Entry tags:

!complete, garrett hawke, isabela, leliana, maxwell trevelyan (the inquisitor)

Who: Hawke, Trevelyan, Isabela & Leliana
What: Max stuffs them all into the Fade after demons become too much, and Hawke stays behind to ensure they get out
When: Today
Where: The Hanged Man
Rating/Warnings: Language, violence, feels
Status: Complete!

As soon as the Breach, also lovingly referred to as that asshole in the sky, opened up and began shitting demons out all across the land - in addition to the smaller rifts who the fuck knew where - Isabela was all about battening down the hatches. Hurrying to the Hanged Man, her and Hawke’s home (in more ways than one, where heart and soul resided and where they would soon lay their heads at night in the flat above), wearing her dueling leathers just sans the Admiral’s hat with dagger beauties strapped to her back and sheathed at her sides, she discovered the worst.

A rift there on the first floor, close to the bar, close to the shelves and shelves of liquor. All those bottles filled with multi-coloured liquid, their carefully crafted brews, the ale on tap. That disturbing green cloud didn’t exactly fit in with the decor, and she could see the flicker and crackle of the power it held - from that rift and around them, rising up from the ground, the demons had emerged. Shades, she thought, relatively easy to dispose of but there were just so many.

She’d called upon every rogue skill that was now a part of her. Whirling, twirling blades faster than the human eye could catch, attacks from a distance and attacks up close - one second here, and another behind the victim, an actual disappearing and reappearing act. Her Dagger of the Four Winds, enhanced by fire thanks to her magic-wielding husband, was plunged into the back of the last nasty creature - for now. It fell, slimy and oozing, and she half expected the residue to eat through their floorboards.

“The rift’s still here, Hawke - Trevelyan is coming, isn’t he?” she asked, sheathing her dagger once more, giving herself a bit of a break to twist from side to side and loosen tense muscles.

Balls, balls, balls. They’d known this would happen, Hawke wasn’t surprised in the slightest, but did this entire ordeal really have to give The Hanged Man its first vermin problem? It was their investment, so much sweat and coin (literal gold coin) had been put into its creation and look! Look at that blinding rip into the Fade in the middle of their bar, right beneath the bed they slept in. Threatening their merchandise and job and home. The nerve, the bloody goddamn nerve.

It wasn’t as if they were difficult to handle - between the crafty rogue and the spell-throwing mage, he and Isabela could handle themselves. Dog wasn’t with them today and instead remained with the twins. Should something happen, the noble warhound was on the frontlines of their defense and safety while they were doing their best to focus on their current conundrum.

“Soon,” the Champion confirmed, a twirl of his aurum staff before he strapped it back onto his back. He’d worn the silver-threaded Fugitive’s Mantle, a light armor which allowed easy movement - both it and the staff were his father’s, and Hawke was able to fit in it like a glove. “He’s with Leliana last I heard, and we’ve got a couple minutes before this acts up again.”

Dodging the piles of Fade-born goop on their flooring, he sauntered over to the back of the bar and picked out a bottle of Goldschläger. Swiss cinnamon schnapps that went down like fire mixed with literal gold, and he plucked the top open for a swig.

What? He was resting.

Isabela wanted something with a burn - something all sugar, and spice, and fucking everything nice. It was why she twisted the cap off a bottle of dark rum, true to her pirate roots. Molasses, vanilla, fire, a little bit of butterscotch - she didn’t just sip, she was full out taking swigs. “Bloody fantastic,” she drawled, slamming the glass bottle down onto the bar top and leaning on it to undo the knot in her handkerchief, the red one which held her hair away from her face.

It was adjusted, re-tied, and she also stopped to adjust her leather top (of which her tits were spilling out of, but at least she was wearing trousers - you had to hand it to her). “And of course the fucking Breach is over Wal-Mart. Evil pit of batshit insanity that it is.”

Though speak of the devil and he appears - or the Inquisitor, clad in his light, battlemage armor with the Staff of Corruption attached to him. His left hand was dormant for the moment, but he just looked tired - didn’t matter though, he was here to do what needed to be done. Sleep would come some other time.

