Squid's Hideaway

"You did say that once the Inquisition is done, you're rather out of a job."

Maker, she'd put that awkwardly, stumbling right into the most hurtful part of it. He'd identified himself solely as a templar for so long, and now as the Inquisition's Commander. "I don't say it to wound you. Only that…your bringing it up has made me start thinking. Realizing. I clearly can't just go back to a quiet anonymous life as a lay sister myself. I suppose that's why I raised the topic of children, marriage, and such. I…have to become someone else, and I don't know who she is. And Maker, if that's a daunting question for me, I imagine it has to be even more so for you."

"It is," he confessed. "In truth, I…present matters have been so pressing that I genuinely haven't had space to contemplate anything beyond what's right there. But in still moments, sometimes, that same realization has come over me. My old life is ashes, and I don't know what's to take its place. And you're right. That's terrifying."

The thought struck her, brilliant as a flash of lightning in the darkness, illuminating the way. She found herself smiling at him. "Well. Maybe we ought to take your own advice? We ought to ask ourselves what it is we fight for, and what we hope for. Fight for and hope for something beyond achieving the Inquisition's aims." She nodded towards Darien, still peacefully asleep, for a wonder. "And I don't mean your siblings, or mine, or their children. We already fight for their futures." Though his seeing his family and reforging some bonds must have given his inner fire some kindling all the same. He seemed to burn a little brighter. "But I believe we have to consider and imagine something that's…ours alone." And try to squash that little voice that would insist it was selfish of her to do so.

He made a low, contemplative noise of assent. "Honestly, our soldiers fight for what the Inquisition represents, but they fight all the harder for having their hopes and dreams they keep close. To have something to return home to. Even something like Lena and Leliana—I know, or at least knew, Lena far better than Leliana even now, but it can only be hope that's sustained them both through all these long years. I…maybe it's foolish that we've both tried to keep ourselves from such things. As if we ought to be above them. Perhaps if we each find that path forward it gives us something even more to fight for, and lead our people all the better." His expression went taut, almost pained. "And yet it's a double-edged blade. If it's a future that can be won, it also can be lost."

She nodded, swallowing hard. "I know." Both of them had spent long years content, or at least resigned, to have nothing that would hurt too much to lose. Another terrifying thing to contemplate. "I'm not demanding we each come up with an entire detailed plan for our lives, you know."

"I know. Only…that we should both start to find something to hold onto. No, I think that's wise. We've each tried even these past weeks to surrender ourselves entirely to duty once again. We both know we're prone to those thoughts. There has to be something more. A tether of sorts that keeps us from that."

"So?" She prodded him, but teasingly, and from his half-smile, he knew it.

"Oh, come now, give a man some time to think!"

"Very well, but I expect a written report, with your usual exactness, detailing the entirety of your future dreams and hopes. Within the next week. You'll impress me even further if you include diagrams or inventories and such."

He laughed. It was an awkward, snorting sort of snickering laugh, entirely undignified and the furthest thing from chuckles and such she'd gotten from him before. She looked at him, astonished, and found herself laughing too, unguarded. I respect my Commander, of course, but Maker, I do like this man.

He somehow wasn't surprised that someone followed, nor that it was Mia. He'd been waiting for this. For her to say what she needed. It felt like it had been almost too easy with Rosalie and Branson. If anyone was going to tear a strip off him, it would be Mia, and he both welcomed and dreaded it. "Say what you need," he told her, even as he moved to start making the frosting for the cake. She wouldn't object. It needed doing. "You've waited your turn for it."

"What, you think I came in here to flay you alive?"

He paused for a moment in measuring the sugar, looking up at her. "That's neither a confirmation nor a denial of your intent, isn't it?"

"Maker," she muttered. "You could always be maddening with how pedantic you can get." She sighed, resting one hip against the counter. "Really, I've said what I needed to say in my letters. Never much minced words. But I wish you'd damn well say something for once. There's quiet and there's silent, little brother, and you've been far too much the latter."

He had to admit the truth in that. "To be fair, my silence initially was mostly because I assumed you were dead when I heard Honnleath fell. Then when you finally tracked me down, the silence was because I didn't know what to say. How to be the man you were writing to. I couldn't."

"You've changed. So have all of us. But I still recognize you. And not just your looks."

