Amy Dallon, Herald of Andraste

Author's Note: As I've said before, if you find yourself confused about any of the elements of the Dragon Age setting that have come up, or with questions about Thedas as you've seen, please, ask. The intent has always been that familiarity with Dragon Age is not required, but I'm hardly perfect. In some cases, the confusion might be because the reader (and Amy) have not been provided some vital information, but in some cases, I might have just explained less well than I thought.

---

Miraculous ability to 'cure' the Darkspawn Taint or not, the rifts closed for no one but Amy. So after another few minutes sitting with Cassandra, they set out for the next rift.

Amy spent that silent time they sat there trying to process what Cassandra had said, about being proud to know her. It...

She's not saying she's proud of me... but...

It was the closest thing Amy had heard from anyone not named Victoria Dallon. Carol had never said it to her, but then, she'd never said it to Vicky either.

She looked over at Cassandra as they sat, chest feeling tight. Was -

No. Cassandra was... she was just trying to help Amy. It wasn't - Cassandra wasn't lying she didn't think it was that, but -

I'm just - I'm just pathetic and reading too much into it. Cassandra was just saying Amy was doing the right thing. Which she was... not that it changed much in the long term. She was only doing it because not doing it would feel worse. And because the Darkspawn Taint terrified her and -

"We should join the others and seek the next rift," Cassandra said, standing, extending a hand to help Amy to her feet. Amy took it, trying to push her thoughts to the back of her mind, to focus on - focus on what was happening now, what was important. She could...

She could worry about what Cassandra had said later. Or never. Never sounded good. Because it didn't mean much. It was just - it was nice to hear, but - it wasn't -

God, I'm so fucking pathetic.

Shaking her head, Amy tried to focus on what was happening, and when that failed, she forced her thoughts back to the Darkspawn Taint, and Cassandra's desire for her to keep it secret. That was... safer ground.

As they moved further along the ravine, and towards the cave the rift was supposed to be in, Amy weighed keeping this extra secret about something she could 'cure' or... save someone from. And thinking about the taint itself. She couldn't affect it directly, but... could she do something that...

Could she vaccinate someone or something against it? The problem would be testing it, and that would mean keeping some of that noxious shit on hand and - no. Bad idea. And once they closed the Breach, Amy was going to figure out how to get home anyway.

She was.

So...

I mean, I'm the only one who can do anything to the Darkspawn Taint...

Shaking her head, Amy tried to ignore the knot of guilt that was forming at the thought of just... leaving Thedas without doing something (what? What could she do?) about the Darkspawn Taint and focused instead on the question of keeping it secret.

Cassandra was going to tell Cullen, Leliana and Josephine. They could all keep secrets, presumably, and know who, if anyone it was a good idea to tell. The scouts worked for Leliana and Amy had to assume the spymaster wouldn't pick someone who couldn't keep a secret to work for her. Solas probably already had a thousand and one secrets, and she really needed to ask Cassandra about him.

I'm sure they didn't just trust that this very convenient mage shows up right as it all goes down, so they had to look into him and they obviously didn't find any sign he was up to anything bad...

Amy pushed that question aside - she would have to ask that later - and focused on the other two people who presently knew what she could do to the Darkspawn Taint. Katerina would obey the order, Amy was pretty sure. If nothing else, Katerina looked up to Cassandra too much to disobey the order.

Varric... well, Varric was the question. He was a storyteller and turned the story of his friend Hawke into a book, but he had kept certain facts back - and yet been totally cool with including others. He claimed to be, seemed to be on the same page as everyone else that the Breach was a big deal, the thing everyone needed to be focused on, but...

He was also playing at being the 'rogue with a heart of gold', and those didn't exist in reality. So if it was ever to his benefit, he might try to reveal it. Plus, he reveled in tweaking Cassandra - and everyone else, frankly.

Amy didn't think it was likely he'd spill the beans, at least, not any time soon, but... if anyone who currently knew would, it was him.

Finally, they reached the cave. Though, it was less a cave and more... something Amy didn't know the proper term for. Those hexagonal black rock column-things made up the walls of it, and there were several holes in the ceiling that brought in sunlight and water, leaving the cave full of greenery, including a few trees, and plenty of bushes.

There were no living giant spiders (though they did find a body - the thing was huge, easily bigger than a dog, like... the size of a pony? The demons infesting the cave had killed it, and Amy held back as a series of wraith and shades attacked them before they got close to the rift. Once they found the rift further back, Amy stayed back as well.

In addition to more shades and wraiths, the rift was 'defended' by two rage demons and another terror demon. After having been near several now, Amy was... well, she wasn't curling up into a ball and trying to run away, but she still felt icy fear claw at her, making her blood run cold and her body freeze up.

Every time she'd been hit with it before, she was sent back to that moment, that awful moment of terror when Vicky had been dying, right before she'd triggered and - the fear of losing her, losing her sister...

But this time, she was faced with something else. Something that had never happened and...

Amy gripped tight onto her staff as her mind was assaulted with images of the Darkspawn Taint, consuming, converting, overwhelming all life around it... consuming her family.

Aunt Sarah. Uncle Neil. Crystal. Eric. Carol. Mark.

Vicky.

She couldn't do anything, couldn't reach them, couldn't help them, could do nothing but watch as the red-black nightmare substance slowly consumed their cells, ate their bodies, turned them all, turned her sister into twisted, bloated, mindless monstrosities, barely resembling themselves...

The images vanished from her mind as if someone had flicked a switch once the second terror demon was defeated, and then the rage demon was felled a few seconds later. Amy took several shuddering breaths, feeling cold, clammy sweat on her neck, under her armor - but she didn't let that stop her from approaching the rift and holding her hand out, feeling that stabbing sensation again as it closed.

The act was almost an autopilot one now - not really, but she'd done it enough times that it was becoming rote.

Except for the pain. It seemed impossible to get used to that.

Why... why did the terror demon make me see -

Was it just that the Darkspawn Taint was fresh in her mind? It did scare her, Amy had to admit. It scared her and she hated it, hated it. She'd never hated a disease, because why bother? She could cure it.

She couldn't do that to this one. And she couldn't even really read it - just read it enough to feel she should be able to do more to it, but she couldn't because it - because it was weird magical bullshit that turned other things into weird magical bullshit.

She hadn't been this scared of demons, when she realized they didn't even read as alive to her power - but they were basically projections and... they couldn't turn people into more of them. The abomination had been horrifying, but she could still use her power on it.

The Darkspawn Taint? She couldn't really read it, couldn't use her power on it, and it made more like into more of itself. She was... she was still reasonably confident her power's sort of... automatic protection against disease she had would protect her from the Darkspawn Taint, but...

Did it really scare her that much? Amy wrapped her arms around her waist as she waited for the others to finish exploring the cave. Was it just that it was the first thing here in Thedas that truly, deeply terrified her? That it was fresh in her mind?

"I believe I have found something of interest." Solas's voice cut through her anxious fixations and Amy looked around for him, following the sound of his voice. The bald elf was crouched by a little niche carved into the cave wall. Inside there was a glowing green object, the shape and size of a globe (and even on what looked like a little stand), but with a bunch of extra bits on opposite ends, making it almost look like some weird, mutant telescope? There were cracks in it, and that's where the green light was coming from.

"Okay, it's shiny and obviously magic, but what is it, Chuckles?" Varric asked Solas. "Don't keep us in suspense."

"I believe," Solas said in his usual unflappable tone, "That this is an ancient elven ward, of sorts, used for interacting with the Veil."

Amy was not her sister, and as her shitty, usually barely passing grades at Arcadia proved, she wasn't even all that smart (as if she didn't know that already). But she also wasn't a complete idiot. She could retain information sometimes and eventually add two and two to get four. The Veil was the... barrier, thing between the Fade and reality. The Breach and the rifts were holes in it.

"So this is the reason there's so many rifts in the Storm Coast, and why the demons are ranging further from them than normal?"

"That would be my supposition, yes." Solas confirmed, nodding. He gestured to the thing, "In the heart of the device is a piece of crystal that reacts to the Fade. I believe it was used to strengthen or weaken the Veil in a given area. And right now, it is weakening the Veil."

"Will it close any rifts?" Cassandra asked.

"I don't think so. But if I switch it to strengthening the Veil instead, it should make sure no new rifts open, and make the demons left stay closer to the rifts that brought them here."

"Why would they even make something that could strengthen or weaken the Veil?" Amy demanded.

"Experimenting with it, I assume." Solas answered. "Seeing what impact a weaker Veil had on an area, or perhaps to work magics that needed more power than could be easily obtained any other way." He stood up, "Or conversely, strengthening the veil when a given area had a naturally weak veil for some other reason - mass death, for instance. Or some other magical disaster."

Ask a stupid question... Amy nodded. "I guess that makes sense. In a 'let's meddle with forces beyond our comprehension because we're idiots' sort of way," Amy sighed. "You're sure it will be safe and make the Veil stronger?"

"As certain as I can be without trying it,"

"Then do it." Cassandra nodded. Solas crouched back down by the device and reached his hand out, closing his eyes and murmuring a quiet spell before the device glowed a brighter green, a sort of sphere forming around it.

"There. It should be set."

"Good. We should find a spot to make camp for the night, and then set out to close the remaining rifts tomorrow."

"While we look for that spot, Panpan, I think you owe me a story about that 'Garden of Eden'?"

Amy groaned and dropped her head into her hands. She had promised him she'd tell him about that.

"Okay, fine. Once we're out of the cave, I'll start." Amy started organizing what little she actually knew about the story offhand into something that sounded coherent in her head. Once they were out, she took a breath. "This is a - this is a myth or story or whatever that a bunch of people back home believe in. I don't. But... okay, so you guys all believe in the Maker, or most of you anyway." Solas probably didn't, and Varric didn't seem a religious type.

"The big all-powerful being who created everything and all that? Back home, the people who believe in that sort of thing just call him 'God'. One story is that when God created the first man and the first woman, he put them in this... magical wonderful paradise called the Garden of Eden. Where no one could get hurt or sick, and everything was innocent and wonderful and food was plentiful on all the trees and bushes and God even allowed them - Adam and Eve were their names - to eat the fruit of the tree of life. That meant that they would never get old. And because everything was innocent their minds were like children, or something like that,"

"There's a tree that has fruit that makes people live forever on your world and you're just mentioning this now?" Katerina asked, blinking.

"No! I said it's a story! It's - magic doesn't exist back on Earth-Bet, remember? And - if you let me finish the story you'll get why even if it was a thing - and it wasn't - the tree of life isn't a thing anymore!"

"If it was, I hope you'd give it a better name than 'Tree of Life," Varric mused. "A little on the nose."

"Can I finish?" Amy gritted her teeth. Varric gestured for her to continue.

"So God tells Adam and Eve they can do whatever they want in the Garden, eat anything they want, except for the fruit of this one tree. It's a special tree. The Tree of Knowledge."

Varric snorted, "Did he want them to eat from the tree?" Katerina chuckled as well.

"When I was six, my grandfather told me not to pick apples from his favorite tree. So of course I went and tried to," Katerina agreed.

"I don't know what he wanted. But yeah, It - it was pretty stupid to just say it like that." It wasn't like Vicky hadn't gotten up to a million and one antics when they were younger. And then Amy would be right behind her, unable to say no, always trying to at least hold her sister back from the worst of her 'great ideas'...

Amy blinked repeatedly, feeling wetness, but didn't try to stop the soft smile that formed as she remembered... better times, for a moment. Then she exhaled slowly.

"So yeah, you can see where this is going. There's a snake, it can talk, the snake might actually have been the Devil - which is like, God, but evil and not as powerful - I don't remember." She held up a hand, "If you ask me about the Devil, we'll be here all fucking day." Varric didn't look like he was that bothered by the prospect, but he at least didn't say anything.

"Anyway, this snake convinces Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, to know all the things God knows or... something like that. I don't know the details. But she does and then convinces or tricks Adam into doing it. Or convinces Adam and then Adam later says she tricked him." There was a whole lot of 'women bad and evil' baked into the story too, really.

"They eat from it and they understand, like, good and evil and aren't innocent and pure anymore and all that. God figures out they know this now, and so he punished them by expelling them from the Garden of Eden, into the rest of the world where there's deprivation and shortage and people have to actually work to grow enough food and all that. They call it Original Sin and it's why the world isn't paradise anymore and why people die."

Amy knew for sure she was forgetting some details, or maybe hadn't ever picked up on them. Wasn't there something about the snake - if it wasn't the Devil - getting punished? And she was pretty sure the reason childbirth sucked so much was a punishment on Eve or... maybe that was just something people said later.

"Sounds like a shitty move, really." Varric mused.

"The three great sins of mankind against the Maker were worshiping his firstborn children - the spirits that became the Old Gods - before him, entering the Golden City to try and usurp him and burning his Bride rather than listening to her message." Cassandra commented. "It took all three for the Maker to turn from us completely. It seems... harsh of this 'God' to act so cruelly."

"You're telling me," Amy agreed, a little surprised by Cassandra's words, though... she did have a point. The Maker gave humanity more chances than God did, sort of? Maybe not, honestly. Amy didn't really know.

Either way, Varric wasn't wrong. What little else Amy knew about the Old Testament - the flood and Abraham's son and a few errant bits of trivia about like, Moses and stuff - told her God was a fucking dick. She was sure believers had their answers to that argument, but she didn't care and hadn't really argued that point with anyone.

"The Dalish elves tell many stories about the past to explain the state of the world, or to impart lessons. Often both." Solas chimed in. "It would sound as though this 'Garden of Eden' story is another such one. Though the lesson it teaches of unquestioning obedience and a glorification of ignorance is... troubling."

"The Chantry says that when the Chant of Light is heard in all four corners of the world, the Maker will return and make the world a paradise." Katerina mused, uncharacteristically thoughtful. "Is there anything like that for God?"

"I don't think so? Just going to Heaven when you die to be by his side, if you're good and believe in him and eat all your vegetables and stuff." Amy shook her head. "There's a book kind of like the Chant of Light, called the Bible. I've never read it, so I don't know all the details."

"What about the Second Coming? Didn't you say the return of God's son was supposed to save everyone, according to the believers?" Cassandra asked, curious.

"God's son? Your Maker has a kid?"

Thanks a lot Cassandra, Amy thought sourly as Varric reacted to the latest revelation.

"The Second Coming is supposed to bring all the good people to Heaven, not have paradise on Earth. I think." Amy furrowed her brow. "Don't quote me on that." Amy pressed her hands to her temples. Then she looked over at Varric. "Now, as to what you just said, he's not my Maker, I don't worship God or believe in any of that stuff. As for the whole him having a son thing..." She sighed and set to repeating the story she gave to Cassandra a while back.

---

Another day to close the last three rifts, and then they headed back to Haven. The trip took way, way, waaay too long, and with long days on the road and only firelight to read by, Amy didn't get as much reading done as she'd have liked. That, and Varric kept poking her for more stories about Earth-Bet, like he always did. Amy didn't have much more in the way of stories about 'God' to share, but she did tell the story of Noah and the Flood, which had Varric and Katerina again comment that God sounded like a dick. She also shared more of Vicky's exploits - her sister would love knowing that stories of her heroism were now spreading beyond Earth-Bet.

But she did get to read some, and 'Her Hidden Dedication' was a good book.

She was only about halfway through, but the story was engaging and compelling. The two leads were an Orlesian noblewoman, and one of the knights in service to the noblewoman's father. The knight was of a low nobility, her parents commoners who had bought minor titles, and the knight - not even the first born- had risen as far as she was likely to in Orlesian society of the hundred or so years ago when the story was set.

The knight loved her lord's daughter, and unbeknownst to her, the noblewoman loved the knight, but the two of them pined for one another in silence. It was heartbreaking and beautiful. The knight didn't say anything because she was too lowborn, and didn't believe the noblewoman would return her affections. The noblewoman didn't say anything for fear of driving her one real friend among her father's household away.

Adding to the whole mess was that while being gay wasn't seen as immoral or wrong, nobles were expected to get married and have kids, and that meant... well, the noblewoman would have to marry some nobleman that her father approved of. Of course, as the other friends of both main characters pointed out, political marriages between nobles in Orlais weren't exactly expected to stay faithful.

Which, gross, but it was a romance story, so it wasn't the same thing as it happening in real life. Amy was eating the pining up with a spoon, the knight watching the object of her affections from a distance, and the noblewoman imagined the knight kissing her and more 'indecorous fantasies' - and that was the phrasing she used to describe her thoughts.

And finally, now, at the halfway point she had reached the night before as they rode into Haven now, late in the morning, they had finally kissed. The knight and the noblewoman (among others) had been going to visit another noble nearby, they were attacked by bandits on the road as a sudden rainstorm struck, and the knight had gotten seriously injured - while both had gotten away, they were now taking refuge in a cave, completely lost, and the noblewoman had confessed her feelings, the knight had done the same, and they'd kissed.

Amy itched to just go to her cabin and get back to the book immediately, but she knew there was stuff that needed to be done. Iron Bull and his Chargers were a few days behind, but on their way to Haven nonetheless.

The tents by the walls of the village had been turned into a mix of tents and wooden shelters, probably thrown together quickly, though to Amy's eye, they seemed at least a little sturdy. The whole space was larger now, more soldiers coming to join the Inquisition, Amy assumed. The training grounds were expanded, with more archery targets and mannequins for hitting with weapons set up than before too. The gates of the village were open as carts moved in, loaded with crates and barrels and sacks of supplies. Amy wondered if potatoes or tomatoes were among them, and if not, how hard would it be to get them.

Coffee is probably expensive to get all the way here, I can't just... I can't just demand more stuff. But if it wasn't too hard, or if they were already in the supplies...

A taste of home would be nice.

Once they were inside the gates, Solas and Varric split off. Amy called out to Solas before he was out of earshot. "Solas - I have a question for you, later." She still hadn't talked to him about the whole 'Qunari had dragon DNA in them'. He was the only magic expert she knew, and she had no idea how anyone else would react to the news.

Solas seemed pretty detached from most things apart from 'slavery bad' and 'the elves suffer at the hands of humans', so he probably wouldn't react badly, but she wanted to talk to him about that in private. Same with asking Cassandra or Leliana about Solas - do that somewhere private.

"I shall come by your cabin later, then?"

"Or I'll go find you, once we both have time." Amy nodded, and then she followed Cassandra and Katerina towards the Chantry, presumably to fill Josephine and Cullen and Leliana on everything. As they approached the Chantry, she saw Leliana speaking to a tall, brown-haired man wearing a breastplate over some kind of padded armor. As they drew closer, she got a look at the profile of the man, and he had a beard, the kind that probably took years to develop and very carefully maintain, coming down to two sort of spikey bits.

Leliana caught sight of them and with a gesture, beckoned them over. Or at least beckoned Cassandra, and Amy followed along, with Katerina behind her.

"Cassandra, Amy, Katerina - this is Blackwall, a Grey Warden. Warden Blackwall, this is Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast, Amy Dallon, and Katerina, one of our soldiers."

A Warden?

"Charmed," Blackwall held out a hand - gloved, of course, it was kind of chilly here in Haven and by now Amy had gotten used to the idea that people who used swords and stuff wore gloves a lot, and Blackwall had a sword at his belt, a shield propped up against a crate nearby.

The shield was probably his because it had the bird emblem - griffin? eagle? - that was on his breastplate. Its wings were spread? No, it was two birds, back to back, each lifting one wing. Weird.

Cassandra shook his hand, and then Amy took his as well, itching to grab his arm and pull him closer and touch his bare skin. How were Grey Wardens immune to the Darkspawn Taint? Could she replicate it? Did they have some sort of cure-vaccination thing? Did they take Darkspawn Taint into themselves? If they did, could she drive it out of him quickly, kill it with fire? Because seriously, that shit needed to - it didn't matter, that stuff was - it was nightmarish and if he had it in his body then he needed to -

Amy closed her eyes quickly, taking a breath and pulling her hand back from the handshake quickly, probably looking like she was snatching her hand back from a hot stove or something.

Goddamnit Amy, yes, this stuff scares you but what the fuck is wrong with you? Before she could start making a list, Blackwall - had to be some kind of fake name, or a pseudonym, right? Who had Blackwall as their first name? Or maybe it was his last name? - interrupted her thoughts by asking a question:

"Amy Dallon. As in the Herald of Andraste?" Blackwall said, after shaking Katerina's hand, sounding surprised. "You're - younger than I expected."

"I am not anyone's Herald," Amy tried to say it in as level a tone as she could, her teeth clenched and jaw tight.

"Though many believe Andraste played a role in ensuring Amy was here to be able to close the rifts and, given time, the Breach," Leliana said smoothly, "The Inquisition makes no official claim as to that."

It sounded like something Josephine might have written for everyone to say if it came up.

"I see," Blackwall said. "Still - you can't be older than nineteen."

"Seventeen." Amy answered.

"So you did find a Warden, Leliana." Cassandra observed.

"I did." Leliana nodded. She looked over at Amy, "Since before the Conclave, there have been reports of Grey Wardens abandoning their bases all over Ferelden, Orlais and the Free Marches. I've been looking into it, and Blackwall was the first one I've been able to find."

"I've no knowledge where they all went, but we don't really stay very visible between Blights," Blackwall said. "I've been alone, looking for prospective recruits for a few years now."

"And the other Grey Wardens never recalled you?"

"Maybe a runner got waylaid, or couldn't find me?" Blackwall offered in response to Cassandra's question, sounding like he was just tossing it out there. "I don't know where the Wardens have gone, but Grey Wardens are about service, becoming better than you were to protect others. We might be most concerned with Blights, but failing that... after one of Sister Leliana's agents found me, I volunteered to be of use."

Doesn't sound like the whole 'the Blights are the most important thing, hurt innocent people if it stops them' mindset Cassandra mentioned... but then, this wasn't a Blight?

"Blackwall was helping villagers in the Hinterlands fight back against bandits." Leliana explained. "Given that, it seemed like he might be of great use helping hammer some of the new recruits into shape and get them fighting as a unit."

"That seems reasonable," Cassandra nodded. She "As long as you are here with the Inquisition, our greatest priority is the Breach. I understand that as a Grey Warden, yours are the Blights, and Darkspawn - if you find those priorities conflicting, then it would be best to part ways with the Inquisition."

Leliana's expression looked strange for a moment, but only for that split second before it returned to normal. Blackwall didn't notice.

"I can't see how it would cause any problems, unless we run into Darkspawn, and it's not as if the Inquisition would just leave them be to attack innocent people?"

"No." Cassandra allowed.

"If we'd had you on the Storm Coast, I would have felt more confident if we'd actually run into those Darkspawn ourselves. But the Chargers - a group of mercenaries helping us secure the region so Amy could close the rifts - found them first." Katerina offered. "I've never actually met a Grey Warden."

"They're - there's not a lot of us these days," Blackwall shrugged. "If you hear about more Darkspawn where you'll be operating, I'm more than willing to be of service." He nodded to them, "I only arrived in Haven a few hours ago. I should go get a feel for the recruits I'll be helping with."

"Of course." Cassandra nodded. Blackwall nodded back to all of them and moved off, back towards the training grounds. Cassandra looked over at Katerina. "You are dismissed for the time being. I will take Amy back to her cabin when we're done."

Katerina nodded and saluted, pressing her fist to her chest, "Let me know when you're done with 'Her Hidden Dedication'," She said to Amy while leaning in towards her. Without waiting for a response though, she headed off.

"You sent word ahead that Iron Bull and the Chargers were hired. I assume they're on their way?"

"They should be, yes." Cassandra nodded. "But there's other matters to discuss. And we have the matter of the mages and Templars as well. Did Lord Seeker Lucius send word yet?"

"Not yet. Given the location of Therinfal Redoubt is, it's possible his men haven't even reached it yet, though they should be drawing close. On the other hand, the mages under Grand Enchanter Fiona have already invited Amy to come speak with her. I see no reason why we shouldn't take them up on and resolve this matter as quickly as possible."

Seems like the simplest option. Amy knew Cassandra wanted to go with both sides, if she could, and Amy could see the logic. But it was also about closing the Breach as quickly as possible.

"We'll need a few days before we set out anyway, to prepare for the negotiations." Cassandra pointed out. "There is another matter that needs to be discussed, however, and it would be best to do it privately."

Leliana looked Cassandra over carefully, then nodded, "Very well. I'll send word to Josephine and Cullen to join us in the back room in half an hour?"

"Very good."

---

"...I didn't include mention in the note in case it was intercepted." Leliana explained. "No reason to risk letting everyone know the Qunari have a spy in our ranks."

"How do we even know Iron Bull will be the only one?!" Cullen demanded. "The Qunari aren't exactly our enemy right now, but they're not our friends either, and they can become enemies in a heartbeat, without any reason."

"Strictly speaking, everything the Qunari do is with a reason... that reason is just often opaque to outsiders," Josephine said. Amy supposed it made sense for a diplomat to have that sort of mindset, but it was also kind of... not the point. "And we can hardly ensure there won't ever be any more Ben-Hassrath spies in the Inquisition, but it's also a matter of trust. Leliana is hardly going to be lax in her security. If the Qunari try to plant more spies on the Inquisition, we'll know they're not interested in cooperation, and can act accordingly."

"Give them enough rope to hang themselves?"

Josephine looked over at Amy, then nodded, "I've never heard it put that way before, but if I'm following your meaning correctly, yes. If the Qunari are willing to work with us then they won't assign any more spies. And we can make sure we don't let Iron Bull or his Chargers know about anything we don't want the Qunari to know."

"We can make it harder for him to find out, but the only way three can keep a secret is if two are dead," Leliana offered. "It's a risk, but a calculated one. The last thing Thedas needs is the Qunari deciding to attack first and ask questions later."

"The Qunari attacked first and asked questions never in Kirkwall," Cullen grumbled. "But I suppose only one of the damn giants is more manageable than the few hundred the Arishok had to work with."

Amy blinked, "Okay, Iron Bull mentioned Kirkwall too. What the hell happened there involving the Qunari?"

"You haven't gotten that far in Varric's damned-" Cullen started, then shook his head, cutting himself off. "Obiously not, if you wouldn't be asking. It's... a long story, and I don't know the truth about most of it. But three years before Knight-Commander Meredith tried to purge the Kirkwall Circle, a group of Qunari soldiers tried to take over the city and killed the Viscount, before Hawke stepped in."

"I thought you guys hadn't been at war with them for a while? Just them and Tevinter?!" Hawke too? Did everything come back to Kirkwall and her?

Well, no, I - the Kirkwall Qunari thing doesn't seem super connected to this, it just kind of came up.

"The Qunari disavowed those involved. It was something of a... embarrassment to them," Josephine clarified. "But we're getting off-topic. I can fill you in on more of the details later, Amy, or you can get them from 'Tale of the Champion'. It's quite accurate to the material facts, on this matter."

I... I suppose I should get back to that eventually. When she ran out of other things to read, maybe.

"Right now, we should discuss our options regarding the Breach. I understand that this is an urgent-"

"No, there is another matter that must be discussed," Cassandra cut in. "I suspect it will take us some time to decide on how to move forward with either the rebel mages or the Templars, but while we were on the Storm Coast, Darkspawn were active there..."

Cassandra outlined the story - the Chargers took them out, or so it seemed, and they found the dead Darkspawn and the dying ram, and Amy's insistence on trying to heal it. Leliana's expression was unreadable, Josephine looked skeptical for a moment, and Cullen did as well, though for longer, until Cassandra explained what Amy had done.

"...if word got out that you could do this, there is no way we could convince anyone you weren't either sent by Andraste and the Maker, or a false prophet sent to damn us all," Josephine murmured, looking at Amy with a combination of concern and... was that awe?

Fuck. I think that's just a little awe. Or reverence. It was something Amy was way, way too used to seeing back home, and she saw it from too many people who called her the Herald here and now Josephine - one of the few people she liked in Thedas - had it too. Goddamnit.

Please don't keep feeling that.

"If she can cure the Taint... perhaps she was sent by the Maker..." Cullen trailed off in a soft murmur. "Not to her knowledge, but -"

"One, I can't fucking cure the Darkspawn Taint," Amy said, saying that part very slowly and carefully so maybe everyone would get it. "Two, if your Maker is the reason I am here, then he's -" Amy managed to bite back the tide of insults she wanted to say - of which 'a fucking asshole' would be the start -at the last minute. Everyone else in the room believed in the Maker and Andraste, "If he's the reason I'm here, then I'm really - really - angry with him." Christians were allowed to be angry at God, right? That was a thing she saw in movies or TV shows, right? It was probably safe to say that.

"But he's not, and I don't really see why this is the thing that is getting you to think that, Cullen, or - please - don't look at me like that Josephine. I - I'm the same Amy. I'm still not heaven-sent. Why is this - why is this the one that has you acting like this?" Even Leliana's expression seemed softer than usual. Cassandra at least wasn't looking at her any differently. She hadn't when Amy had saved the Ram either. Concerned, but that was normal.

At least she's not getting all reverent. If that happened Amy might just have to give up entirely... or spend more time with Varric.

"I... Amy, I appreciate you're neither from Thedas nor Andrastian, so it doesn't surprise me that you don't quite understand the situation." Josephine said carefully, setting her little paper-holder with a candle on it down on the table and folding her hands in front of her, holding them by her waist. "And perhaps more importantly, how people will understand it as well. The Chant of Light tells us that the source of the Taint, of the Blights themselves, is the sin the Magisters Sidereal brought to the Golden City, turning it black, and unleashing the Darkspawn on the world upon their return. It is, in essence, a curse of divine origin. And you can save people from it. With a touch, you can undo what many people see as, in some form, the Maker's judgement."

Amy bit her lip, screwing her eyes shut, hands closed into fists by her sides. What Josephine said made sense, when she put it like that. If the Darkspawn Taint was some curse from the Maker, and she could cure it, then what did that say about her?

It said nothing, but - she could imagine how other people wouldn't see things that way.

"The Maker did not inflict the Taint upon us, the Magisters did." Leliana disagreed. "Its origins are still divine - the holiness of the Golden City tainted by mortal sin, corrupted into the Taint and the Blights. To be able to save someone from it, expel it from their body - It is no small thing to be able to do what no other effort has. It is hard to fathom someone who was not touched by the Maker-"

"And who decided the Maker got to pluck me from my home and drop me here, away from my family and - I didn't ask for this?!"

"The Maker never asks for more from us than we can give," Cassandra said calmly. "That said... you have been quite insistent that your ability to heal isn't from the Maker."

"Because it isn't!" Unless he's been the one giving everyone powers on Earth, and I - I really don't see why he'd give some of the worst monsters I've ever heard of powers." Amy's heart was beating quickly in her chest and she closed her eyes again, trying to take another deep breath. "If it's biological, I can use my power on it. The Darkspawn Taint is... well, I don't know about the Black City stuff, but it's like - it's like that Abomination. It's - It's biology kept trying to react to what I was doing to it. But the Taint was even worse - I couldn't get a lock on it. I couldn't read it enough to deal with it."

Amy groped for the right words, "Demons don't read as anything to my power. They're not biological. The Abomination was this... insane amalgamation. The Taint was like that too, but worse. It's physically present, but it's..." goddamnit, what's the word I want... I - "mutable. The Fade is mutable, that's how magic works, right? Bringing the Fade into reality and working your will through it?" Amy did catch on eventually.

Cullen and Cassandra nodded slowly, and Amy went on.

"The Taint kept changing, so I couldn't... pin it down to actually do anything to it. So I just - I just seized control of the ram's entire system and set it to physically forcing the Taint out... like guards ejecting an intruder from a castle." Maybe that analogy would work for them.

She exhaled, "The point - it's just the same power you all knew I already had. It's not - it's not some extra thing I can do because of the Maker!"

"You're asking us to believe a lot that seems impossible." Cullen told her, a cautioning tone in his voice.

"I don't - I don't care if you believe the Maker is behind this, not... much." Amy lied, then "But it's bad enough people keep acting like I'm holy out there. I don't need that from any of you! So please, fucking don't!"

"It is easier to remind ourselves you don't believe you have any special connection to the divine when you act your age," Leliana said with a small smirk. Amy rolled her eyes, but...

I suppose that makes sense. Divine savior can't be a petulant, whiny brat and all that.

"That said, the problem of people 'acting like you are holy', as you call it, will only get worse when word gets out that you can save people from the Taint," Leliana cautioned.

We're not doing that yet though!

"We are not letting word get out." Cassandra said firmly.

"You can't be serious, we can't hide something like this, Cassandra!" Cullen brought a hand down quickly - he didn't slam it down onto the table, slowing his hand a few moments before actually connecting with the table, but the gesture was much the same.