“I’m - “ Max looked around, then back at Leliana, who had come with him. He could always count on her. “Really sorry.”

Of course Nightingale would come. Perhaps it wasn’t the Inquisition she and Cassandra had co-founded in the dreams, but it was a ghost of one with the exact purpose - stop the threat that was the breach of the Veil, and make sure the world remained whole. It was the one time she was able to wear her Spymaster garbs in its entirety, with its lavender fabrics and light chainmail armor, leather pauldrons and textured hood over the reddened hair. The recurve and abundance of arrows were on her back, and the rogue knives she had were hidden in her metal greaves.

“Nothing is broken or burnt,” Leliana commented, impressed. “You two are being careful, I take it.”

Hawke casually waved, plopping the glass container onto the bar top. Good to see them, very good - especially Trevelyan, whom would be the savior in the room in closing this awful thing so he could help keep his tavern and damn home in tact. “Apologies unnecessary, mate,” he sighed and if on cue, the rift flared. A pulse of sizzling energy that signified the next wave was making its debut, and Garrett circled back around with a readied staff. “Just close this thing, and we can move on to the next. I believe in you.”


Look, the mage even made a kissy face at him. So appropriate in the face of danger was the Champion of Kirkwall, maturity level below the age of five.

“Yes, we,” Isabela chimed in, readying her daggers - because she knew how these things worked. The rift would vomit more nasties in a wave, before it could be closed entirely. And she didn’t want to be caught off guard. She also knew that this wasn’t the only rift she and Hawke would help close - Trevelyan needed backup, and she refused to simply sit on her bum while he took care of all the hard work.

Besides, it was sort of fun taking out her aggression on shitty things that deserved it.

Max nodded. “I’ve got it,” he promised, and faced the rift. Palm out, fingers flexed, he was jerked forward as the connection between the mark and the gathering tornado solidified and kept him in place. It felt, and sounded, like an electrical storm - and the image was bright green lightning, flashes of it like a disco ball in the Hanged Man as he worked to charge up the juice.

But it wasn’t like jack shit happened when the rift was being closed. Then, those demons popped out - they phased in, rather, creatures that were all bones with light where marrow should be. They looked ghastly and ghostly, terror demons that had literally appeared out of thin air.

“Blood and damnation,” hissed the Spymaster under her breath, eyes tightened and the bow aligned with an arrow ready to fire. That was not good. Shades and wraiths, combined, were irritating yet simple to eradicate - but these? Leliana recalled them with some frustration due to their particular brand of difficulty, and they came into existence with a screeching howl that hit her heart like needles dipped in horror. “Apologies necessary, then, because these will require more a little more power to kill.”

Hawke didn’t want to succumb to the possible reality that The Hanged Man might receive some collateral damage from all this, but it seemed like it was in the cards for them. Again, balls. “Keep with the closing, Trevelyan, we’ve got you,” he snarled, the tip of his stave used to slice into the scar that was embedded in his palm; blood spilled to add that extra fuel to his magic. An enchantment first for the two with the more physical weapons - he’d make sure to cast the powers of the elements on Bela’s daggers and Nightingale’s arrows.

A little blood magic to throw into the mix, why not? It’d help collect the telekinetic forces, a literal maelstrom of them with his staff being the epicenter of it ready to burst rather soon. Let the good times roll.

“Power we can handle,” Isabela grinned madly, and she recognised these - a kind of terror demon, meant to invoke fear in their targets. Well, it wasn’t going to work with her, she was pumped up and ready to go - even as she felt the effects of their presence settle over her like a suffocating, black shroud. Her daggers were all fire and electricity, sparking with lightning and crackling with flames as she alternated between the ones she used, zipping in and out of the fray, getting those crucial up-close attacks in while avoiding the ranged ones from Leliana’s arrows.

In the back of her mind, she also registered the sounds of wood splintering, of bodies hitting the floor - but as long as these fuckers kept away from the alcohol? Bela would be mostly happy. Balls to the idea of extensive collateral damage.