"It just got so big in the end, Mia. Too much time, too much to say, and little of it felt like it suited a letter."

She mulled that over for a moment, then gave a single, slow nod. "Will you tell me when you can? Someday? Piece by piece if you must, just so long as you tell me what's going on."

She saw him and it took her an instant, but then she reacted, her hand covering her mouth. "Da—" she blurted.

Dennet had remarked on it as well. He looked like his father, albeit with his mother's curls rather than his father's slight waves. She looked at him and saw a ghost first. Then something in her expression cleared and she came towards him, grabbing him tightly and hugging him so hard it almost squeezed the breath from his lungs. "Cullen? Cullen! Bhràthair beag, it is you. Maker's breath, we didn't—" Then suddenly she let him go, stepped back, and hit his shoulder with the heel of her hand, almost hard enough to bruise. "You didn't even write this time? Seventeen years, and you just show up out of the blue like you simply went walking to the lake for the afternoon, you couldn't—"

"I did write," he protested, "I sent a message from Ashenton, up in Ambershore. Two days ago. A bird certainly should have made it before me."

"Oh, Maker's breath," she said, grimacing, "the raven went to the keep, of course, and the arlessa's steward is such a petty little shit—"

He found himself grinning. Some things never changed. "Tell me, exactly how did you piss the steward off, piuthar mhòr?" The endearment came easily to him after all this time, answering her calling him little brother as she had. The more casual dialect came back easily too, for all the Chantry and then Meredith had fiercely tried to train it out of him.

She scowled. "Told him that the fool the arlessa brought in from Hercinia does shoddy work that's all ornament and no useful durability. And I'm right, thank you."

He would have replied except Mia's gaze suddenly went past him, and he looked over his shoulder to see she had finally caught sight of Clerra, who had deliberately hung back just inside the door. "Cullen," his sister said. Every word came out careful and measured. "Unless you've come to tell us you've suddenly married someone you didn't even tell us about meeting, and if this woman is your wife we have an entirely different conversation to have—the only women I know of in your life you mention enough to believe they'd be friends to perhaps accompany you here are quite few. And of the two that come to mind, I don't know what Cassandra Pentaghast looks like, but I have indeed heard the other has red hair." Her eyes went back to him, staring directly at him as she asked, "Did you actually bring Her Worship, the Herald of Andraste, the Inquisitor herself, here to my forge to watch me yell at you?"

He went to go look at the armory, and was pleased to find at least a few sound weapons and bits of armor there. Loghain's forces clearly hadn't raided it during the Civil War, and nobody had dared to look since.

But it was the small wooden case that caught his eye, and when Clerra came back, her satchel and Aegis' saddlebags positively brimming with herbs, vegetables, and whatever else had caught her eye, he had managed to clean up the chess board and give the brass hinges that let it fold in half into a wooden case a little bit of oil. The pieces, contained within the closed case, had stayed clean. One white footsoldier was missing, but there was a clear lump of quartz that someone had begun to roughly shape into a replacement to judge from the carving tool and polishing cloths within the case as well, before they had left Caer Frith, never to return. Perhaps someone else had taken that one piece to war as a good luck token.

"Where did you find that?" Clerra asked, standing at the stew pot and dumping something in. Thyme, if he didn't miss his guess, from the smell.

"The old armory. This place has only been defunct for a decade. I went to go look for any weapons and armor the Inquisition might use."

"Any luck?"

"Some, yes. We'll have to have Harritt inspect them before issuing them to anyone, though. Truthfully, we need the help of more than one blacksmith if we're to outfit an army."

"Come now, that was your three minutes of work concerns, time to put them aside for a bit." She gestured to the chess set. "That looks like a fine set. Do you play?"

"I do, yes. Do you?" She nodded in reply. "Then would you care for a game?" Lunch would be a while yet, after all. And it had been so long since he'd played. To play chess, at least outside his head, required someone else's company and time.

"Of course." She sat down on the other end of his bedroll, the fabric cushioning them from the hard stone.

Clerra proved a rather decent player, but she’d made one misstep which meant he could have her in three moves, but something in him wanted to draw the game out further. “You know,” he said, moving his rook, rather than taking the move with his cleric that would have led to the endgame, “you may chide me when I return to it, but it is nice for us to deliberately take some time away from discussion of the Inquisition, or related matters.” Such as his past.