"Why not?" Josephine had picked up her board. Cullen and Leliana looked over at her, the Commander looking confused. "Haven is quite remote, so it's not as if people suffering from the Taint are especially likely to be able to live long enough to make it here. And we can hardly afford to have Amy going to every single person who might be suffering from it." Amy wasn't sure how she felt about Josephine's cold logic, but... she wasn't - she wasn't wrong.

"Think of what this could do for the Inquisition, Josephine. There's many still detractors and fence-sitters in the Chantry and the nobility. A few well placed-" Leliana started, but Josephine shook her head.

"The Inquisition is well-situated for now," the ambassador wove her words quickly, but clearly, before Leliana could start up again. "And I'm less concerned about what it could do for the Inquisition as what it could do to Amy."

What?

"You are not interested in being an object of reverence. There is only so much we can do about that at this point, given what you are, what you represent and what you can do." Josephine explained, looking at her. "But we can make this less difficult for you by not giving people even more of a reason to see you as sent by the Maker."

Amy let out a breath. "Thank you." Her gut churned, knowing it was just Josephine pitying her but - she couldn't help the swell of gratitude she felt towards the ambassador.

"...You do have a point about the limitations," Cullen sighed. "Haven is a poor place to serve as a base for anything, but the Breach is here, so there's not much we can do." He brought one hand up to the right side of his head and rubbed at his temple, his shoulders slumping. For a moment, his eyes closed, he looked like Amy felt after a night out at the hospital, completely and utterly spent, sleepwalking awake. He took a breath and opened his eyes again. "And while it would generate support for the Inquisition, and for Amy as the Herald, among those determined to hate us, and her - it would only give them more ammunition to argue she's a false prophet."

Amy blinked, not understanding how that worked at all, but she also didn't want to question it now that Cullen was coming around. Part of Amy didn't want to hide this, but seeing even Josephine have that moment of awed reverence...

Cold as it is, if people affected by it can't get here and I can't get to them, what does it even matter? If she saw someone suffering from the Darkspawn Taint in front of her, she wasn't going to do nothing. There was no getting away from that. But...

Amy swallowed.

"There is another possible concern." Cassandra added. She looked over at Leliana. "When you travelled with the Hero of Ferelden, did you learn the specifics of how one becomes a Grey Warden?"

Leliana looked at her a moment, then to Amy. Then back to Cassandra. A thoughtful expression on her face.

"I didn't know the Seekers knew. I can see how it might be a concern." She exhaled slowly. "None of the Grey Wardens I knew would be a problem, but... Kaliaus and Alistair are hardly normal in that respect. I'm not sure the risk to Amy is as great as you imagine, but..."

"As far as I'm aware, the Seekers don't know, it was merely one of several theories." Cassandra corrected. "But it would seem that theory is correct. And as for the risk, any additional risk to Amy is too much, under the circumstances.

Cullen looked from Leliana to Cassandra, "What in Andraste's name are you on about? I would think Grey Wardens would appreciate anything that could be of any harm to the Taint."

"Many might, but there are certain details about the Joining, the ceremony by which one becomes a Grey Warden, that are kept secret for a reason." Leliana said. "Kalaius and Alistair told myself and those they travelled with, but swore us to secrecy... under the circumstances, I think they would both forgive me for providing the full details now. But it must be kept secret - there will no doubt be more Blights in the future, but if word about it got out, the consequences for the Grey Wardens could be dire."

"What could be so concerning? There are many rumors about the Joining, I remember hearing many when the Fifth Blight began and in the aftermath, but they're usually quite salacious, and all scurrilous," Josephine sounded delightfully scandalized as she referenced a few, "Orgies, sex with beasts... ritual sacrifice." She laughed, "All nonsense." The humor left her voice. "But what could-"

"Blood magic."

"Blood magic?" Cullen's hands closed into fists.

"Blood magic?!" Cassandra grimaced.

"Blood magic!?" Amy blinked, "What the fuck does Blood Magic have to do with this? The Grey Wardens kill people to -" That wasn't - that wasn't okay. No matter how terrifying the Darkspawn or their Taint were

"No," Leliana interrupted. "One might not survive the Joining, and the Grey Wardens kill to protect their secret. Kalaius saw Duncan - the Warden who recruited him - kill a man who knew what the Joining was, and tried to back out. He tried to stop Duncan, but it happened too quickly."

Well, fuck. Cassandra had said Wardens would place everything else below their cause.

"If the secret is blood magic, I can certainly see why they'd keep it that way. What do they do?"

"Drink darkspawn blood," Leliana said blandly in response to Josephine's question.

If Amy had been drinking Coffee, her robes would be covered in hot brown liquid as she sputtered. Everyone else looked shocked, but-

"Are they insane? What the - That-" Amy jabbered incoherently for a minute, swearing at the absolute, complete, total and indeed infinite stupidity inherent in doing something like that. If anyone else was reacting to that, Amy

"They don't drink it directly from the vein, or unaltered," Leliana finally interrupted Amy, raising her voice a touch to be heard. "I do not know what they add to it, beyond knowing it involves lyrium. The concoction can be lethal to those who drink it."

"Well, yeah, because that shit is vile and toxic. It will eat you from the inside out! What - when Cassandra said there was a theory about Grey Wardens having the Taint I thought - I thought it was like... vaccines, or some magical exposure therapy or something, not fucking drinking Darkspawn blood!" She didn't know what Darkspawn blood would have looked like to her power, but she had to imagine it was even more full of the Taint cells.

"It isn't a slow death like the Taint. It is instantaneous, according to Kalaius, or close enough. Those who survive are immune to further corruption by the Taint, until it claims them decades on, and can sense nearby Darkspawn... and most importantly, are able to kill the Archdemon."

"How does drinking darkspawn Blood make it possible for someone to kill the Archdemon? It's a giant dragon, it's hard to kill but -" Cullen cut himself off. "I thought Grey Wardens knew some secret technique or... strange magic of the Blight that let them kill the Archdemons, not -"

"I do not know the how. Only that the final blow to an Archdemon must be laid by a Grey Warden, or the Archdemon will be reborn in short order." Leliana answered flatly.

Cassandra, Josephine and Cullen all piped up with questions or exclamations, but Amy tuned them out for a moment, trying to work out what she'd just been told.

Okay, so - how did someone discover how to do that safely without dying? In a world where magic was a thing, and blood magic was a thing, Amy could begin to see how someone might figure the key to fighting darkspawn, or the ever-respawning Archdemon, was in the blood. But... drinking it?

They had to have tried other things, first?

How did they stop it from consuming them? The whole thing about Grey Wardens going into the Deep Roads when they've Wardens for long enough to go down fighting fit into this - whatever they added to the darkspawn blood must have delayed it but...

If I could figure out how they delay it, maybe I could figure out how to...

Amy's hands itched again, and she wanted to go and find Blackwall, grab him, get a look at his biology. How close was he to that deadline? Would he need to go underground soon? Was it a set number, or did it vary? How did they know? Could she get any of those answers from him? If she revealed what she knew, would he try to kill her?

I mean... he might... Amy bit her lower lip, swallowing. Even if she had Katerina or Cassandra or someone else with her when she talked to him, if Blackwall was as fanatical as Cassandra implied Grey Wardens could be, he might be willing to go down fighting.

Start by getting a look at his biology. And don't try to expel the Darkspawn Taint from him and then burn it.

Of course, she couldn't just grab him and touch his bare skin like some weirdo freak. Amy's hands twitched. She needed to find out how it worked, but - how - how could she -

"-off topic. This is a terrifying revelation that I think we all might want to revisit later, though I can certainly see why the Grey Wardens keep it so secret even if... I might abhor their willingness to resort to murder to keep it. But I'm not quite sure why that relates to keeping the knowledge of Amy's ability to expel the Taint from someone a secret. How is it a risk to her?" Josephine asked.

"Because not every Grey Warden is a willing one, and even some of the willing ones might like the chance to get out of that eventual death sentence in the Deep Roads," Cassandra supplied. "And if that is a possibility we can imagine, then it is one the more senior, more dedicated Wardens can imagine."

"We already have people trying to kill Amy, and probably just as many people wanting to abduct her." Cullen sighed, looking and sounding bone-tired again, shoulders slumping, looking down at the floor, rubbing at his temples. "We hardly need to add disgruntled Grey Wardens, or paranoid Warden officers to either list."

"Five active plots to kill her, just two to abduct her, that I'm aware of at the moment. More than a dozen groups are contemplating killing her." Leliana's hands were behind her back as she supplied that information, as casually as if she was ordering dinner.

"Jesus Christ, I didn't need to know that!" Amy protested. Five active plots to kill me?

"None of them have any people here in Haven." Leliana promised, as if that was any reassurance. "They've all resolved to do it, but have not left the planning and preparation stage. I am, as you put it, giving them enough rope to hang themselves with."

"And the guy who sent the assassin on the boat? You knew about him?"

"Not enough to know how close he was to acting, or that he'd be foolish enough to act the way he did." Leliana admitted. "But Sera's arrival in Haven has already provided my people some useful information regarding the Inquisition's enemies. I suspect the Ben-Hassrath reports Iron Bull will fill things out even further. I take your safety quite seriously, Amy."

Amy bit back a petulant 'someone still got within inches of killing me' because... she believed Leliana was doing her best. Whatever else - and she really didn't trust Leliana, though she could hardly say why for sure - she believed Leliana was sincere about closing the Breach. And that meant keeping her alive.

"That's why you have a bodyguard." Cassandra pointed out. "Katerina did catch the man out."

"Yeah," Amy exhaled slowly. "She did." She rubbed at her own temples now. "So we've talked about Iron Bull being a spy, what I can do about the Darkspawn Taint and why we need to keep that a secret...?"

"There's merely the matter of deciding when we send Amy to Redcliffe-"

"We have hardly all agreed that Amy is going to Redcliffe, Leliana!" Cullen cut in. "Lord Seeker Lucius hasn't even had a chance to send word to Haven yet."

"You read the same reports my agents sent, you read the message Cassandra sent about what the Lord Seeker said. He's hardly suitable for an alliance."

"And the rebel mages who don't trust the Inquisition because it's too close to the Chantry are?" Cullen snapped back. "And there's still no certainty that more mages wouldn't just make the problem worse."

"It's a problem of magic, one way or another mages will be the only viable solution-"

"Do I need to be here for this?" Amy raised her voice over the two before they could go further. "I'll go wherever you decide we should go." All things being equal, she'd rather the mages - but Lucius had been the first one to make the offer, and his creepy main character syndrome aside, he had been very earnest to help.

Grand Enchanter Fionia's letter had been polite, and said all the right things but... noncommittal.

And of course, both groups wanted Amy to come to them, where they had power. Which totally didn't read 'possible trap'.

Sure, it's possible it's just a power play thing or whatever, like Carol making people come meet her in her office. But it could totally be a trap.

Not that they had much choice, did they? They had to go to one of them. Mages seemed like the better people but...

Whoever agrees to help first right? Both would be nice, sure, but - how could they do both?

"It will likely be a long discussion," Cassandra allowed. "I'll take you back to your cabin, and then I'll return here, and we can... resume the debate." She looked at the others, grimacing.

"A short recess to prepare would do us all some good," Josephine agreed.

The others all agreed to that, and Amy let out a sigh. They all left, and Amy paused by Josephine, waiting for Cassandra to get out.

"I - Thanks." Amy said after a moment, "For... for agreeing on the whole... not - not giving people more reason to look at me with awe, thing."

"You've made very few requests, despite your vital position, Amy. Your desire to not be the center of attention is quite evident, and I see no reason to subject you to that without very good reason. Like the confrontation in Val Royeaux... or the eventual meeting with either Grand Enchanter Fiona or Lord Seeker Lucius." Josephine reached out and put a hand on Amy's shoulder gently. "You're bearing up under quite a lot of pressure you're not used to, Amy. It's impressive that you have, but I don't want to make it worse for you."

Amy swallowed. Her chest felt tight all of a sudden, and she blinked repeatedly.

"Thanks," she said again.

"You are quite welcome." She looked back at the room they'd just left - Leliana and Cassandra just now stepping out, Cullen behind them. "I suspect this discussion will take quite a long while, perhaps into the evening. But perhaps we could have lunch together tomorrow? I did miss our discussions."

You did? Amy stared at Josephine, feeling like an idiot and then, "Yeah-yeah, of course." Amy swallowed. "I like talking with you too."

"I'm glad to hear it." Josephine said with a smile. Cassandra approached, and the ambassador nodded, stepping aside.

"I had a few questions I wanted to ask Solas. So we can just go over to... wherever he is?" SHe blinked, realizing she didn't actually know where in the village Solas was staying.

"We can." Cassandra nodded. "I must return here afterwards,-"

"I can - I can get to my cabin myself." Amy said. "I should be pretty safe in Haven now, by this point?'

"It's less your safety and more that you will be asked by people to give some sort of blessing you do not believe yourself capable of giving, if you travel unescorted." Cassandra cautioned.

"...right." Amy inhaled. She could have protested that she could handle those people on her own, but she didn't want to handle them on her own, and... that just -

"I'll have someone send word to Katerina," Cassandra offered.

Amy nodded. "We should... we should also see if anyone in Haven needs healing or - there's more people here now and it's been a while since I was last here, if anyone's gotten hurt or sick... I should heal them, since I'm here."

Cassandra looked her over for a moment, then, "Something can be arranged, but only if you agree to stagger the healing out. If there's too many, do not force yourself to do them all at once."

"Fine, fine, fine," Amy agreed after a moment.

"I'll hold you to that, Amy," Cassandra said almost sternly, but... somehow not? It was like, stern but concerned and warm but - also expectant, but expectant in the sense that she expected Amy to actually do what she promised and -

Amy swallowed, a tightness suddenly in her throat. She nodded.

---

Amy wasn't sure where Solas actually stayed or slept in Haven, since Cassandra didn't take her to a specific house or tent or anything. Instead there was a little hill next to the village where Solas stood. There was a small table and a chair set up on the hill, but he wasn't sitting at the moment, instead leaning on his staff as he looked out over the village.

"Has a verdict been reached about the Inquisition's next steps?" Solas asked, turning to look at them.

"Not yet," Cassandra answered tersely. "I... do not have much hope we will come to an agreement quickly."

"The Breach remains quiescent for the moment, at least, so we do still have time." Solas assured her.

"That doesn't mean we should waste time as we are," Cassandra sighed. "Amy wanted to speak with you, so I'll leave you both to it." She turned and moved down the hill.

"It is unfortunate that the Inquisition is stalled out, unable to pick a direction." Solas mused. "It has momentum, but it cannot afford to lose it now."

"What do you think we should do? Go to Redcliffe?"

"I am not personally affiliated with the rebel mages, but I am sympathetic to their desires. Locking mages up and limiting their freedoms is not an effective solution, nor a moral one. But," Solas shrugged slightly, "I am not the person that gets to decide."

"I... I agree with you, but... not up to me either." Amy sighed, "Anyway. That's not what I came to talk to you about."

"Have a seat," Solas gestured to the single chair.

"There's only the one chair."

"It occurs to me that it would be good to check on the wards on your mark again, and it would be easier to do that if you're seated. We can discuss what you wanted to while I do that."

It has been... right before we went to Jader the first time, I think? Her hand hadn't gotten any worse, but she'd rather he touch the wards up rather than let them fail first. She sat down and let Solas take her left hand in one of his, while he held the other hand over it, glowing a little, doing whatever... magical examination he did on the mark.

"So - I've been wanting to find a moment to talk to you about this since the Storm Coast. I think - I think one of Iron Bull's ancestors, like, a lot of generations back, somehow like... crossed their biology with dragons."

Solas's glowing hand stilled in its movements. "...come again?"

Wow. Something genuinely surprised him.

"When I got a look at Iron Bull's biology, it was - it was fucking crazy. It was like it was stitched together from a bunch of parts that shouldn't really work, but did. Or parts of it was like that, anyway. Other parts were more okay. But he also had these weird... vestigial organs that I couldn't figure out what they were for, and some of his biology - it felt... reptilian." Amy explained.

"Vestigial?"

"Useless. It's a thing. Most living creatures have them, some sort of... leftover thing, they don't use anymore. Like - does Thedas have ostriches? Or emus?" Amy gestured with her free hand, above her head. "Big, tall, flightless birds? Long necks, really long legs...?"

"I believe there are creatures of that sort in Western Orlais, among other places," Solas nodded.

"They have wings, but they can't fly. Vestigial wings. They don't do anything, they're just... there. That's what Iron Bull had. - Not wings, just - useless organs that were just... there. I couldn't figure out what they were ever for, until I touched that dragonling, and got a look at how it breathed fire."

"Given the Qunari's rather boastful nature, it seems he'd have mentioned if he could breathe fire." Solas's glowing hand resumed its movements, and Solas pressed the thumb of his other hand into the back of Amy's hand, digging into it. Amy grimaced a moment, and Solas stopped.

"Apologies." He stopped pressing the thumb, but still poked at her hand as Amy let out a sigh, then explained.

"No, he can't... but one of his ancestors could have, maybe. I don't know how it's possible, but... at some point, someone mixed the ancestors of the modern Qunari - which were at least close to human, even if the Qunari have pointed ears - with dragons." Amy gesticulated wildly with her free hand. "It's fucking crazy. I wish I could put how batshit Iron Bull's biology was into words. It was - it worked, it produced a fully functional, living person that is healthy- but it was two things that would never have naturally ever been able to combine... but they did. And the result is just...I mean, there's Tinkers back home that might have been able to make something like that," You could do it, with a bit of experimentation.

Amy swallowed and tried to ignore that thought, screaming the obvious at her as it had every now and then since realizing what was going on with Iron Bull's biology. It would have taken a lot of experimentation before, but now that she knew what it looked like...

"Tinkers are those who can make objects that do impossible things, like the... Bakuda, whose device brought you here?"

"Yeah. And there's some Tinkers that can do that with biology. But - you guys don't have parahumans here, as far as I can tell." She'd hardly touched enough people to get a sample size, but... magic wasn't a power in the parahuman sense, no one had even a dormant corona polentia, and the really damning thing to Amy's mind was that as far as she could tell, no one flew. Flight was one of the most common, really visible powers. If there were parahumans (or paraelves or paradwarves and so on) here, people flying should be a thing, at least a little.

"And you couldn't have had them however many generations - at least five hundred, six hundred years? More? - ago. So... I mean, it had to be magic, right? Can magic do that?"

Solas didn't stop examining her hand, and said nothing for a long moment. Amy was about to speak again, wondering if he'd gotten distracted, when he finally spoke up.

"It is possible. Through magic, much is possible, and the Fade holds many memories of magics that should never have been practiced. I have seen echoes of memories of old magics, Tevinter and Elven alike. Using magic to create new life or changing existing life is possible. But it would take rare power for it to be something capable of reproduction, and lasting hundreds of years forward."

"Most things would be sterile?" From what little she knew about Blasto, his creations were sterile, but when Vicky had mentioned that, she'd said it was probably so he didn't get a kill order. But maybe with the way magic worked, it was a lot harder to make them... stable?

"What I saw of Magisters with more cruelty than sense when they set to create strange hybrids, as much to see if they could as anything else... many of their creations were misshapen, broken things. Pitiful creatures that couldn't last for more than a few days, in most cases. Even those successes that lasted seemed to be unlikely to be able to survive to reproduce." Solas shook his head, letting go of her hand. "I've touched up the wards around your mark again. They continue to hold well."

Amy looked at her left hand. These days, she almost didn't notice the dull ache - almost - that was her constant companion. She wasn't getting any more used to the feeling she got when she closed the rifts though.

"Thank you."

"And some of the memories I have seen in the Fade... echoes that suggest that the elves of Ancient Arlathan did much the same, though their creations were more stable. It is said in the oldest stories, long-forgotten by the modern Dalish, that Ghilan'nain, the patron of guides and navigation to the Dalish today, once created many monstrous and twisted beasts, in the ancient days. So great were her creations and so terrible were they in their awfulness that the Evanuris - those known as the elven gods today - offered her membership among them, if she would destroy her monstrosities and put her skill in creation of life to more productive use."

Amy blinked. "Someone who wasn't a god could become one? That seems... odd?"

"If the Evanuris were indeed gods, then perhaps, but that raises the question of what defines a being as a God." Solas looked down at her, hands clasped behind his back, his staff sticking upright in the ground.

Great. Philosophizing.

"I... I don't know. Being really powerful?" She blinked, changing tack as she registered the meaning of something else he'd just said, "You don't worship the elven gods?"

"Sorry to disappoint."

"I'm not disappointed, I just... I kind of assumed you did, since you obviously weren't Andrastian."

"I have a great deal of respect for Andraste, what she preached and what she achieved. There is much to like about the Maker, if he exists, though his followers... less so." Solas explained, speaking slowly, with as much care as he usually did. The man probably carefully chose every word he'd ever said in his life.

If he had a power, he'd be a Thinker. And he'd be smug about it too. But he wasn't a Thinker, and while Amy would hardly say she liked or trusted Solas, she was at least pretty sure they were on the same side right now...

"I believe that the Evanuris were beings of great power - mages, perhaps, or spirits, that there is some truth behind the legends. If great power is enough to be considered a god, then perhaps they were such. I wouldn't agree."

"Okay..." Amy was surprised to learn Solas was basically an atheist - didn't really seem like the kind of world where that was a thing - but it wasn't an issue. She just... didn't know what to do with it. "Are any of the things this... Ghilan'nain," Amy stumbled over the word, mispronouncing it despite her best efforts.

"Ghilan'nain," Solas corrected.

"Ghilan'nain," Amy tried again, and Solas shrugged a little, as if to say 'good enough'. "Is anything she created once she was Evanuris still around?"

"Ghilan'nain is known as the mother of the halla, and the halla are still used to this day by the Dalish to pull their aravel - carts, essentially.." Solas supplied.

"And are halla monstrous?"

"No. They're quite beautiful in appearance, actually. They look much like deer, but their fur is the purest white, are larger, and have many more horns. In the days before the Dales were overrun, the border guards of the Dales rode halla into battle, much like human knights ride horses. The Dalish revere the halla, considering them members of the clan."

"Huh." Amy felt that itch again, to touch something. Were the halla like elves, in the whole 'not even having the right proteins' thing then? If elves were made from scratch by magic and that was why their biology was so wrong, then if halla had the same thing, then it would be a sign they were also made from scratch by magic, or close enough?

Or had they been made from deer, and so might look more like the Qunari?

"As for the Qunari themselves, I admit... I know little about them. Nothing about their past before they arrived here in Thedas in the Steel Age. I imagine if I could travel to wherever they came from, the Fade there might have memories of their past, including possibly the merging of the essence of a dragon into their form."

"How could they have done it? I mean... how did the Tevinter Magisters, or Ghilan'nain make their things?" What other weird animal and plant life did Thedas have? It was weird, and... upsetting, the way she was reacting to this. It was like when her power was new and fresh and she didn't realize all the horrible stuff she could make, but she did realize now. So even with this weird biology, she shouldn't be so eager to...

I'd ask what the fuck is wrong with me, but I know what the answer is. Amy swallowed.

"There are a number of general possibilities. Few that should ever be replicated." Solas brought one hand to his chin for a moment, then turned away to look at the village below. "Tell me, your abilities... they could allow you to do this? Combine dragon and Qunari to create the hybrid being that Iron Bull's forebears might have been?"

Amy stiffened, heart pounding in her chest, breath catching. Amy started at his back, light-headed a moment before she managed to force herself to breath. "I'm a healer. I heal. That's what my power does. What - what makes you think it could do that?"

"I didn't suspect until you said you manipulated the ram's body to expel the Taint." Solas explained. "That implied a far greater level of control than mere healing. And then your revelation about the Qunari... I don't claim to understand your power, but given everything... it seemed odd that you might be able to read all that, but not... recreate it. And your... poor denial rather solidifies it. You are indeed capable of creating all manner of hybrids and even monstrosities, no?"

You are indeed capable of creating all manner of hybrids and even monstrosities, no?

Amy stared at Solas as his words echoed in her mind, bouncing around it like a rubber ball off a wall.

Two years of hiding the full range of what she could do. Even Vicky didn't really know - or at least, didn't really seem to have registered - the full range of what Amy could do. The sheer range of awful things she could make, the changes she could wreak on any living thing she touched.

Two years, and this bald elf who didn't know powers existed just a few months ago had figured her out?! If he did, who else could?

Amy closed her eyes, inhaling in fast, shallow breaths, heart beating fast in her chest. She had to she had - she had to -

She braced, ready to stand, to run, to -

Why... why am I... why am so-

Why was she getting ready to run? This - this wasn't Earth-Bet. This wasn't the Bay. This wasn't - Solas wasn't Carol. There was no PRT here. No one could compare her to Blasto or Bonesaw or Nilbog here. And she wasn't - him knowing didn't change what she would or wouldn't do -

He knew what she could do but... even if Solas told people... would it even matter? Would people actually care? People who hated her already would still hate her and the people who revered her because they thought she was sent by the Maker...

Amy closed her hands into fists and tried to take a deep breath. That failed, but she tried again, and it failed again, but less.

"Capable, yes. But I won't. I never will!" Amy said firmly, raising her voice, then flushing as she realized she was nearly shouting. "I didn't ask for this power, or to be able to do all these things that I can do." She looked down, a pit in her stomach opening up as she contemplated the things she could do, the things she'd never do. She tried to take another deep breath, and this one worked, mostly. "I don't want to make anything... no hybrids, no monstrosities, no... nothing. I just heal. That's all I want to use my power to do." All she was allowed to want to do. She had to stick with that. She had to.

She had to.

She had to.

Solas said nothing for a moment, then, "Admirable."

Amy blinked, looking up at him, blinking again. "Huh?"

"You have the ability to make new life, Amy. I imagine that given sufficient time and material, you could create an entire army of creatures subordinate to your will."

I could, couldn't I? Once she made something, it was it's own thing, she couldn't control it, she had no direct ability to influence it but - she could program something she made to respond to something only she had? Pheromones, or maybe she could make some sort of specialized -

Amy bit the inside of her cheek and sent that train of thought veering off its tracks into a chasm, to explode in a fireball of death and destruction and never doing that so she could stop contemplating it!

The pit in her stomach expanded and grew deeper and she wanted to tumble into it and go splat just for thinking of that.

"...I could." Amy nodded slowly, swallowing.

"And yet, you have no desire to do it, no desire to use your powers for anything other than healing, helping people. In my experience, rare is the person who would have the potential that exists at your fingertips and not seek to use it for their own aggrandizement."

"I..." Amy trailed off.

"Your abilities don't even require large amounts of lyrium or blood magic to operate." Solas added. "You merely require living material?"

"...yeah." It was kind of annoying how easily Solas was putting it all together, but... "I'd really - don't tell people about this?" She said, trying to make her voice as firm as she could manage. It wasn't very, her voice shaking a little to make it even less intimidating. "Please?" She felt light-headed, swaying a little where she sat. She tried to take another deep breath, but it still didn't really work.

It wasn't like she could do anything to Solas to shut him up. And - and would someone care? They wouldn't. She already established that. And yet.

She couldn't let people know. She couldn't. Because what if she was wrong? What if they decided she was a monster, if they found out she could make beings?

Or worse - or worse...

Amy's breath caught again and she felt herself go lightheaded again, breathing shallow, fast...

Or worse... they'd try to worship her even more. She could literally 'create life'.

Not really, but - the people of Thedas wouldn't get the distinction. Most of them anyway.

"I see no reason to, all things being equal. Your secret is safe with me," Solas promised. He tilted his head to the side. "A question, if you'll allow it?"

"Go ahead?"

"Have you considered using your abilities to improve existing creatures? Make a cow more resistant to disease, or a chicken that lays more eggs? You could feed a great many that way, if you make such changes hereditary."

"I've thought about it," Amy admitted. There was no point in lying and it was almost... liberating to admit it to someone. Well, admit it when she wasn't crying and breaking down, like she had when she'd told Cassandra more about the full range of what she could do. "But it's not that simple. Life has... trade offs. If I make a chicken lay more eggs, it has to eat more, or sacrifice something else in the body, and I don't - I don't know how that would end up in the wild. Life changes over time, would the change I made stay, or get worse or-" Amy trailed off.

"And making something disease resistant - it's a nice idea, but it's - it's not that simple either." She blinked, wondering how she could explain it. How did you encapsulate the entire concept of evolution to people that didn't have it? Especially when it related to like, drug resistant bacteria and supergerms and -

She put her hands over her face and pulled them down. "A living body's ability to resist disease is this... really carefully tuned thing. Diseases are usually caused by viruses, or bacteria - literal tiny, too small to see forms of life. But not all bacteria are harmful - some are essential. Humans have tons of bacteria in their guts to help with digestion." She blinked and looked as Solas, thinking back to when she'd looked at elven biology and when Solas had been holding her hand and checking on her mark she'd had a look and she'd been too busy talking to really pay attention but now that she thought about it...

"I don't think elves do though..." she added, trailing off. Another thing that didn't make sense about elves. Didn't... like... every living thing have gut bacteria? Every animal that had a gut, anyway? Most of them anyway? That sounded right. Amy didn't remember offhand any animal she'd touched that didn't...

She shook her head, "Not the point. But - making a cow better able to resist the bad stuff without making it too good that it hurts the good stuff too? Easier said than done. And then there's the fact that... viruses and bacteria change, adapt, over time."

"Doesn't every living thing?" Solas asked. If he was following any of what she was saying, he didn't show it, but he also didn't show he wasn't. He had that same impassive expression on his face he always did.

"Well, yes, but for viruses and bacteria, it's really fast. Back home we - we use a lot of medicines. Fancy, powerful medicines that can do all kinds of stuff. But sometimes we use a certain medicine so much, so often that a bacteria will... adapt to it, and suddenly, the medicine doesn't work on it, won't cure people." Her power made short work of drug-resistant bacteria without a problem, but...

"These... viruses and bacteria adapt to become better at spreading?" Solas surmised, and Amy nodded.

"If I just... put a cow that can resist disease out there... short time, it's great? Long term..." Amy shook her head. "There's a million reasons why it's risky and a bad idea or at least - it's not that simple. And..."

And she couldn't use her power for anything creative like that anyway. She just couldn't. She had the rule. She had to set that hard line and stick to it.

"It is unfortunate, I suppose, but it is also better to consider the long-term ramifications of your actions, when you have the luxury." Solas said after a moment. He looked past her, down the hill. "I would continue our discussion, but it would seem we are about to have company." He nodded and Amy turned to look down the hill and saw Vivienne approaching.

She wasn't wearing the same elaborate dress she'd worn at the gala back in Val Royeaux, or any sort of mask, but she was wearing a dress, white and black in a similar pattern, and way, way too fancy to be walking around a dirty village in and -

Was she wearing heels? What the absolute -

If she falls and breaks her neck because she's wearing heels while walking on snowy grass like this I am not healing her!

"Amy, dear, I've been looking for you since I heard you were back in Haven." Vivienne said as she crested the top of the hill, her tone sweet on the surface, but steely underneath, reminding her of Aunt Sarah when she was making sure some PR flack didn't screw up the photo op or merchandise announcement. "I was wondering if I might borrow you for a moment, if you're done with your conversation?"

Amy looked over at Solas. She had talked to Solas about what she'd wanted to talk about and then he'd ambushed her by revealing he understood so much more about her power than she'd thought.

"Please, don't let me detain you," Solas gestured for her to join Vivienne. "Our discussion has given me much to think about. As I said, you have my discretion."

Amy bit her lip, then nodded. "Thanks."

"I gather you are Solas?" Vivienne asked as Amy stood up from the chair. "An apostate?"

"With the dissolution of the circles, are not all mages apostates, even loyalists like yourself?" Solas offered. "But yes, I am called Solas, Madame de Fer." He inclined his head.

"I was quite surprised to learn not only were former circle mages already here in the Inquisition when I arrived, but that one such as yourself, who was never part of a circle, was a member. I should quite like to discuss your reasoning in joining the Inquisition some time, Solas." Vivienne offered, her tone not changing at all. It was sweet and friendly and oh so polite but that steel underneath was unflinching.

"My reasoning is quite simple: I am able to be of assistance, and so I am," Solas's tone wasn't the same as hers, but it definitely was matching it in terms of energy. Somehow, Amy imagined that if they were both flinging spells at each other, they'd sound exactly the same.

Just listening to them talk for a minute and I'm already exhausted. Why be polite if you didn't need to be? What was the point? Vivienne was a few steps short of some sugary-sweet tone that was so obviously fake it would fool no one.

"Fascinating. But I would like to have words with Amy here, so perhaps another time."

"Another time, Madame de Fer," Solas agreed. Vivienne turned and Amy followed her down the hill.

"So... what did you want to talk about?" Amy asked.

"Quite a few things, but chief among them, you." Vivienne answered as they reached the bottom of the hill. "Or rather, your behavior. Tell me, is it true you spend most of your time, when you are in Haven, shut up in your cabin?"