“There are so bloody many!” she called over the fray, and the sparking and sizzling of the rift seemingly resisting its ultimate closing. Or maybe it wasn’t that there were many, it was just that they did require more effort.

“Get ready for even more!” That was a warning from Max; he felt bathed in the green glow, and he knew that the worst of it wasn’t over.

Leliana’s recurve and feathered bows were aligned with ice that burned with every strike - the Hanged Man didn’t allow for much mobility but her movements were light, like a poetic dance even, echoes of that Orlesian bard training. Every shot was a zing in the air, targets hit, adding to the damage piling up along with the mage and rogue’s. But her area of cover was mostly around the rift-sealing Inquisitor, to make sure the stream from his hand to the green portal wasn’t interrupted.

“More?” A brief glimpse to the pulsing mini-hole in space. Her teeth curled back into a scowl. “More would overrun this place, it’ll be in shambles by the time we’re done!”

Ohhhh, Maker’s mantits, that was comforting. Hawke’s brows knitted at the center, pausing at the spell-flinging from his Andraste-tipped staff. “Bela - do you remember how good our insurance was when it came to this?” Amplified by the spill of his own blood, trickling from the palm, he thrust his hand forward for magic-weaving not from his stave. Instead a symbol flared with light in the floor, power of the Fade, and the maelstrom of energy began to swirl and drag those bloody shits to the center and slow into a crawl. “You know, comfort me while our work of sweat and tears turns into a pile of splinters.”

“Very good, love, I promise, we’re covered in case of accidental incidents of demon shite - probably helped that we’re married, we got a really great rate, see? Aren’t you glad I suggested the blessed by Elvis union?” Isabela huffed, pausing only briefly to crack her neck, tossing her dagger from one hand to the other and flexing her fingers - if she was to gear up for another round, she needed to be ready.

The idea of the Hanged Man being rendered a pile of rubble made Max’s stomach turn over. He was already caught in the grip of this fucking rift, having to open it wider to charge it up with enough juice in order to eventually end it, but knowing that this was all because of him - no, was determined to do something. Something better, something potentially dangerous - but it could also keep the building intact, a swift yet risky finish, so he had to take that risk. “Hang on!” he told the others, and he knew he was sort of a non-believer, never having really put stock into that whole Herald idea, but he at least took a moment to call upon something, anything, Maker help them because really.

The mark on his hand now sufficiently charged, he extended his reach and opened a pocket to the Fade, beneath the very epicenter of the hurricane where Hawke had herded the Terror demons. They were sucked in, dirt up into a vacuum, with sweat dripping into the Inquisitor’s eyes - power and that old, godly magic zinged up and down his arm, making it practically come alive with a mind of its own. Not good, not good -

That mini-rift to the Fade, finally sealed itself shut - after dragging not only the demons in, but the rest of the occupants of the Hanged Man too.

Oh, for the love of it all, no. Fuck no.

Hadn’t they said to avoid this kind of situation? Ah, how was it that Isabela had put it? ‘Don’t open a new asshole in the Fade and stuff us all in it’? Something of that sort, and, really, Hawke had to let out all the colors of the bloody rainbow in a lovely string of vulgarity while the ground beneath them melted and turned into air - everything around them warping into this dreamlike state, an ethereal plane of thoughts and dreams and spirits.

Jagged, dark mountains and castles and structures seemed to come from the skies. Everything that was up was down, everything that was down was up, and their sight was tainted in that murky green. Vomit green. Amelia’s poops-green.

All of a sudden it smelled like a baby’s dirty diaper. At least to Hawke.

Leliana hadn’t landed gracefully, but she had her wits about her despite their, ah, current conundrum. “Everyone alright?” Best to confirm the headcount before they started spouting prayers about this undesired predicament.

“Didn’t we agree to avoid this exact situation?” The Champion groaned, face-first into some Fade dirt.