“Rather amazing we’ve managed it, isn’t it?” she answered, moving her pawn in a clever counter.

“To be honest, I appreciate the distraction.”

She looked up at him and gave him a slight smile. “As do I. Though I believe you forfeit something by mentioning the Inquisition. Again."

“So long as it’s not forfeiting the game, then very well.”

“Not willing to hand me the victory as recompense? I am utterly shocked, my friend.”

"Far be it from me to contradict the Inquisitor herself." But there was a lightness and lilt to his reply, the slightest hint of a smile for an instant, just the twitch of his lips.

She couldn't help but return it. "You're my advisor, Commander. If I'm wrong, contradict me. It's your duty, isn't it?"

"It is, but in this, I believe I bow to your expertise."

"Really now? And why is that?" She worded it playfully, but in her heart, she knew there was a plaintive edge to the question. Why should he follow her? Why should anyone, except from a lie spun from good intentions but now maintained with deliberate care because too much had been built upon its foundations? That feeling of inadequacy, of being an imposter, rose in a miserable surge.

He suddenly caught her hand in his, catching her attention by it. There was something emphatic in the gesture, and he'd never been a man for such things. Besides, every touch someone dared make now upon the personage of the mighty Inquisitor was something extraordinary. He said simply, "Because I believe in you, Clerra Trevelyan." His hand tightened in hers, squeezing gently. Yes, he would hold on. He wouldn't let her go. This was Cullen. A friend, a true one, and someone who'd fight for her, not just the Inquisitor. And that meant everything.

She squeezed back. "I believe in you too, Cullen Rutherford," she told him softly.

He was reluctant to begin, but she prodded him relentlessly, needing to understand the full scope of what he faced. As the list grew, she had to try hard to keep her expression from showing her shock. How on the Maker's green earth had he been functional, let alone acting as Commander, while withstanding so much? She'd known it troubled him, but she'd had no idea exactly how much it affected every facet of his life. Sleeping, eating, energy, focus, mental clarity, all of it.

"Have you been taking any sort of remedies for any of it?" she asked him.

He smiled faintly, which gave some much-needed life to his pale features and purple-shadowed eyes. His tone took on an air of a wry self-deprecating joke. "Well, Lace Harding gave me a jar of pickled eggs, saying I looked a bit peaked and it's what her ma would recommend. It's an old Fereldan folk remedy—"

"My ma was Fereldan, Cullen, I bloody well know about pickled eggs!" Could still remember the briny taste of them. Maker, she'd eaten so many of them while recovering from scarlet plague, along with taking medicines from the healers. There was something in them that did help in some cases, though. "Pickled eggs might mean you actually ate something now and again between dispatches, but clearly they aren't enough for what ails you."

Random Stuff is such a jumble of notes, snippets, etc. that it's hard to pick something out, but here's one bit for later from Neither By Chance Nor Fate.

RULES: make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous, and tag as many people as you have WIPs. People send an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and you post a snippet or tell them something about it!

Ch 28: Doubts and Decisions

Random Stuff

Bull DS Dynamics

Late AF because holiday weekend, but thank you to @greypetrel for the tag! From ch 27 of Neither By Chance Nor Fate, which I actually finished and posted yesterday, so let's call this a chapter update post too! Both Clerra and Cullen are doing just great after Adamant :) :) :)

**********

He found her on the battlements, looking down at the makeshift infirmary holding the Inquisition's wounded. "Commander," she said, and there was a peculiar emptiness to her voice that seemed to echo that sudden feeling of painful hollowness inside of him. Her arm was still in a sling. The mage healers were far too busy trying to deal with those hovering on the edge of life and death to make it to broken bones, even those of the Inquisitor herself.

"Inquisitor," he returned. She flinched slightly at the title.

"I am…glad you're…" He could hardly say well. "I'm glad you've returned to us safely."

"Thank you." Again, that careful distance. What terrible things had she seen in the Fade? Nightmare had obviously seen her in there, and probably played with her mind as it had his. Or was it that she'd finally seen what a bad bargain she'd made in both her Commander and her friend, and this was her establishing necessary distance? Perhaps both?