"...kinda?" Amy admitted. "Cassandra has me jogging and I'm sure I'll have to pick up staff practice again some more because she likes whacking me with wooden objects and I usually have lunch with Josephine most days, when I'm here. But... when I'm not doing anything else, like healing people, I'm inside."

"Well, that won't do at all, Amy. You're the Herald of Andraste, the centerpiece of the entire Inquisition. You need to be out, visible. You're far less useful to the Inquisition hiding away like a recluse."

I like hiding away like a recluse, damnit.

"If anyone needs me, they know where to find me." Amy answered.

"This isn't about your abilities as a healer, or the way you close the Breach, dear girl, this is about being seen, being visible, and being there for those who have flocked to your banner." Vivienne explained. She gestured around them as they walked, and Amy looked to see people pausing whatever they were doing, where they were going to stare at her, some murmuring to each other. Not everyone was, but a lot of people were.

Faces she recognized as having been in Haven the longest were the least likely to stare. But the new people...

"It's not my banner!" Amy protested. Where was Vivienne walking? Where was she supposed to be going with her? "There's no reason for me to just... walk around randomly?"

"It shouldn't be random, no," Vivienne turned and Amy realized they were walking towards her cabin. "I think we should continue this discussion in private, however," She added.

"Amy!" Katerina's voice called out and Amy turned, seeing the redhead jogging towards her. "There you are! Cassandra told me you were talking with Solas but when I went to find you and escort you back to your cabin you were gone."

"My apologies, I absconded with Amy to have a word with her." Vivienne said. "She's quite safe with me, I assure you."

"I don't think you're a threat to her, but escorting Amy around so people don't bother her needlessly is still part of my duties." Katerina explained. "Not saying you're doing that." She added quickly. "Just -"

"It's fine," Amy waved her hand. "I forgot you were coming to get me." She didn't want to keep talking with Vivienne, she could tell the other woman was going to try to pressure her to... go out? Do... local PR stuff, basically? Shake hands and kiss babies. And...

But Vivienne was also important and connected and Josephine wouldn't appreciate it if Amy snapped at the woman and told her to go away. The ambassador wouldn't like... be upset with Amy much, didn't really seem like her thing, but it could make her life a little harder and Amy didn't want to do that to Josephine.

"We can talk, but I've got a lot to think about and deal with, so... not for too long?" Amy told Vivienne, approaching the door of her cabin.

"There is a great deal that should be discussed, but I will try not to impose on you too much," Vivienne promised. Amy opened the door and let her in. Katerina raised an eyebrow at her and Amy shrugged helplessly.

Vivienne looked around the cabin. "Given the conditions in Haven, this is quite suitable."

"Glad you approve," Amy muttered. She sat down on her bed, and gestured to the chair. "You can sit, if you want."

Vivienne sat down gently, primy. "Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, Amy, and hardly befitting someone in your position."

"My position?" Amy rubbed at her temples. "And just what is my position? Herald? I'm nobody's Herald, and I'm not going to pretend that I am. I'm Amy Dallon, Panacea, and that's it."

"Whether or not you see yourself as the Herald of Andraste is quite immaterial to whether or not others do, Amy." Vivienne said, echoing something she'd heard from damn near everyone.

"And I need to cater to their delusions?" Amy snapped, raising her voice. "I didn't ask for any of this! I just want to close the Breach and go home. If people want to think I'm sent by Andraste or the Maker then they can, but I'm not going to do anything to reinforce that!" Amy threw her hands up. "They just see this stupid mark on my hand and think that means I'm holy because they can't think of any explanation for things happening that isn't just 'Maker did it!'"

Vivienne raised an eyebrow as Amy let out a breath, casting her eyes down at the floor.

"Are you done with your little temper tantrum, child?"

"Temper tantrum?!" Amy glared at her, "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Language, Amy," Vivienne chided. "There can be a time and a place for foul words, I must admit, but one must be judicious in using them if you want to be taken seriously."

"I don't want to be taken seriously!" Amy said, then flushed as she realized what she was actually saying. "I don't want to be taken seriously in the way you're trying to get me to be," she corrected, speaking quickly.

"And what exactly is 'the way I'm trying to get you to be'?" Vivienne asked. "I've hardly had the chance to explain anything."

"You want me to go out and pretend I'm actually the Herald of Andraste and be nice and diplomatic and play politics and care about all the nobles and rich idiots and cater to their whims and probably start doing healing on demand for them too!" Amy snapped.

Vivienne chuckled, and Amy flushed again, feeling like she was being mocked. "Amy, dear child, you'd have a much easier time in your life if you stopped presuming on what others were thinking, especially when you are so far off the mark."

"Fine. What exactly do you want? What is this about?"

"I can see I have much work ahead of me. Tell me, Amy Dallon, I have heard that you tell stories of your family back home - Master Tethras especially has apparently regaled everyone in the tavern with tales of your sister, Victoria. Are they true?"

"If Varric's sharing them, I'm sure he's exaggerated, but everything I've said about my family and sister is true." Amy sighed, dropping her head into her hands and then groaned. She should have realized Varric was going to start spreading stories of her sister. Probably jazzing them up with extra details too, since Amy wasn't actually much of a dynamic storyteller but -

I suppose it's not the end of the world for more people to know how amazing Vicky is though...

"And your entire family has these sorts of abilities?"

Amy wondered if she should just write this all down and then have printed copies made - they had printing presses here, was one in the village? That way she could just hand everyone a 'frequently asked questions about the Herald' cheat sheet.

1. No, she's nobody's Herald and she has no special connection to the Maker
2. Her ability to heal isn't the result of the Maker's blessing, she had it before she came to Thedas and before she ever heard of the Maker
3. No she can't give you a blessing
4. Yes her family also has special powers. Yes her sister and cousins and Aunt can fly.
5. No you can't call her Panacea
6. Or Panpan. This means you Varric Tethras

"Yeah, they do." Amy wondered just where Vivienne was trying to go with this. She looked at the woman, but her expression was hard to read, beyond 'confident' and 'controlled'. "Where are you going with this?"

"Patience is another skill you need to learn, Amy." Vivienne chided. "One last question: Your family operates under nom de guerres to combat criminals and malcontents, complete with elaborate costumes, correct?"

Amy had no idea what a 'nom de guerre' was, but it sounded like 'nom de plume', which Amy knew meant, like, a pen-name or something, so it had to be similar. A reference to cape names, clearly.

"Yeah. All capes have special names. Most do it to hide their identity, but New Wave doesn't hide. We're about being accountable, setting an example to other capes and showing people that hiding behind masks isn't how we do things." Amy parrotted stuff she'd heard Sarah say without much conviction. She... she believed in it, she did, but she just... couldn't bring herself to be as concerned about it as Aunt Sarah, or Carol...

"Then you should understand that appearances matter a great deal, Amy. Your sister dons a costume - white and gold, a crown, even-"

"A tiara." Amy corrected, almost automatically. "Not a crown. She's not - it's not about doing some sort of... princess thing, like everyone always says." Amy had gotten into fights with people on PHO about this, when people made fun of Vicky's costume. "It's a reference to a statue back home - a famous one, sort of a... symbol for the country we're from. And the statue has these... it's sort of meant to look like the rays of the sun coming up behind the head, and so it looks like the statue has a tiara, and Vicky's tiara looks like that." Amy got off the bed and moved over to the desk, where her phone still rested. The battery, solar-rechargeable as it could be, was charged up again, but Amy couldn't really do much with it, and not wanting it to be damaged, she hadn't taken it when she left Haven.

She turned it on. "This is a thing that holds images. Like paintings, but... not." Amy explained. Her lockscreen was of them both not in costume, but she had plenty of pictures of Victoria in her costume. She pulled the first suitable one she found up, showing it to Vivienne. "See, it's not even that crownlike."

The picture in question was one of Victoria at a PR event, since it gave a clear view of her whole costume, posing back to back with Crystal, both their hands hands raised in fingerguns like characters on a TV show poster or something.

"That's my cousin Crystal with her," Amy explained.

"Interesting. Though irrelevant to the point at hand. Your family uses these costumes, and assumed names to present a clear image of what you are, what you stand for, no?" Amy nodded, because... that was sort of why they still used the names. That and pretending there was a divide, between cape life and not cape life, even though there wasn't. Not wearing costumes didn't stop people asking Vicky for autographs when they recognized her, or squeeing over Eric or pestering Amy with requests for healing...

"Then your family understands that perception is a form of power all its own. Appearances are not everything, but they are quite important. Being seen to act is often as important as acting, and the masses are often fickle. Your performance in Val Royeaux has rebounded in your favor, and of course the people here in Haven are largely your greatest supporters, but it is not something to take for granted. And yet, even though it's clear none of this is foreign to you, you insist on spending much of your time shut up in here, or otherwise alone, away from the people. Even using your bodyguard to 'keep people from bothering you'.

Yeah, she's giving me major Aunt Sarah vibes. Amy considered as she parsed Vivienne's words. Vivienne was saying it differently than her Aunt would, but it was basically a lot of 'PR is vital' type stuff. How they needed to be representing New Wave all the time, especially when people approached them.

"And how is this different than telling me I should play nice and diplomatic?" Amy demanded, sitting back down on the bed, holding her phone.

"Because I don't especially care if you 'play nice', as you put it. By all means, be rude and biting, speak your mind as bluntly as you wish, and if you do not wish to provide your healing on demand, don't. There's many ways to use that quite effectively. But I do insist that you do it where all can see, and where you can remind people who you are, what you represent, and you can advance the Inquisition's position."

Amy blinked. That was... nothing like her Aunt. "How is being rude and being blunt going to help the Inquisition? That's not how public relations works?"

"Public relations?" Vivienne laughed, "An interesting way to describe it. But this is not about relations, Amy. It's about the Game. It's about controlling the way you are seen, the way people talk about you. The first step, of course, is ensuring that you are spoken of. You have that well in hand simply by being the entire reason for the Inquisition's existence-"

"I'm not the reason for the Inquisition's existence!" Amy protested.

"Amy, dear, without your ability to close the rifts, without the fact that so many people see you as sent by the Maker to save us all in this time of desperate need, the Inquisition would not have achieved even a tenth of what it has so far, let alone what it will. The courage to act when the rest of the world continued to dither and debate in the face of this chaos might carry it far given time, but the people flocking to your banner, the resources increasingly at the Inquisition's command are there, and are doing so because they believe the Inquisition has a strong chance of success. People do ever so love to be on the winning side."

Amy swallowed as she realized Vivienne actually had a point. Maybe. She didn't think Vivienne was giving Cassandra and the others enough credit. Josephine could still have done her diplomatic magic, and Cassandra would have still wanted to restore order in the Hinterlands and could have done a lot of that without her, but...

I mean, I can close the rifts. No one else has even the slightest idea how closing the Breach would go, as far as I know. And they didn't know how to stop it from growing...

"And by stopping the growth of the Breach, and then continuing to prove your prowess closing rifts in the Hinterlands and your showing in Val Royeaux, you have convinced many that the Inquisition is the winning side."

"Then why do I need to go out?"

"Because power is a currency that must be used - used carefully, but used. If you have a large pile of gold that you hold in a vault and do nothing with, you are not rich, you are a miser. A rich woman lets her gold be of use. And a powerful woman, a powerful organization, puts that power to use. You are the foundation of the Inquisition's power. And so, you must put that to use by being seen. You cannot be a recluse amongst your followers."

"They're not my followers! I'm not in charge of anything!" Amy protested. "And I - I don't want to be seen. I hate people's eyes being on me!" Amy looked down at the ground. "I like being a recluse, damnit!"

"The world is on the brink of chaos, and the Inquisition - and you - are all that stands in the way of things collapsing entirely. Does what you want really matter when set against that?"

Amy blinked, swallowing. No. I guess it really doesn't matter. She didn't want to be here. She didn't want to fight demons, or wear armor or go jogging or traipse all over this stupid world and close rifts. She didn't want her power, she didn't want to heal, she did because it was the right thing to do. Working to close the rifts and the Breach was the right thing to do.

But...

I - I can't - what exactly would going out accomplish? If it was that important, Josephine would have urged her to do it, right? Or Cassandra?

Or maybe they're too pitying and too worried I'll break... Amy swallowed again.

"You keep saying I need to go out and 'be seen', but... I - what do you actually want me to do?"

"I want you to play the Game, before the Game plays you, Amy Dallon." Vivienne answered, as if that meant something. It sounded like fake-profound nonsense to her. "I believe the Inquisition is our best chance for restoring order, and having joined it, I will not be content to see it fail because the Inquisition decided it was above the Game, and because you decided to hide in this cabin."

"This isn't a Game!"

"That's exactly the sort of mindset that will undermine the Inquisition in Orlais. Refusing to play the Game is a losing strategy," Vivienne said, leaning forward a touch. "You are in a position of power, and now you need to act like it. You need to stand out, you need to be noticed, and you need to remind people of your authority and power. And the first step towards that is to be out and about. Be rude, if you wish. Be blunt and direct, if you must. But be."

"...that's the opposite of helpful," Amy muttered. "You're just telling me to go outside and just... talk to people? Just that simple?"

"The most important things often are quite simple." Vivienne countered. "Simple doesn't mean unimportant, or easy."

"And what am I supposed to do when people ask for blessings? Fine, maybe the locals know not to, but anyone new? I'm not going to pretend that I have some sort of connection to the Maker."

"Then don't. Tell people you can't." Vivienne said. "If you are quite insistent on refusing to play the role of Herald, then you need to communicate that to people. If you want people to not ask for blessings, to believe you when you say you have no connection to the Maker, that you weren't sent here by him, you need to tell people that. And then tell them again. And again. Hiding away only cedes control of your narrative, Amy." Vivienne stood. "There is more I would like to discuss with you, but I can see that you're perhaps at your limit. Consider my advice, and act on it. Speak to Josephine if you wish, she'll certainly agree with me that being visible is better than not. I'm rather shocked she hasn't been pushing for you to be out more already."

Because she's too busy pitying me... Amy tried to push back at that thought. It wasn't pity, right? It was - Josephine was a good person, and nice, and respecting that Amy just... didn't want to be at the center of attention.

But if it would make Josephine's life a little easier? Improve the position of the Inquisition...

"I'll consider it." Amy said... wishing she was lying, but knowing she wasn't. "...Thanks. I guess. For offering advice. You're trying to help."

"I am helping, my dear. The question now is if you'll help yourself. Until later then," Vivienne inclined her head lightly and then left the cabin, walking in a purposeful, almost but not quite sedate stroll out, closing the door behind her - or almost, anyway. Katerina grabbed onto the door before it closed and stepped inside, letting it swing shut as she came in.

"You okay?" Katerina asked. "Madame de Fer didn't give you a tongue lashing that flayed your skin off?" She paused, "Metaphorically, anyway."

"I'm fine," Amy muttered. Was Vivienne right? Did she have to...

She had to, didn't she?

"So that's a lie," Katerina said with a snort. She looked Amy over and her eyes came to rest on the phone in Amy's hand. The screen was still on, still bright, still displaying the picture of Vicky and Crystal. "What's that?" She took a step closer, tilting her head to the side a little to get a better look at it.

"A phone. It's... a... device for communicating over long distances." How the fuck did she explain a phone? "And it also holds pictures... like, paintings, but not."

Katerina raised an eyebrow, smirking. "Ah, another one of those 'it's an impossible device that isn't magical, I swear!'?"

"It's not magic," Amy muttered without heat. "But yeah, another one, like cars or movies." Amy sighed and held the phone up, giving Katerina a better look at the picture.

After a long moment of staring at the picture, Katerina spoke up again. "The one on the left, in the white and gold. That's your sister Victoria, right?"

"Yeah. The other one is my cousin Crystal. They were posing for a... photoshoot for... It doesn't matter. But Vicky started doing the fingerguns - that's the hand gesture they're doing - and Aunt Sarah got annoyed and then Crystal started doing them and the photographer thought it looked good so he had them do it... Aunt Sarah was pissed, but Vicky was laughing the rest of the day." As she always did when talking about her sister now, she felt herself perk up a little... and she also felt that ache in her chest she always did when talking or thinking about Victoria now.

She missed her sister.

"...I barely understood half of that." Katerina shook her head, "Nevermind though. Crystal is the one who flies and shoots fire from her hands?" Amy wondered if Katerina had questions about the phone she wasn't asking because she knew Amy wouldn't have answers, or if she didn't care, or if it was just so out there for her she didn't even know what to ask?

"She is. Well, she does, but so do Aunt Sarah and my other cousin."

"That one is Eric, right?" Amy nodded in response to Katerina's question. "You said pictures. Plural. You have more?"

"Yeah." Amy turned the phone back to her and flipped through several before finding a good one - it was a picture she'd taken of her sister as she'd been standing outside the hospital waiting for Vicky to pick her up. It was right as Vicky came in for a landing, swooping down. It was a really good picture of her sister, detailed and got a good look at all of her, especially her face. Amy showed Katerina that one.

"You know, you talk about your sister a lot but you've never mentioned how pretty she is. Really, she's downright gorgeous." Katerina commented, smiling.

"I know." Amy looked away. Her own gross crush aside, Amy was no stranger to people, even other girls, thinking her sister was hot. PHO even had a thread called "Gay for Glory Girl" full of lesbians and bi girls who talked about how hot she was. It was just barely within the PHO rules, the one time Amy had looked at the thread (and just felt worse about herself afterwards).

"I know that tone of voice," Katerina sat down in the chair Vivienne had just vacated minutes before. "That's the 'my sister is so pretty I feel ugly by comparison, tone. You're not, by the way."

Amy lowered the phone into her lap slowly, not really conscious of the movement as she stared at Katerina, her brain feeling like it had stalled out completely. It wasn't so much the comment that Amy wasn't ugly - Amy knew she wasn't ugly, just plain, Glory Girl's mousey, unremarkable sister, with the freckles and the frizzy brown, boring hair and the -

No, what was making Amy's brain grind to a halt and slowly start up like a car that had engine troubles was that Katerina had somehow gotten it into her head that... what? Amy resented her sister being pretty? Or... felt overshadowed? Or -

I don't resent Vicky or anyone else in my family for being objectively attractive. Why resent basic facts? She was plain, they were all photogenic and conventionally attractive and - and she wasn't. But she didn't resent them. Didn't feel overshadowed, didn't yearn to be pretty like them - even when she'd been younger and tried to use makeup to cover her freckles or that time she'd tried to bleach her hair blonde, it had been out of a desire to fit in, to look like she'd belonged, not a desire to be pretty.

Because I'd thought Carol would love me if I looked more like a Dallon.

Besides, it was a good thing Amy wasn't pretty like the rest of her family. If she had been, Aunt Sarah would have tried to rope her into more PR events, or worse, tried to make her wear a more 'flattering' costume. Something more like the bodysuits everyone but Vicky and she did. Or even something like what Vicky wore.

I'd look ridiculous in Vicky's costume.

Either fate felt like one worse than death, really.

Once more misunderstanding Amy's reaction, Katerina spoke up again: "Don't look so surprised. Those robes don't do you any favors - not like your sister and cousin's outfits do - but we did share a tent and stuff. I've seen you without them. You're pretty, Amy."

Amy flushed, cheeks feeling hot and she felt it going all the way down to her neck. Katerina's tone was appreciative (which was obviously an affectation as part of her lie. Amy wasn't pretty), but it didn't come off as like... gross? Or that Katerina had perved on her in their shared tent or rooms. Just like she'd seen Amy without robes and (pretended to have) liked what she saw. It wasn't as if Amy hadn't noticed that Katerina was attractive. The redhead had a pretty face (nothing compared to Victoria) and had a nice body under her armor (again, nothing compared to Victoria, but then, at the end of the day, to Amy, nobody in two worlds held a candle to Vicky).

"You don't need to lie." Amy said firmly, wishing she could just sort of melt into a puddle and escape the situation. Why would - why was Katerina even lying? What possible gain could she have to pretend that Amy was pretty? Amy knew she was plain, she was fine with that she -

Maybe... maybe she's worried she'll lose the bodyguard job? Katerina did enjoy being Amy's bodyguard. That much was established. But there was Iron Bull now and he'd offered, and sure he'd backed down when Katerina had tried to like... stake a claim to the job but -

"I'm not going to replace you with Iron Bull or anything," Amy said quickly. "So you don't need to butter me up or... whatever this is." She was starting to get used to Katerina, and as long as they focused on stories and books and stuff, she liked talking to her. "Even if he beats you in the spar he offered back when we met him." She imagined that was still on, once Iron Bull actually got to Haven.

Katerina snorted again, "Oh, in a spar, Iron Bull will knock me on my ass." Her tone was bland, unbothered. "He's got like... two and a half feet on me? He's stronger, and has to have at least a decade more combat experience than I do. My only question is how long I last in that first bout."

"So, what, if a Qunari decided to try to kill me I should just accept death because you're going to be useless then?" Amy latched onto the topic change and the chance to turn things around onto Katerina like a liferaft. Even as she said it, she knew she was being unfair, but... right now, she didn't care.

Unfazed, Katerina shook her head, "In a real fight, I'd raise my chances a little. Qunari don't wear armor on their torsos, and in a spar, you have to hold back." She leaned back in her hair, spreading her arms a little. "Iron Bull would still probably win, but he's also taller than most Qunari according to Varric, at least compared to the ones Varric saw in Kirkwall, and I'm sure there's plenty of Qunari with less experience in combat than me, or just not as much as Iron Bull."

With a shrug, Katerina concluded: "More importantly, in a real fight, I'd last long enough to give you a head start in running away." She leaned forward, expression earnest, smiling, "Anyway, I wasn't lying. I never lie when it comes to pretty girls."

"Stop it! Stop - just stop!" Amy protested, feeling even redder than she'd already been.

"Of course, of course, sorry," Katerina held her hands up to shoulder level, palms out in a gesture of surrender, concession. "I wasn't making any advances or anything, just stating facts. Not trying to make you uncomfortable either." She leaned back in her chair again. "To change the subject entirely then: what did Madame de Fer want?"

Amy blinked, feeling absolute whiplash at not only the topic change itself, but the choice of topic to change to. She stared at the floor, taking a deep breath and taking a long moment to collect herself and her thoughts, trying to will her flush to go away.

"She wanted me to learn how to play the Game, before the Game played me," Amy summarized.

Katerina scoffed, "Sounds suitably Orlesian. Also absolutely meaningless."

"It did sound like one of those things that sounds profound but means nothing at all, yeah," Amy agreed, managing a small smile. Then she sighed, "She thinks I'm hurting the Inquisition by staying all shut in the cabin most of the time, and... I think she's right."

"Make, don't tell her that or she'll lord it over you forever," Katerina gasped exaggeratedly in mock horror.

Yeah, I could see that. The way Vivienne had seemed to be mocking her or talking down to her... though Amy was guessing Katerina was basing that more on not liking Orlesians than anything else.

"You really don't like Orlesians." It wasn't a question.

"Well, they're awful. The nobles anyway." Katerina said it as if she was saying the sky was blue and water was wet. "Not that most Nevarran nobles are much better, I suppose, but... the Orlesian nobility is just that extra level of convinced their shit doesn't stink." Katerina chuckled, "It's always a competition with them, and they always change the rules until they win, and they think they're just so much better than anyone just because they're Orlesian..." she shook her head. "Fucking Templar Order was lousy with the 3rd and 4th born sons and daughters of Orlesian noble families. Find a place for the useless shits and then look what happened."

"Hm." Amy didn't really know what to say to that. Katerina's judgement of the Templars was... well, biased. Every time they came up, even Amy could feel the disdain rolling off the other woman. Amy didn't like the Templars either, based on what she knew, what she'd heard, and just... logic, but Katerina was just... obsessed with hating them.

Sure, nobles probably sucked, rich people were shitty everywhere, but was nobility the reason the Templars sucked? Or was it just because the Templars sucked?

Amy exhaled. "I have a lot to think about... and I want to read some more."

"You need to finish 'Her Hidden Dedication', yeah," Katerina agreed. "It looked like you were about halfway through last I saw. Did you get to -"

"I got to the first kiss," Amy answered, and Katerina grinned.

"That was so good, wasn't it. Fucking finally right?" Katerina let out a long, exasperated sigh, throwing her hands up for a moment. "I spent the eight chapters leading up to that scene resisting the urge to scream at the book, to scream for them to just fucking kiss already! The pining got so old, so fast."

"...I liked the pining," Amy admitted. "It was painful, sure, but also beautiful..." she smiled and let out a breath. "That said, it was pretty cathartic when they finally admitted how they felt and kissed and... yeah. That was a really nice scene."

"You liked the pining? The two idiots refusing to admit how they felt to the other for ages?" Katerina raised her voice, mouth gaping open, absolutely stunned. "What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

The ensuing 'argument' - more good natured ribbing and impassioned debate - about the pining in the book and in romance stories in general lasted for nearly an hour, driving all other thoughts from Amy's mind as she tried to convince the infuriating redhead that she was right. Eventually though, Katerina got hungry and left to get food. Amy stayed in the cabin, and unsurprisingly, food was brought to her a little later.

It was being brought food by a servant - because Amy kind of had servants... which she really should have reacted to and registered sooner, because what the absolute fuck?! - that really made her reflect on what Vivienne said, on what it meant, and what she could or should do about it...

She wasn't in Haven that much, really, compared to how much time had passed since she'd arrived in Thedas. But in all the time that she'd been here, apart from the day she'd woken up and had lunch in the tavern, Amy's food had been brought to her by a servant. Either here in the cabin, or during lunch with Josephine. People did Amy's laundry for her and someone cleaned the cabin for her and brought buckets for her to use to wash up and...

Fuck it's like I'm Dean or something...

It wasn't that she could wash her clothes herself - Thedas didn't have a washing machine and she didn't know how people washed clothes in the middle ages, or how they'd managed to keep the white in her robes from fading. And... at least when she was having lunch with Josephine... Josephine probably ate in her office anyway because she was busy and stuff. Amy didn't actually have anything to do when she was in the cabin. Just... sitting there.

When she was doing nothing then, she really should go get her own food. Especially since I don't even know the name of the person who brings me the food. It was the same person every time - presumably someone that was trusted to not poison her and that's why it was the same person every time.

Amy hoped the person at least had other stuff to do - whoever cleaned Amy's clothes probably did laundry for a lot of people, all the soldiers and stuff? - but Amy should still know the woman's name. Should say hi. She did thank her... usually, and had this time but...

She really should go out. Go to the tavern, get food. Take it back to the cabin maybe (though it would get cold by then), but... It would get her out of the cabin, make her more visible, and then she could try to tell people that she couldn't give blessings, didn't have some sort of link to the maker.

Vivienne had talked about controlling her narrative, basically. The sort of thing Aunt Sarah would say. The sort of thing Sarah had said. If she said it enough times to enough people, said it herself, rather than relying on other people to say it for her...

Maybe people would start to believe her? Or at least stop asking her about it. Enough times saying no had eventually made people stop asking Panacea for requests. It had taken too long, way too long, but...

Vivienne's probably right that staying in here all the time isn't good. It might not hurt the Inquisition that much - Cassandra or Josephine would have said something if it was like... crippling the organization, but...

She didn't want to make either woman's life harder, and if she could make it a little easier by being out in the open a bit and... being seen...

Resolved to start tomorrow, Amy ate and then spent the rest of the evening, and indeed, well into the night, reading. She burned a candle down to a tiny nub as she finished 'Her Hidden Dedication'. She'd meant to just read a few chapters, or read until it really started to get dark, but instead, she'd been gripped, and she just kept going, unable to put the book down, squinting as it got darker and darker and all she had was the one candle as she pulled the blankets of the bed up over her and kept reading.

But the story. The story! The knight and the noblewoman knew how the other felt, but the social pressures hadn't left, the noblewoman's father had settled on a marriage match - a much older man that was as personally repugnant as he was brutish, reminding Amy of Beauty and the Beast's Gaston - and an old rival of the knight's had arrived into the story, determined to ruin the knight's life one way or the other... and when he learned of the feelings between knight and noblewoman, he decided to try and kill her.

Which had led to a gripping, epic swordfight.

All of those plot threads, and a subplot involving two neighboring lords in a border skirmish made everything so engrossing that she had to keep reading, had to keep going. It was an eagerness to finish reading that she'd thought she'd lost, even as she'd slowly recovered her love of books the last few weeks but... it was back, and she couldn't, wouldn't stop, even if it strained her eyes to read by the candlelight.

She had to get to the end.

And she did.

Fuck, it was - it was so good.

The rival was defeated and disgraced. The noblewoman did have to get married, but she found a much better option than the one her father had picked - one of the two lords competing in that subplot was gay and unmarried - or 'exclusively preferred the touch of men', as the book described it - and the noblewoman was able to convince him to make an offer for her hand. His pedigree was more than good enough for her father, and he was wealthy and connected - and not only did he get a marriage (hen like the noblewoman had social pressures to get married too) he got an ally in his border skirmish in the form of the noblewoman's father.

The two would have to try to have kids at some point, but they both could in clear conscience focus on their own lovers - the gay nobleman had one in the form of a poet he patronized, and the knight moved with the noblewoman to her new husband's household, and the story had culminated in them pledging their love to one another in the closest they could come to a marriage... followed by them making love for the first time.

That final scene wasn't enough to awaken Amy's long dead and atrophied libido, but it was the closest she'd been to turned on in ages. She'd been too engrossed in the story as well to feel bad about being almost turned on as well, too.

Once the book was done, she blew out the almost dead candle and laid back, managing to fall asleep surprisingly quickly...

---

She didn't remember her dreams when she woke up, but she did, as she felt awareness slip into her like water being poured into a cup, feel like she'd had dreams, and good ones at that.

Her good mood - she'd literally woken up smiling - was ruined somewhat when she'd realized she'd slept later than she'd meant to and breakfast had already been brought in while she'd slept. Not off to a great start on the 'getting her own food' front, but...

Still. She had the whole day. Lunch was with Josephione, but she could do her own dinner, and she was going to leave the cabin of her own accord today! And just... walk around the village.

So she ate, and made and drank a cup of coffee, banishing the grogginess. She got dressed, pulled on her robes and... didn't pull her hood up over her face. Not that it would hide who she was - her robes were distinctive - but...

Wearing her hood seemed to run counter to the 'be seen' thing.

She stood in front of the door to her cabin, hand on the handle, closing her eyes, inhaling, trying to psych herself up.

It's just... going outside. It's just for a bit. You don't have to do it for long. Just walk around a bit, don't bite people's heads off if they try to approach you. Maybe see if anyone needs any healing? If there was anything urgent, someone would have said something yesterday when they got back, but since she was here, she could check in to see if there were any injuries or illnesses that she could heal. With all the new soldiers arriving and being trained and stuff there had to be injuries there, at least?

Maybe I'll head for the training grounds then? That seemed like a good start, yeah. She could sort of meander in that direction, right?

I can maybe see if I can get a look at Blackwall's biology too, right?

The whole point was to go outside and be seen, but that - that didn't mean she couldn't also do something else at the same time, right? Two birds, one stone.

She could do this. She took another breath, opened her eyes and turned the handle, stepping outside.

The guard out front of her door wasn't Katerina, but another soldier she recognized, but didn't know the name of. Well, no time like the present to start with the...

She nodded to the guard as she stepped fully outside.

"Good morning?" She didn't mean it to sound like a question, but she sort of stumbled over the words and it ended up coming out like one.

The guard blinked, clearing his throat, eyes wide, surprised she was talking to him, probably, then pressed his closed fist to his chest in a Thedosian salute. "Herald."

"Please don't call me that," Amy said, trying to force herself to keep a calm, measured tone... "My name is Amy." She paused, "What's yours? I - I've seen you guarding my cabin before, when Katerina's not on duty, but I don't know your name."

"Uh - I - my name is Aylward, Her- uh -" He cleared his throat. "My name is Aylward, Amy."

"I'll - I'll try to remember that. Uhm... I guess since I'm leaving the cabin you don't need to stand guard? Do you need to follow me around?" Amy really hoped he didn't need to. If she had the guard right with her, then people might decide to stay back and she was supposed to want people to approach her...

"Seeker Pentaghast didn't instruct me to follow you... but I don't think she expected you to leave the cabin before Katerina came to relieve me..." he trailed off. "I should probably go with you..."

"Is there really any chance someone is going to try to kill me here?" Amy pointed out.

"...maybe not, but all it takes is one madman with a knife..." he pointed out.

"Look, I'm just going to the training ground and back. I want to see if any of the recruits need healing or anything, and talk to the Warden, Blackwall." Amy insisted. "I don't - I'll be fine. Go - go have breakfast or something."

"I already ate a few hours ago," Aylward answered. "Her- Amy, I - I really think I should go with you, if you're not going to just wait for Katerina to come and relieve me."