Isabela, despite feeling like she’d ingested ‘shrooms and fell into another dimension (well, technically she really had, and wasn’t that grand?), landed somewhat gracefully on that nicely padded bum of hers - which did not jiggle, despite what her other half thought. “Fine over here! Oh, but fuck this up the fucking arse,” she spat, literally, a mouthful of dirt - and when she took a breath, it reeked. As if the air was comprised of nothing but angry demon farts, and that’s what they were breathing in.

That green colour too. There was nothing pretty about puce or whatever the fuck this was. Absolutely nothing.

“How do we get out of here?” was the first thing the pirate asked, standing up to dust herself off, offering assistance to Hawke, a hand held out, while Trevelyan went to help Leliana.

Getting out of here was indeed the goal of the minute, shall we say. “We find here, in the Fade, where the rift corresponded in the Hanged Man - there should be an exit in that spot,” the Inquisitor said. Hopefully an exit not blocked by something terrifying, but he had a feeling that Fearlings wouldn’t be so kind as to leave them alone.

“Fine, let’s go,” Bela decided. “And hold hands with my husband - if you let go this time, I’m stabbing you in the testicles.”

Sounded rather simple, no? Which only meant that they had quite the storm to weather on their journey out of here, alas. Leliana gave the Inquisitor an appreciative nod as he helped bring her back to her feet and, quickly, she recounted the remainder of her arrows. Push comes to shove, she’d whip out the knives and join Isabela on her stabbing crusade.

Then she let her eyes take a good look around, mostly to assess their surroundings. “Here lies the abyss, the well of all souls,” she murmured. From the Canticle of Andraste in the Chant of Light - how else to truly describe where they were at? “From these emerald waters doth life begin anew.”

Oh, hell. There starts the Andraste-isms. Hawke swiped his wrist across his brow to rid himself of the sweat that had collected and carried on. “You know your hands are much softer,” he pointed out to his beloved wife. “Or I can just hold onto your jiggly arse this entire trip. Maker knows I’ll never let that go, not in the face of danger. Either our noble Inquisitor or Scary Bird can take one for the team if something happens.”

Scary Bird. Honestly. “Varric was much better at picking nicknames for the group,” Scary Bird Nightingale huffed a little.

“Alright, alright - “ Max didn’t want any tiffs amongst the group, but ending up here hadn’t been on the agenda and he didn’t blame the others for being on edge. The sooner they found their way out of the Fade, the better. “This way, just keep together - human chain,” he advised, taking the lead and reaching behind him to remove the Staff of Corruption from its holding, flipping the weapon over his shoulder to have at the ready.

Everything was so twisted - literally, it was, an Alice in Wonderland acid trip down the rabbit hole and a mind trick that could easily cost your life. The landscape looked hazy, no matter how many times you blinked - one thousand flutters of lashes later, and you still wouldn’t be able to clear the puke green from your vision. Up ahead, he thought he could make out structures that made sense, a cloudy-looking version of The Hanged Man, for one - so that’s the direction Trevelyan would head in. If they could just get inside, they’d find their way and they’d be back in the waking realm where they belonged.

Isabela trusted nothing here - she’d been tricked by Fade demons before, and she knew this wasn’t going to be smooth sailing. “If you say the word ‘jiggly’ one more time, you troll - “ She turned her dagger on Hawke, like she was prepared to lob it at his face but then, walking backward, keen golden eyes caught sight of something else. “Fuck it all, a spider!”

No, she wasn’t kidding either.

Hawke wasn’t going to treat it as a joke, either - because one, their location, and two, spiders. On the heels of silverite boots he spun, digging into the ethereal dirt, and pulled his father’s staff from it’s hold on his back to unleash a bolt of flames towards the eight-legged silhouette because how else would you deal with those buggers?

Kill it. With fire. And, perhaps, the renowned Champion of Kirkwall had to suppress a very unmanly sound of terror at the sight but that was utterly and completely irrelevant. He was Big Strong Man, this place be damned.

“I remember these from the reports,” Leliana seethed, bow drawn and arrow equipped, still emitting an enchanted frost from the mage’s spell - it had sustained, even through their tumble of dimensions. Yet these creatures didn’t look like spiders to her, no. Cassandra had described hers as maggots when they’d discussed it, Trevelyan’s were spiders (why were two of the most influential people in Thedosian history arachnophobes?), and she saw them as the undead. A curious thing to reflect about much, much later.

