryllis closed her eyes and almost found the strength to snort, recalling what Varric had said to her the day before during their descent of the mountain. You're in for a treat, kid. The Seeker is terrible at interrogations. "That much is obvious."

She knew better than this, knew to be cautious with her words, especially with the position she was in. It didn't take the angry glint in Leliana's gaze, nor Cassandra leaning forward in her seat to look down her nose at her prisoner, for Amaryllis to realize these were not the people she thought she knew. Though what she remembered of them, exactly, she couldn't tell.

Instead of continuing, Amaryllis chose to bite her tongue and wait. Another long minute passed. Papers shuffled to her left, a pen dipped into an inkpot then tapped out the excess. Leliana leaned over the table and began furiously scribbling upon the parchment. The low light of the braziers cast shadows across her face. Her cheeks turned dim, hollow. Sagging, wrinkled skin, hanging jowls, and a once melodious voice turned vicious flashed through Amaryllis' mind, so quickly she had no time to react before Cassandra cleared her throat, and began.

"I'd like you to start from the beginning," she said. "The very beginning."

Amaryllis blinked up at Cassandra, leaning her head back at an uncomfortable angle to look the Seeker in the eye. The beginning? She thought. ...which one?

Instead, she said, "that's not a question."

A hand scuffed against the table. Cassandra narrowed her eyes. "Let me rephrase, then. Start from the beginning. Now."

"I'm not sure what you're asking. The beginning of what? Time?"

Cassandra leaned further forward, bringing her face closer to Amaryllis', until she could feel the Seeker's hot, angry breath upon her cheek. The heat of it caused her to shudder unpleasantly. She hadn't realized just how freezing she was until she had felt warmth.

"How did you come to call a Dalish woman your sister?"

The question caused Amaryllis to pause, dragging her gaze from Cassandra's to the floor. It should have been an easy answer. After all these years, it should have been easy for Amaryllis to tell her lie and move on, but her most recent discovery left her wavering. I died and somehow woke inside a video game, and I only noticed this 14 years later. It was the beginning. It was the truth. But how could she ever admit to it?

She couldn't, of course, not without facing imminent death. A mage, talking of a world and things these people could never comprehend, could never even imagine existed? They'd say she was possessed. They'd kill her. Would they stop to ask questions before they killed Ellana, too?

Sometimes it's better to keep things to yourself in order to protect the people you love.

"I…" Amaryllis swallowed past the dryness of her mouth, wanting to cough but fighting the urge. Her throat constricted around the words. She remembered the dirt under her fingernails, waking naked and alone beneath the long, overarching canopy of trees she didn't recognize. A woman with white hair, Deshanna, cradling her against her chest. Amaryllis could not forget the warmth that had surrounded her, then. The love and affection she had been given by people she did not belong to, by people who had every right to throw her back into the forest from which she came. "I don't know."

Her knees had touched the thin, rough blankets of her cot. She fell to her side, fisted her trembling fingers into the blankets, and was unsure of the time that had passed between one blink and the next. She wondered, when she found that she could think, when she might see the sun again.

Her eyes opened and beside her was Solas. Another man was to his right. She did not recognize him.

"Drink," he said. A hand around her back aided her in sitting up, just enough for something warm and sweet to slide between her lips and quickly down the raw mess her mouth had become. When the cup was drained Amaryllis licked her lips, chasing its remnants upon her skin. Her eyelids drooped as if coaxed by the calm the tonic had given her. She opened her mouth to thank him, but her tongue clicked, her eyes shut, and she found herself drifting once more.

When she next came into awareness it was to the clamorous jangle of keys and the squealing cell door. Hands wrapped around her arms and she gasped, coming into awareness long enough to remember her sister where she laid in their shared cell. She turned her head to look, to see if anything had changed, feeling guilty for having forgotten, but Ellana was as still as the day before.