"And I think I'm fine." Aylward was about her height, so he didn't have the longer legs Katerina did that let the redhead outpace her so easily. Which meant if she moved quickly, maybe she could get far enough ahead of him...

"If you go with me, people will avoid me, and I'd - I'd like to try not having that this time," Amy added. "Besides, if you go, when Katerina gets here, she won't know where I am." she added, hoping one of those two explanations would work on him. She took a breath and before he could respond, she turned, hurrying towards the village gate, breaking into a jog quickly.

"Wait!" Aylward called after her, but Amy didn't slow down or look back. She turned and moved quickly down the stone steps to the lower half of the village, drawing eyes and attention and Amy swallowed, breathing catching as she noticed people stopping to stare at her - because she was running through the village like a woman on a mission as much as anything else, probably - and she slowed down without meaning too, coming to a complete halt - and doing so quickly that she stumbled and nearly fell over, flat on her face. She caught herself at the last moment on a pile of crates stacked up outside a house - the crate she grabbed slid and nearly toppled off the pile, but not quite.

Amy straightened up, flushing.

No one approached her just yet, and Amy swallowed, and looked to see if Aylward was behind her or anything, but it seemed like he'd decided to stay by her cabin, or maybe he'd gone to find Cassandra or something.

"Herald, please, a moment of your time," someone said as Amy started moving towards the village gate again. Amy turned at the sound of the Orlesian-accented voice. Thankfully they weren't wearing one of those stupid masks, but his clothes were kind of fancy-looking, underneath the warm-looking cloak that Amy felt a little jealous of.

Her Panacea robes were not very thick or warm. The clothes she had on under them were warm, but also kinda scratchy and uncomfortable.

"Don't call me 'Herald'," Amy said quickly, curtly, then she flushed again, clearing her throat. "That is," she added, trying to have a more normal tone. She tried to channel Josephine a little, likely to no avail, but... "I don't have any special connection to Andraste, or the Maker or - I'm not a Herald of anyone, and my name is Amy Dallon."

"But you are the one everyone calls the Herald, Mademoiselle Dallon?" The man pressed. "I have an urgent matter for the consideration of the Inquisition, and my master instructed me to deliver it to the Herald personally." He reached into his cloak and pulled out a sealed letter. "Count Guiscard du Perelle wishes the Inquisition's assistance with a matter involving Lord-"

Amy held up a hand. "I'm not in charge of anything!" She flinched a little as she realized she was raising her voice, and "Sorry." She muttered, looking away. "I - I don't make decisions. I just close rifts and hopefully soon, the Breach, and heal people. I - I can pass the letter on to Josephine Montilyet?" She offered, since that seemed like the think Josephine would want her to do, rather than just tell a Count's messenger to fuck off.

"I... I am - you do seem to be younger than I expected, Mademoiselle," the messenger said. "My master was under the impression you could make decisions on behalf of the Inquisition."

"I can't. And I wouldn't know anything about whoever the Count needs help with or - unless he's got a rift on his property that needs to be closed, there's nothing I can do." People were watching the conversation, though hardly everyone. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw two people murmuring to each other, but she didn't catch what they were saying.

"I... yes, please, take the letter to Lady Montilyet. The Count did instruct me to ensure the letter reached your hands personally." Amy reached out and took the letter. "Who - who will be making the decision on the Count's request, so I know what to tell him?"

Hell if I know. But I guess the same people who make all the decisions? "...Lady Josephine and Sister Leliana and Commander Cullen and Seeker Cassandra, I guess? They run the show together?" Amy put the letter into a pocket. "I promise I'll hand it to Josephine, but I have something else I need to do first. Uhm... should I tell her your name?"

"I am Onfroi. You may tell Lady Montilyet I can be found at the tavern, waiting for an answer." He gave her a quick, shallow bow, and departed, striding away from her.

Amy swallowed. Not quite the interaction with someone she'd been expecting, or wanting, but... it was something?

Unfortunately for her attempt to get to the training grounds, that sort of seemed to be the floodgates opening. She got approached by three more people before she could get there. The first one had come from a village a few days away and said her daughter - who she had taken with her - was sickly, prone to being bedridden for days at a time, and she'd come to beg for Amy to heal her.

"I don't do special requests for healing," Amy said quickly, almost on autopilot. Before the woman, whose lip was quavering and she looked to be on the verge of crying or yelling, Amy added, almost as quickly: "The alchemists and healers in the village have set up a place over near the Chantry, over that way," Amy half-turned and gestured, "For people that need my help to go. I'll - I'll be there later today. Is - is she sick right this second?"

The daughter wasn't doing great, but it wasn't urgent, and Amy promised to heal her when she went to heal for the day.

The next one was another person who seemed like a new arrival, asking Amy about the Maker's will for them or - something, she didn't really follow, he quoted something (probably the Chant of Light). Amy explained, trying to stay calm and level and taking deep breaths and closing her hands into tight fists and digging her fingernails into her palms, that she didn't have any connection the Maker and didn't know his will or anything. She moved on before he could answer - Vivienne said she could be rude, and this guy deserved that.

The third didn't so much want anything from Amy so much as to like, talk her ear off thanking her (and more importantly, the Maker) for stopping the Breach from growing and then finally asking when they would close it. Amy had answered 'soon, hopefully' and brushed past him.

The training grounds were a flat, open space surrounded by tents a few minutes walk from the village, and she caught sight of Cullen talking to a woman in Templar armor off to one side, his furry shoulder-things pretty hard to miss. On one side of the training grounds a bunch of people were doing some sort of spear training, maybe? Repetitive motions and stuff. Archers were firing bows at targets, and a bunch of wood and straw dummies had been set up and she saw Blackwall walking up and down the line of them as he gave instruction to the people there, an assortment, some not even in armor yet, who were holding shields in one hand and swords in the other, instructing them how to swing at the dummy, pausing at one point to grab one of the recruits (that's what they had to be) and manually readjust his feet and arms.

Amy felt that itch to grab him and get a look at how his biology was working and how he was able to not die from the Darkspawn Taint (yet) and then she could maybe work backwards from there and figure out how to innoculate -

But then she'd have to expose people to the Darkspawn Taint to test it and that seemed like a terrible idea and she couldn't just like... keep samples of that shit around to test with and -

If she was going to offer to heal the trainees, should she go straight to Blackwall, since he was overseeing some, or start with Cullen, since they were his people?

I feel like Cullen makes more sense? She wasn't sure, but...

She approached the Commander. The woman he was talking to spotted her, and pointed towards her and Cullen turned.

"Amy?" Cullen blinked, staring at her a moment. Then he rubbed at his forehead, that same sort of completely exhausted vibe she'd picked up from him yesterday. Amy didn't really like that she related to the man at all, but... that was a look she'd seen in the mirror, returning from the hospital all the time. Run down, spent, exhausted, wrung out. "I wouldn't have expected to see you here."

"I'm... trying out being more visible. Out and about and - noticed."

She didn't like Cullen. He was a Templar more and for longer than Katerina was, and so he'd had to have turned a blind eye (at a minimum) to so much more than her bodyguard. He also defended the Templars and had made an excuse for their rebellion.

But she was the guy in charge of the soldiers and that was what mattered here.

"Anyway, I - I decided I wanted to see if any of the recruits or soldiers needed healing. Even something minor. Training probably gets you bruised a lot, right?"

"All the time," the woman with Cullen said before Cullen could.

"Lysette is correct, it's very common," Cullen agreed. "But anything serious would have been dealt with by the healers here, or called to your attention already, now that you're here. Minor bruises are part of the learning process anyway. You don't learn to fight without a bit of pain. Helps prevent you from making the sort of mistakes that get you killed."

That was a pretty cold mindset, though Amy had heard similar ideas from people before. She'd once healed a kid of their early-stage cancer, but her mother had refused to let her heal the boy's 1st degree burn on his hand, because the kid had touched a hot stove and the mom had wanted her son to learn his lesson about why that was bad.

The kid had been fucking four. She'd actually tried to report the mother to CPS for that, but it hadn't gone anywhere.

"Still... these people are basically expected to die stopping demons from killing me, if they're around a rift when I'm there trying to close it." She inhaled. "Really not comfortable with that part, by the way." She added, muttering.

"If you die, all hope of closing the Breach dies too." Cullen pointed out. "I wouldn't say the lives of any of our soldiers is expendable, but you don't become a soldier without knowing there's a risk of dying for a cause you've decided is worth it. And protecting you would be worth it, under the circumstances." He let out a breath, rubbing at the side of his head again. Did he have headaches? Migraines?

"I know. Doesn't mean I'm happy about it. But my point is, if they're supposed to die for me - I - feel like healing them if they're hurt is the least I can do. Even if it's just a little hurt." She wasn't lying about hating the idea of people dying for her - she wasn't worth that, except that she was because she really was the only one who could close the Breach, at least at the moment. And she wasn't lying about it being the least she could do for them.

But she wanted to check on and heal the trainees so she could have the excuse to check on Blackwall's biology. See how the Wardens actually made a body immune to the Darkspawn Taint. Or... mostly immune. She really hoped there was a biological explanation, something she could actually pick up on, actually detect. The Darkspawn Taint was from the Fade, so maybe the 'cure' was too, but...

Magical in origin or not, the Darkspawn Taint did have biological impact. It existed physically and biologically and she could sort of detect it with her powers. 'Magic' had like... real effects. It produced fire that burned like normal fire (and then created burns that were healable like normal burns) and so... she could hope whatever Grey Wardens did showed up in Blackwall's biology.

It made sense that it would, anyway.

Cullen looked at her a moment, then nodded, "Alright." He raised his voice, shouting, "All trainees, stand down and form up, parade rest!"

It took a minute for everyone who was training or practicing or drilling to sort of... stop what they were doing and lower spears or swords or bows and then longer for them to organize themselves into rows of people standing on the flat area of the training ground, standing at attention - not quite stiff, salute level attention, and they weren't all standing at attention very well - but they were sort of trying to.

"Clearly we need to work on this a bit more," Cullen said. "I expect faster response times from the Inquisition's soldiers. But for the moment, we'll be doing something different. By now, many of you will have heard of Amy Dallon's healing abilities. They are real, and they are not magic. As soldiers of the Inquisition, if you are injured in the line of duty and she can get to you, she will heal you. Are any of you injured, even a little?"

About a third the soldiers raised their hands, some a little more hesitantly than others - Amy noticed at least one who only raised his hand because he saw others doing the same.

"Not just bruises from training or whatever," Amy added. "Minor sickness, or any sort of long-term issue, even aches you've gotten used to, could be a sign of something more serious.." A couple more people tentatively raised their hands. Then more. After a minute, it was at least half the soldiers. Maybe even two-thirds. She took a breath, and added one more thing. "One more thing: I know a lot of people think I was sent by the Maker or Andraste or... something like that. I'm nobody's Herald, okay? So don't - don't fucking call me that. My name is Amy Dallon."

Cullen looked like he was about to say something, shoulders lifting as he opened his mouth, and then he closed it, letting out a breath, as if thinking better of whatever he was going to say.

Vivienne said control the narrative. I just need to keep repeating it. Over and over again.

"I'll go down the rows and check on everyone who's raised their hand." Amy said. What she wanted to do was sink into the earth. She could feel all those eyes on her, and raising her voice like that and addressing so many people -

It wasn't as bad as talking to the Grand Clerics had been, trying to insist on getting her speech right even after the interruptions and stuff, but -

There weren't any serious issues. She had a lot of small bruises and muscle strains to heal, and a bunch of microfractures in bones - stuff that people probably thought was just a minor ache or something. She got a few who had pulled muscles that caused consistent minor issues that they'd powered through, or other stupid things. Some minor infections. One person had what Amy was pretty sure was a variant or relative of gonorrhea. Amy almost didn't heal her, but after a moment, she did.

Gross.

In the end, she healed twenty-one people, and that took over a half an hour. Most of them really were quick, minor healings she could practically do in her sleep, and the rest were still pretty simple. Gonorrhea Lady was the longest to handle.

When she was done, Amy let out a breath. As she'd finished with each person, Cullen dismissed them, and the people who hadn't needed any healing, having them return to training. Blackwall hadn't formed up, and he hadn't volunteered needing any healing, so she bit her lower lip, and stood there, trying to figure out what to do, how to get him to just -

Just let her touch him already!

Finally, Amy approached him, "Blackwall?"

"Aye?" He turned away from the trainees he was overseeing. "How can I be of service, Messere Dallon?"

Amy blinked. "Messere?" What the hell did that mean? He said it the way someone else might say 'Miss' or something? Maybe? Kind of felt like that, anyway...

"I'm sorry, I'm used to the Free Marches way of address," Blackwall admitted. "Years in Orlais and it still sticks. Messere is a term of respect, an address for someone of importance. You said you don't want to be called Herald, but an organization relies on a proper chain of authority, so I shouldn't be calling you by your first name." Blackwall didn't sound stiff, or formal as he said it, more just... matter of fact.

"...I'm fine with being called Amy. I'm not in charge of anything."

"If you gave an order, really gave it, most people in Haven would follow it," Blackwall told her, and Amy looked down at the ground, biting her lip. "You might not be in charge, but you are the one who can close the rifts. That puts you above me - right now, I'm just here to help train the recruits. If you need me in the field, I'm happy to be of service that way as well."

"Just - call me Amy, please. That's my name." Amy bit her lip again, looking away, taking a breath and rubbing at her forehead. "Anyway, that's not - my offer to heal extended to you too. You're here helping the Inquisition, so if you get sick or injured or something, if I'm around, I'll handle it. I'm faster than a potion and I can do most things easier than magic can."

"That's a very kind offer, and I'll be glad to take you up on it if I'm ever injured or sick," Blackwall said."

Goddamnit man, just fucking let me get a look at your biology.

"You said you were out in remote places for a long time on your own, right? Maybe you picked something up?" Amy offered. "I'd be happy to check. Old injuries too."

Blackwall considered her words a moment, "I took an arrow to the shoulder a few years ago, right where it meets the arm." He gestured on his left shoulder where he meant. Basically right at the point of the joint. She could imagine that might have scraped at bone or something. "Didn't do anything permanent to mobility, thankfully, but it sometimes still feels sore. Nothing serious, but by the time I could get a potion it was too late and -"

"Happy to take care of it." Amy said quickly "I need to touch bare skin to heal you though," she nodded to his gloved hands. Blackwall tugged the glove off his left hand and held it out. Amy grabbed it, finally getting a look at his biology and...

He was just a guy?

A human guy.

He had slightly better than average teeth by Thedas's standards, but that was at best 'barely acceptable' by Brockton Bay's standards thanks to modern dentistry. He definitely had an accumulation of minor scars and build ups of smaller injuries here and there that hadn't one hundred percent healed, and it seemed like he'd gotten stabbed in the torso at least once by a spear or something. Healing magic or a potion had probably gotten to it but it left a trace inside his body.

Blackwall had callouses on his hands, not just from swords too - some reminded her of a carpenter she'd healed once, so he probably did woodworking.

Normally Amy didn't pay that close attention to biology but as she looked him over and healed some of the minor injury build up - it seemed fair since she was just using him to satisfy her weird fucking obsession with understanding the Darkspawn Taint - she couldn't fucking find the Darkspawn Taint.

Where the fuck - where the absolute fuck was it?

If they drank the blood and it ended up killing them eventually, even if thirty years later, then it should be there, even if it was somehow dormant, held back by.... Something.

But it wasn't there.

It fucking wasn't there!?

"Where the fuck is it?" Amy muttered.

"Mess- Amy?" Blackwall asked, and Amy realized she'd said that out loud, letting out a small 'oh' as he startled her back to paying attention to her surroundings.

Don't tell the Grey Wardens that you can do anything with the Darkspawn Taint, so I shouldn't mention I'm looking for it and -

Was he even a Grey Warden?

Maybe? Maybe it's some stupid magic shit and it's there and -

Amy's instincts were telling that couldn't be it. That the Taint would have to leave some kind of physical trace that it was in him, right? That shit was a nightmare, an abomination, a goddamn sin against reality (what the fuck? Why was she thinking about it in those terms?) and - and she couldn't accept that it wouldn't leave a trace.

"Sorry, I'm just trying to find what the arrow did to your shoulder so I can heal it. It was taking a minute to figure out." Amy looked at his shoulder, finding a nick in the bone around the joint. "Hey - while I'm - something's been bugging me since I met you. Is Blackwall a nickname?"

"It's my surname," Blackwall explained. Amy noticed his brain light up a little and that was -

Is that?

Amy was not a foolproof lie detector. But she wasn't half-bad at it either, and that looked like a lie to her power. Maybe.

"My name is Gordon Blackwall," he said, and that sure seemed like another lie, "But after years as a Warden, I got used to going just by Blackwall - Maker, it's what I call myself in my own head sometimes. Never really liked going by Gordon."

Okay, that's weird because that one sort of feels like it was true.

"How about if you keep calling me Amy, I'll keep calling you Blackwall, rather than Gordon?" Amy offered, trying to slap a fake smile on as she let go of his hand. "Your shoulder should be healed. I dealt with a few other minor leftover bits of injuries that didn't completely heal."

'Blackwall' moved his left shoulder experimentally. "I do feel better than I have in a few years." He inclined his head. "I appreciate it, Amy."

He's lying about something. I'm sure of it. Where the fuck is the Darkspawn Taint? It should be there! It should fucking be there, magic disease bullshit or not! There should be a trace of it! There was nothing. And his name wasn't Gordon Blackwall. Which made no sense.

"Amy!" Katerina's voice ringing out made Amy turn back towards the village and she saw the redhead stalking towards them. "What - what are you doing just leaving your cabin and wandering around!?"

"I wasn't in any danger!" Amy pointed out. "The worst I had was some people trying to talk my ear off when I came out towards here. Stupid people thinking I have a connection to the Maker."

"That's why you don't go wandering around without me, so I keep people away from you, which I thought you wanted." Katerina pointed out. "And Haven is safe, but you don't stay alive by taking stupid risks, Amy! Stupid risks like not having a guard with you at all times! Are you even wearing your armor under your robes!? I thought we were done with you avoiding being guarded after that idiot tried to stab you at the Crossroads!"

"No! I'm not!" Amy shouted back. "I'm not going to wear armor all the damn time!" Amy flushed - she'd actually forgotten about that idiot who'd tried to attack her at the Crossroads, but now she did remember him, and Katerina berating her for sending her away after that too. But still. She wasn't - she -

You weren't supposed to wear armor all the time anyway, right?

"I'm not saying wear it all the time, but if you're really going to try ditching having a guard, wear it! I do not want to find out you got stabbed somewhere important!" She grinned, "I'd get my hide ripped off by Commander Cullen and Lady Pentaghast for one, and there goes my interesting job protecting you."

"...that doesn't seem like the right reason to not want your charge to be hurt." 'Blackwall' chided.

"Warden, with all due respect, you don't know Amy," Katerina offered. "And what I said was mostly a joke. Obviously I don't want her to get hurt for a lot of reasons."

"She saved my life from an assassin on the way to Val Royeaux," Amy said. "And I'd rather she make comments like that then call me 'Herald'."

"Alright." 'Blackwall' paused awkwardly, "I - I guess that's what you want then. But should you be arguing so loudly in the open like this?" Amy looked around and noticed people were staring. Cullen was staring, the trainees were staring, passing other people were staring. Not everyone, one trainee was intently focused on whacking his sword at his dummy to the point it seemed like he didn't know what was happening around him, but -

"...no." Amy flushed, pulling her hood over her face, bowing her head and shrinking in on herself.

Fucking fuck fuck. Now I just look like a petulant whiny brat.

"What were you even doing?"

"I came to see if any of the trainees needed any healing, and then I did the same for Warden Blackwall here." Amy said quickly. "And to tell them all not to call me Herald."

"...that last one sounds like you at least," Katerina muttered. "Looks like you're done with all that. Are you going anywhere else next?"

"Are you going to stick to me like a limpet?"

"That's my job."

"Then don't keep everyone from approaching me. I need to actually tell people I don't have a direct line to the Maker or Andraste or anything like that if I want to make it sink in." Amy said. "And right now, I need to talk to Leliana."

Leliana was the one who knew about the drinking Darkspawn blood thing. She was the one who recruited Blackwall. She needed to know this guy was lying about his name and was probably not a fucking Grey Warden.

He can't be. I just - I just know it! The Darkspawn Taint has to be there! I refuse to accept anything else! Biology was biology, even if magic was messing around with things. And he was fucking lying about his name, she was sure of it.

Even if he is a Grey Warden, he's lying about his name and I feel like Leliana would want to know that. How did she not pick it up? She's a spymaster? Isn't that shit her job?!

Author's Note: I can't really capture Varric's voice as an author very well - we get a few samples of his writing, from the Hard in Hightown Codex entries, and the bits at the end of Trespasser where Cassandra reads All This Shit is Weird, so I tried to at least get in the same vibe, but I can't say I did as well as I'd have liked.

---

"I don't think you understand," Amy started at Leliana. "I have healed a lot of gross diseases and disorders and physical problems in the last two years. I once had to heal a guy who was throwing up his own shit! Literally, his actual fucking shit was coming out of his mouth thanks to a bowel obstruction." She heard Katerina make a small retching sound behind her, though she didn't actually throw up, while Leliana stared at her impassively, one eyebrow raised. "I have had to purge parasites from people's bodies, and I've had to deal with people who've had necrotizing fasciitis! Do you have any idea what that is?"

"...Not by that name," Leliana admitted.

"It's when a certain kind of bacteria - it's a tiny little lifeform, impossible to see, they're everywhere, which is why washing your hands is good - gets into an injury of yours and starts killing your flesh, making your body start rotting away like you're a goddamn zombie."

"A what?"

"Walking corpse. You have those here, I know that's come up." Leliana nodded, "Well, that's what necrotizing fasciitis does - makes you that, but you're alive and believe me, it's fucking awful. I have healed people shitting out blood and dealt with some of the worst cancers out there, So believe me when I say, the Darkspawn Taint is the most fucking vile thing I have ever encountered! It's a fucking - it's fucking -" She held back from saying what she wanted to say, which was 'a blasphemy against reality' which would make her sound like an absolutely insane woman.

If she didn't already, the way she was starting to pace as she ranted at the Inquisition's redheaded spymaster.

"It's evil, okay?! It's monstrous, so yes, I wanted to get a look at Blackwall's biology and see how the fuck he was still alive, how the Darkspawn Taint hadn't eaten up his entire body all in one go and like I said, there's no fucking Darkspawn Taint in his body! It's not there! So he can't be a Grey Warden!"

"Blackwall matches all known descriptions of Gordon Blackwall, and by all evidence appears to know what he should know." Leliana said calmly. "He is -"

"And he's not Gordon Blackwall! That is not his fucking name! He was lying, I could read it in his biology!" Amy added, holding back the urge to shout. They were inside a tent near the Chantry, off to the side from the rest of the main body of the village, but still, they could be overheard if she was too loud, and that -

That seemed like a bad thing. For the moment.

"You claim you can simply know if someone is lying." Leliana said, crossing her arms in front of her. "You're offering no proof of your claims."

"The proof is what I can tell! People's brains and bodies don't react the same when they're lying! I can - here, I can prove it. One of you grab my hand and tell me two things that are true and one thing that's a lie and I can tell you which one the lie is!" She held out one hand, the other grabbing at her hair. She wanted to pull at it, she wanted to yell, she wanted to scream. Why wasn't Leliana listening to her?!

For once I actually wish someone did believe I spoke for the divine so they'd just fucking listen when I tell them something!

She really hoped she could pick up the lie from whoever it was that took her up on her. It wasn't foolproof, it really wasn't, but she was positive, she was convinced Blackwall was lying. If she had money she'd bet on it.

He.

Was.

Lying.

Katerina moved behind her and then came around to her side, glove off, grabbing Amy's hand. Her biology flooded Amy's vision again - her stupid genetic lottery biology that let her build muscle so much easier.

"My father's name is Mathias, the first girl I kissed was named Tegania and my favorite color is amber."

"That's not your dad's name," Amy said after a moment, thinking on what she picked up from the other woman's brain and body as she offered the information.

"No, it's Tavio," Leliana said before Katerina could. "But that could easily be a lucky guess."

"Do you really think I'd lie about this?!" She snatched her hand away from Katerina, throwing both up in the air for a moment. "What the fuck could I possibly gain?! Why - why would I need to - I don't know Blackwall! I don't have any reason to have an issue with him!"

"Just because I don't have a reason to mind why you'd lie, doesn't mean there isn't one," Leliana said calmly. She pulled off one of her own gloves and extended her hand. Amy took the invitation and closed the distance between them.

Leliana's biology was... normal. A woman, a little older than Carol, but healthy. Not especially muscular, but no slouch either, despite her age.

"The first man I killed was a Ferelden knight named Ser Gendron. I had a pet nug named Schmooples. I left a woman named Marjoline alive after our second encounter in Denerim."

Schmooples? Amy blinked as she heard that, almost missing Leliana's third comment. Then she blinked, narrowing her eyes as she considered what she picked up from Leliana's brain. Every brain was different, but there were some commonalities, and if -

If she was right, then Leliana had just cheated then.

"The only true thing you said was that you had a pet nug named Schmooples." Leliana killed someone - this Marjoline. Who, why, how, when? None of those were anything Amy knew, but Leliana was supposed to be a spy and assassin for the late Divine so... that really wasn't much of a surprise. Didn't change the fact that she didn't really trust Leliana, but - that wasn't for the killing part itself, more the... everything else about the woman.

Like I said, I guess it's closer to executing a kill order than just being a random murderer. Still. Assassinating people was -

It was one thing if someone died in a fight. Bad, but - Carol and the rest of the adults in her family had prepared Vicky, Eric and Crystal for that possibility. Lecture after lecture about how to prevent it and why it was important to restrain yourself and not kill in a fight, all the reasons, but...

It was possible.

In a fight, it could happen. If you killed someone defending yourself, defending others - that was fine. She hadn't objected to those Templars and Mages getting killed in the Hinterlands, the ones attacking people.

Sneaking up to someone and stabbing them - no. That wasn't -

It wasn't like Amy would call someone a monster if they did that to Jack Slash or someone else with a Kill Order, you had to be absolutely monstrous to get one, but still. It wasn't what good people were supposed to do.

But Amy didn't think Leliana was evil either and that left her annoyed. Leliana wasn't a good person. But she wanted the Breach closed and she - she had worked for what was a government and wanted to help mages be free which Amy figured was good but -

She doesn't make any fucking sense. Then again, what did in Thedas? Katerina wanted the right things now, and she'd saved Amy's life and protected people at the Crossroads but she also had stood there and been complicit while in the Templars. Mages wanted freedom which was good, but started a war over it and a bunch had decided to attack random villagers in the Hinterlands. Bad. Templars -

Amy bit her lip and exhaled. No. She - she didn't have time to think about that. She had to - she had to focus. She had a problem in front of her - well, two. The Breach, and the fact that Blackwall wasn't a fucking Grey Warden. Everything else had to come second. Like it had so far.

"You cheated. I said two truths and a lie, not two lies and a truth." Amy let go of Leliana's hand. "What the fuck was that?"

Amy was a little surprised she'd gotten all three lies correct, to be honest. But - maybe she was just getting better? She didn't really do the lie detecting stuff much, but -

Vicky sometimes pushed her to test it more, lying to her about something minor while Amy was holding her hand to see if she'd pick up on it.

The problem with that was that Vicky was a terrible liar in general. So Amy didn't really need her power to tell if her sister was lying.

"A test. Though you're asking me to believe a lot without any evidence I can prove. As I said, this Blackwall matches all descriptions of Gordon Blackwall, and he appears to be who he says he is."

"Well, he's not! I'm telling you, there's no Darkspawn Taint in his body!"

"You mentioned that before, you keep mentioning that, what does that mean?" Katerina asked, cutting in. "He's a Grey Warden, they're immune to the Taint, they don't have it."

"Katerina, take a walk around the Chantry," Leliana instructed. Amy half-turned and saw Katerina cross her arms in front of her chest, mouth half-open. "And don't mention what you've heard here to anyone."

"Don't mention what? I've basically heard nothing!"

"And we're going to keep it that way. Take. A. Walk." Leliana repeated firmly, and Katerina swallowed a moment and nodded.

"Aye," Katerina turned and left the tent without another word.

"Is it really that big a deal if she hears? I - I think she knows how to keep things secret... she has so far..."

"She likely does. Cassandra picked Katerina as your bodyguard for a number of reasons, including the fact that she can keep her mouth shut. But the Grey Wardens guard the secret of their joining closely. Kalaius Cousland shouldn't have told me about it in the first place, but he did. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't have told any of you, but the situation demanded it."

Yeah, I suppose keeping that you drink the blood of literal abominations before God is definitely the kind of thing that you need to keep secret. Even though it worked and was - apparently - for a good reason, Amy could imagine it was the kind of thing that could make people in this primitive shithole of a world form lynch mobs.

Fuck, now that she thought about it, it could make people back home do lynch mobs, if they knew what the Darkspawn Taint was. If they knew even a quarter of what she did about the nightmare substance.

"Fine. My point stands, Leliana. He doesn't have the Darkspawn Taint in him!"

"And for all you know, no Warden has it. They are immune to it's further effects!" Leliana said, but it almost - almost, or maybe it was just wishful thinking to Amy's ears - as if she was trying to convince herself.

"Oh for the - No, that's - If the Darkspawn Taint being in them is how they're immune and they die from it in a few decades and they need to have the Darkspawn Taint to kill the Archdemon, it's going to be in their systems! I don't know everything about how this.... This... evil parasite-virius-disease-whatever-the-fuck-it-is, but I know it would have to be in his system to do any of that! And he lied about his name! It is not Gordon Blackwall. I'm sure of it!"

Amy looked at Leliana's face, feeling the urge to pull at her hair again. She started pacing, turning her head to look at Leliana every few seconds as she started to rant again, repeating the same damn points over and over again.

She wasn't even sure why she cared so much except that if 'Blackwall' was lying about being a Warden and his name, then what the fuck else was he lying about? Was he a spy? Assassin? Was he somehow involved in the explosion at the Conclave? They still didn't have leads on that, as far as Amy knew.

That and she'd -

She'd been so damn ready to get a look at a Grey Warden's biology and - and then there was nothing! She'd gotten so worked up and so eager over NOTHING.

It was infuriating!

"Well, I'll take your words under advisement, Amy," Leliana said finally, looking impassive, interrupting Amy's repeating rants.

Amy stopped pacing, stared at Leliana, then threw her hands up into the air again. "FIne. Fine. Fuck it. Whatever." She was being a whiny, petulant brat, but she didn't care. Leliana wasn't listening. She should - she should find Cassandra and tell her, or Josephine. But would - would they listen either?

They'd have the same problem, they still didn't really understand her power, how it worked, she didn't have a known and confirmed Grey Warden to compare her read on Blackwall against - Leliana had said as much, when Amy first made the point before -

And - and -

They wouldn't take her seriously. They didn't. They never did. No one did here. They just needed her for the rifts. Josephine had pitied her and said they could keep things secret just to make Amy feel better. Cassandra kept acting like she was an amazing person who did wonderful things just for doing the bare minimum. Solas had kept insisting she had strength of character.

They all pitied her and patronized her and thought she was pathetic. Which she was, but -

She turned and stormed out of the tent, face red, breathing heavily. Katerina was pacing about fifteen feet away, but made a beeline for Amy as she saw her.

"I'm going to guess that Leliana isn't -"

"I don't want to talk about it," Amy interruped, snapping at Katerina. She glared daggers at the other woman, who nodded slowly and held up her hands, a bit, palms outward, in a 'okay, okay, fine, calm down' sort of gestured.

Of course, being told to calm down just made Amy angrier, but not so much at Katerina specifically as the entire situation. At still being in Thedas. At not being able to close the Breach because mages and Templars and nobles (oh my!) couldn't get their fucking acts together. At Leliana and Cassandra and Josephine and Vivienne and Solas and Varric and every other stupid person on this -

"She said she'd 'take my words under advisement," amy muttered, stalking off into the trees and bushes - largely bare save for a handful of evergreens - around the back of the chantry. The area behind the building sloped upwards into hills, and apparently it's basement went into the hills and connected into a whole network of tunnels, like the mining tunnels they'd taken on the way to the temple way back when, but more. "She's just pretending to humor me. That's all anyone does. They all pity me because I'm pathetic and need coddling and then they patronize and -" Amy snarled wordlessly, pacing back for forth between two trees, mutterig, though she was doing it loud enough for Katerina to hear her fine.

Katerina leaned back against another tree, snapping a few small, low branches off with a few swipes of her arm to make room for herself. "I mean, on the way to Jader and the way back from the Storm Coast she spent a lot ot time whacking you with a stick," The staff training was still mostly Amy getting hit, as Cassandra upped her game every time Amy got a little better at blocking or avoiding attacks. "I don't think that's coddling."