The projectile sung through the air and hit the next one, and it let out a shattering shriek.

Sounds of the Fearling shrieking were almost as impressive as Hawke’s sound of manly surprise (and Trevelyan didn’t scream, but he definitely felt a full-out body shudder ripple through him and he also internally sobbed and maybe wanted a good cuddle). What was equally impressive was the barrage of hits this thing took, and others. By now he and his compatriots seemed to have developed a good system - Max would cover the ones closer to the heart of the battle with a barrier (that was mainly Isabela), and chose to call upon the elements to aid in this fight.

Which, yes, did mean fire. And lots of it. Flames shot from the weapon he used to channel his magic, fancy twists and spins and dodging attacks - it was a dance, the whole thing, now he just had to keep up with dancing toward the exit.

“This way! Just up ahead,” he told the others, as they rounded a corner, with a brief moment to actually breathe. Please, let them just get out of here without further incident.

It was in sight, the bloody exit - just keep moving, keep blasting these wretched things. Arrow after arrow, spell after spell, every strike of a dagger that’d impale the personifications of what rattled them to the bone. It didn’t seem all that difficult, in retrospect, despite the unnerving confrontations with them that tugged at them, except -

There was something else there, you see. Not visible yet but it was all around them, part of them, drawn from the terrors within every single person. From each mage to each rogue, and filling their ears was the deepest rumbles of a chuckle from something purely sinister.

“You’ve got no one to blame but yourself, Inquisitor,” came the voice, every word slowly annunciated, dripping in the deadliest venom. There was no face revealed but, Maker, was it his speech that caused the ground beneath them to tremble or his mere presence? “You brought this upon your home. You brought your friends here, knowing what it would cost. You can’t stop this, not before the damage is done.”

There wasn’t anymore moving, not from Hawke, who tried to make out what the Andraste’s twatflaps was even talking to them. “Well, that’s rude. Mommy never loved you enough so you have to go pissing on everyone else’s parade?”

“Amusing,” It replied. “Especially coming from the one who let his mother die.”

“Stop. Leave him alone - leave them alone.” Trevelyan knew what it was, and he could feel its presence seeping in through his pores, all that hate, all those nightmares in the flesh - because that’s exactly what it was, the fucking demon that was responsible for turning the Grey Wardens into playthings. The entity in league with Corypheus himself, who had pulled the puppet strings - the conductor, truly an apt meaning to his name in ancient Tevene, because he’d done his fair share of orchestrating destruction before being taken out.

Another chuckle, and a sigh, something that felt blustery, the room closing in on them. Fear, secrets pulled from the depths of a person’s psyche, it was always such effective fuel, wasn’t it? “Leave your broken dolls alone, you mean? Are they expendable to you? Look who isn’t by your side anymore - afraid that he never truly loved you? Afraid that no one ever will?”

Isabela huffed, lip curling in disgust. “Ooooh, big scary bloody demon! Why don’t you go sit on a cactus somewhere else?”

“Such vitriol, from the pirate. A disappointing pirate, a Nightingale who has lost her voice. Both of you will just end up alone later, rotten to the core you are, why not get an early start?”

It was working, whatever the demon was doing was working, and Trevelyan felt the barbs more than he wished he would - he shuddered, grip on his staff white-knuckled. But that anger was building, churning within him like a hurricane gaining momentum. And then with a frustrated, tired of it all yell, it exploded - the Spirit magic burst, mind blast an effect that sent wild magic and willpower every which way.

The Nightmare demon, now pieces of one whole, would soon reform - they had to get to the exit, and fast.

Alas, it wasn’t dead. It wouldn’t ever die. That evil pissant from the depths of the Fade was fueled by collective fear and doubts, guilt and insecurities; a maelstrom of it that had taken form into an impressive vision of monstrosity. In the wake of Trevelyan’s outburst, there was brief stillness that brought Hawke clarity. Pieces of the puzzle coming together, because he knew this was only the beginning, and he knew that demon was it - it was his undoing by choice, and now more than ever he understood the decision he’d made.