He fell back on discipline and protocol to paint over the cracks, as he so often had in the past. "I have the status report of our forces prepared for you."

"Let's have it." She gestured for him to go on, but it was listless, without any kind of energy.

“Of the four hundred thirty-seven we brought to Adamant, two hundred and thirteen are confirmed dead, either by recovery of their bodies or a sworn report by their comrades for those who are…unrecoverable.” Such as being buried beneath rubble, burned or disfigured beyond recognition, or torn apart by demons. “Thirty-seven are missing. There was no intent for prisoners to be taken, and thus, while I'll allow until we leave for a small bit of hope, I will be honest and say that they should likely be assumed dead. Eighty-nine are wounded. Of those, perhaps half or so may recover quickly enough to rejoin our efforts. The rest are either permanently injured or unlikely to survive.”

“That leaves—” He saw her doing the calculation, and spared her the trouble. The number might as well have been branded on his consciousness.

“Ninety-eight alive and currently fit for duty.” Over seventy-five percent dead, dying, or significantly injured. Added to the heavy toll already from Haven’s Fall and the march to Skyhold mere weeks ago, it made for a dreadful, impressive number.

“Maker have mercy,” she said, rubbing a hand tiredly over her face. “I can’t fault our soldiers’ courage.”

“No.” They had needed more time. If only he’d had more bloody time to train and prepare them, the butcher’s bill would still have been high, but perhaps not quite as devastating. Courage had carried them through, but it shouldn’t have come to that. “Only their training.”

“You did the best you could.”

It felt like damning with faint praise. If you're aware that’s the best I can offer, then you understand that we are truly in trouble. “Nevertheless. The responsibility is mine.”

“I’m the Inquisitor. I should think it rests with me in the end.”

Something about the ritual must have lashed out against the Mark, and instead snared her and dragged her into the Fade. She glanced upward, and couldn't see the rift she'd fallen through. It must have been much too high up in that ominous sky. She would have to find another one, somewhere. And she could only pray wherever it deposited her back on the other side of the Veil might be somewhere close enough to Adamant to somehow make it back.

No time to waste, though. She kept going. The moment her boots had touched the ground and she let go of the anchor of the cliff face, though, the air blurred and warped around her, and then suddenly she was in a cave—no, as she walked around, there were neat stone pathways, and stairs, and statuary, and stone plaques with names, dates, and epitaphs on them, identical to those in Ostwick's memorial garden. A Nevarran mausoleum? She suppressed an instinctive shudder at the thought of the dead left to molder underground.

And yet, there were carefully tended flowers and trees, a sign of love and devotion to the care of the dead. Though strangely, everything was black. Stone, flowers, statues, memorials, even the flames burned with an eerie dark fire, as if it had all been dipped in a massive inkwell. Then suddenly all light was swallowed, seemingly devoured by that unrelenting darkness, and the only illumination was the blaze of her Mark. Even with its brightness, she could barely see more than ten feet ahead of her. So much for putting her glove back on.

She turned in the direction she thought she'd seen the stairs, and began to walk. Suddenly a memorial stone loomed ahead, placed directly on the stone path, and stone walls sprang up, blocking her progress.

She read it without thinking. Cassandra Allegra Portia Calogera Filomena Pentaghast. Helplessness.

What? Then there was light, as eerie Fade-green shadows swirled into being before her eyes, coalescing into numerous distinct figures. One was a young girl, perhaps twelve, but even so, Clerra recognized that stubborn mouth and intense eyes. Cassandra.

She watched, stunned, as robed figures insisted that the man before them help them with their ritual. He refused, and then they killed him as Cassandra watched, screaming in agony, calling out a name. Anthony.

Her hand flew to her mouth as she remembered what Cassandra had said after Haven about her beloved brother, Anthony. How he had been killed by blood mages he had refused to help. And Maker help her, apparently Cassandra had watched it happen, helpless to intervene.

Helplessness. It all made a sudden, sickening sense. That must be Cassandra's fear. She shook her head, something in her denying the knowledge. Not the truth of it, only the having of it. She didn't want to know it. Didn't want to have been privy to something so terribly intimate, made an unconsenting voyeur to someone's deepest, most private pain.