"Cassandra thinks I'm so pathetic that I need to be told 'I'm proud of you' just for doing the right thing!" Amy turned to face Katerina. A good person doesn't need to be praised in order to do the right thing! They shouldn't want it.

"...Lady Pentaghast praised you and you're angry about it." Katerina stared at her, looking like Amy might at an alien.

"Because she was patronizing me, acting like I did some amazing awesome thing and all I did was the bare minium, the thing anyone with a conscience would do in my situation. She keeps acting like I'm this amazing, wonderful here, but I'm not, I'm just - I'm just doing what I have to do!" Amy turned away, pacing again.

If she hadn't been so angry, at Leliana, at not being able to get a look at an actual Grey Warden's biology and how they survived being tainted, she might have stopped. If she hadn't had to give the little speech to those recruits and talk to a bunch of people to tell them she wasn't anyone's Herald (which she'd had to do more of on the way to Leliana), she might not have been so emotionally exhausted to keep ranting and keep saying things aloud.

But she was tired. She was angry. And so she kept going. She wasn't even thinking about what she was saying now, just - unfiltered ranting on a theme.

"Good people aren't supposed to want to be praised in order to do the right thing. And again, I did the bare minimum! I didn't - I don't do things that deserve any kind of praise and Cassandra should know it but she and Josephine think I'm so fucking fragile and so she decides she needs to tell me she's proud of me and that I'm a good person and the worst fucking part is, the part that makes this all so much worse, so - it's fucking working! I liked hearing it! I liked hearing her say she was proud of me and now I want to hear her say it again," and it was true, she did, she really did, she wanted - she wanted to be told by Cassandra specifically 'I'm proud of you'.

She wanted to do things that would make her say it again. She wanted to do the right thing because it was right, close the Breach because of that, but - not just that anymore. She wanted -

"And now I don't want to do the right thing just because what else can I do, because it is the right thing, but because I want her to say that again! I want her to say 'I'm proud of you' or something like that and I - I'm so pathetic that I want her to say I'm doing a good job and I-" There was a sting in Amy's eyes and she realized there were tears there, God, she was so worthless and whiny that she was crying now and

"...I am not following your logic, Amy. How does this make you pathetic?" Katerina was staring at her in a way that almost made Amy want to check her head to see if she'd grown horns or something. "What's wrong-"

"What's wrong is that I shouldn't need this! I shouldn't want this! Wanting Cassandra to praise me for something I don't even deserve, wanting to hear someone I barely even know I'm proud of you shouldn't motivate me, but it does because I'm so fucking pathetic! I'm so useless and all it takes is Cassandra saying 'I'm proud of you' once and I'm wanting it again so much, fuck, I want it so much I can almost fucking taste it," which was true, Amy realized as she said it. She'd reflected on what Cassandra had said, but she'd - she'd tried to convince herself it wasn't what she thought. Because it wasn't. It was Cassandra being patronizing, or - or at least just - Cassandra didn't mean it like that. "I should want to do the right thing only because it's the right thing and not because I'm so worthless, so pathetic that I want Cassandra to say it to me like Carol never did!"

As she realized what she was saying, what she'd said, what it meant, she stopped pacing abruptly, but she didn't pay attention when and where she stopped and her foot hit a root. She stumbled, She stumbled, flailing for a half a second before Katerina caught her before she could hit the ground, the other woman's hands on her shoulders and -

No. I-

Why did she -

Carol never said that, fine. Amy had accepted that years ago, finally. After trying so hard to make Carol love her. Trying to get good grades, trying to not get in trouble. Doing chores she wasn't even asked to. Always asking to spend time with her. Rushing home to share art she made in art class or good test scores or asking Carol to help her with her hair because some of the girls at school had talked about their moms brushing or combing their hair. Amy had tried to just... spend time with Carol, be there in her office when Carol was doing work, reading, and -

Nothing ever worked because Carol would never love her. Could never love her. Never care about her.

Never say I'm proud of you. She didn't say it to Vicky either, but - she at least - she hugged Vicky sometimes and actually sometimes gave her praise when she did a good job and even when they were kids, she'd given Vicky a little more time whenever she'd brought home her good grades on tests (always better than Amy's, even when Amy tried her best, she just couldn't match her sister's grades).

All of that Amy knew, but until she said it, until she thought it -

I'm not that pathetic? I can't - I'm not that -

She didn't want to hear it from Carol anymore. She'd given up. There was a reason she called her Carol now, not Mom, like she'd tried to for a while in there.

"...You're kidding me, right?" Katerina laughed humorlessly, sounding more like she was insane than amused.

Amy wanted the earth to swallow her up. She wanted to be unconscious or - she -

No. I... I don't - I don't want it like that, right?

Shame and mortification and disbelief and realization and anger and self-loathing all warred in Amy and she covered her face, tears stinging at her eyes more and she dropped down to the ground, sitting on hard, cold earth and pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs, not responding to Katerina's words.

I really am that - I barely know her and her saying 'I'm proud to know you' really did feel that good and I want it again and I - I'm pathetic and worthless and needy and I never deserved it and she didn't even really say 'I'm proud of you' but that's what it felt like and I -

"Every now and then, you say something about your past, or your life or family that is..." Katerina shook her head. "All the books I've read, and I don't have any words, when I try to make sense of the whole story from these little... random things you say."

"Shut up." Amy muttered, trying to will herself to melt into a puddle, to evaporate away, if the ground wouldn't do her a favor and swallow her up. If she could have used her powers on herself instead of other people, she'd be able to do that. She could just... vanish when she needed to. Melt and become a gas and float away...

And all those people you saved would have died, if you had self-biokineseis and couldn't affect anyone else. Vicky would be dead. All so you could feel better and get better at running away and hiding. Amy swallowed, blinking repeatedly, inhaling shallow breaths through her nose and mouth.

"I mean, between that whole thing with your aunt and your family having powers and this and - I still can't get over the part where you were worried you'd be killed in your sleep when you were six. When I was six I barely understood the concept of death. I was worried about when Mom would let me have honeyed nuts again as a treat, or when old Woman Megera would tell one of the stories I really liked to us. You've mentioned Brockton Bay is dangerous and it sounds like it had enough criminals to give Kirkwall a run for it's money but your parents have powers and your aunt hadn't been murdered yet by then so - what the fuck were you so afraid of? At six?"

"Shut up." Shut up and go away and leave me alone! Amy swallowed, gritting her teeth.

"No, seriously Amy, I'm starting to get tired of this. Of not understanding what the hell is going on with you because you won't actually talk to me about it. You just sometimes get worked up and yell something horrible. What the fuck - who the fuck had you so afraid?"

"It was a stupid nightmare. I was six and stupid I'd just been adopted and I was scared of everything and everyone." Amy said, hoping it would be enough for Katerina to shut up. To shut up and leave her alone and go away. Amy swallowed, even bringing it up that much was bringing the memory of that nightmare she'd forgotten for years back to the fore of her mind. It was so vivid in her memory now, it had been so vivid when she'd been six. Darkness, fear, silence and noise and then the sound of Carol and her axe cutting through her bedroom door, looming over her, eyes blazing with anger and Carol just standing there, holding the axe and - and -

And then she'd bring it down on her.

Amy had forgotten the nightmare for so long. She'd remembered the fear itself... a year ago? A year and a half? When the final nail in the coffin of ever getting Carol to love her had been drilled in, she'd started to remember.

But the nightmare. She'd only really started to remember the nightmare, especially with so much vividness, since she'd arrived in Thedas.

Katerina sat down next to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. Amy shrugged the shoulder off and Katerina pulled her arm back without protest, scooting away from her a bit.

"...that... doesn't really answer many questions. Or just raises new ones." Katerina murmured. "You've mentioned that you're adopted, but what about your birth parents? What happened to them?"

"I don't want to talk about it." She didn't want to talk about it or think about it.

That first year with the Dallons... if it hadn't been for Vicky...

Amy had been so terrified of Carol. That she'd say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing and Carol would hurt her or kill her worse, send her away, away from Vicky. Her sister had glommed onto her quickly, and Amy had done the same almost as fast.

Mark had tried, and he'd been better back then then he eventually got, more good days, but - still not enough. And Carol was still Carol and -

It wasn't like Carol had ever threatened her with the axe or done anything with it to her or - Carol wasn't like that.

She just never loved me. Never congratulated me. Was never proud of me. But that -

That shouldn't matter. She didn't need that. Not from Carol. And not - and not from Cassandra.

And Cassandra hadn't meant it like that.

"There's a lot of things you don't want to talk about, huh." Katerina observed. Amy didn't say anything to that. What was there to say? Katerina said nothing for a bit then, "I know I just said I'm getting tired of you keeping all these secrets and only occasionally blurting out some detail of your life, but part of me kind of prefers the mystery of it all," she said that with a chuckle, smirking.

"The mystery?"

"The mystery of what the fuck is wrong with you," Katerina laughed for a second, then exhaled slowly. "That sounds worse than I meant it."

"How the fuck else could you mean it?" Amy muttered the question, but part of her knew it was a good one. One she asked herself all the time, every time she wished she could lose her power, or stop healing.. Every time she hated healing... every time she thought about kissing her sister, or worse - or got jealous of Dean or -

Not that Amy didn't know the answer. She was bad. A monster, just waiting to happen. She had to keep to her rules, because they were the only thing. The only thing that would stop her from becoming the villain she was.

"I mean - you're confusing, Amy. I don't understand why you do the things you do and how you think and since I spend most of my time dealing with you... I'm trying to figure you out. And piecing together all the little tidbits of your awful childhood-"
"I didn't have an awful childhood," Amy interrupted. She'd had plenty to eat and an allowance and she'd never been hit and she'd had Vicky and - "You grew up a peasant on this medieval shithole of a world, where nobles lord it over everyone and and you don't have indoor plumbing in most places and-"

"I'll just ignore the rest of what you said and point out this: My mom told me she was proud of me when I was able to join the Templars," Katerina interrupted. "They don't just take every tall peasant girl who liked to pick fights, you know. And then, when I left the order after they broke with the Chantry and wrote a letter home about it, they wrote back telling me they didn't agree with me going back on my word to complete my Initiateship, but they at least considered it good of me that I was standing for what I believed was right, whatever else."

Good for you. Fine, Katerina had that and - it didn't matter. It shouldn't matter. It -

Carol being Carol doesn't make it okay that I want Cassandra's approval so badly.

"That doesn't mean my childhood was awful and fine, your parents - your life wasn't perfect!" Amy snapped, pushing back, "There had to be times when you went hungry or -"

"Not that many, unless I was a complete little shit and sent to bed without dinner," Katerina laughed, "Winter was always kind of lean, sure, but our village never got hit by any droughts or like... the entire crop failing. If one of the families had shortages, the rest of helped out. And as for Lord Seregol... from what I got from my parents and the other adults, and the letters they've sent since I mean... he's not that bad? Sure, everyone complained at harvest time, having to pay rents and dues and all that, but..." she shrugged. "Could be worse. He wasn't Orlesian, and he wasn't like his grandfather - according to some of the old people in town, that Lord Seregol was a real bastard. Raised the rents and dues, didn't stop bandits from ravaging the countryside..."

She exhaled slowly, "And all my siblings are alive, and... most of my grandparents aren't now, but... all died peacefully, had good lives. My Mom's mother is still alive, the raggedy old hag is too stubborn to die. You'd like her - she's almost as crotchety and self-pitying as you."

"Excuse me?!" Amy demanded, raising her voice.

"You heard me, Amy. You're more crotchety than a woman in her sixties. And I'm pretty sure the only person that's pitying you is you. Certainly not Lady Pentaghast or Lady Montilyet."

"Fuck you," Amy mutered. "I-" Katerina didn't get it. The only reason Josephine and Cassandra and all the rest told her she was a good person for doing the bare minimum or didn't put her to -

Being so isolated had made Josephine's job a little harder. Vivienne had made that pretty clear. So why had Josephine just... said nothing, and constantly let Amy do that? Pity. That could be the only answer. She was so fragile and pathetic and -

Maybe Josephine really did like talking to her and their shared lunches. And maybe Cassandra did care a little about her and want to help her continue to recognize herself and -

But they also needed her to close the Breach and they both clearly, obviously pitied her. Their concern could only be that.

"I mean, you're not like her all the time. She hated books, thought it was a waste of time to read. Didn't hide away from people much, always loved being near the center of things, gossipping. Loved the Chantry. But when you get like you are right now? All self-pitying and angry and pushing me away when I try to be nice? You're just like her. Not your most attractive feature."

"I don't have any attractive features," Amy didn't even realize that she'd said that out loud - no matter how true it was it wasn't something she wanted to talk about - until Katerina laughed.

"Andraste's bountiful tits, we talked about this just yesterday, Amy. You're pretty. Anyone who says otherwise is either blind or an idiot." Katerina said it as if it was obvious, in this pretty neutral tone, like someone would say the sky was blue. "Or they're whatever is going on with you, I guess," she added.

Amy stared at Katerina. The smile on the redhead's face was self-satisfied without coming off as smug, and it did nothing to make Katerina less attractive. The redhead was still nothing on Vicky, obviously, but it was an objective fact that Katerina was better looking than Amy herself was. Vicky was beautiful. Katerina was pretty. Amy?

Amy knew she was plain. Average. What the fuck was Katerina doing saying -

Her eyes narrowed and she glared at Katerina. The other woman was gay, and... she had no idea how Katerina felt about casual sex, but - the only real explanation could be...

"Are you flirting with me?" Katerina had said she wasn't making any advances yesterday, but - it made no sense for her to keep saying shit like 'you're pretty' to Amy if she wasn't up to something like that. Unless she had the obvious ulterior motive. But really, why would Katerina even want to flirt with her, unless she had some sort of kink for being yelled at which... gross.

Could be it though. Amy considered. There had been that one guy Vicky had told her about, some drugged up thug who had reacted to her sister's aura not with fear or adoration, but with horniness and arousal. He'd even asked Vicky to step on him, like a creepy little shit.

"No, I'm not flirting," Katerina shook her head, "You're pretty and you're fun to talk to, but you're not my type."

Thank God. Amy did not want to have to deal with advances from Katerina. She didn't think the woman would press really hard after a no, but... still. It would make things awkward, like it had with that boy she'd had to do a group project with early in sophomore year. He'd asked her out halfway through the process and the whole thing had just been awkward as hell the rest of the way.

"And what is your type?" Amy scoffed, eager to push the conversation onto Katerina, away from herself. Put the redheaded pain in her ass on the spot. "Wait, given that Iron Heifer comment... I'm gonna guess... tall and muscular?" Not a bad choice for a type of woman to be into, really. Amy could really appreciate the appeal.

"I'm pretty sure a female Qunari would be attractive, but that's not my 'type'," Katerina answered with a slight shrug. "Not sure I have a real physical type, apart from 'woman'."

"Then what is your type, the one that I apparently don't count as?" Amy asked. "Not complaining that I'm not your type, but really, what is it?" Katerina had bitched about Amy being evasive and not answering questions, and here she was doing the same. She had - she wanted to keep Katerina on the hot seat, and keep the conversation on her, and keep her own thoughts away from everything else...

"Confidence. Women who know what they want and say it. Ones with some real fight to them - not necessarily like... weapons or magic or whatever, but they don't just sit there and be passive and take it. They push back. Self-assurance. Conviction - standing up for what they believe. Being a decent person. That sort of thing." She paused, exhaled, and then changed the topic so abruptly and completely that Amy almost got whiplash.

"Did you read more of 'Her Hidden Dedication'?"

Blinking, Amyu had to take a moment to recalibrate her brain. And ask herself why this topic change was giving her whiplash specifically? The discussion had gone from how Leliana wasn't taking her seriously all the way to this and everything in between. And things had hinged when she'd said that about Cassandra and Carol and - and-

Don't think about it. Don't. Take the excuse. Change the topic. Books are safe. Better to think about books, especially a really damn good one, than about Carol's disapproving stare, and how much it had hurt to try so hard and never hear her say anything close to what she'd wanted to hear from the woman who had made it clear she wasn't her mother. Better to think about books and cute gay romances and sword fights and happy endings than the warmth in her chest when Cassandra had said she was 'proud to know you' and how Amy still felt that warmth, or a hint of it anyway, as she thought about it now.

I said don't think about it, damnit!

"I finished it last night, actually," Amy admitted, "Stayed up late and burned the candle down to a nub reading it." She shook her head, "I couldn't put it down. I just had to get to the end."

"I know, right?" Katerina grinned. "The fight near the end, and the way they managed to get around the first betrothal and find another candidate that will work and -" she cut herself off. "So fucking good."

"... yeah... it really was." Amy agreed. Safe. Nice and safe topic. Something that could let her avoid thinking about anything else for a while. Safe. Safe.

"What was your favorite part?"

"My favorite part?" Amy laughed incredulously at Katerina's question. It was absurd. "I don't - I don't think I could pick just one. What's yours?" she turned the impossible question back on her.

Katerina chuckled ruefully and rubbed the back of her neck, "I suppose I set myself up for that..." she sighed, thinking for a long moment, "I mean, you're right, there's not really one moment you can just pick out and say is better than all the rest. They're all so good, except for the pining-"

"We're not starting on that again, answer the question,"

"I guess.. I guess if you're gonna put a sword to my neck about it, I'd pick..."

---

Josephine lowered the letter from Count Guiscard du Perelle. "I suppose it is a matter that could be of some interest to the Inquisition. And Count du Perelle is a wealthy man who could contribute skilled chevaliers to the cause. The number of our responsibilities grow with each passing day. An Avvar chieftain has taken some of our men prisoner in the Fallow Mire-"

"More taking the Inquisition's people prisoner? Really?" Amy demanded. "What, did someone paint 'take us hostage' on the back of the armor of the soldiers?" She took a sip of her coffee

Josephine giggled softly, "I shouldn't laugh, but..." she shook her head, "It doesn't appear to be for the same reason. The Blades of Hessarian wanted to discredit you out of their own fanaticism, but from the sound of the letter he had one of our men write back to us, this chieftain is posturing, hoping for standing amongst his own people. The Avvar rule the valleys of the mountains to the south of Ferelden, and they see all peoples of the lowlands as weak. He wants to be seen by his peers winning a victory and has decided that the Herald of Andraste will make a suitable target. He's demanding a duel with you."

Amy spluttered and coffee splattered out onto her robes and shirt. It was hot and Amy yelped, "Fuck!" It wasn't like it was boiling anymore, but still! She started rubbing at her robes, trying to get the worst of it off. Sooner or later these robes weren't going to be so cleanable and repairable. She could see the red starting to fade a little, and when you looked close, it wasn't quite as white as it used to be... and small tears and holes in it from travel or having to be too close to fighting... those were patched but...

"Here," Josephine had quickly pulled a folded handkerchief from a drawer and Amy used it to wipe at her robes.

"He wants to duel me? I barely know how to use a staff to block someone. A drunk blind idiot with a sword could probably still beat me in a fight. And I'm not going to just... fight some idiot because he demands it!"

"Don't worry. We have no intention of humoring his demands. He barely understands who the Herald of Andraste is. I think he thinks you're some sort of war leader or the like. Ser Lysette will draw him out. Commander Cullen has full confidence in her ability to defeat him, and to stretch it out long enough for our people to rescue the prisoners in the meantime. You don't have to worry."

"That's... that's good." Amy exhaled slowly. "Will they be alright?"

"The Avvar hold to a certain sense of honor when it comes to prisoners. I'm sure they were hurt in their capture, but they will likely not mistreat them or hurt them unless they try to escape." Josephine assured her.

Amy sipped at her coffee.

"You may want to swallow that and set your cup down before I mention something else, related to letters we've received recently," Josephine warned, and Amy swallowed the mouthful of coffee and set her cup down. Josephine reached into a drawer and lifted several sheets of parchment. "These are a number of marriage proposals that have come in over the last week, for you." Josephine giggled again as Amy spluttered, though at least this time she didn't spit coffee all over herself.

"Marriage proposals? For me?!" Amy spluttered again as she- "I'm - what? Why the - what?!" Amy couldn't understand - how could - she - I'm 17!? And gay! And I'm not staying in Thedas! What the fuck?

"Yes. Quite. Amy, you're perceived by many as the leader of a rising and influential force in Thedas, with soldiers, connections and resources. Despite its remote location, Haven is also strategically located in many ways, and even with your efforts in the morning, and saying as much at every turn, most people still perceive you as having a connection to the Maker. The title of Herald of Andraste will be hard to lose. That perception has power and makes you seem like a promising open to many noble families."

"I'm seventeen! I'm not noble! I - what the fuck Josephine?!" The woman had giggled at her second round of spluttering and she was smiling, a bright spark in her eyes. The woman was - she was -

"Is this a joke? Are you messing with me?" She was! She had to be! Annoyance at Josephine warred with relief that the proposals were fake. Of course they'd be. She wasn't a noble. And even on Thedas, no one would be stupid enough to - she - this was Josephine's twisted idea of a prank. "You're messing with me."

"Not precisely," Josephine stood, turned and tossed the 'proposals' into the fireplace, the parchment starting to burn quickly. "The proposals - or rather, offers for betrothals anyway - are very real, unfortunately. And the reasons why an ambitious house with goals outside of their current reach are very real. The Inquisition and your position as Herald aside, Amy, you have the ability to heal with a touch without the use of magic. If any noble house had control of that power-"

"Even if I was stupid enough to get married to some random noble, I'm not letting him dictate how I use my power." Amy had to assume that the way Josephine tossed the proposals into the fire meant she wasn't actually suggesting Amy take anyone up on them, but still.

"I don't think the people writing these proposals understand how you feel about that, or they believe they can convince you otherwise." Josephine added. "Even if you seemed interested in marriage, I would have advised against accepting any offers. Among the nobility, every marriage comes with allies, yes, but each one also comes with enemies. Alienating anyone by accepting one offer would be a foolish idea right now."

Pragmatic, but also concerned about her. Pitying her.

"So you told me just so you could see me squirm? I saw you smiling at my reaction," Amy demanded. What - why would she do that anyway?

If she pities me because of how fragile she thinks I am, why - why would she even -

"Mostly I told you because I think it's important to know these offers exist, especially if a messenger with another come comes to you personally, or someone who already sent one tries to reach out. I wouldn't want you to be taken unawares." Josephine sat back down in her chair.

Okay, I guess... I guess that's fair... That did make sense, but still!

"Though, I must admit, I was curious as to your reaction. And... I can't deny I found the intensity of your reaction amusing." She was rueful, chagrined, one hand coming down, covering her face and cheeks a moment and pulling down her face. "I apologize for that much, at least. I shouldn't have laughed."

"I... I guess you can't control what you find funny," Amy said, not liking a word of it, but - Josephine was still the nicest person she'd met on Thedas. Even if the other woman pitied her, Amy liked talking to her and...

Her anger wasn't vanishing, but it was dissipating slowly. "Don't do that again," she said that quieter, "Please." She paused, "The whole - if something like this comes up again, open with the 'I'm not suggesting you accept the offer' part, I mean. Same with the duel. Please?" She repeated that part, and Josephine nodded.

"I will. I apologize."

"I - I don't - why would anyone think I'd say yes?" Amy added. "I assume I haven't met any of the people proposing, and I'm seventeen and like, I get that on Thedas people probably get married when they're twelve or -"

"Betrothed at twelve, yes, but marriage before the age of sixteen at the earliest is uncommon. Among the common folk, marriage is often in the later twenties, as saving up enough funds for a marriage and a new family home or the like can be quite time consuming." Josephine clarified. "As for why anyone would think you'd accept... I suspect some of the families who proposed such a union were merely taking a chance, even if they thought the odds were poor. As for the rest... they are all families who have something to offer, and becoming a noble by marriage could arguably raise your standing." She sipped at her coffee, swallowed and went on. "So they would have hoped you'd be convinced to consider the offer. Not meeting your potential betrothed is hardly an impediment, Amy. I gather that's not how things are done on Earth-Bet, but-

"Well, there are places where they still do arranged marriages, I think." Amy muttered. "And if nothing else, there's always the southern, racist redneck diphits who would probably love to bring them back in my country too." The sort of people that flocked to Haven. Didn't one of them have a major incident of being racist and homophobic on camera and they had to do some sort of big PR patch job? She felt like she remembered Aunt Sarah mentioning that, about the reminder to be careful in case anyone was watching and recording.

"Well, it's clearly not something you're familiar with but here... at least among the nobility, it's really not an issue if you haven't met before betrothal. It's quite likely that when my parents settle on a husband for me, I won't have met the man outside of maybe a passing encounter at a gala or similar large event," Josephine said it in such a matter of fact, unbothered tone, not sounding remotely bothered by the prospect, though not eager for it either.

Amy stared, still having trouble wrapping her head around it - not around the idea of nobles proposing without meeting, or some idiot thinking of making some sort of marriage alliance with 'the Herald'. With a moment to calm down and consider Josephine's words, that much made sense, if you were stupid. She'd seen plots like that in some of the books she'd read back home. Or not, like that, but -

But she couldn't wrap her head around the idea that they really thought she'd say yes - they knew she wasn't from Thedas, right? - and she had just as much trouble with Josephine being so calm and chill about the prospect of... what, being sold to some guy by her parents? "So you're just... one day your parents are going to say 'marry this guy' and you're just going to go along with it?" The noblewoman in 'Her Hidden Dedication' had fought and resisted and argued as much as she could - not enough, maybe, but -

"A betrothal isn't a marriage, Amy. And in Antiva at least, it is far more acceptable to reject one's parents' choice for you than in most other realms. If I find whoever they pick for me to be truly repugnant I can so no without much fuss. It might take a few months to properly disentangle the betrothal contract, but it's a better option than I'd have were the Montilyets a Marcher family, or an Orlesian one." Josephine steepled her fingers. "I have to marry at some point, and I must do so with a mind to my duty to House Montilyet as it stands now and it's future, but I am not chained to whoever my parents choose."

It still sounded gross and backwards and primitive and - Amy wanted to say it sounded patriarchal, but so far, it seemed like Thedas didn't really have much in the way of that? Women could be soldiers and knights and Templars without an issue, and women seemed to be equal to men, legally, as far as she could tell? Were noblemen expected to shut up and marry whoever their parents picked, outside of Antiva?

I mean... the guy who the noblewoman in 'Her Hidden Dedication' marries is gay, but he just had social pressure to get married in general, his parents were dead so he didn't have them picking a wife for him...

"I also trust my parents' judgement when it comes to this... they know me well enough, and so I don't expect that they'll pick someone I'll completely detest. No uncultured boors or disrespectful brutes." Josephine shuffled through the papers on her desk, organizing them.

"I - I -" Amy shook her head, mouth half open and let out a breath. "I don't - I don't get it. I don't get how you can be so okay with someone else picking who you marry like that."

"A proper betrothal contract inherently includes a period of time for the two partners to get to know one another. In that sense, especially given that I will be able to reject whoever is picked with minimal fuss if I really want to, it's all really quite similar to your sister picking young men to court you."

"Going out on a date isn't the same thing as a betrothal contract," Amy countered.

"Well, yes, the lack of a contract is a pertinent detail, but you are still trusting someone else - in this case your sister rather than your parents - to pick a potential partner for you."

For a moment, Amy considered what kind of person Carol would pick for her to go on a date with. But nothing would form. No concept, no... there was no universe where Carol would ever be interested enough in paying enough attention to her try and set her up. Even - even if the Dallons were some sort of noble family, Carol just... wouldn't give enough of a shit about her to find her a potential arrange marriage.

Or she'd find me the worst one she can just to get rid of me. Carol had never wanted her, not really. So...

On the other hand...

"It's less that I trust Vicky to pick someone I could be into and more that she's really, really hard to say no to." Amy sighed, shaking her head, "Vicky is many things, most of them amazing, almost all of them really, but..." she looked down at the ground, "A good match maker is not one of them." Her idea of a good boyfriend for Amy was just...

Awful.

Sometimes I think she just yanks guys out of Dean's family's contact list.

"Really?" Josephine raised an eyebrow. "What sort of problems have you had with the people she picked?"

Them not being her. Amy swallowed, keeping her eyes on the ground. That was always the biggest problem, of course. Every time she was on a double date with Vicky, Dean and whoever she was supposed to be with, the person Amy wanted to be on a date with was Vicky. And then wanting that would make her feel even more like the gross perverted monster she was and she'd beat herself up for being such a freak who had to ruin her relationship with her sister like that and then...

None of the dates worked for a reason.

Even before she'd realized how she'd felt about her sister, none of the double dates had worked. Amy had only just started to get the inkling she might be gay in that period between when Vicky started pushing for double dates as a way to spend time together and a way for Amy to find a boyfriend because her sister was so sure she needed one, and...

And that was the second problem. Every guy Vicky set her up with was... well, a guy.

"A lot of things - I could go on forever about how much they all sucked in their own unique way. Sports jocks and rich guys and musicians and just - a whole parade of awful." Even if she hadn't been gay, or a disgusting, gross perverted freak with incestous feelings, Amy was pretty sure she wouldn't have liked any of the guys that Vicky kept picking. They were all so... boring, or full of themselves, or stupid or -

Once, frustrated with her sister's poor choices, she'd almost recommended Vicky start looking for guys who liked to read the same kinds of books she did. Sure, a lot of them were kind of gross and weird, sure, but she could have at least talked fantasy novels with one of the more tolerable ones. But she'd decided against it - if she started giving suggestions, Vicky would have gotten suspicious once Amy kept rejecting them and -

Amy couldn't have that.

"I think she got her boyfriend to pick a lot of them and Dean is just - he sucks," Amy added, "So his choices suck."

"I'm curious about the details. It sounds like you have some stories to tell," Josephine asked with a smile. "Would you be willing to share?"

"I guess..." After some initial hesitation, Amy went into a rant about the many flaws, major and minor of the assorted guys Vicky (and Dean) had tried to set her up with. Or at least some of them. There was no shortage of things to critique, even if she had to stay away from the top two impediments. Amy still wasn't sure why she wanted to keep that she was gay quiet, since it wasn't really a huge problem here, but -

She did, so she did.

As she was winding down on the sixth guy, Josephine interrupted, "I hate to interrupt - this is quite entertaining - but I believe you planned on going to your clinic to heal soon?"

Amy nodded, sighing. There'd be at least one person, the woman with her daughter who indeed help. "I did." Alright. She was done with her lunch and her coffee, so... "Quick question before I go?" She stood.

"Of course, I had one last question as well."

"In all the food that is in town or gets brought in, are there any potatoes?"

"...I believe so. I don't handle the specifics of food purchases generally, beyond approving disbursements, but I believe I saw them on one of the receipts. I assume you ask because you would like potatoes in a meal?"

"I - well, yeah, but..." Amy licked her lips. If there were already potatoes, then it couldn't hurt to ask, right? Fries were simple - potatoes, oil, salt. Pizza was... pizza was a little more complicated, so... fries. She could ask. As long as she didn't insist or demand, that was okay, right? "There's some foods from home that I - I really miss. One of then is called French Fries - they're - okay, so you take potatoes, and you cult them into strips, long and... not thin, but not thick either. And then you fry them in a lot of oil until they're crispy on the outside, but not burned, and then sprinkle salt on top while they're still warm."

If these catch on, I might be at risk of introducing a whole lot of heart disease into Thedas... Amy swallowed, "They're... they're really bad for your health if you eat too many of them too often, but..." she trailed off.

"I miss them."

"Well, it doesn't sound like it would be too much of an imposition. I can make inquiries, if you would like."

"Please," Amy nodded. "Only if it's not too much trouble," She swallowed. Asking was okay. It was - it was fine to ask. "What was your question?"

"Your trip out to the training grounds this morning and speaking to so many people. Do you plan to repeat that tomorrow, or regularly, while you're here?"

Amy swallowed again, and braced herself for the pity, the coddling. Being treated as too fragile. "I - yeah. It - I realized that I should probably - it's easier to convince people to not call me Herald if I tell them myself and - and being visible." She'd only had that realization because Vivienne had explained it all to her, but -

She had had it.

"That is true." Josephine nodded.

"So yeah, I'm going to try to keep doing that. And I'll pass on any messages people try to give me, like that messenger from the count," Amy watched Josephine carefully, closely, waiting for her to urge her to not do it, or be careful or - the pity. She was watching for the pity.

"Very well," Josephine nodded again. "If you tell enough people trying to give you messages that you're not the proper person to give them to, like that man Onfroi, then maybe they'll start to get it." She sighed and shook her head, "Count du Perelle would not be the first one to instruct their messenger to deliver something to the hands of the Herald personally. Some of the messengers have taken more time than others to accept that that's not how that works. It would make my life easier if I could just send them to you, then you accept the letter, and pass it back to me?"

"Accept their letter and just give it back to you?"