“It’ll follow us out, wouldn’t it,” he sighed, swinging his staff around with almost carefree nonchalance. Like they weren’t trapped in the belly of the beast. “Break out of the rift right before you’d even close it, run amuck, destroy my tavern.”

Valid points, ones which Leliana didn’t want to agree with. Her arrows were spent, and the next ones she’d grip would be the hilts of the Orlesian daggers hidden on her person - but something told her they’d perhaps be more helpful making sure Bela wasn’t going to let her fists fly with what the Champion was possibly insinuating. Mouth as dry as the desert, she former bard swallowed the knot in her throat.

Hawke cracked his neck and gave his father’s staff another twirl, right before the tip of the Andraste pointed to Trevelyan. “You. Make sure you lot get out. I’ll give you enough time to close the rift. Not so much pressure this time around, Inquisitor. Cross my heart.”

“Are you mad?!” Bela screeched, and no, no. Absolutely not - she wasn’’t going to bloody leave, not right now, not like this. It was exactly what she’d been afraid of, and maybe that annoying demon was right - her worst, prickly fear was that she’d end up alone, because she really was a shit, and what kind of a wife just let her other half do something like this?

She reached for Hawke, hands curling on his armor, at his chest - gripping onto something, anything. They’d have to pry her, cold and dead, away from him at this point. Trevelyan didn’t look like he wanted to go along with the plan either.

“I can’t,” he shook his head. “I can’t just go! I’ll stay with you, Hawke. We can fight it together.” It wasn’t the smartest plan, but he didn’t care - they weren’t expendable to him. This was family - the way the Inquisition had been before, that group of oddballs who came together and were exactly what he’d needed. They’d been his whole world for so many years, and they were his world now. Garrett would have to blast them out, probably, if they were meant to go.

Garrett would blast them out if need be. Their time wasn’t limitless, a decision needed to be settled on now, and he brought Bela in close and tightly wound in his arms as his chin propped atop of her head. “This is what happened, didn’t it? In the fortress? Trevelyan, you know you can’t let that thing out - it’ll either kill us all here, or it’ll burst out of the Fade before you can close the rift and ruin us there. Your role is to close these things, and this is mine.”

None of that typical jovial tone this time around. It was now or never, and quickly the dreadful sound of a monstrous and mocking laugh filled their ears. A silhouette of something with too many legs and too many eyes forming behind them in a size that meant trouble; its threat was right in their horizon as energy crackled. Electric shocks of split the air, the dirt beneath them coming up in a windstorm.

“And you -” This was directed to his pirate, whose chin he raised with the grip of his hand. “Don’t think I’ll roll over and die. I’m buying you time. I’ll find my way out, somehow.” It wasn’t a promise but, hell, he’d treat it as one. Hawke kissed her forehead, kissed her nose, her mouth, then brought her knuckles to his mouth. There was a hint of a grin midst that beard and his dimples showed. “Safe harbors, love.”

It was a decision Leliana was all too familiar with, and it was why she could accept the terms - she’d died in an alternate timeline so the Inquisitor and Dorian could hop back into the time stream and to the present. Death was all that version of events brought, but if there was a chance Hawke could actually make it out? “If there’s a way out, a mage can pull it off.” It couldn’t be anyone else that could volunteer and hope to live, and she curved her hand over Trevelyan’s shoulder. “We need to move. You know we do. Just trust him as we trust you.”

Isabela was terrified - she didn’t want to let go, but somehow, her fingers unclenched and she found a way for her feet to move. “I love you,” she tried not to blubber, but a tear or two dripped down her cheeks and splattered the very last moment as the connection between them was broken entirely, hands separating. “You fucking idiot, I love you.”

