#eeeeeee

this is so sweet😞 it's giving me a cavity.

Thick smoke smothers the Alienage in a sour, choking haze.

The Qunari attack has left the city in turmoil. Refugees flood the narrow streets in frantic waves—bleeding men dragged over shoulders, children crying for parents that will never answer, carts overturned and abandoned where panic had seized the crowds. Inside Vora’s apothecary, the chaos is somehow worse.

She kneels on the floorboards, sleeves soaked through to the elbows with blood that is not her own. The front room has long since ceased to resemble an apothecary. Bodies cover every available surface—cots, tables, blankets dragged onto the floor. Some groan in pain, some cry out for Andraste or for their Creators. Others have gone frighteningly quiet.

“Do not scream,” she commands sharply, hunching over a wounded elf laid across her table. “You will waste your energy.” Her hands are slick with blood as she threads a needle through torn flesh. She works with brutal efficiency, jaw tight with concentration.

Vora only looks up slightly when she sees Merrill, slight recognition passing through her eyes before she looks back down to her work.