Glimpses came through the settling dust of the collapsed wall. Glowing eyes. Too many legs, angular and dark. A gaping, jagged-toothed mouth. One after another, a flash at best, but enough to make it clear to a templar, at least. The Wardens had largely abandoned the courtyard, and left behind a hoard of summoned demons to lie in wait for Adamant's unwelcome guests. They had made good use of the time they had, unfortunately. "Templars, forward with me!" Rylen yelled, without hesitation, already racing towards the uncertain footing of the pile of rubble leading up to the breach. "We take down the demons. This is what we're made for, so let's damn well get to it." The templars obliged, not wasting breath that could be better used in fighting. It felt like mere moments before the rolling flashes of Wrath of Heaven lit up inside the breach, causing his view to vanish down to flickers in between attacks.

The gate finally collapsed with a screeching protest, and quickly, the mages sprayed ice over the hot metal so that they could now pass through it. More demons awaited within. His mouth felt dry suddenly, and it wasn't just the parched nature of the desert. It was the need for lyrium. It was hearing screams coming from the courtyard of the lower bailey, knowing what was happening there. Dry mouth, no water, bodies turned into playthings to be plucked at and torn apart like children playing far too violently with a doll.

He closed his eyes for a moment, fighting it like a bucking horse. No. Stop it. You cannot be there. Not now. You need to be here, in this moment. Facing the current nightmare, not the one a decade past. Though he fought through the terror, it was there all the same, embracing him like a lover in its barbed clutches, wrapped around his heart and soul in deepest shadow.

"Commander—" Clerra was there, pushing her helmet up, looking at him with anxiety in her brown eyes.

A week late (ope) but I was tagged by @morganaofcamelot on the Last Line Written!

My actual last line written yesterday was for @dragonagebigbang so I can't share it with y'all...yet. ;)

But here's some of the last bit I wrote a few days ago for Neither By Chance Nor Fate, ch 27. Still at Adamant, things still are AWESOME and nobody is having a bad time, right? **********

Maker, yes, now they could win this. Clerra's reappearance had sent a surge of hope through the ranks of the Inquisition, and she wasted no time trying desperately to close the rift that the templars had been trying to keep under control as much as possible. Cullen watched as Rinda and Varric raced down to cover her, and then several mages joined her, bracing her with their own power.

He now risked a glance around at the other facets of the battle. Erimond and Clarel had long since disappeared from view, and he didn't know which of the two mages would emerge the victor. The battlements were still largely secure, Loghain having clearly taken charge of the matter by himself once Tris stepped up to help manage the templars. The casualties in the courtyard had been heavy, and individual or small skirmishes continued, spells and arrows continuing to race through the air as the mind-fogged Warden mages dueled the Inquisition's mages and scouts, a chaotic frenzy of fighting. He could only believe, or hope, or both, that once the rift shut, those mages would either come to their senses directly, or see that their cause was lost and stand down. The idea of having to possibly execute mages gone mad under Corypheus' ministrations as a mercy and safeguard didn't bring him any pleasure.

Hold, he pleaded mentally with the Inquisition, seeing that their minds and resolve hadn't failed, but for the mundane fighters and archers, some of their bodies were reaching the ragged edge of exhaustion, starting to falter. The mages especially were having to resort to lyrium potions to restore their mana, to the point that a collection of flasks littered the courtyard, smashing underfoot as someone's boots or sandals came down upon them as the fight moved back and forth. Even a mage could only take so much lyrium before it poisoned them, and he feared some of them might be nearing their limits. As for the templars, one had fallen unconscious, pushed beyond the brink of his abilities' endurance, and looking at their strained faces, he knew they'd be somewhat ill tonight, as templars often were when overextending their abilities. He could feel the numb chill of it in his own veins, the backlash already beginning. Only a little longer, a little more. We have this. "Stand fast, Inquisition!" he called again, giving them one last rallying cry, and was gratified to hear the defiant roar of assent in return.

As he scanned the battle, he saw several Warden mages closing in on Clerra, and coming from the side held by Rinda, identifying that as the weak point in her defensive perimeter compared to the likes of Solas. Varric, steadfastly by her side with his crossbow, could deal out significant punishment at a distance, but even with as long-limbed as Merinda was, her reach with her daggers only extended so far compared to the ranged spells of a mage. And within a certain range, Varric's crossbow reload simply wasn't going to be fast enough compared to the speed of a talented mage.