"It might be an annoying process, I appreciate, but it would save me spending the better part of an hour explaining to some messenger given very strict instructions to place a message in the Herald's hands that handling correspondence is my task and that you have made it very clear you don't function as a figure of authority."

Amy blinked. "That - that long? Why - how can anyone be that stubborn?!"

"Fortunately it's not usually that prolonged, it's only gotten that bad twice. But there's been enough messengers trying to insist on the point that it does take time, time I'd rather not spend, if - and only if - you're willing to take their messages. I would appreciate the assistance."

That pretty much clinched it. Playing middlewoman would be annoying. Amy didn't really like the idea, but - it wasn't that painful. It would serve to get the point across to people, and save Josephine time and energy and... it was the least Amy could do for her.

She's actively asking me to do something she knows I won't like, that will annoy me and stress me out... That -

That didn't feel like coddling her, pitying her. It didn't feel like - it didn't feel like Josephine was trying to -

She's giving me that out... but...

Amy bit her lip, then nodded.

"I, yeah, I can do that."

"Thank you."

With that resolved, Amy left Josephine's office and headed to her makeshift clinic near the Chantry building. The line was longer than the last time she'd been here in Haven, but that... word was spreading of her abilities. People were coming to her.

It wasn't the same, she still wasn't healing as many people as she might on a three-hour visit to a hospital back in the Bay, there were still so many people dying and suffering she couldn't help but...

It was something.

Healing only took about an hour and a half, maybe - hard to judge time given the lack of clocks, but - most of it was nice, simple injuries, simple diseases, easy cures. The woman with the sickly daughter was a little harder. She had a shitty-ass immune system due to some sort of autoimmune disorder. She'd healed those before, but they were always trickier, and this one was different than anything she'd encountered before. Close, but not identical, Which was true for a lot of the illnesses here in Thedas.

And yet not all of them.

Humans were humans and Amy would bet horses were horses. She hadn't actually touched a horse after getting her powers back on Earth-Bet, but... they were horses. The handful of cats she'd seen around the village, half-stray, half-domesticated mouse and rat hunters, were cats. They weren't exactly mangy, but they were nothing like the pet cats back in the Bay, even the stray ones. But they were still identifiably cats.

It was weird. Amy had no idea how any of that worked, but then...

How is Earth-Aleph so identical to and yet so not identical to Earth-Bet? Someone who studied that shit might have an answer. Amy didn't.

In the end, Amy was pretty sure she'd fixed it, but,

"Your daughter's - it's complicated to explain, but the reason she's so prone to being sick is that her body's bad at fighting even minor illnesses. I think I fixed what was wrong with her, but... I can't be completely sure. Either way, she should get sick less often, and less severely. I... bring her back in a few months, if you can, and I can take a second look, see if I can make things better."

"Maker bless you, Herald, thank you, thank you!"

Before Amy could tell the mother not to thank her, not to call her Herald (again), she was hugged, the woman flinging her arms around her, crying and repeatedly saying 'thank you' and thanking Andraste for sending Amy to her daughter and after what felt like a million years but was probably half a minute, one of the guards slowly peeled the woman away from Amy, gently, not trying to hurt her.

"Amy does need to see to those next in line," the guard said, and the woman, reluctantly, nodded. She helped her daughter off of the cot - the girl was pretty frail, but hopefully that would change now - and they moved out of the clinic.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat. She finished healing the rest and headed back to her cabin.

She had been out and about this morning, and she was going to go to the tavern for dinner. Amy didn't have any actual money of her own, but...

Someone pays for my dinner as it is? Uhm... hm... Amy would have to ask if that could be... charged to anyone? Or Varric might offer to pay in exchange for more stories. That would...

She sighed.

She could work that out when she got there. She would be out and about more, but she needed some time alone. And...

With both 'Moonlight over the Minanter RIver' and 'Her Hidden Dedication' read, her options for reading, short of finding Cassandra and asking to borrow one of her books, were the Chant of Light (still no, even if she should probably crack that open), Brother Genitivi's book (...maybe) and 'The Tale of the Champion'. It had been since Val Royeaux that she'd read any of it, but...

With the mention of the Qunari killing the Viscount of Kirkwall, Amy was reminded that Kirkwall and the attempt by that psycho templar Meredith to kill all the mages had been one of the things that started this whole Mage-Templar war.

And Katerina was probably bound to start poking her about reading it more and... it had been good, what she'd read of it. So she sat down on the bed and started to read. She figured she'd stay in until she felt hungry, and then head to the tavern and figure things out from there.

When last she'd read the book, they'd been working with Anders, helping to protect his clinic from the gangs of Darktown to make it easier for the poor and refugees to get to him.

The story moved quickly from there, as Anders asked for Hawke's help with something.

"Hawke... I almost hate to ask a favor of you, after all you've done to help clear the area around the clinic, but there's no one else I can turn to, and with Bethany being your sister, I feel like I can trust you with this." Anders said, an urgent, passionate note to his voice as he stepped closer to Hawke.

Blondie, as I always called him, was a man who believed everything he always said all the way down to his bones. For all his many flaws, the ones I saw then, and the ones I had no idea about, you could never say he lacked conviction.

"...I'm listening," Hawke said after a moment. "But it this favor involves any violence, I might have to ask you for some free healing afterwards," she added with a grin.

"All my healing is always free, Hawke, for those who need it." Anders pointed out. The mage licked his lips and looked around, then, "There's a reason I came to Kirkwall after I left the Wardens, even with how notorious the Templars in this city are for being harsh."

"I figured you just liked danger and imagined no one would be stupid enough to think you'd be hiding here," Hawke offered, looking around the dingy, poorly lit clinic. Of course, dingy and poorly lit was a step above most of Darktown. Compared to some of the places down there, Blondie's clinic might as well have been the Palace in Val Royeaux.

"That the Wardens would never look for me here is part of it," Anders admitted. "But not all of it. I had a friend, when I was in the Circle in Ferelden. He - he didn't act out as much as I did, but he wasn't a good, well-behaved little mage either. We were separated to keep us from helping each other and he was sent here. I've arranged a way to get him out of the Gallows, but I'm worried about intervention from the Templars. Or that they already know and it's all a trap." Anders was pacing, one hand running through his hair as he spoke, agitated, nervous. Hawke hadn't seen him like this before. He twitched a little as he walked, little jerks of his head to the sides, barely noticeable, but for Hawke, noticing things was the difference between life and death.

Hawke raised an eyebrow, "I hope you're not suggesting we attack the Gallows? I'm not that fond of you, Anders, and suicide is quite low on my list of things to do." Hawke's smirk took the bite of her words, and Anders snorted humorlessly.

"No, nothing like that. If everything's gone according to plan, then Karl will be in a specific location in Hightown. Meet me out front of the Chantry tonight, and we can go fetch him. If you're willing to help me." He inhaled, "I'm doing this either way. I owe it to Karl to help him. He'd do the same for me if he could."

Hawke considered. There was every risk this would draw the eye of the Templars to her. And from her, to Bethany. Everything she'd done - getting the family to Kirkwall, working for Athenril, and now trying to buy into Bartrand's expedition... it was about keeping her safe.

But if Bethany was in this 'Karl's place...

Hawke would want someone to help her. And no mage deserved to be locked in the Circles if they didn't want to be. Especially not here in Kirkwall.

"Alright. I'm in."

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The conversation that followed was Anders ranting about the injustice of the circles, and Hawke agreeing with him, though perhaps not as passionately or angrily. But the story made it clear - Hawke opposed the circles. Believed in mage freedom. She and Anders were on the same page there.

And you didn't realize he was a mass murdering nutjob in waiting, Hawke, Amy thought sourly at the book. But she kept reading as the story skipped ahead to nighttime in Kirkwall, in Hightown - the rich district of the city - and then they proceeded to a specific back alley near the city's main Chantry. Karl had been given permission to do prayers in the Chantry that night - one of the few ways a mage was allowed out of the Gallows - and then he was supposed to slip out. Anders was concerned because everything was set, but Karl was supposed to send one last message through the maidservant they'd been using to communicate, and it never arrived.

Hawke expressed some small worry, and Bethany did even more so. Amy wasn't sure it was a smart plan for Hawke to bring her apostate sister to a place there might be Templars, but...

They found Karl where he was supposed to be.

Anders tried to embrace his friend - though Varric's description of the hug and the way Anders moved and spoke hinted that perhaps 'friend' was an understatement. But then Karl's response was weird. The book described him as having a sunburst mark on his forehead, and Bethany, Hawke and Anders all reacting to it like they knew what it meant. And they all reacted with horror - anger on the part of Anders.

"I knew you would never give up Anders," Karl said. Calling his voice flat would be like calling a darkspawn ugly, or a volcano hot.

"Karl! No!" Anders' hand flew to the staff slung over his back, and Hawke's own hands were on the hilts of her daggers. I wasn't sure what was going on, but you don't live as long as I had as a member of a Merchant's Guild family without knowing something was wrong. Bianca was in my hands and ready to fire.

"I was too rebellious," Karl added. "Like you. The Templars knew I had to be made an example of."

"No," That word - there was so much pain in it. I think this is what made Hawke sympathize with Blondie so much, for so long. Even now, I still feel a little bad for him, remembering how he said it, the pain in his voice, anguish in his eyes.

"How else will mages ever master themselves? You'll understand, Anders, as soon as the Templars teach you to control yourself."

There were some things you heard that just made you know that you surrounded, and sure enough, Templars were crawling out of the woodwork. Six of them. More than enough for one mage. Two mages, Hawke and myself?

I can't say I felt very bad for these Templars, but I liked those odds. Hawke's daggers were in hand, the Templars had their weapons drawn. Bethany - poor Sunshine was not happy, more afraid than Angry, but she had to pull her staff now. There weren't many options.

"This is the apostate," Karl said, gesturing to Anders.

"Stand down, and hand over the apostate... both of them," one of the Templars commanded, seeing Bethany. "Do it now, and I won't have you both taken in for helping them escape justice."

No one threatened Hawke's sister on her watch, and she braced herself, ready to leap at the templar, daggers in hand, probably already finding the weak spots in his armor. But before Hawke could say anything, crack a joke, or even just charge in, Anders spoke.

Only... it wasn't Anders. I didn't know it then, but I soon found out that Blondie had a roommate in that head of his.

The guy always had blue eyes, but now, they were a solid, glowing blue, and his voice deep, commanding, growling. His whole body seemed to burst into blue flames, covered in cracks of glowing, bright blue light, almost looking like the broken pottery put back together.

"You will never take another mage as you took him!"

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The ensuing fight was seemingly quick, but given in vivid, probably exaggerated detail, with Varric and Hawke taking center stage, both moving fast around the battlefield, Hawke driving her dagger into weak points in the armor, at joints or the like, Varric blasting them with bolts. He was blase about killing people.

Amy had no idea, as she read the fight scene, just what happened to Karl, but it was obviously bad, and - it made her think maybe of some sort of Master effect? The way he was described as being completely flat in tone, and the way he was all 'you'll be taught properly' but -

Had a mage like... worked with them to do this? How did that - and the sunburst mark on his head?

Gripped, chest feeling tight with worry and confusion and the seeds of anger she didn't quite realize why yet, Amy could only keep reading.

More Templars showed up, and Amy had to assume that was adding extra drama, more tension - Bethany was throwing around bolts of fire and ice, and Anders was practically flinging Templars into the alley walls, but Hawke and Varric continued to take center stage.

Despite his own obviously high opinion of himself, Varric did give Hawke the majority of the credit and focus - she was the main character, she was the Champion. She was the one people expected to win, to save the day. Or destroy it, she supposed.

Eventually though, the fight was over, Hawke seemingly uninjured, splattered with the blood of her enemies, Varric and Bethany somehow just fine too, and without any blood on them, even.

As Anders eyes returned to normal and the blue 'cracks' over him vanished, Karl spoke again.

Karl's voice, as Blondie stopped glowing, wasn't flat, wasn't dead. It was fear, and hope and relief, a drowning man finally getting a gasp of air, but knowing the sea was about to pull him back under, probably for good.

"Anders - Anders - I - what did you do? It's like... it's like you brought a piece of the Fade into the world. I... I had already forgotten what that feels like."

Hawke looked to her sister, raising an eyebrow as Karl kept going, describing Blonide as 'glowing, like a beacon'. If not for what we'd all just seen, I'd almost feel like Karl was just being effusive in describing Anders, the man who was clearly an ex-lover, to buiter him up as an apology for betraying him.

But we'd all just seen that weird shit. We'd see a lot more of it in the years to come.

I sometimes wonder if Hawke regretted not killing Anders when she had the chance, once she learned just what was going on with him.

Bethany shook her head - she had no more idea of what we'd just seen than I did. Let me tell you, if there's one thing I hate when it comes to magic, it's when the magic is so weird and crazy even the mages don't know what's going on.

"I... it's - I don't even know how to begin to explain... how - what happened Karl? How did they get you? And how - you're not - are you - is it undone?" The hope in Anders's voice was a fragile thing, soon to be dashed against the rocks the Templars left for him.

"The templars here are far more vigilant than in Ferelden. I thought I was being careful enough, but they found the letter I was writing you. You - you cannot imagine it Anders. All the color, all the music of the world, gone. I would gladly give up my magic, but this? I'll never be whole again."

"But - you are now - you, you're not Tranquil anymore! Listen to yourself, your words your-" Anders grabbed at Karl, gripping his hands tightly, urgent, desperate, trying to force reality to bend to him. He never did just accept anything.

Hawke sheathed her blades, taking one of her sister's hands and squeezing it - Sunshine was stiff, terrified, a lifetime of worries and fears and horror stories about what could happen if she was found and forced into the Templars running through her head.

"Please, kill me before I forget again!" Karl begged, pulling Anders close. "I don't want to forget again! I don't - I don't understand what you did, but I can feel it fading!"

"Karl- no!" Anders begged back, the two men pressing their foreheads together, Anders's eyes full of tears. "I love you! This can't - this can't be the end!"

"Can't you repeat whatever - whatever that was you just did?" Hawke asked. "That glowy blue thing?"

"No," Anders said, voice thick, choked... "Not - I can't control it, do it on command..."

"Father always taught my sister that being Tranquil was a fate worse than death. I... I think I see why now."

"So do I," Bethany murmured.

"It is, Anders... please... don't let me be that way again. I - I know we had plans, hopes - I - I love you Anders. Let me die still remembering that. I can feel it going away, I can - please, Anders!"

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Amy almost felt like a voyeur as she read what happened next - a final, tragic, passionate kiss between Anders and Karl, and then, with a small knife provided by Hawke, Anders killed the man he so evidently loved, slitting his throat, crying the whole time.

Amy couldn't keep reading -

What - what exactly did the Templars do to him? How had Anders undone it, and -

Karl wanted to die more than feel it? His dead emotions, the fact that he'd just been... so chill about betraying Anders to the Templars (sort of) before it had been undone and - he referred to dying while still remembering that he loved Anders - so whatever they'd done had made him forget that?

Sure sounds like a Master effect. Amy's breath caught. It wouldn't be hard for her to do that to someone. All the times she'd seen Vicky and Dean together and wondered, imagined how she could -

But I don't do it! I don't do it because it's wrong and these - these bastards did it! What - what exactly did they do, and how the fuck-

Amy wanted answers. What was it? How did it happen? Why - it was something they all knew, something done to mages as a punishment, but you didn't - you don't fucking master people as a punishment! It -

Even criminals. Even if - you had to - you had to do it! And what had this Karl done wrong, beyond write letters to Anders and want to not be a fucking prisoner in the Circle?

Somehow, some way, the Templars had like... cut Karl off from his ability to feel, it sounded like but -

Was that real? Was it the story? Was it trying to set up some story about Anders, try to give him some sort of pass? Varric hadn't sounded like he thought positively of the mass-murdering asshole, abd even the story didn't seem super fond of him on this scene, hinting, but it was sympathetic? Some sort of morality play, about how Anders was pushed to it, forced into blowing up a Chantry and killing hundreds?

That's still not fucking okay either!

Amy wanted to believe this was fake, for the story. It was something they all knew was a thing - well, maybe not Varric, maybe he hadn't grasped what it was instinctively at the time - so it wasn't some rare, obscure thing. A known punishment. Something - something that Bethany had grown up terrified of? How had she not - sure, there was a lot going on but this -

How had she not heard of this?!

Did Cassandra and Cullen and Leliana and Josephine all keep it secret from me?!

Assuming any of it was real.

Amy got off the bed, threw her robes on and grabbed the book. Varric would be in the tavern, seemed like he hung out there all day, every day. Either he nursed a few drinks, or was just really good at holding is liquor since she'd never seen him drunk or hungover. But if he was, she could fix that, (maybe in an unpleasant way, if he really was forcing her to do it? No - no, she couldn't - NO!) and then she'd get her answers.

What the fuck was 'Being Tranquil'?

---

Author's Note: I don't think words can really do justice to the scene, how Karl's voice sounds and how pained Anders sounds and - for those of you not familiar with DA2, or it's just been long enough, here's the scene in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoXtJH8K3JU

Obviously I didn't go exactly with the scene from the game, though I did crib most of the lines from it. For the record, it actually is canon that Karl and Anders were a thing, though Anders only mentions it to a Male Hawke that's starting a romance with him.

Also, yes, Amy right now doesn't really line up with Katerina's 'Type', personality-wise, but given that they will be getting together before DAI is done, that should be seen as indicative of where Amy's going, characterwise. Not 1 to 1, but give you a general flavor. Amy is going to get more confident, more assertive, more self-assured, more willing to stand up and fight (though we've seen moments of that already and we will more next chapter)

Also, one last thing - don't worry, Blackwall is getting caught out early, his storyline is getting derailed, it will just take a bit longer for consequences to land on him.

Author's Note: Amy's been pretty pathetic a lot in this story, and that's because she's kind of a pathetic wet cat of a person. But the reason she's like that in canon is because of very specific circumstances. We do see that there's more to her under that surface layer, and we're seeing more of that in this fic. And we're gonna see even more of that here. Amy's had a while away from Carol, away from Vicky (she loves her sister as a sister and being around Vicky is good for her... and it's bad for her, as she's always reminded of her crush and how much she hates herself for it), away from the hospital and unable to heal as often due to limited patients so she can't burn herself out as badly, and Shaper is like, 10% less pissy at her. Plus she has some good influences.

The point being, we've been seeing Amy get better slowly, and now some of that is coming to a head. That said, Amy still isn't one for nuance yet. Not much, anyway. Charting that slow development (Which will reach a bit of critical mass by the end of Book 1, I do promise) is one of the main reasons this fic is taking so long to get places. Though if you've stuck with me all this way you probably don't mind much.

Also, Vivienne. My god, Vivienne is a hard character to nail down just right. She's so much deeper and more nuanced than she seems on the surface (and then you go even deeper and it starts to look like she's just more surface deep down, kinda) but that surface. That surface is exactly not the sort of thing Amy needed to hear just now.

---

"And then Amy damn near bit my head off when I told her to move so I could shoot the dragonling," Varric was in the tavern, telling stories, surrounded by a dozen people, hanging on his words. It sounded like he was talking about their time on the Storm Coast.

"If I didn't know better," he added, "I'd say she was planning to make the baby dragon into a pet!"

I almost was, for a second. Or at least, debating how she might do it or - she shook her head and focused on the topic at hand.

"Varric!" She raised her voice, storming towards him, brushing past someone roughly, focusing on how angry she felt and not on all the eyes on her. 'Tale of the Champion' was in one hand and she slammed it down on the table in front of Varric, making his mug shake a little - the dwarf grabbed it to steady it.

"Panpan. What's got you so heated?" He looked down at the copy of his book, "I mean, obviously something about the book-"

"What happened to Karl!?" Amy demanded. "Did you make it all up?"

Varric blinked, then, "Karl?" he paused a moment and his eyes widened a touch, mouth half-open as he remembered. "You mean Blondie's lover, the one they made Tranquil." Varric grimaced and shook his head, "No, Amy," he went on in an unusually serious, almost heavy tone. "That scene pretty much was pretty much how it happened." He paused, "Well, it happened inside the chantry, rather than an alleyway, and there were only four templars, not six at first and then a bunch of reinforcements. And the fighting was... exaggerated a little."

"So, it - he was willing to die rather than go back to that - monotone - he was willing to betray Anders? He forgot he loved him!" What was - she was so angry it was hard to be coherent, she could barely even make sense of her own racing thoughts. "What did they do to him? Was it blood magic?" Cassandra had mentioned that blood magic could be used to control people's minds.

"Hardly," Varric answered, then looked around. Everyone was staring at the two of them. "We're attracting a lot of attention, Amy. Do you -"

"I don't care, answer the fucking question!" Amy demanded. "What did they do to him?!" This 'being Tranquil' thing was a known quantity. He didn't explain it in the book, and Anders and Bethany and Hawke had all known what it was. It wasn't some rare, obscure thing that had only ever been done to Karl.

"The Templars made him Tranquil," Varric said, still unusually serious.

"What does that mean?! What did they do to him?" It was some sort of punishment. Something they knew to worry about. Something Hawke's dad had told his kids about, something to scare the kids with - from context, she could guess it was one of the things Hawke's father had mentioned as to why it was so important Bethany hide her magic.

"Not really clear on the 'what' to be honest," Varric admitted, shrugging, "Something involving cutting a mage off from the Fade, but I don't really get how any of that works. But what it means is that the mage can't use magic anymore, can't be possessed by a demon... and can't feel any emotions."

"WHAT!?" There - they - they - they didn't feel emotions? "The Templars could just do that? How - how the fuck did no one mention this to me sooner?" Amy didn't even have the words to articulate how - how -

Thedas was a fucked up, medieval, primitive, backwards world full of shitty people being shitty, where everyone and everything sucked, but this - this

If Varric was telling the truth, if it made someone forget who they loved and just follow orders to betray them and - and just follow orders to betray someone and be willing to die rather than go back to feeling nothing?

Feeling nothing. Forgetting loving someone. Despite the rage Amy felt coursing through her at the monstrous injustice of it all, part of her wondered what it would be like to just heal without hating it. To go to the hospital and just keep going until she physically had to stop to eat, or sleep or drink coffee to stay awake. And then to not feel guilty when she was doing those things.

Not that I've felt as guilty as often lately, have I? She'd been able to sit and read and - and her sleep was better and coming a little easier most nights and part of that was just that she was travelling dealing with rifts and doing the things that needed to be done to close the Breach and she was just... more physically exhausted more often but -

Focus. Focus! She could worry about that later. She had to -

"I didn't realize you didn't know," Varric answered her question. "I didn't mention it because... it just hasn't come up? But yeah, that's a thing that can get done to mages. Of course," Varric paused, exhaling, "Officially the Templars weren't supposed to do it to Karl, or a lot of mages they did it to in Kirkwall while Meredith was Knight-Commander."

"Not supposed to? Not supposed to?! How - how can it - there's no - it's - you can't just do that to someone! Make it so they can't feel emotions!? That's fucked up! It's wrong!"

It felt weak to just say that. Fucked up. Wrong. Both words felt inadequate to describe how awful it was. How awful it had to be for Karl to want to die rather than go back to it. Even at her worst, Amy had never actually wanted to die, not really. And Karl had rather face death than go back to not being able to feel anything. Or love.

Not loving Vicky anymore. How many times had Amy wished she could just... use her power on herself, just for one day. Her no-brains rule wouldn't matter if she was doing it to herself. If she made it so she didn't have this... gross, sick crush on and attraction to her sister. She could just change it, the same way she knew she could change Vicky, and then - and then she couldn't be like this anymore.

But - but - to not feel anything? No guilt, no incestuous crush, to not hate healing... that was one thing. But no happiness when her sister hugged her? No enjoying a book anymore, now that she'd finally gotten that back? No - no loving her sister as a sister? Amy wouldn't - she didn't want to lose that. And even if - even if she did choose it - it would be her choice.

It was one thing to want it for yourself (She didn't. She didn't) But it wasn't something you could just inflict on someone as a punishment! Cruel and unusual punishment was - this wasn't okay! It was - it was evil! Just.. just straight up evil! And Varric thought there was a time where it was okay?

"You don't have to tell me. I think it's pretty damn terrible. But that's part of what was going on in Kirkwall, part of why the mage underground was so prominent. Too many mages were being made Tranquil as punishment or worse. There were rules about when to do it, and the Templars under Meredith were breaking them. Eventually she started doing it too."

"Rules? There were- this is some sort of accepted thing? So what, there's rules when it's okay to rape someone too!? When it's okay to just -" Amy was practically screeching now, latching on to her feelings of rage to avoid thinking about the allure of this 'Tranquil' thing for herself, or about the eyes staring at her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that not only was everyone who had already been in the tavern staring at her, but so too were more people. There were more people in the tavern, people standing at the doorways, staring at her, watching her. She'd attracted a crowd - they'd followed her or they were attracted by the scene she was setting or -

It was better to be angry rather than to want to melt into a puddle and slip through the floorboards to escape the stares.

"When - when could anyone be so fucking - how could anyone be so fucking evil to think that this is ever okay?!" Maybe Varric didn't, good for him, but someone did. Probably a lot of someones.

"You'd be better off talking to a former circle mage or a Templar or something. Someone who knows the details of how all this works," Varric cautioned, but he went on before Amy could demand he stop stalling. "Short version, from what I know: you have to do really awful stuff or be really dangerous or you have to volunteer for it. Officially any mage that's passed their Harrowing can't be made Tranquil against their will." He paused, taking a sip from whatever alcoholic drink was in his mug and went on, "Harrowing is some sort of... secret test mages take when they're done with their apprenticeship, to see if they're able to resist a demon's temptations. According to Anders, sometimes picked being made Tranquil over being possessed and then killed for failing the test."

"There's a test that mages take and if they fail it they fucking DIE?!" That - that was - that was worse. That was - what?! How did the test work? Did they call up a fucking demon and say 'try to possess this person' and if the mage got possessed they failed? How did that fucking work? What -

She could - she couldn't see why people would pick feeling nothing forever over death. Death would be better. Same with having it be a punishment. Just - just kill them rather than - death was better than being some sort of emotionless, compliant drone!

She could - she could see the logic of cutting someone who did bad things with magic off from their magic. She got that. If the PRT could yank people's powers if they did bad enough things there wouldn't be a need for the Birdcage. If they could have removed Hookwolf's powers the first time he was caught, or done it to Lung after Armsmaster captured him, how many more people would be alive in the Bay?

Someone who was afraid they might not be able to resist demonic possession? She could see why trading their ability to do magic would make sense as a tradeoff.

But to just - to kill someone's ability to feel all emotions? No. No - not just no. Hell no. Hell fucking no. And to volunteer for it? No. That - what kind of fucking insanity was that that they -

No.

No.

Nothing could be so bad that - that being turned into some mindless drone could be - could be seen as better.

And then the Templars were doing it to mages who didn't deserve it. Doing it to Karl because... he tried to escape? Because he was corresponding with Anders? And then made him betray Anders and -

And they were doing this 'pass or fucking DIE' test to mages right out of apprenticeship? How old were they? 16? 18? 20? All too fucking young to take a test where you pass or die! Too young to make the choice to trade all emotions or take the risk of death.

Cassandra knows about all this. Katerina too. Everyone did, didn't they? None of the people watching her were saying anything as Varric explained. None of them were gasping in shock, or protesting that it couldn't be, or that it wasn't possible or - no. They all knew. And they were all okay with it, or at least complicit -

Okay. No. that - that's too much. Amy hated to admit it, but that was unfair. Some random farmer, or some - some messenger or random small time merchant or whatever... they weren't responsible for this. They didn't have the ability to speak out, to protest, stop it. The Chantry, the Templars, the nobility... they were the ones who could, and they weren't. The common people... a lot of them probably were okay with it, superstitious religious backwards primitive little -

But the ones who weren't but did nothing didn't really count as complicit.

Cassandra though. Cassandra was a Seeker. The ones who policed Templars. She had been the Right Hand of the Divine, right? She knew all about it, all the details. How being made Tranquil worked. She could have done something. Said something. Quit, if it didn't stop. Same with Katerina - Katerina had had the chance to quit, when speaking out did nothing, and she didn't take it, because she was a moral coward, unwilling to put her money where she said her mouth was.

Was Cassandra okay with it? Did she approve of it? Was she just... silently complicit? Was she - was she a coward?

Amy swallowed, chest feeling tight, head feeling light. The - the idea of Cassandra being a coward... she didn't like it. She couldn't imagine it. Cassandra couldn't be, right? But - but the only other option was that she was okay with this.

And - and there was only one way to find out which one, right?

Snatching 'The Tale of the Champion' off of the table up into her arms, Amy turned away from Varrick and looked at the assembled crowd of people.

"And what do all of you think about all this? You think it's all okay? Just chill? To do this to people?!" Amy was shouting still, and she didn't care. "Are you all complicit or just -" She let out a half-strangled, inarticulate scream and moved towards the exit, people getting out of her way, so even with two or three times as many people in the tavern now, she didn't brush past anyone as she went out. She stormed towards the Chantry building.

"When I suggested you get out and be seen more, I didn't mean for you to make such a scene, dear girl," Vivienne's refined, careful voice grated on Amy in her current mood, coming from somewhere behind her. Amy looked over her shoulder to see Vivienne approaching, still wearing heels and a fancy dress - though a different one than yesterday - and walking through the village (which had dirt 'roads') without much concern for the risk of getting her fancy clothing dirty.

She's either rich or can just magic the dirt out of her clothes. Both maybe. She was like, personal mage to the Orlesian Empress, right? That sounded right. Whatever the actual title was.

"I don't have time for this," Amy muttered, resuming stalking towards the chantry. Cassandra - and the other three - were probably in the room in the back, arguing about who to approach for help.

"Really Amy, what's gotten you so worked up? Something about the Tranquil, I gather."

"Something? Something? Try everything!" Vivienne was just behind her, the woman - taller than her, even if not as tall as Katerina - keeping up with her movements relatively easily. "It's evil! You can't just do that to people!"

"It's hardly done to people without their permission, as a general rule, Amy," Vivienne said. "All but a small handful of Tranquil are mages in the Circles who chose Tranquility rather than the risks of a Harrowing." She sounded so sure, so confident, so goddamn convinced of her own righteousness.

"Right. Right. They chose to have their ability to feel or love or have independent thoughts cut out of them, to become mindless drone. Every single one of them. It wasn't like they weren't facing the prospect of death!" One thing that Carol had drilled into Vicky and her and their cousins was that criminals made choices, they chose to be that way, chose to hurt people, chose to be terrible because they were bad people. But if someone made the choice to do something illegal only because of a gun to their head or a loved one's, it wasn't really a choice. "Choosing to do something at gunpoint isn't a choice."

"Gunpoint?"

Amy blinked as she'd realized she'd said than and shook her head. She wasn't explaining guns. "Swordpoint. Whatever. When the only other choice is death, it's not a fucking choice!"

Vivienne laughed, "The other choice is taking the Harrowing and resisting a demon's temptation, Amy. It's a matter of sufficient will. And if you lack the will to resist a demon, better to die or become Tranquil than be possessed."

"Right. Put an entire person's life down to one moment, one test, and kill them when they fail. Or you can become a mindless drone." Just have sufficient will about it. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Just try harder! Work smarter, not harder! God, the fucking platitudes inherent in what she was saying. The same shit awful people back home said when they didn't want to help people, when they wanted to justify being greedy, or lazy or just...assholes.

She'd had to attend big events with people like the CEO of Medhall. Sure, he gave a lot to charity and all that, and had low-cost programs for some of his company's drugs, but the man could do so much more, swimming in millions upon millions and he would always say shit about how people just needed to apply themselves. As if inheriting a company from his dad didn't play a role in why he was so fucking rich.

Sure, he could be worse, a lot worse, but still sucked.

"I'm not sure who you've been talking to, but the Tranquil are not mindless drones. They have full capacity to make choices. They lack emotional weights to those choices, but they can have desires and preferences much like anyone else, and are as possessed of free will as you or I."

"Right. Totally. Free will. And Anders' boyfriend just chose to betray him to the Templars in Kirkwall. And he didn't choose to be Tranquil. He wanted to die rather than go back! If dying is preferable, then it's fucking evil!"

You'd rather die than hurt Vicky. Better that than -

Amy tried to clamp down on the thought. That wasn't the same. Some - some mage who hadn't done anything wrong, wasn't a bad person didn't deserve to die, didn't deserve to be cut off like that either. Amy - if she was at the point where she actually was going to do something to Vicky -

She would deserve death then.

But wouldn't it be better to stop you before you-

Amy pushed back at that one too. This wasn't about her. About how she was - what she could do, and how she was a monster waiting to happen, how she was -

This was about people who were innocent. Whose only crime was failing some test they probably weren't allowed to prepare for or train for or they were just being punished for not wanting to be locked up for being born wrong.