The soldier to her left tugged her forward, causing her to stumble back down the dark halls of the dungeon. When they approached the open door where Leliana and Cassandra stood once more, Amaryllis gritted her teeth and steeled herself for what was to come.

***

Cassandra lifted the water to Amaryllis' mouth, holding the lip of the glass steadily as she swallowed it down. After hours of talking, telling the same story, answering the same questions, it was much needed to soothe Amaryllis' battered throat. When the water stopped flowing, Cassandra pulled the glass back to set it upon a table, and Amaryllis fought not to chase it with her tongue.

Leliana barely waited for Cassandra to sit back in her chair before pressing on once more. "How, then, did your Keeper know of the Conclave? It isn't as if it were a secret, but if your clan is as sheltered, cut off from the rest of the land as you say they are, how could they have known?"

"Hunters overheard a group of Templars passing through," Amaryllis croaked for what felt like the millionth time. She wasn't sure how many versions of the same questions she had already answered, but she had long grown weary of them all. "As I said before."

"But why did your Keeper send you?" Cassandra asked.

"To watch over the Conclave, and any decisions that were made."

Papers shuffled against the table top. Leliana crossed her legs, pressed the tip of a gloved finger to one specific piece of parchment, and clicked her tongue. "For what reason would a Dalish Clan from the Free Marches need to send spies to 'watch over' Divine Justinia?"

"Our Keeper believed that any decision made by the Divine would have impacted our clan greatly. She was worried."

"Your Keeper sent the two of you, then, to spy on the Divine," the redhead repeated her story. Amaryllis wanted to scream. How many times have we gone over this already? Why do they keep asking me the same damn questions? "But why was it that your sister was alone at the Temple of Sacred Ashes? Why did you stay behind?" Amaryllis opened her mouth to answer but Leliana continued on without stopping. She stood with a start and, same as the day before, approached Amaryllis where she sat, chained to the cold stone floor, crouching beside her. Her sapphire eyes seemed to bore holes into Amaryllis' own. "Someone had to stay behind to report back, to tell whoever it is you work for that the explosion was a success. Murdering the Divine and everyone at the conclave, tearing down the Temple of Andraste, and opening the Fade, allowing demons past the Veil was all part of your plan, wasn't it?" She froze, eyes locked in the swirling depths of Leliana's. Her mouth fell open in shock. "What?"

"Tell me," Cassandra did the same, leaning ever closer until she and Leliana were far too close for comfort, causing Amaryllis to pull back. The chains at her wrists tugged painfully on her skin. "How long do you think you can continue this ruse?"

"Who do you work for?"

"Why are you here?"

"Who are you?"

Amaryllis clenched her eyes shut, shuddering as the icy waters at her feet began to rise, covering her knees, her thighs, her chest, her shoulders, until it came to rest at her throat, clawing at her flesh like a fox with its leg caught in a vice, begging to be let free. The forest's towering trees surround her on all sides. Mud, streaked across her naked stomach, buried beneath torn fingernails, was all she could see.

She panicked, scrambling to cover herself, to pry open the car door, to find someone, anyone that could help her.

A gentle hand brushed her arm, pushed matted hair back from her sticky forehead, brought her to rest against their warm, solid weight. "Da'len."

Amaryllis opened her eyes, pushed forward to lessen the strain on her arms, and said "You may interrogate me, ask me the same questions again and again, accuse me of things I know nothing about, but my answers will not change. I am who I said I am."

A/N:
Yes, it's been a minute, I know. Getting into the flow of things again. I posted this on AO3 ages ago but forgot to post it here... whoops. I'm working on further updates, it's just taking a bit of time. Being pregnant and busy does things to a person.

In the meantime, I wrote a Satinalia/Christmas/Valentine's one-shot for this universe, which can be found on AO3. Sadly I can't post it here because filthy filthy smut but if you're interested in reading some fluffy explicit sex between Amaryllis and Cullen, you can find the story under my pseud on AO3 - "right within your heart" by ar_lath_ma

Thanks for reading and see you soon-ish!