Lost in that remembrance for a moment, he then caught Merrill gesturing him and Clerra forward, her hand lingering on Rinda's arm. The other woman came forward as well, taller than Merrill, her black hair caught up in a fancy twist of some sort. Her Dalish facial tattoos were nearly white, which stood out quite strikingly against the rich dark umber of her skin, like slivers of moonlight, as did a scar tracing from the angle of her jaw almost to one high, broad cheekbone. "Let me introduce my wife, Ellarethi Lavellan," Merrill said, beaming. "Ella, these are Merinda Hawke and Varric Tethras. Cullen—oh, I don't think I ever got your last name."

"Rutherford," he supplied.

"Clerra Trevelyan," Clerra introduced herself. He noticed she didn't use her title.

"What are you doing all the way out here?" Merrill asked. "Ella and I, now, we were tracking some ancient elven magical artifacts—"

"Andaran atish'an," Solas said silkily, joining their group, as if he'd somehow known what the topic would be. "Ancient artifacts of Elvhenen, you say? Yes, I do sense the touch of ancient magics about you."

"Oh! Yes. Do you study them as well?"

Ellarethi lifted an eyebrow and looked less than impressed with Solas' entrance. "You give a good Elvish greeting, but I hope you're not here guiding these people to take pieces of Elvhenen away with you." Her voice was low and smooth, with an unfamiliar flat accent. Her eyes went to Rinda, and she gave a wry, self-conscious smile. "No offense. I know you're Merrill's friends. I don't mean to be unfriendly either. I know plenty of humans and even some dwarves I like, but there's a particularly nasty magister in these parts. A real piece of work busy bleating about Tevinter's ancient glories and what they're owed. Usually when that happens, shems start claiming bits of our past as their own. Makes me a bit touchy."

"Long story short, Daisy," Varric spoke up. "Wardens at Adamant Fortress, blood magic, summoning demons, influenced to it by a Magister Sidereal and manipulated by probably the same nasty little shit of a magister your wife's talking about. Thinking they're saving the world while actually ending it. The Inquisition is here to crack that fortress open and stop them."

"That is…quite a lot," Merrill said, leaning on her staff, shaking her head. "Oh. Well then, yes, of course, we'll help you. But maybe you can help us too. Or rather, help our friends."

"What do you mean, Serah Sabrae?" Clerra asked her. "Er—unless you're Serah Lavellan, my apologies."

"No. The Lavellans were kind enough to take me in once I left Kirkwall, but I keep Sabrae as my name as a reminder of my clan," Merrill said softly. Disaster had befallen them, Cullen recalled. All of them except Merrill had been killed out along the Wounded Coast. He'd never heard details, or much of anything about it, being as he wasn't among Rinda's intimates by any means. But Maker knew, from sad and extensive experience of their handiwork, however many bandits, slavers, smugglers, and general bastards roamed near Sundermount who might well have seen a Dalish clan as something to slaughter for sport. He'd given Merrill his condolences, and she'd given him a sad look and said he was kinder than many.

"I…I see. Serah Sabrae, then."

"No, no, Merrill will be fine. A friend of Rinda's and Varric's is a friend of mine."

"Mer, vhenen, it seems time is somewhat of the essence here," Ella interjected, but she smiled as she said it.

"Then you say it. You're better at keeping things to the point. You know I tend to end up distracted by a hundred different thoughts," Merrill replied, smiling back at her wife.

"Yes, yes, very well. As my wife said, we came here tracking ancient artifacts. But what we've run into is the people at Griffon Wing Keep."

"Trouble?" Clerra asked her.

"No. Or at least, they're not the trouble. They're refugees, ser. Simple folk from the Dales, elves and humans, a few dwarves too. Celene and Gaspard's little war over a throne has ground so many lives to powder between their two relentless millstones. There are other refugee enclaves in various places in the Dales, but these ones were so scared they came all the way here, to where they figured absolutely nobody would go, only to have some respite from the violence. The Wardens told them they could have Griffon Wing, so long as they stayed out of Warden business. They obviously didn't question it."