"Given what Anders eventually did, had he been captured then, or killed in the ensuing fighting, a great many lives could have been saved." Vivienne countered.

"Not the fucking point!" Amy snapped.

"Really Amy, we're going to have to work on your foul language. As I said, there's a time and a place for it, but over-using it is like a cook adding too much nutmeg to the meal. It rather overpowers the point you think you're making." Vivienne was calm, unbothered, unflappable. She was talking down to Amy, patronizing her.

At least she's not coddling me. I think I hate this more though.

"As for what happened with the abomination's lover, he most certainly did not deserve to be made Tranquil - his offenses hardly merited at that point - but once he was, he was convinced of the logical necessity to prevent an apostate like Anders from running around freely. Freed from his emotional entanglements, he could see the danger Anders represented to himself, to the people of Kirkwall, and to mages themselves." Vivienne replied calmly, coolly.

"Right. Of course you're okay with this. Chill about it. Chill about something so evil. Didn't happen to you, so you're fine, right? Who cares about other people?" Vivienne wasn't locked up in a Circle. She was some important noble's mistress (still fucking ew) and had worked for the Empress and even ran a circle, right? First Enchanter of Montismard or whatever. Of course she didn't mind.

"Who cares about those who would be slain by an abomination because a mage was too weak-willed, or too overconfident to resist a demon's temptation? Who cares about the mages that would be torn limb from limb by terrified mobs without the surety the Harrowing provides? You say it's unjust that the Harrowing is death for one moment of failure, but it is ultimately death to become an abomination, whatever a demon promises the mage, and all it takes is one moment of weakness, one moment of failure." Vivienne countered.

"You just have all the answers, don't you?!" Amy snapped. And all the answers were 'everything is fine, nothing is wrong'. "Everything's so simple with you!"

"I could say the same. You say that Tranquility is evil. It is certainly regrettable and what was done in Kirkwall with the abuse of the Rite is hardly acceptable, though it would have been less common had the mages in the Gallows been less restive and resistant. Their activities forced the Templars in the city to crack down harder."

"Really? Really?" Amy sputtered, pulling up short and turning to stare at Vivienne. "You're going to blame the victims for fighting back against being prisoners for how they were born? Let me guess, if a woman gets raped, you'd blame her for dressing in too revealing an outfit?" Amy's abilities made her better than any rape kit, and she'd had to deal with too many fucking callous asshole cops not taking things seriously when some girl who got drugged up, or drunk or just forced down in a dirty alley and raped. Not all of them, but too many.

"You probably think all the mages in Kirkwall should have just laid down and died, right? That fighting back against being murdered was terrible of them?!"

"Spare us all the histrionics, Amy, you're attracting an audience again." Vivienne was still unfazed. Could anything make this woman react? Anything make her stop being so fucking calm and cool? Amy had compared her to Aunt Sarah earlier, but Aunt Sarah actually reacted to stuff. She didn't just... stand there coolly and - pretend nothing bothered her. Pretend nothing mattered.

I'll bet I could make her react. Just touch her, fire up her pain neurons, see how she likes that!

Amy swallowed, looking down at the ground, feeling sick to her stomach all of a sudden. She'd -

Vivienne hadn't actually done anything. As far as she knew, anyway. She didn't - and even if she had, Amy - Amy couldn't use her power like that, just... hurt someone, because they pissed her off. That -

And here she was, getting so angry and pissed and she wanted to do that, she wanted to reach out (and up, since Vivienne had like six inches on her, counting the heels she was wearing, at least) and touch Vivienne and do it.

She bit her lip, stomach roiling, tasting bile in her mouth. She sucked in a ragged breath. I - do I - why do I always just... what's wrong with me!?

Why was she always so willing, so eager to do this? To abuse her power to hurt someone just for making her angry? She didn't want to heal, she wanted to fucking hurt people. Only monsters wanted to hurt people.

Nothing I didn't know already... and she knew the reason too.

She had to hold on, she had - she had to stick to her rules. On Earth-Bet, if she - if she broke her rules and abused her powers, there were people, tinkers and thinkers and advanced technology and - they might be able to stop her and undo some of the damage she did, but here? Could magic even do half as much?

"As for what happened in Kirkwall - Meredith Stannard was a brute and a blunt instrument who should never have been made Knight-Commander. But things should never have gotten that bad in the first place - First Enchanter Orsino failed in his task to lead the Kirkwall Circle, and Kiandra Hawke protected that abomination friend of hers from the Templars for years. Perhaps Orsino should have done something about the apostate." Vivienne dismissed her words without any delay, so damn sure of herself, just pulling the response out from the air, didn't have to think or anything.

"Right. Because it's always the mages' fault, right?" Amy tried not to pay attention to what people said when she was healing them most of the time, even victims of crimes, but she'd heard how many battered wives talk about how it was their fault for provoking their husband?. Hard not to have it register when you heard it over and over and over again.

"When apostates used blood magic to enslave dragons and kill Divine Beatrix, Regalyan D'Marcall and his compatriots in the Circles stood up to defend her, fighting alongside Lady Cassandra to protect her and all the innocent people in the line of fire," Vivienne replied cooly. "Mages are perfectly capable of contributing to the policing of their own, if they are willing to."

"And if they don't, they deserve whatever happens to them?! That's not how anything works!" Civilians didn't deserve to die just because they didn't stop a crime. Sure, too many of them just stood by and shit but - that - they just made them sucky, not... not deserving of being treated like shit.

Cassandra had mentioned this Regaylan guy, but hadn't wanted to talk about him more than saying he'd helped her way back when

"You're still a child, Amy Dallon, and a foreigner to Thedas beside. You know nothing of the reality of being a mage, or the nature of Templars."

"I know that robbing people of their emotions or imprisoning them for something they might do is wrong," Amy nearly snarled the words out. "That's wrong wherever you do it, here, Earth-Bet or anywhere else. Some things are just evil."

"Some things are, but it is a mark of maturity to properly grasp what is, dear girl. Your naivete does you no favors."

Oh go fuck yourself you smug bitch. Amy didn't say it to her face - she didn't - there was no point. There was no arguing with Vivienne, was there? She was a bitch and one who just had to be right. Had all the answers, and she'd twist everything so it always looked like she won every exchange. The worst sort of person, and she was just... defending all of it. Blaming the mages for being turned into Tranquil, or killed, or locked up. She was a mage, but apparently she didn't care about any of the others.

Probably would have agreed with that one Templar beating that mage up that Katerina saw. Katerina had at least tried to say something the one time, even if she'd stuck around afterwards and didn't keep trying.

God, Vivienne was so awful she was making Amy feel like Katerina wasn't all that bad.

Just another thing to hate Vivienne for.

"Go to hell," Amy muttered. She started moving again, towards the Chantry, moving faster than before.

"Eloquent as ever, dear girl," Vivienne said back, Amy didn't look behind her and just flipped Vivienne off. She had no idea if the middle finger meant anything here - didn't you use like, two fingers in England? - but it was satisfying to do. If Vivienne realized what Amy meant by it, she didn't respond, and she didn't follow Amy any further.

Into the Chantry, ignoring a group of sisters talking who stopped and turned to look at her as she went in, Amy reached the door to the back room, two guards out front. She could hear their voices, raised, coming from within the room:

"...the mages acted first, broke the Nevarran accord first! You can't-" Cullen was saying, yelling really.

"To say that the mages acted first after centuries of abuse and provocation is unthinkably stupid, Cullen, and I know you're not that stupid." Leliana countered, her voice calmer, but still raised.

Still arguing about who to go with. Amy didn't care. She had more important, more immediate things to talk about.

"Are you going to stop me from going in?"

One of the guards shook his head, "No reason to, Herald."

"Don't call me that," Amy said, gritting her teeth as she grabbed the door handle and flung the door open.

"...I am not saying that Lord Seeker Lucius's conduct is not worrisome, especially if he is as... interested in Amy's powers as she believed he was, but -" Cassandra was saying, but Amy interrupted her, slamming the door behind her and raising her voice.

"Anyone want to tell me why none of you told me about Tranquility before? Or the Harrowing? There's really a fucking test you make all mages take and if they don't pass it, they die?!" Amy demanded. "You rip out mages' emotions? Their ability to feel? Think? Have independent action? Turn them all into mindless drones!? And you just never mentioned any of that!?" Vivienne had claimed the mindless drones thing wasn't true, but at this point if Vivienne said the sky was blue, Amy wouldn't believe her.

"I've been here in Thedas for how long, and it's only just coming up?!" Amy demanded.

"How exactly did you learn about it?"

"Varric's book. Anders' ex, that guy Karl," Amy ground out, answering Leliana. "He was turned into a Tranquil and then begged Anders to kill him rather than go back to being Tranquil?
He begged for death over being Tranquil!" Amy slammed her fist on the table, causing the various cups resting on it to shake - Cullen grabbed at his, Josephine picked her mug up to keep it from spilling. Another porcelain cup, near Leliana, was dangerously close to the edge, but it didn't fall off or spill or break.

"Varric is a liar and a-" Cullen started, but Cassandra shook her head.

"No, in the matter of Karl Thelka, Varric's recounting of events in the book were largely accurate, Cullen," Cassandra told him, inhaling sharply as she finished. "In the aftermath of Kirkwall, we investigated all the mages made Tranquil under Meredith's leadership. You weren't involved in the policing of the mages, but you know Meredith abused Tranquility."

"Not until closer to the end, not until after the Qunari killed the Viscount, and matters started to rise to a head. In Varric's damned book, that all happened years before!"

"And Meredith may not have given the order, but she didn't do much to stop her subordinates from abusing the Rite of Tranquility. She promoted Templars that were overly fond of it to positions of authority over mages. Do we need to discuss Ser Alrik?" Cassandra pointed out, and Cullen grimaced.

"No... you're right." Cullen exhaled slowly. "Forgive me. I try not to remember that he was ever a Templar."

"Another thing you kept hidden, swept under the rug?" Amy snapped. She'd thought - she'd thought Cassandra was okay. That - that she was - she'd talked about policing the Templars who abused their position and how they were on their way to Kirkwall when everything exploded and -

She'd thought that Cassandra was - that she wasn't going to just stand by and let terrible things happen but how many mages had she let get killed, or be turned into emotionless drones?! How - What else had she stood by and let happen!"

"Nothing was swept under the rug. Hawke and her compatriots killed Ser Alrik." Cullen said. He exhaled, "If there was ever a Templar who deserved death, it was him. I was assigned to investigate his death after he was found killed in the tunnels underneath the Gallows because I had nothing to do with his work. When I -" He gritted his teeth, "When I found out what he did, I made sure his name was taken off all rolls of honor and his corpse was given no dignity."

Cullen twitched, and he brought a hand up to his temple, rubbing again, the other hand balling into a fist, and then uncurling slowly. "I only wish Hawke hadn't killed him, so I could have given him the public execution he deserved."

"Meredith would hardly have let something like that happen," Cassandra shook her head. "She would have considered it bad for morale to admit-"

"Admit what!? What did this guy do?" Amy demanded.

"Rape Tranquil," Cassandra answered, and Amy felt sick to her stomach as she realized she hadn't - she hadn't even thought of that. She -

Just when she'd thought her view of it all couldn't get even lower, that this couldn't be more evil...

"And you didn't know?!" She demanded of Cullen. Was he going to make excuses, pretend? Act like it -

Well, no, he - he sounded genuine when he said he wanted to kill Ser Alrik but -

"I didn't deal with mages! I only became Meredith's second in the last few years, after Ser Alrik's death. Before that, I dealt exclusively with training the new recruits. Swordcraft, tactics, unit discipline." Cullen protested. "Some days I never even saw a mage!" He looked away. "There's much I should have done, much I should have said, that I didn't, in Kirkwall, but standing by and letting Ser Alrik do as he did was not one of my failures, I promise."

"It wasn't, Amy." Cassandra added, and Amy wanted to believe Cassandra, wanted to believe she hadn't been kind of working with a guy that had -

"Give me your hand," Amy reached over the table. "Take off your glove and give me your fucking hand?!" Cullen looked at her, confused.

"Amy seems to have some ability to use her powers to tell when someone is lying." Leliana supplied, "she claims it isn't foolproof, but on testing, it seems to be effective."

"It's not perfect, but it's still worth something. You didn't take me seriously when I talked to you about Blackwall, so why do you believe me now?"

"Blackwall? What does he have to do with any of this?" Josephine asked, looking confused. She'd been quiet the whole exchange, either waiting to get a word in or not sure what to say or just -

What does Josephine think about the Tranquil? Is she okay with them? Does she give a shit? Was she -

Josephine was the nicest person she'd met in Thedas. She - she seemed like she actually gave a shit and cared and - and -

What if she -

"Another matter that Amy raised with me, unrelated to this one." Leliana evaded the question. "As for the question Amy raised - the Tranquil didn't exactly come up. There's much about Thedas you don't know. There was no effort to hide it from you."

"Right, the spymaster wasn't trying to hide something from me." Amy rolled her eyes. She looked back at Cullen. "Give me your hand."

Cullen pulled off his glove and gave her his hand. His biology was nothing special - except for that same headache and fatigue problem as hat Templar she'd healed back in Val Royeaux... and that same weird microbacteria she could pick up in his bloodstream, only there was a hell of a lot less of it than had been in that idiot who had cut his hand because the Lord Seeker told him to.

Same headaches and fatigue, same lack of clear symptoms and -

Lyrium. Templars took Lyrium, it was addictive, had side-effects... but this was a microbacteria, not - wasn't Lyrium something people mined? You don't mine microbacteria!

Maybe there's microbacteria that lives on the minerals or-

Under other circumstances, Amy would have dug into that or asked or - her power left her scratching her head, wanting, almost needing to know more, but -

But right now, she had more important things to do.

"Did you know anything about what Ser Alrik was doing?!" Amy demanded.

"No, I did not." Cullen said firmly, and it rang as true.

"Good." Amy pulled her hand away, looking at everyone. "So, why didn't anyone mention it to me?"

"Leliana speaks the truth, it did not come up," Cassandra told her.

"You weren't hiding it? Trying to make yourselves all look better and pretend you weren't doing something so goddamned evil!"

"No," Cassandra said firmly. "I had no such intention. Nor would I consider Tranquility, when not abused as happened in Kirkwall, evil. Not in so simple a phrasing."

Amy staggered back, breath catching as she heard Cassandra basically endorse Tranquility. Endorse fucking stealing people's ability to feel emotions!

She really was - she really was as bad as - she approved of this shit! Thought there was a time it was ever okay! Fine, she wasn't making excuses for the Templars the way Vivienne was - would Vivienne have made excuses for Ser Alrik? Maybe that the Tranquil shouldn't have 'come onto him'?

"It is an option of last resort, one never to be used lightly, and one that too many Circles allow too many mages to pick too easily. Kirkwall under Meredith was not the only time the Rite of Tranquility was abused, though in no other case was it abused so much, so often, and with no punishment for those who did it." Cassandra said.

"Right. Templars totally get punished for abusing their power. Katerina told me about how she just stood by and let things happen after she tried and failed to report that one Templar who was beating mages. You said Seekers were the ones who provided oversight to the Templars, Cassandra, but seems like no one ever did any of that! Just let them get away with everything, and then - what, mouth the right platitudes?!" Amy was shouting again. "You're just as bad as all the rest of them Cassandra! I thought -" Amy's voice broke, and she realized her eyes were wet, something trailing down her cheek. "I thought you - I thought you were good Cassandra! I - I -"

Amy staggered back, back to the wall, sliding down.

That was it, wasn't it? Of course she wasn't actually upset about how wrong Tranquility was. Well - no, she was, but... like the selfish bitch she always was, what really bothered Amy was the disappointment. She'd... she'd started to think Cassandra was good and she'd been so happy to have Cassandra say she was proud of her and -

Cullen snorted.

"Bullshit." He said, the word and the slam of his fist on the table cutting through Amy's quiet sobs and she looked up at him, feeling too spent, too pathetic to get angry. A porcelain cup shattered on the ground, spilling something next to Leliana's feet, and Josephine spoke up.

"Cullen-"

"No, Josephine, I'm not going to sit here and let Amy just say things that aren't true. Yes, there were abuses by Templars. There's so much more to it than you're willing to hear right now, but they happened. And Kirkwall... there's nothing that can be said about Kirkwall to defend what happened there. Those who broke all the rules, and those who didn't notice, or didn't act, like I didn't, until it was too late." He exhaled slowly. "But it's simply a lie to say that Templars always got away with things."

"Right," Amy said, voice sounding... wet, broken. She blinked back more tears. "Totally happened. Templars got punished."

"They did in Kinloch Hold. That was the first Circle I served in, when I joined the Templars. Knight-Commander Gregoir never wasted time in punishing any Templar who abused their position, in even the smallest way." Cullen exhaled again and pulled his hand down his face. He looked, sounded exhausted, anger gone from his voice.

"First Enchanter Irving knew he could take things to him, and see them dealt with. When I was still an initiative, a Templar named Ser Hilda killed a mage, claiming she'd caught him practicing blood magic. But her evidence was thin, and Gregoir and Irving investigated, proving the man innocent, and Hilda was put to death for her offense, without any delay or excuses. That's the most extreme abuse, but any complaint Irving brought to Gregoir was taken seriously, and Templars were punished if the complaint was found to be valid. He took his charge to protect mages seriously, as seriously as his charge to protect others from him."

"So, what, one guy was decent and the system works?!" Amy couldn't muster enough will to raise her voice, and she looked down.

"It worked for hundreds of years. Something went wrong, with both Templars and Mages -"

"We failed," Cassandra cut Cullen off, voice soft, but firm. She approached Amy and crouched, sitting next to her. She took off her glove and extended her hand to Amy. Amy blinked, trying to clear the tears from her eyes. She tried to breathe, but the air caught in her throat. She lifted her hand and took Cassandra's, getting a look at her biology, her brainwaves. It would be so easy, so easy to make her good and-

No! No! Amy screwed her eyes shut, biting the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood.

"The duty of the Seekers has always been to police the Templars, to lead them, to ensure that they held to the terms of the Nevarran Accord and the rules binding them as much as the mages did. Yes, we dealt with the worst apostates - blood mages, cultists, murderers, but our highest duty has always been to oversee the Circles, Templar and Mage alike. I'm not sure how, or when, but we lost our way. Lord Seeker Lambert bears some of the blame, but we all let him. And his view that mages were the enemy didn't spring forth from nothing." Cassandra's words were coming off as true, but it all sounded like excuses and bullshit and -

"When I first joined the Seekers, I felt the same." The admission made Amy's brain catch as much as her breath did, the regret and the absolute truth, or so it seemed, from Cassandra's biology. I know it's not foolproof but - I- "Blood mages killed my brother, and I was so angry, so enraged. I begged my uncle to let me become a Templar, I wanted - I wanted to punish them all. I held all mages responsible for what happened to Anthony. He sent me to the Seekers instead. It took years, but I learned to see that mages weren't all evil. That only a few were of the kind that killed my brother. I learned that if given the chance, many would be willing to lay down their lives to save innocent lives."

"I wish I could say I had this realization on my own. I didn't. My mentor Byron spent years trying to teach me, and then I met a mage who showed me how foolish I was being, how much I'd let grief dictate to me. Regalyan D'Marcall and those who fought with him risked their lives to defy Templar and apostate alike to protect Divine Beatrix and the countless innocents there for the festival. Without them, I would have failed and Maker knows how many would have died. It was a lesson I learned in the blood of Byron, and that of Lord Seeker Aldren and the others who died to put an end to a conspiracy between apostate and Templar. And unfortunately, though it was a revelation I tried to share with my fellows... too many failed to see it."

Cassandra's voice had caught when she mentioned this 'Regaylan' guy she kept hearing about. And there was something else - not a lie, Amy was pretty sure or maybe she just - maybe she just wanted to believe - a spark or a - there was something in Cassandra's biology when she mentioned him for just a moment, as her breath caught and -

"And even though I knew some Templars had no trouble pursuing their own ends above those of the Chantry and their duty, and even though I knew that all mages didn't deserve to be treated with the same brush... there were still apostates. There were Templars whose abuses were so great even other Templars would turn on them, and they had to be tracked down, chased from one end of Thedas to the other. There was always another blood mage - few in relative number though they were... all it takes is one to cause harm on a mass scale." Cassandra shook her head.

"We should have tried harder, and we failed. I don't know when, or how, the Seekers of Truth lost sight of our duty. I'm not sure when Templars did the same. There was a time, when the Circles were more balanced, when abuses were punished more consistently, when the dual purpose of the Circles - to protect innocent mages from angry mobs operating on fear and suspicion and to protect innocent people from blood mages and abominations and mages that would seek to rebirth the Tevinter Imperium of Old - were taken seriously by Templars and Seekers alike." She closed her eyes and took a breath.

"Or maybe I'm simply wishing it to be true. The threat posed by abominations is real, Amy. Any mage, with a moment of weakness and the attention of a demon, can become one. Circles are warded to make possession harder - mages kept in the Circles are safer there, than anywhere else, especially if they aren't ready to face a demon on their own when it tries to tempt them or corrupt them. The Rite of Tranquility is not a choice to be taken lightly, nor anything to be inflicted without the gravest of consideration."

"Right," Amy laughed a weak, wet, broken laugh. What was the point of all this? That Cassandra wasn't as bad as this Meredith or those Templars who abused the rules or - fucking Vivienne, apparently? Fine, mages killed her brother and she hated them and then she stopped. Did she want a fucking prize? Of course the Seekers failed. And she was still defending Tranquility. Defending locking mages up just for being mages!

"And the people who had their emotions ripped from them are just supposed to be okay with it happening because it was carefully considered before it happened? Oh, wait I suppose they are okay with it, because you ripped out their ability to feel otherwise!" She tried to raise her voice, but her voice shook too much for it to really be more than -

For it to be anything, really. She brought her other hand up to wipe at her eyes. She was still angry, but she -

She had been so sure, so... so desperate to believe Cassandra was good. Even before she'd said it, said she was proud to know her, looking back, Amy could see how - could see how she'd started to - how eager she'd been to see Cassandra was good, as being... better. Being someone who could be -

"Part of the problem is that it wasn't considered carefully. Not enough. As I said... it is, it should be an option of last resort. Not second to last, not third to last. Certainly not first or even close." Cassandra's words rang true in her biology. "The Circles failed. The Templars failed. The Seekers failed. The Chantry failed. The Maker gave us all a charge, and we failed to fulfil it. If the Breach can be closed, if some order can ever be restored to Thedas, if anything even close to the Circles can be reformed, if the Templars and Seekers can be restored to the Chantry, then changes must come. I wish I knew what those changes should be, I wish I had answers. If there were a way to protect mages unable to resist demons from possession with the same surety as the Rite of Tranquility, I believe it should be taken in a heartbeat,"

Truth.

That doesn't - that doesn't excuse anything...

Amy was just - she ached to trust Cassandra again. She wanted to believe what Cassandra was saying mattered, but it didn't! None of this was okay! None of it was right.

You saw that abomination in action. Felt his biology. Or what there was of it that was real. He killed so many, blew through those soldiers and -

Mages didn't deserve this. The Rite of Tranquility was wrong. Locking people up for something they were born with, for the mere... possibility they might do something was wrong!

But did - did those people at the Crossroads deserve to die?

No. No, Amy! He was - he was a rebel. And he was only a rebel because of all the shit Templars did! Right? She couldn't - this was just - she was grabbing at any excuse but she couldn't, she couldn't let Cassandra off the hook -

"Cullen is not wrong. Even as late as the events in Kirkwall, there were circles where mages were given greater freedoms than others. Even in Cumberland - had Katerina's training Corporal spoken to a different Knight-Captain, one who didn't agree with Ser Jethan or seek to cover his abuses... things would have gone differently. Templars, like the rest of us, are mere mortals, capable of sins of all sorts - hatred, pride, rage. When one lets those things decide for them, they have failed. But many do not. Even now, most of the mages and Templars in Ostwick's circle chose to stay back, not joining either side. The Templars in Ostwick refused the Lord Seeker's command to break with the Chantry and gather under his banner to fight the war, and the mages there largely chose to stay loyal to their Circle, at least, to stay out of the fighting."

Cassandra sighed, "Unfortunately, neither is willing to come aid us in closing the Breach, not with the larger war still unsettled. But in the chaos after the destruction of the Conclave, the Templars in Ostwick stood in the path of an angry mob demanding the blood of mages, Amy. Several died before the mob was dispersed. I will not condemn entirely a system that still produces some who are willing and able to do the right thing, even at the cost of their own lives. But neither will I be blind to its faults."

Truth.

"What - what are you even trying to say?" Amy demanded, voice slightly firmer now. She wasn't crying anymore, at least... "You still think Tranquility is okay?! It's not. It can't be! And and - and - you admit the whole system is fucked and broken and - this isn't - you're not - you - you're still okay with it! You're okay with Tranquility and Harrowings and locking mages up and -"

"Show me a better system, and I will support it, Amy. Divine Justina believed much as you do. She sought to change things, but eight hundred years cannot be undone in a few. After Kirkwall, after the dissolution of the Nevarran Accord, she second-guessed herself time and again, could she have moved faster? Better? Prevented it? But there was much resistance to even the mildest of reforms. For eight hundred years, the people of Thedas at large have been kept safe by the Circles, and for eight hundred years, the Circles protected mages, from the dangers of their own powers, and from others. Something needed to change, but do you really think it would have been so easy to simply change it overnight?"

"Wasn't she the Divine?" Amy's voice sounded like a pout even to her ears. She -

Cassandra was telling the truth about wanting to support a better system, if one presented. But - just because there wasn't a better system didn't make this one okay! There had to be -

Things were right or they were wrong. All the good excuses in the world didn't change that.

Everything Vicky did to those six thugs was wrong. I told her as much, every single damned time. She knew it too, even if she can't control her anger. But - Vicky's not a bad person. She's - she's good. She - she's trying! Trying to help, to save lives, to make the city better. She was good, and she did good and she wanted to do more and - She knew her sister. She knew her better than anyone else on the planet - on two planets now! Vicky was good. She made mistakes, she'd done a few bad things, but even those were - were because she was so angry at all the evil shit the gangs in the city did.

That didn't make it okay. What Vicky did was bad. But Vicky wasn't bad. Amy knew that. And -

She wanted to believe that Cassandra was good., wanted believe that -

Angry mobs going after mages isn't good. And - and innocent people don't deserve to be killed by or be mastered by blood mages or deal with abominations or -

Cassandra was trying to protect people. And Amy - and Amy could see her biology as she answered. Everything she said was true and - and -

She didn't know Cassandra. She'd known Vicky for years. All her life that she really remembered, since she barely remembered her life before she came to live with the Dallons. Why - how could she be trying to draw an equivalency or even close? Cassandra wasn't Vicky, wasn't as good as her (no one was) but... she was trying. She wanted to do the right thing and she wanted to protect people and -

It was still wrong. But did that - did that have to -

"Did you ever have a hand in making anyone Tranquil?" Amy asked quietly. Please say no, please say no, please... "Sentence anyone to it or make anyone Tranquil or -"

"No. I did not," Cassandra answered just as quietly

Cassandra's words read as true and she knew, Amy knew that her 'lie detecting' wasn't foolproof - good, but not perfect - and yet... she desperately wanted, needed Cassandra to be telling the truth here.

She hated that it mattered so much that... that she felt like if Cassandra really was lying or really was just as bad as everyone else as the Templars as -

If Cassandra wasn't good then - then -
"The Divine may lead the Chantry, and may speak with the Maker's voice on matters of Faith, but unfortunately," Josephine spoke up now, answering Amy's earlier question about the Divine, jolting Amy into the moment again. "No one, not the Empress of Orlais, or the Archon of Tevinter or any other leader can simply make their will manifest upon all those under their command, if too many disagree. In practice, few will disobey most commands given directly but delays, pushback, resistance and sabotage will undermine the orders and then the disobedience begins."

Amy blinked as it took her a moment to remember exactly what she'd said and why. "Just because something is hard doesn't mean you don't do it," she accused.

"Certainly, but does sometimes mean it can only be done slowly and carefully, especially if you expect the changes to last." Josephine countered calmly. Amy wanted to argue with her, but - it wasn't like the woman was wrong. You couldn't always snap your fingers and make things happen. It would be nice if you could - better maybe, as long as the right person was the one snapping their fingers.

Not me, of course.

Amy hated Thedas. Nothing was simple and everything had to be complicated and no one did the right thing. Not enough people anyway.

It - it wasn't like the US government or the Maine state government did the right thing all the time, God no, but - they - they did something, sometimes. And they didn't make anything like the Circles and - and

Governments, institutions... they all sucked. Always. Too many bad people, not enough people who actually cared even if they weren't bad. People were better than institutions... Cassandra... Cassandra was good.

I hope. I think. I - I -

What about the rest of them? She looked at the other three, still holding Cassandra's hand. Her eyes fell on Josephine first. How did she feel about Tranquility and the Harrowings and - and - was she okay with it all? Did she at least see it as - as the only option, the last resort? Or -

Amy stood up with help from Cassandra and let go of her hand. She swallowed and walked over to Josephine. She - she hoped Josephine was good or - or at least not approving of Tranquility and - and all the rest. But... as she stood there, trying to frame the question, she realized that - that -

With Cassandra, the idea that she - that she had approved of Tranquility had brought her to tears. It was pathetic, but it was what had just happened.

With Josephine - it wasn't as if Amy liked the idea, but the prospect... it didn't leave her feeling like she'd been stabbed in the gut.

She took a breath, and then another. "Where do you - where do you stand on all this? Do you think Tranquility is okay?"

Josephine said nothing for a long moment, then, "In all honesty Amy, though it may lower your opinion of me, I have not given the question much thought."

Amy blinked, staring at her. "How? How?!"

"Because until I read 'The Tale of the Champion', I'm not sure I even knew Tranquility was a thing, and until I came to Haven to prepare for the Conclave, I was under the impression Varric had exaggerated things somewhat. And it's not as if mages were something I thought about much anyway. I had many duties, and rarely did mages come up in them, even with the rebellion. And it's not as if the Chantry or the Templars spread word of the Tranquil. Unless you do business with them... you'd never see one."

"Do business?"

"Tranquil usually handle the purchase of food and other supplies for the circles, and they run many of the shops selling enchanted items or potions that help fund the Circles," Leliana cut in to answer Amy's question.

"Quite," Josephine nodded. "And I never interacted with them on either basis. So I simply never gave it much thought."

Amy inhaled slowly, trying to force herself not to yell at Josephine. She had months in Haven now to form an opinion, and she still hadn't? She - Amy could give her that she didn't know, and then... not believing Varric was honest in the book was... well, that was a smart choice, really. But - she -

How did she still not have an opinion!

"Well - what do you think about it now? Do you think it's okay?" Amy pressed.

"I think it is a cruel thing to do to anyone. I think that in a more ideal world, it should be done to no one. But I also know that there is much about magic, demons, possession, abominations and the risks they all pose to people that I do not know. So I cannot speak to whether Tranquility is truly an acceptable option, or under what circumstances it might be."

Amy let out a hiss of air and then pushed back at Josephone's refusal to answer the question, teeth clenched. "So you think it's okay? Even though you think it's cruel?!"

"I think, Amy," Josephine stayed calm despite Amy raising her voice, "That I don't know enough to say. I try to make it a point to avoid opining on matters of import where I lack sufficient knowledge to offer an informed opinion," she went on, still avoiding the damn question. "That said, without knowing more, I am inclined to accede to Cassandra's opinion on the matter, that it should be seen as a last resort used but rarely, and only after much careful consideration."

Amy inhaled through her clenched teeth. It felt like Josephione was playing games, but - she really was just... refusing to commit. Refusing to actually take a stance? She called it cruel, and she - she at least agreed with Cassandra that it was a 'only if you absolutely had to' which... was still too much, but -

She was accepting Cassandra's intentions. Shouldn't she do the same for Josephine, given that she - she was saying the same thing?

She's leaving the option to change her mind but - will she?

She liked Josephine. Amy liked talking to her, she was nice and - and the coffee and she -

But she didn't feel so desperate to cut her a chance, to take that thin thread offered, like she had with Cassandra. And part of her wanted to demand more, demand Josephine take a fucking stand. But -

Maybe if I knew for sure she was telling the truth about where she stood right now?

"Give me your hand," she held out her own, and then blinked, adding, slightly softer, "Please?"

"You do not believe me?" Josephine held out her hand despite saying that,and Amy took it.

"I need to be sure. Trust but verify, as they used to say back home." Did Amy trust Josephine? She shouldn't. She barely knew her. Barely knew anyone in Thedas. She shouldn't trust anyone. You couldn't trust anyone without knowing them for years, without really knowing them. Everyone had an agenda and they had their secrets and -

She didn't trust Solas or Varric or Leliana, definitely not. She... she trusted Cassandra, for whatever reason, and she - she could at least trust Katerina to defend her and not try and revere her, and -

She had thought she could trust Josephine, at least - at least kind of?