Those eyes, and ears, Trevelyan could feel the weight of that demonic presence - and as much as he wanted to protest, the decision had been made. They had no time to fight it, there was only time to do what was right. “I’m so sorry,” his shoulders straightened, but internally he was crumbling - it was his fault, he’d opened the rift to bring them here in some attempt to save the Hanged Man, which was so much more than a building. And now the consequences were being paid - being the Inquisitor, it was all about consequences. “I’m sorry - “

The trip out was a blur, no one wanting to witness any potential splatter of blood or hear any screams.

And that rift was still crackling, when they spilled into the Hanged Man of the waking realm. Immediately, Trevelyan worked to close it, to seal it shut with a surge of power. The entire place lit up in a blinding flash, the lightning sizzling out when the opening was finally, finally no more - he’d ensured nothing else came through, no chance of anything following. Hawke, on his end, had sacrificed to grant them that.

It was quiet, Trevelyan went to stand by Leliana, as Isabela examined the spot in the hardwood floor where the rift had been - she clawed at it, with nails that broke and chipped because of the force. “Garrett!” He couldn’t hear her, but she didn’t know what else to do - why wasn’t he out yet? His name called over and over, and then she just started making these dying animal sounds - no one could classify it as crying, really, or sobbing. But it was the sound of everything falling apart, of looking into the abyss and seeing nothing looking back.

He loved his sassy rogue too, he did; more than anything else and life itself. Hawke would do it all to make sure his favorite jiggly bum made it the hell out of here, so when it was time to spin around and face the arachnid mutation of fears and doubts (how did he know his possible undoing would look like a spider?), he did it with a song in his heart and blood on his hands.

With a big hairy bollocks to his bullshit mindrape, too. Arsecockle.

Leliana had wanted to spare a glance over her shoulder. Masochism, perhaps, or a potentially last look to the Champion of Kirkwall. Stroud hadn’t made it when he chose to stay behind, and in Trevelyan’s everything was reversed and Hawke paid the price in his place - but there was never a word of whether or not he somehow made it back. Or if he was condemned to be a living being among a world of spirits, who knew with mages.

But in the end, she didn’t, and when everything came back to normal - the world of the living and solid and reality, with no blinding vortex threatening them from above - her powdery blue eyes were fixated on Isabela. And they glistened, tear-filled at what could be a permanent thing.

“Give it time,” Nightingale choked and wrapped her arms around her friend, unable to just stand there and do nothing. “Give it time, Bela, it’s not overyet.” Hope wasn’t a flame that burned within her in recent times but she couldn’t fathom to believe that this would have all made the pirate queen a widow. There was still a chance, wasn’t there? There had to be.

Trevelyan stepped closer too, at first wanting to give Isabela space - but the sight of her, having as close to a breakdown as he’d ever seen, was too much. He knelt and added his own embrace to the pile, with both her and Leliana there, and he found that he needed the contact just as much.

“I believed he made it out. I believed it then, and I believe it now,” the Inquisitor spoke in a quiet, yet resolute tone. “He wasn’t afraid to leap into the abyss.”

Normally, Bela wouldn’t be so touchy-feely but she was just...overwhelmed. And tired, and falling apart, and half of her even couldn’t believe this was happening. “I’m not going anywhere until he comes back - “ Which could mean spending days and weeks on the floor with rotting demon carcasses, but she wasn’t thinking of that now.

It wouldn’t take weeks, it wouldn’t even take days, for one thing. Nightingale was correct when she had said it wasn’t over - like a drop in primordial waters, there was a ripple in the air. A subtle wavelet that spread and pulsed similar to a heartbeat, and it built and built and until the air around them cracked. Something in the Veil snapped and tore, and across the tavern, against the farthest wall was a split in dimensions - a slice between worlds.

And Hawke came out like a wrecking ball.

Literally, he pummeled from one realm to the next in an explosion of scintillating, glorious emerald light meant to shine on a deity. Blood stained the mage for various reasons; his magic, from his wounds, but he breathed in the scent of this world in a desperate gasp for air.

He lost momentum when he ungracefully hit the ground, sliding on his back with spasming limbs that pointed towards what seemed like it was shaped like the Fade’s own twat. “Close it!” Garrett’s throat was ravaged by coughs quickly after, streaks of crimson on the wooden floor, but the bearded fucker was very much alive. Kicking, too. “NOW!”

