[sandbox] out of the abyss

[bringspeopletogether]

It starts as a shimmer out by the lake. Look at the water from the right angle, and the light glinting off it looks a bit...green. Sickly.

(Familiar, if you're from a certain time and place in Thedas.)

Look up some minutes later, and you can pinpoint the source: a thin, glowing ribbon uncoiling in the sky. It emerges slowly, but the more light it casts, the more momentum it gains, until it explodes outward with an enormous crack like lightning splintering the ground.

A much quieter thump follows as something hits the dirt.

Someone.

The glow vanishes; the person doesn't move for a long beat. (Get up, he's telling himself, get up -- ) He manages to drag his hands level with his shoulders, press down to bear himself upward an inch, look up at where he's landed.

Get. Up.

Another shove, and Alistair lurches to his feet, sword hauled from its scabbard and shield at the ready. His breath rattles, harsh against his throat, as he stares wild-eyed around the grounds.

Comments

[bringspeopletogether]

Only one word of that sentence lodges in his mind: Milliways.

They haven't done that in a while. Not that he can remember. It's always Adamant, Skyhold, occasionally his old Warden barracks. Sometimes it's even a camp somewhere in Ferelden, ten years ago; a soft insistence from his comrades that the last decade was just a bad dream.

So that explains why they've chosen Ysa's face this time.

"If you won't kill me, get off me," he snarls at Liranan. If his own voice sounds like he's done nothing but scream at the top of his lungs for two months straight...well, there are reasons for that.

[freedom_is_grey]

"Wait."

Liranan freezes, though he doesn't get off Alistair quite yet. He attacked Ysa! Until he is sure it will not happen again, Liranan will be within throat-ripping distance!

"Do you -- won't kill you? Do you want to die?"

What.

"Liranan, to me."

She stumbles back a few steps, herself. Because -- no.

[bringspeopletogether]

As soon as the dog-demon's off him, Alistair rolls to the side, one hand on the ground. It takes a few false starts before he gets to his hands and knees, picks up his sword, and hauls himself back to his feet. The tip of the sword drags in the grass; he can't lift it any higher.

And now the other demon's...retreating?

Desperate: "What do you want?"

[freedom_is_grey]

"Right now? To find out what did this to you and put it in the ground. If you haven't already."

She's prepared to storm the gates of wherever, if they have to.

"And then -- to help you? Because you're my friend and you are definitely not all right."

[bringspeopletogether]

"I don't believe you."

Sometimes, saying it aloud helps dispel the illusion quicker. Especially desire demons. (That must be what it is: what has he desired more lately than to break out of the Fade, and be helped, and know the trial's finally at an end?)

When he blinks, though, Ysa's still there, Liranan at her side.

[freedom_is_grey]

"Yes, well, that's actually very annoying right now but we'll work with what we've got."

Somehow.

But this Alistair, if he's the one that always comes here and isn't hers --

Since this isn't the Fade it won't be like the last time delusions happened. Will it? Can it?

"I've got more practice convincing people I'm not a maleficar than explaining I'm not a demon."

[bringspeopletogether]

Maker. It sounds so much like her. There's a vibrancy to the form it's adopted, uncountable tiny details woven together into something that looks more real than anything he's seen in...in a while.

Whatever this demon's game is, it's good.

And it's also enough to shake Alistair's resolve: just a little, just enough. He lowers his shield, his throat bobbing.

[freedom_is_grey]

Ysalwen lowers her own blade, and Liranan stops growling, though his hackles are still up.

"All right. That's -- something. Um."

Right. Now what?

[bringspeopletogether]

Maybe -- maybe if this is all he has to do, if they're not going to attack unless provoked, maybe he doesn't have to kill these particular demons. All he has to do is keep them distracted. That's still two less demons that Hawke and the Inquisitor will have to contend with as they make their escape.

(Surely they've escaped by now, part of him whispers. He swats it aside, like he's done so many times before.)

Softer, more hoarse, "What do you really want with me?"

[freedom_is_grey]

"Um."

This is at least moved a little from terrifying to awkward, which is also something. Ysa supposes, anyway.

"Where do you think you are? Can we start there?"

Wait, no.

"Wait, no. I take that back. What does any Grey Warden want with another? Honestly."

[bringspeopletogether]

His mouth twists. "I don't know anymore."