But it was hard to trust anyone now, when it turned out no one had mentioned Tranquility. And maybe, maybe it wasn't deliberate, but -

Come to think of it, why didn't Katerina mention it? She didn't think her bodyguard was in favor of Tranquility - there didn't seem to be much danger of that. She'd probably been a coward about that too while she was a Templar, but she couldn't imagine Katerina approved of it. If nothing else, Katerina seemed to be operating on a kneejerk 'if the Templars do it, it's bad' mindset.

Not the worst approach, really.

Josephine's biology was... normal. Human. She was really healthy, probably the healthiest person she'd touched on Thedas. No old injuries, no signs she'd ever had any major illnesses, had a healthy, balanced diet with all the food she'd needed her whole life... that tracked she was a noble...

"What you said, about the Tranquil and your - and thinking it should be a last resort and - was it all true?"

"Yes." Josephine said simply with a nod.

It rang as true in her biology. Was it though? Or just wishful thinking.

"Okay. Good. Fine." She exhaled slowly and then let go of Josephine's hand. She looked at Cullen. She - she didn't need to ask where he stood. He - he was better than Vivienne, maybe, low fucking bar that was, but she could guess where he stood. He made excuses, defended the Templars, even defended Meredith... sort of. Half-heartedly, anyway. Maybe he didn't approve of it all the time, and sure, he opposed it being abused and all that, but again - low fucking bar.

"I can guess where you stand," she looked past him to Leliana and Cullen just let out a sort of 'huff' sound and looked away, crossing his arms.

"If the choice were mine, the Rite of Tranquility would be forbidden in all cases, in all forms." Leliana said firmly.

"Leliana!" Cullen and Cassandra both protested. Amy closed her eyes a moment, gritting her teeth.

Cassandra thinks it's necessary. She said the truth when she said she'd take a better option as soon as it came. That - that doesn't make it okay, but she's - she's trying. She's trying to do good. Be good. She is good just... not perfect.

Amy told herself that a second time, opening her eyes, as Leliana looked unfazed by Cullen trying to argue that Tranquility served a legitimate purpose, that the threat abominations posed-

"How many abominations arise because Templars create an environment that makes them inevitable, Cullen? Pursuing mages like they're animals, caging them, subjecting them to cruel indignities? It's easy to give into temptations like the ones demons offer when you're angry, terrified, caged, and have nothing to live for. Most mages aren't allowed to communicate with their families -"

"Most families don't want anything to do with their mage relations," Cassandra pointed out.

"Only because the Chantry has spent centuries teaching that mages are accursed and should be hated and feared. The Maker and Andraste taught us we should love and help one another, that slavery was a crime, that we are all equal under his gaze, and yes, that magic should serve man, not rule him, but nothing about imprisoning mages in Circles merely for being born." Leliana said firmly, speaking with the voice of a fanatic, a zealot. Her tone reminded Amy of a street preacher who had tried to preach at her one time.

Less objectionable preaching than the preacher's fire and brimstone 'God hates fags' shit, but still. Same energy.

"Mages are dangerous and there needs to be some means by which-" Cullen started, but Josephoine cut him off, her voice soft, but firm, slipping into the conversation.

"Perhaps we can avoid litigating the entire existence of the circles for a third time today?" Cullen closed his mouth, nodding slowly. Leliana did as well. "We keep circling back to it, and I'd rather not spend the next hour on it, again. We'll still be no closer to deciding who to work with to close the Breach once it's done."

Wait, so they can't get anywhere because Cullen and Leliana keep arguing about the basic idea of the Circles themselves? Amy didn't like the Circles at this point - understatement there - but the Breach was kind of important? Big deal?

"Good," Josephine said when neither Cullen nor Leliana spoke up. "Perhaps, under the circumstances, we can take a break for dinner. Or even for the rest of the night, really. I don't think we're in any danger of coming to an agreement today. Some rest might do us all good."

"I agree," Cassandra said quickly, "We can resume this discussion tomorrow after lunch. Give us all time to consider matters."

"An excellent idea," Josephine added, sounding relieved, speaking quickly, probably before Leliana or Cullen could object. How long had the two of them wanted to have an excuse to end the discussion?

Amy could relate. She would take any excuse to get out of a New Wave monthly meeting, though they usually didn't get into circular arguments. Just Aunt Sarah dictating things.

Amy wasn't sure she trusted Leliana's answer about the Tranquil, but... it sounded like Cassandra and Cullen believed she meant it, and Amy... didn't care as much about Leliana's opinion.

"Have you eaten yet?" Amy shook her head in answer to Cassandra's question. "Come with me. There's someone you should talk to first, and then I'll walk with you to get some food." She gestured at the door, which Cullen was already exiting through.

"Okay..."

"Amy," Leliana said quickly, before they could leave. Cassandra's hand on was the doorhandle, Amy right behind her. "I was not and am not convinced that your concerns about Blackwall are as well-founded as you think," Amy gritted her teeth and was about to push past Cassandra and leave, but she felt a hand on her shoulder, Cassandra squeezing gently, the gesture feeling... oddly supportive.

"But," Leliana went on, "You were correct to bring those concerns to me. After we spoke this morning, I did assign two of my agents to investigate the matter."

"Why? You didn't believe me about Blackwall." Amy muttered.

"Because, to borrow your excellent turn of phrase, trust but verify." Leliana answered.

"What exactly was this concern about Blackwall?" Josephine asked, raising her voice a tiny amount. So for Josephine, practically shouting.

"Blackwall isn't a Grey Warden. He doesn't have the Darkspawn Taint in him. And he's lying about his name being Gordon Blackwall," Amy said. Cassandra stiffened behind Amy and her hand got a little tighter on her shoulder for half a moment. Josephine furrowed her brow for a long moment.

Leliana raised an eyebrow and actually let out a sigh. "Yes, that is your charge, but he matches all known descriptions of Gordon Blackwall, and appears to be a Grey Warden. Gordon Blackwall has been a Warden in good standing for over twenty years. Your abilities could be missing the Taint in him due to the way the magic of the joining works. If you could touch another Warden and compare... but failing that, I am not going to act on your accusations alone."

Amy opened her mouth to argue, but Leliana kept going.

"I would have preferred you not share your accusation with anyone yet. If you're wrong, there's no reason to let Blackwall know you know about the Joining or what you can do to the taint. If you're right, we shouldn't let him know until it can be proven and he can be detained. And in the meantime, he'll be watched." Leliana concluded.

"He could be an assassin just waiting for a chance to get to me and you want to leave him around?!" Was he? Amy didn't know. She couldn't know. But she mostly just wanted him to be punished for pretending to be a Warden, for lying.

"We can keep him under watch, and as long as he's busy training recruits, and kept away from anything sensitive, he's no danger. Rare is the assassin willing to kill in broad daylight. He had a chance for that this morning, so he won't do it when there's witnesses, if he is a liar and is an assassin." Leliana said simply. "For the time being, watching him is the better option. If he is who he says he is, it will do no harm to monitor him. If he's not, we'll likely learn more from watching than from interrogation." Leliana finished calmly.

"Ugh," Cassandra said, disgusted, "I assume you want us to behave around him as if we haven't heard this accusation, until you know for sure?" Leliana nodded, and Cassandra let out another noise of disgust, and Amy felt like Cassandra was rolling her eyes. "This is why I could never do your work as Left Hand of the Divine. I have no patience for this nonsense."

Leliana snorted in laughter, smiling, "And I could never do your task as Right Hand," she teased, "Good with a bow and dagger as I am, I could never kill a dragon with another dragon."

A third disgusted noise from Cassandra and she took her hand off Amy's shoulder, opening the door. "Come, Amy," Amy followed after Cassandra, out into the Chantry and then into Haven itself.

Her mind buzzed with possible questions - About her brother Anthony, about this Regalyan D'Marcall (and why had Cassandra not wanted to talk about him, despite - rightly, it seemed - sharing credit with him about what she did with the whole killing dragons thing). She wanted to press Cassandra on if other alternatives to Tranquility had even been tried and -

But instead, Amy settled on a simpler question. "Who is it that we're going to talk to?"

"One of the Tranquil. There were a few here in Haven. Most stayed with the mages when they rebelled, though not all. Some of those, like the mages who have joined us, became part of Divine Justinia's retinue, in preparation for the declaration of the Inquisition. They did not want to turn on the Chantry and so, they are part of the Inquisition now."

"There's Tranquil here? How did I not meet-" Amy started, then cut herself off. Given how much she'd stayed in her cabin in Haven, and even when she was outside of it, she didn't really pay much attention, she could have seen a Tranquil more than once and not noticed anything.

It had only been this morning, she'd actually paid attention to what happened outside of her cabin.

Fuck, was it only this morning? Feels like a month. Okay, may not a month, but still.

"Many find the Tranquil to be... disconcerting," Cassandra explained, as they drew closer to Amy's clinic, and then passed it, proceeding to a long, narrowish building close to the alchemists' workshop. "As most Tranquil prefer to avoid making others uncomfortable and so keep to themselves when not performing their duties. I wish it wasn't so, but they-"

"Wait." Amy interrupted. "But - Tranquil don't have emotions? How can they prefer anything>"

"That's the reason I want you to speak to Avexis. You don't really understand what it is to be Tranquil. They are not 'mindless drones', mere golems waiting silently for commands. They can and do act on their own - they act on logic, and what seems best to them based purely on their knowledge. And more importantly, they have preferences - Avexis prefers to eat pieces of fruit preserved in honey when it's practical, for instance. Roland enjoys the feeling of a cat's fur under his hand, and takes opportunities to pet one when they're available."

"How does that work? If they can't feel emotions?"

"Does it require emotion to enjoy a physical sensation?" Cassandra asked. She sighed, "I admit, I don't understand it either, but it is an observed fact of Tranquil. They attach no emotional weight to things, but like anyone else, they prefer pleasant experiences to unpleasant ones."

She knocked on the door of the building, and after a moment, a tall, thin man with red hair in mage robes opened the door, a fake smile on his face that was incredibly disturbing.

"Seeker Pentaghast," He dropped the fake smile as he saw her. His voice wasn't quite as flat and... monotonous and empty as Varric had described Karl's, but it was... The best way Amy could describe it was 'aggressively neutral' as stupid as that sounded. "How may I be of assistance?" He asked Cassandra.

His tone reminded Amy of -

Well, it reminded Amy of herself, a little. The way she would shut down when Carol would get into a lecture, and be even more disapproving than usual. Of course, then Amy would reply in a flat monotone and that would piss Carol off more and Amy would end up being sent to her room.

"Good evening Roland. I was hoping to speak with Avexis and introduce her to Amy here." Cassandra gestured at her.

The man turned to her, and Amy braced herself to be called 'Herald'. "I have heard that you prefer to be called by your name 'Amy Dallon', rather than 'Herald'. Is that correct?"

Amy blinked, then nodded. "Yeah. Or - just 'Amy', really. Please uh - Roland."

Not what she expected.

"That is useful to know. Thank you for confirming. I would not desire to cause upset, Amy." He turned back to Cassandra. "I shall ask Avexis if she is busy or otherwise occupied. Please wait." He closed the door and Amy was left to process.

"I didn't - I didn't expect that," she said after a breath.

"Many are surprised the first time they meet a Tranquil after hearing what they are. I will not defend Tranquility any more than I did earlier, but their existence is perhaps not quite as bleak as you may have imagined."

Marginally, at least. Amy couldn't imagine being all shut down like she could get with Carol all the time. Sure, it made Carol's disapproval sting less, but... to feel like that all the time? So numbed? It sounded like hell.

The door opened again, and a blonde elven woman, about Amy's height, was there in the doorway. She was... pretty, but the absolutely empty expression on her face, no inflection, no... anything kind of killed that.

"Avexis."

"Cassandra. It is pleasant to see you once more." Cassandra stepped aside and Avexis stepped outside, closing the door behind her. "Roland said you wished to introduce me to someone?"

"I do. Avexis, this is Amy. The one commonly called the Herald of Andraste, though she does not prefer the title. Amy, this is Avexis."

Amy had a hard time judging elven ages, but Avexis looked to be at least out of her teens, maybe? Twenties? Amy had no idea.

"It is an interesting experience to meet you, Amy." Avexis nodded.

"As a stranger to Thedas, Amy has only just learned about the Tranquil. I was hoping you could answer some of her questions about being Tranquil."

"I see no reason not to. I will answer as I can," Avexis agreed.

Amy stared at her. It was... Amy didn't like looking at her, or hearing her. It was disconcerting, just like Cassandra said. It was - it was hard to - she took a breath. Where could she start?

"Why are you Tranquil? Did you pick it or-"

"I requested it."

"Why?! Why would you do that to yourself? Just because you were afraid of dying in your Harrowing? That's - don't you see how that's messed up?"

"I was not concerned about my Harrowing itself, but broader issues," Avexis answered. "When I had my magic, I possessed a rare ability to link my mind to those of small animals. As an apprentice, I was abducted by blood mages and they force fed me the blood of a drake, which allowed my mind to link to and even control dragons. They used that, and more blood magic, to force me to help them launch an attack on Val Royeaux," she added. "If not for Cassandra and Regaylan, as well as those who fought with him, thousands could have died, including Divine Beatrix."

Wait, so she was - that was how dragons were a threat? Blood mages controlling them, through her?

"But that was... that was years ago, right?" Amy blinked. "You're... you're not an apprentice now."

"Correct. But even after I was saved and returned to the Circle, my dreams were plagued by dragons, and demons. My abilities made me of great interest to demons - if I was possessed, whatever demon possessed me would then be able to control drakes, dragons and dragonlings, and use them to do untold harm to innocent lives."

"So you just - you asked to be made Tranquil just because you - you traded away your ability to feel emotions just because you were afraid? Of - of - of being possessed and - and -" Amy cut herself off, hands covering her face and pulling them down, her mind buzzing and racing and her head hurting and -

She was afraid of her powers. Of what could happen if she lost control. Or - if someone else made her lose control and she - she traded in her magic and her ability to feel emotions and -

"I do not believe it was entirely fear, rather than justified, logical concern for the lives of others though I cannot say, now." Avexis's voice was... it was starting to get worse to hear, the dull, monotonous tone harder to hear over and over and over. She could just...

Could I heal Tranquility? Is it something in the brain? I could- I could restore a connection that was severed or-

Amy cut herself off. She couldn't. She - she couldn't. It was brains. She couldn't do brains.

Not even for this.

Amy looked down at the ground, biting her lip, feeling the gnawing guilt, every time she met someone who she could help, if she would just... do brains. Kids in comas, people who had major neurological damage. Strokes.

Mark.

And now - and now the Tranquil.

But I have to - I can't do brains. I can't! I could - She could do so much worse, become so much worse. She had to stick to her rules. She had to.

She had to.

...she had to...

And - and here was Avexis, out of fear of her power and - and what it could do and what she might do and - she'd made the kind of sacrifice Amy was always too afraid to make.

If I could be sure I'd never - if I could never - if it was the only way to make sure I never hurt Vicky, if I never... Amy would trade her powers away in a heartbeat, then, if it was possible, if there was a way to. It was the only way to be sure, completely sure, she'd never use her powers on her sister like that. To change her. To make her...

And if it meant losing all emotion? If it was the only way, the only way to protect her sister, protect everyone from what she could become? It - it would be awful and she'd - she'd make sure she healed Mark's depression before she did it, since she'd lose her powers afterwards and everyone would be safe from her but -

She'd do it. If it was possible and it was the only way and - Avexis's words made her wonder if - if at least... maybe choosing Tranquility almost - almost - made sense as a -

Like Cassandra said. Last resort. Evil. Terrible. Bad. But -

If there were no other options and - and - Avexis chose it, she didn't - it wasn't inflicted on her. But how much was the choice from being terrified into it, raised to be scared of her magic by a religion that hated mages?

And whatever else, it - it wasn't the same as with her. Avexis wasn't - this girl wasn't some monster waiting to happen, she didn't - she didn't get ideas, thoughts, horrible concepts forming in her mind, unbidden. She wasn't tempted to control dragons - like Amy had been with that Dragonling, and like Amy was now, just thinking about it! - and sic them on innocent people.

At least I'm not - I'm not thinking about that part... yet.

"I also remember my sleep being disturbed much by the dreams of dragons. A minor concern, but- Are you alright, Amy? You seem unwell?"

Amy blinked repeatedly and looked up again from the ground, letting out a shaky breath. "Sorry. I just - I had a - I - I'm fine. I'm fine. Just thought about something I shouldn't have." She forced herself to take another breath.

"My apologies if anything I said caused discomfort," Avexis offered, the bland, empty tone of hers undermining the apology to Amy's ears - it didn't exactly sound sincere. But then, she couldn't exactly be sincere.

Amy shook her head. It wasn't Avexis fault that she could and did make a choice Amy couldn't - wasn't able to make. There was no way for Amy to choose to lose her power. No way for her to act on the selfish impulse to protect Victoria - and it would be selfish, all those people she couldn't help but - but it was the only choice she could take, if it presented..

But it was selfish.

Amy forced herself to take another breath. Cassandra placed her hand on Amy's shoulder again and gently squeezed. Another breath, and Amy looked at Avexis, facing her, trying to avoid thinking too much about her blank expression. "It's - you didn't do anything wrong. I - I'd ask how you can be okay with losing emotions, or if you miss them, but I - I mean, you can't, can you?"

"Correct. I am incapable of missing my previous state." Avexis confirmed.

Amy exhaled. "That - I - I - it's hard to argue with your reasoning for asking for Tranquility," Amy hated to admit it, but it was true. Though maybe someone smarter, like her sister, or Carol, could have formed a real argument. "But it shouldn't be a thing. You shouldn't feel like you have to. How much of it is just the Chantry and the Circles teaching you to think a certain way around your magic? Tranquility is evil - even if it really is necessary, and I don't - I don't - I haven't accepted that, it doesn't mean it's not evil!"

"To inflict Tranquility on those who do not wish it is harmful and unjust, without value. But to prevent those who ask for it freely would seem to be harmful as well," Avexis reasoned. "I did not ask for magic, nor did I ask for a talent that could do so much harm." She went on.

I didn't ask for my power either. Amy hated how much everything Avexis said felt... familiar. How it made her rethinking things and put herself in the elf's shoes and try to imagine what she'd do if given the choice and -

Amy screwed her eyes shut and took a breath before she started remembering her trigger. Wishing she never had her powers always made her think back to that day. Whatever else, her powers had let her save her sister's life.

"...I..." Amy let out another breath. "I don't have anything to say to that, but I don't agree. Tranquility shouldn't be a thing. Harrowings shouldn't be a thing. You shouldn't imprison people just for being mages and treat them like that and - and - it's all wrong."

"It would certainly be preferable if we lived in a world where the Harrowings didn't serve a necessary purpose, but the danger an abomination can pose is great. Perhaps more can be done to prepare mages for their Harrowings, but possession by a demon is seen by most as a fate worse than death, and allowing innocents to die would also seem to be a poor choice. The needs of the many are greater than those of the few." Avexis argued back - well, 'argued'. Flat, bland voice as she constructed an argument that was -

Again, maybe if Amy was as smart as her sister, or a lawyer like Carol, Amy could push back. Maybe if she knew more about Thedas and how demons and magic and all that worked...

But she wasn't. She didn't. She couldn't.

Amy exhaled again and looked away. Avexis's argument that more people would suffer without Tranquility and Harrowings and all that shit was - maybe the risk of not doing those things was more evil. Maybe. Amy wasn't convinced. But even if it was true, something can be evil and still less evil than other options.

"Thank you for your time, Avexis," Cassandra said, verbally stepping into the silence.

"Yeah. Right. Uhm - thank you for - thanks for answering my questions," Amy said, flushing, feeling prompted by Cassandra's words.

"Of course. I appreciate being of assistance." She nodded to both of them and then returned to what Amy had to assume was some sort of shared housing for the Tranquil in Haven, closing the door behind her.

"As I said," Cassandra said as she turned away, "I will not defend Tranquility. It is... it is a cruel choice, but as a last resort, it can be necessary. And it is not as simple as you believed."

Amy followed Cassandra as they started heading for the tavern. "It's still simple," Amy countered, "It's still evil. Everything else, all the 'context' and - even if it is necessary, even if, it's still evil. It's evil and I hate that I can see Avexis's logic in what she was saying and why she picked it for herself and - but it shouldn't be a thing!"

"Perhaps it should not. But we do not live in the world that 'should' be." Cassandra pointed out.

"That doesn't mean you just accept things as they are!" Brockton Bay was a crime-ridden hellscape of a city, and - and Vicky didn't just accept that. New Wave didn't just accept that. Even the PRT didn't 'just accept' that, for all that they weren't doing enough. "Heroes don't accept the world as the way it is, they change things!"

"There is much about the world I do not accept, and I would hardly say I am not trying to change things, Amy." Cassandra pointed out. "As I said - present an alternative and I will take it. In the meantime... do you want to eat in the tavern, or -"

"No. God no," Amy said quickly. She didn't have the mental or emotional strength to be around so many people. She needed to be alone... and the last thing she wanted was to be alone. She needed to process everything that had happened today, the revelations, the emotional byblows, the - Leliana and Blackwall and Katerina and Varric and Cassandra and Josephine and Cullen and having to deal with people and then going to the clinic and - and fucking Vivienne.

And she also needed to not think. To just... avoid thinking, at least... avoid focusing on thinking. She needed to not be alone with her thoughts and -

But the tavern was definitely too much.

"Your cabin then. Do you mind if I join you tonight?" Cassandra asked.

"No, of course not," Amy assured her. Is this a pity thing? Don't let the fragile girl be alone? "But -"

"I have little patience for the tavern at the best of times, and tonight is not one of them. Endless circular arguments about the Mages and Templars and who to approach for help are..." she shook her head. "Justinia was the only one who could bridge the gap, and whoever we pick, we will alienate the other entirely. It is a choice that... I wish we didn't have to make."

Why were they more willing to make peace before the Conclave blew up and a giant hole opened up in the sky than after... fuck me if I know, but they're all stupid. Templars sucked, and their reason for rebelling was still stupid, but the Lord Seeker was still more directly open to helping and -

And Amy could see Cassandra's argument. Working together was more important. But -

"I suppose the Breach isn't going anywhere..." Amy muttered.

"The delays are still a problem. More reports and sightings of rifts are coming in every day. But we just... cannot agree on a choice," Cassandra shook her head. "Regardless. Let us get some food."

Food turned out to be more stew - it was pretty commonly what was on offer for dinner, and this stew seemed heavier on the vegetables than usual - and bread and hard cheese. No one said anything - apart from an attempt by Iron Bull to invite them to join him and some of his mercenaries - including Krem - for a drink and dinner, but Amy shook her head and Cassandra refused politely.

But they did get stares. Whispers. Murmurs. Amy couldn't make out more than the occasional word - 'Herald' and 'Tranquil' and 'Mage' and 'Mad' - but it was enough to guess people hadn't liked her display earlier. Of course they didn't.

Amy bit her lip and pulled her hood up over her face before accepting her bowl, bread and cheese from Cassandra, heading over to her cabin as quickly as they could without spilling anything.

Neither said anything until they'd gotten inside, sat down - Amy on her bed and Cassandra on the chair, turned to face her - and eaten a few spoonfuls of stew. It was... Amy had had better in Haven, but she was trying not to complain. This one did have something that kind of tasted and felt like dumplings, though they didn't have anything in them. Just dough.

"There is one more thing we should discuss," Cassandra said, her voice sounding... heavy. Like she didn't want to say this, but felt like she had to.

Amy braced, dropping her spoon into her bowl, the bread and cheese on her lap now ignored as she stared at Cassandra. "What is it?"

"I - I appreciate the day has been taxing, but given that you were upset no one mentioned Tranquility sooner..." Cassandra set her own bowl down on the table behind her, next to her bread and cheese. "If you read the scene with Karl, you read how Anders was able to momentarily restore his emotions?" Amy nodded.

"Have you gotten as far as the explanation of what happened, with the way Anders reacted strangely, glowing?" Amy shook her head. "The answer is the spirit he was possessed by - a spirit of Justice, though after years of being paired with him, it was corrupted into one of Vengeance, or so it would seem. Regardless... what Anders did, his spirit flaring like that, was temporary. However, shortly before the tensions in the wake of Kirkwall came to a head, a more permanent cure was discovered. If one could convince a spirit - or demon - to touch the mind of a Tranquil, the Rite could be reversed, and the mage would once more have both emotions, and magic."

Amy's mouth opened, then... nothing came out. She didn't even know what to say, or even how she felt. Relief, if nothing else, relief that by not breaking her brain rule to try and cure a Tranquil (could she? She hadn't touched one to find out), she wasn't actually - there was another option. Another way. Before she could figure out what to say or how she felt, Cassandra held up a hand, and Amy closed her mouth.

"It is not a simple thing. Pharamond, once his Tranquility was reversed, had poor control of his emotions, and seemed to be even more vulnerable to possession than a mage normally would be - I was not present for any of this, but this is reported by both sides. Pharamond had been tasked by the Divine herself to see if there was a way to make the Rite of Tranquility less harmful - remove magic or make one safe from possession without the other costs. He failed at that, but his research was a first step." Cassandra clenched her jaw a moment. "Lord Seeker Lambert, Lucius's predecessor, tried to suppress the discovery. He believed it could lead to another Kirkwall if word came out - instead, it only made things worse. Some argue that this discovery and Lambert's attempted suppression was the final spark that launched the rebellion. I think - I think the damage the events at Kirkwall did would have been enough, but this did move things faster."

"But it unquestionably contributed to Lambert withdrawing the Seekers and Templars from the Nevarran Accord and breaking with the Chantry. Divine Justina did what she could to stop Lambert's attempt to suppress-"

Amy spoke before she even realized she was, "No." Now it was her turn to hold up a hand. Cassandra went silent, and Amy was there, silent for a moment. She set her own bowl down on the sidetable, then her bread and cheese and rubbed at her temples. Her head hurt, it fell overstuffed and - her stomach was roiling, self-loathing and guilt and anger and confusion and so much else at war within her. She swallowed and then slowly took a breath.

"No." She said again. "No more... no more revelations. No more important information. I need - I need to process and - and even more than that, I need - I need to not have to think the rest of the night." Amy swallowed. "This - this is important and it sounds like there's more important to come with it but I - nothing else, for tonight, please?"

Cassandra nodded slowly, "I can understand that. Would you rather I leave?"

"No! I - I don't... I don't want to be alone to think yet. It - it would be easier to - to avoid thinking if I wasn't alone," Amy said quickly, feeling pathetic for admitting it, flushing, but - she -

It was true. And with Cassandra at least, Amy felt like admitting it wasn't... it wasn't the worst possible thing?

"Very well" Cassandra accepted Amy's implicit request. "What can I do to help you distract yourself?"

"I - I - I've figured out that Avexis and this... Regalyan guy and the thing with the Dragons were all linked, and I - if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine, but I - I'm curious about it all?" The whole incident seemed to be how Cassandra had gone from blaming all mages for her brother's death to her current positions...

It was also something that had happened a long time ago and since Amy was pretty much already entirely on the side of mages all things being equal it shouldn't - it shouldn't be a strain on her head.

She - she was also...

She did want to hear about the 'kill a dragon with another dragon' thing, she had to admit.

"It's no simple or light tale, Amy. And I am no storyteller like Varric." Cassandra warned her, grimacing.

"I just - I want to understand you better." And maybe understand why Cassandra's approval mattered to her so much. What about the other woman that made Amy so... so fucking determined to accept that little thread, that lifeline, Cassandra had offered her earlier. That lifeline to believing Cassandra was good, once more. A lifeline that shouldn't have been enough, but -

But it was, and Amy didn't understand why.

Cassandra's grimace softened. "Very well. This all occurred 19 years ago, a short time before a great festival due to happen in Val Royeaux... pilgrims from all over Thedas were coming, to celebrate the Chantry, and Andraste, and my mentor, Byron, received word that a cult of blood mages - led by a man named Frenic - had kidnapped a young elven girl from the White Spire..."

---

Author's Note: I am not going to, in this chapter or the next, summarize the entire events of Dawn of the Seeker. I do recommend people watch the movie, because it's good, but everything the reader needs to know has already been mentioned. I have gone into much detail at various points in this fic, because doing so helps advance Amy's story - having her learn certain things and react to them and how some revelations slowly force her to change her perspectives and so forth. But the story of Dawn of the Seeker, as relayed by Cassandra in some detail with interjections by and reactions from Amy would add several thousand words to the chapter that really wouldn't add much to the narrative or Amy's storyline or development, providing little to her that would change her perspective on much, overall, at this point.

I will summarize it here for you though, if you're curious.

Cassandra is a young Seeker, apprenticed to a man named Byron. She's even angrier than she is in Inquisition, and hates mages with a passion, blaming them all for the death of her brother. The Seekers fight a group of blood mages who have imprisoned a dragon, rescue Avexis and the leader of the Blood Mages escapes. Aldren, the then Lord Seeker (called 'High Seeker' in a bit of the movie's weirdness about a few canon details) reports on what happened to Divine Beatrix, and several of the Grand Clerics come for the big festival due to happen, including Callista, who is Beatrix's right hand. However, Aldren doesn't hand Avexis back to the Circle because the Seekers need to find out why she was targeted, what the blood mages are up to. Templar Knight-Commander Martel protests, but Aldren is unmoved.

Later, Cassandra catches Byron trying to sneak Avexis out of the Seeker's compound. Byron explains Avexis's ability to control wild beasts and that he believes there is a greater conspiracy at work. Unfortunately, Frenic attacks and Byron is killed and Avexis kidnapped. Cassandra meets the man Byron was planning to meet with, a Circle mage named Regalyan D'Marcall, who is handsome, charming and humorous, and Cassandra, hating mages, doesn't trust him. Unfortunately, the rest of the seekers catch up, Cassandra gets blamed for the loss of Avexis and maybe even Byron's death and Regalyan is chained up too. They escape so they can catch Frenic and find out what's going on, with a lot of team clenched teamwork and Regalyan trying to convince Cassandra that not all mages are evil, that many are like him, loyal and ready to fight blood mages if given the chance, and he's part of a network doing just that.

Beatrix hands the investigation into all this over to Knight-Commander Martel. Regalyan leads Cassandra to a safe house, but finds all the mages there dead (save one, who is dying) and they follow a lead elsewhere, while the First Enchanter of the White Spire sends more mages to find Cassandra, Regalyan and Avexis. More drama and adventure and then Cassandra is badly hurt and Regalyan uses magic to heal her. She reveals her backstory about her brother and they talk. A bit of bonding, etc.

Martel has an ancient elven magical stone that allows him to communicate with someone... and it turns out that someone is Frenic. They're working together for some reason, and he tells Frenic that Cassandra and Regalyan cannot make it back to Val Royeaux. Cassandra and Regalyan overhear all this but Martel does escape - they get the stone though.

They sneak into the Seeker's compound, tell Aldren all this, but Martel kills him and pins it on them. They are imprisoned, but those circle mages sent for them break the two of them out and it's revealed that Martel is working with Grand Cleric Callista to kill Beatrix and the rest of the leading Grand Clerics at the festival. Her motives are... never established, nor why she can't just wait for Beatrix to die and get elected (she is Beatrix's favorite), but I guess she's just power hungry. Frenic and Callista/Martel are clearly both using each other and planning to double-cross the other.

Together, Cassandra, Regalyan and the other mages make it to the big place in front of the White Spire where thousands are gathered and Beatrix and the Grand Clerics (minus a conveniently slipping away Callista) are on top of the spire. Then Frenic, using Avexis (who he has now secured control over, for the moment) summons a whole bunch of Dragons to attack the gathering. Drama and fighting ensues, Frenic willingly becomes possessed by a Pride Demon as a final fuck you to everyone, Cassandra kills a dragon with another Dragon, Callista and Martel both die. Frenic dies. Cassandra is named Hero of Orlais and Right Hand of the Divine, Regalyan is honored and promoted and then Cassandra kisses him on the cheek, and he blushes, and then there's a final scene where Beatrix hands Cassandra a book that looks suspiciously like the writ she uses in DAI to invoke the Inquisition (there is a fan theory that Beatrix first conceived of the idea of reestablishing the Inquisition, albeit on much different terms than Justinia seems to have, or how Cassansdra and Leliana ultimately did, but backed down out of fear of what could go wrong).

If you do the Cassandra romance in DAI, it is confirmed she would indeed go on to have a romantic (and presumably sexual) relationship with Regalyan, who died in the Conclave explosion - an Inquisitor who romances her is only the second relationship she's ever had.