A bit late, ope. I was tagged by @morganaofcamelot, and here's a bit from my DAI fic, Neither By Chance Nor Fate, from my rewrite of the Battle of Adamant. Been an insane few weeks so the writing's slowed down a lot, but hoping to kickstart it again! ~~~~~~~~~~~

Then it loomed in front of Clerra. Cullen Stanton Rutherford. Failure, and its cost to others. She faced it, praying Maker, not this one, let it be over…

But there was no escape, no mercy. She'd asked him once what happened at Kinloch, and he'd demurred. Then she'd told him that he needn't tell her more detail than he could bear. But now here it all was. The other side of the thing she had caught a glimpse of in Ginny's vision, and now she understood what the girl had been through.

A locked front door, screaming coming from upstairs, a templar officer who grimly told those with her that they were all going to die, but it was their duty to take as many maleficarum with them as they could before they were slain, in order to lighten the task of their templar brothers and sisters who would be left to finish it. "Yes, ser," Cullen acknowledged quietly, reaching for his sword. He sounded so young.

Blood, and bodies, and fighting desperately until he woke up in a magical prison. Hands clasped in prayer, voice a cracking rasp, desperately trying to cling to something, as one by one his friends were killed in front of him. Hunger and thirst, taunts and torture, the cruelty over and over of both mages and demons. A demon who wore Nalena Surana's face, telling him in loving tones that it had tired of his stubbornness and would force him to choose whether he would live or die.

Fear, and dismissal of those fears from all around him, and oh Maker, it wasn't over yet, because now a woman spoke to him, pointing out where Kirkwall's Knight-Commander had been hanged by the Viscount. "Kirkwall is a beast that requires a steady hand upon its leash. Its mages are certainly included in that. I believe after your experiences at Kinloch, you understand that we cannot afford to be weak. Ruthlessness towards the few is mercy for the many." On and on, more blood, more death, more fear. Years of it, without end. The visions kept coming. How had he survived all of this, let alone endured with his sanity and any sense of kindness remaining? He hadn't merely encountered darkness, he'd had it punched deep inside of him, over and over. Alongside Tris, this felt the hardest to watch, and the most like a violation, because of how close she was to them. Maybe even more so with Cullen, because it was so much.

"Please," she said, closing her eyes against it, "please." She wasn't sure what she was pleading for, whether for her to be able to stop watching, or for it to reach an end finally and Cullen's suffering to stop. She felt like she was smothering under the weight of everyone's pain.

"Over here," she heard a voice. For a moment she almost hoped it was Cole, but no, this was female, Orlesian-accented. Leliana? she thought in confusion, but no. It was a deeper voice than Leliana's. She turned away from where the visions of horror were still going, and saw a form limned in a golden gleam, somehow shoving apart a section of one of the black stone walls, holding it open. She didn't question it, simply raced over and leaped through, hearing the wall slam shut behind her.

Hitching up from her hands and knees to kneel, ready to rise, heart pounding, she looked up at her savior. The sight of the familiar shape of Chantry robes and a high regalia headdress almost made her say, Raisa? But no. Raisa hadn't been Orlesian. Her eyes adjusted to the glow, and she began to pick out the detail of the regalia, more intricate than even a Grand Cleric's, let alone a Revered Mother, and it hit her forcefully. Then she saw the features, familiar from paintings and illustrations. She pulled off her helmet, holding it in her hands. "Your Holiness! You're—here? Alive? Maker be thanked, there will be so many people…" Her voice trailed off as logic caught up to her shock. That golden light surrounding her. The way Justinia had manipulated that barrier wall. The way powerful demons and spirits both could take on familiar forms to interact with mortals. "You're not her, are you?" she said, hearing the rasp in her voice, as she suddenly fought back tears, the helmet dropping from her fingers to clatter on the ground with a dull clang.

Because for an instant, it had seemed like everything would somehow be all right, that some of the burden had lifted from her. Yes, Corypheus was alive and a threat, but the Divine's return would rally and unify people so readily.

Justinia—no, the spirit—knelt and took Clerra's hands in her own. They felt so warm and comforting. "I am her, and I am not," she said, her voice kind. "Dorothea has passed onward. But I am a part of her that remains here, to continue to do the work she left unfinished. I am the spark burning in your breast, when all else has failed. That which gives courage and strength against darkness. The thing that you inspire in those all around you, Clerra Trevelyan. I am Hope."