Beneath the utter exhaustion, there's a complex knot of...something Alistair doesn't have the heart to untangle. Not right now. One absolutely terrible thing at a time, thank you, and he does not have the capacity to mull over what he saw in the Inquisitor's memories.

"Right now this Grey Warden wants to get past that one -- " a halfhearted gesture with his sword, " -- and, if we're really being wild, get out of the Fade someday."

If it's a desire demon, Alistair figures he's not telling it anything it doesn't already know.

[freedom_is_grey]

Ah. Well, then.

"You've achieved that last part, so congratulations to you. What were you bloody doing in the Fade in the first place? Did another demon trap you like Sloth did? Or -- "

[bringspeopletogether]

He shakes his head, like the twitch of someone trying to shake off a fly.

Much as he wants to scream his frustration -- you already know this, stop -- the other internal directive wins out: keep its attention however necessary.

"The Inquisitor opened a rift as we were falling from Adamant," he says. "It was either that or die."

[freedom_is_grey]

Ysalwen blinks.

"I'm sorry, who?"

And --

"And what? What was anyone doing at Adamant? It's been abandoned for . . . a long time."

[bringspeopletogether]

Oh. Wonderful. This tactic again.

Fine, he'll keep playing along.

Alistair's eyes narrow. "What year is it?"

[freedom_is_grey]

"9:35 Dragon."

Ysalwen's answer has the promptness of someone who doesn't even have to think about it.

"Might I ask the same for you? If -- that's a concern. Time, I mean."

[bringspeopletogether]

...That is a little quicker than he expected. Especially since he's not entirely certain he remembered what year Ysa was from, last he saw her.

Cautiously: "9:41."

Screw it -- he can't hold his sword any longer, even half-resting in the grass like this. Alistair sheathes it, but keeps hold of his shield.

[freedom_is_grey]

"I don't think even Cullen is that far. Yet."

Or is he?

"What happened?"

[bringspeopletogether]

"I -- "

Alistair is suddenly very, very tired, all the way to his bones. It's more than mere physical exhaustion. He digs the heel of his free palm against one eye, then the other.

"You'll know when you get there. Suffice to say it's all shit. There's an Inquisition, that's the big part, I got banished from the Wardens, that's the other personal big part, but that doesn't matter any more because half the Wardens are in thrall to -- to all kinds of things, I can't even keep track anymore. At least the Calling shut up."

A lesser advantage to disposing of Nightmare, he supposes.

"And why are you still acting like you don't know this, for Andraste's sake? Maker."

[freedom_is_grey]

"For the same reason that I had no idea for years that Anders was going to blow up Kirkwall's chantry. Namely. I haven't lived it yet."

A breath.

"Fuck."

[bringspeopletogether]

Sighing heavily, Alistair tips his head back to regard the open sky.

Gradually, his focus sharpens. He doesn't turn his back on Ysa, but he lets her drift to the periphery of his vision as he scans the horizon, briefly consumed by another matter. He's clearly looking for something.

And just as clearly not finding it.

"It's gone."

[freedom_is_grey]

Ysalwen looks up, too, frowning.

"What's gone?"

[bringspeopletogether]

"The Black City," he whispers. "I can't -- "

He risks it, just for a moment: a glance over his shoulder and up, as if the city were lurking behind him.

(It isn't possible. Not that the city's gone; not that he made it out; Maker, what do I do -- )

[freedom_is_grey]

"If you were in the Fade, that would be true. But you're out. Not into Thedas, I'm sorry to say. But I should think we can find you a way back there, even if it's not exactly where you came in."

She still doesn't move forward, body tense and ears ringing just the slightest bit.

"Please. Just."

[bringspeopletogether]

If a demon were powerful enough, could it obscure the Black City?

It doesn't -- he doesn't know. It doesn't seem likely. And Ysa and Liranan are still standing there, fully realized, in a way his memories could only produce if he really did know her as well as the other Alistair. If a desire demon wanted to trick him into believing he'd found a way out, wouldn't it do something easier instead?

Maybe that's why it's doing it. So he'll think exactly what he's thinking right now. But he's so tired, and he just...

Carefully, Alistair lowers his shield to the ground. He means to straighten up after he does it; instead, he finds himself on one knee, palm on the grass, unable to get back up.