Balls, talk about giving people a fucking heart attack and stroke at the same time. The sound that tear-streaked, disheveled, and frantic Isabela made was something akin to every nautical swear word ever, plus a yelp that could either be interpreted as pain or pleasure - or desire to break her husband’s nose for making her worry, but he was caked in gore, he’d probably been through enough.

That one static moment in time and space had indeed shattered, and chaos erupted - but not for long. Because Max was quick about nearly dislocating his arm from its socket to thrust at the newest rift - he put all he had into it, all that was left, tearing it asunder just enough and then just about bursting a blood vessel or two in order to slam it shut.

A few more crackling snaps and pops, then it was over.

They all looked like shit run over twice, and Max attempted to heft himself up from his hands and knees. “Can we - “ cough, splutter, “...can we agree never to do that again? Like, for real this time?”

He summoned his last well of energy to call upon healing spirits, casting Revival on Hawke - those spirits faded in and circled him, providing life force and rejuvenation, closing wounds, erasing pain. There were still a few more rifts elsewhere to take care of, but Andraste’s tits, the Inquisitor needed a minute.

Leliana hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath the entire time up until that last one was closed. It all had happened in the blink of an eye anyway, because first they were comforting Bela in Hawke’s absence and then he was here and just like that, it was over. At least for the Hanged Man. “I can certainly get behind that,” she sighed, heavily, and fell back to her elbows on the floor while she let all that dread expel and replace it with the weight of relief.

Using blood magic in the Fade, that was an almost doom-sentence when it came to opening oneself up to possession but, fuck, how else was he supposed to even get out? Alive? Half the injuries healed by the Inquisitor’s spell was self-inflicted - he needed the extra fuel, the oomph to successfully pull it off.

Hawke wasn’t moving from the floor while the magic coursed through him, sealing up the lacerations and revitalizing him, but his hand at least did a wave in Isabela’s general direction.

“I love you too, you know.” He hadn’t said it when they parted ways but now was a good time, wasn’t it?

“You bloody better, you stubborn ox of a man!” Isabela snapped, but that was her way of saying she was so relieved. Really. And that she loved him - because she did, in fact, she wouldn’t cut his balls off today. Shifting closer, she moved to cradle his head in her lap while the magic did its job, and she just looked around at all the complete and utter mess.

Ugh. But at least the building was still standing. And minus the corpses everywhere, didn’t look horribly damaged.

Max could help with those corpses, at least. “I’ll take care of the clean up later,” he promised. “I owe you that much. Everyone else can go and rest, it’s been well-earned by now.” He felt like he owed a lot of things, but would start with restoring this place to its medieval glory again.

Garrett didn’t take offense in the slightest. He’d known Isabela’s brand of love in both lifetimes, and he was merely glad he’d gotten out of there so she could snap at him for the rest of their lives. “I don’t know, Trevelyan,” he chuckled, hands folded over his stomach. “I think the broken things make it look more like the Hanged Man? I knew it was missing something. And it was missing the destruction of a fight.”

“Ah, not so much the demon gunk, I imagine?” Leliana climbed back onto her feet and pulled the cowl from her head. It did look like a scene right out of Kirkwall. Minus the electricity, or the plumbing. Regardless, she was relieved with how things wrapped up and took her spot at Trevelyan’s side. “You need to rest, too. Food and a nap? You need to replenish for the rest.”

Mama Nightingale. It was a mode of hers sometimes.

Food and a nap didn’t sound so bad. Trevelyan was exhausted, and his stomach was snarling with hunger - he’d just forgotten to eat, given the rush of adrenaline and fear and everything else involved in all this. “Food and a mini nap,” he agreed to at Mama Nightingale’s behest, because while he supposed he did need to replenish, he didn’t want to be conked out for hours. Not like this dreams would give him a break anyway. “I’ll come back in a bit, to get this place spic and span - it’ll retain its charm, I’m sure, even when the demon corpses are taken care of.”

They’d won this battle, but the war in general? It was far from over.