log/thread; asala + kaidan WHO: Asala Adaar, fake!Sera (&eventually Kaidan Alenko) WHEN: Saturday, May 30th WHERE: Asala's dreamscape, then Kaidan's WHAT: Asala steps through a disc to see what's on the other side, seeing as it's so rift-like, and walks into a dreamscape. On trying to escape, she walks into Kaidan's first. Note! What's under the cut is the first half, with the Kaidan/Asala stuff in the comments. I wanted to get this posted so I could post in the network. STATUS: Ongoing.
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Asala was destined to walk through whatever portal was set in front of her at some point.
Given that mysterious holes in reality were her forte, it was only right that she be the first to go through one on purpose and find out what the hell was going on. Armed with her staff and armored, just in case, Asala stepped through the portal that had appeared near her own apartment, leaving Sera outside to wait or grab extra help if she was there too long.
And inside was... Skyhold?
It looked exactly how she'd left it, right down to the soldiers idling about in the courtyard. As soon as one caught a glimpse of her, his face lit up.
"Inquisitor? ---Everyone, the Inquisitor's back!" He gestured to other people in the courtyard, all who stopped and stared, relief and excitement in their faces. When he turned back, he added, "We thought you might never return, Your Worship. It's so good to see you."
"You as well, soldier," Asala replied, her words coming slow and more than a little confused. Were they portals home? She turned back and saw the portal she'd stepped through had apparently disappeared. If she was to get back, it wasn't the way she'd come in. Not this time.
* * *
After what must have been hours, she was assured that it was real.
Her friends and advisors came to The Herald's Rest to welcome her home. Cullen and Sera told her about falling through nearby portals to get there, how horrible being away had been. Solas was still gone, probably returned to wherever he'd been stolen from. After a few drinks and some tales of what had happened in the months she'd been gone, Asala retired back to her chambers, stretching out on the wide Orlesian-style bed, grateful to be on a mattress long enough for her legs.
She heard the door open and close before Sera sprinted to the bed and hopped onto it, making it bounce. "Wasn't that grand? Everyone so happy to see us, all those free drinks. We should disappear more often." When Asala turned over onto her back, Sera crawled into her lap and pushed her down by her shoulders. "Now you should be happy to see me, Lady Herald."
As Sera leaned in for a kiss, Asala paused. "You don't think it's unnerving how easily we were taken away? How easy it was to get back?"
Sera sighed ad kissed her throat instead. "Not right now."
Asala gently pushed her back, taking note of the scrunched look on Sera's face. Sera would normally be losing her mind and criticizing Asala for not being upset enough. As soon as the suspicion properly set in, she realized:
No, this wasn't real at all, was it?
"You're not Sera."
Sera smiled uneasily. "Of course I am, Shiny."
"Get off of me." Asala pushed her away more forcefully this time and sat up, snatching her staff where it rested against the wall.
When 'Sera' hit the floor, she grimaced -- and then she changed shape, Sera's appearance melting away and revealing herself as a desire demon, female-appearing and bare breasted, eyes clouded, the horns sprouting from her head a slightly darker shade of purple than her skin. By the time she hovered and set herself upright, Asala was standing again, holding her staff defensively.
"This isn't real," Asala snapped, bitter and embarrassed. "How did you get here? We killed the only demon in this world."
"Did you?" The desire demon's voice was hollow and ethereal, echoing in a room that should have been too small to allow it. "Your anchor is like a beacon to us, Inquisitor. You opened the path when you came here. Surely you knew more would follow your light."
"That's not true." Maybe that was wishful thinking. It might have been. An augur in Stone-Bear Hold had told her as much, but taking a telepathic creature at face value was more stupid than even a dream could make her. "I would have found them. You slipped through, and now you're lying about how."
"I don't need to. You brought magic here. Now there are rifts because of it. But this doesn't have to be your fight, Inquisitor." The demon took a step closer and stopped when Asala took a warning shot at its feet, scorching the floor. "There is no way home. We don't want to be here, but we're as trapped as you are. But we can make a deal. You can stay here, living out the rest of the life you want, and I won't touch another soul. I swear it."
In response, Asala threw a handful of lightning at the demon's face. It shrieked and darted away, freezing the ground with ice magic in her stead. "I'm not alone!" it shouted. "Even if you kill me, I'm not---"
It never finished, its head crushed by the force of a Veilstrike. This can't have been real for that fight to have been so easy, but she didn't plan to complain.
Leaving her chambers, Asala made her way back to the courtyard, back to where the portal had dropped her off, and still found nothing. With the demon's death, the landscape around her was melting away to black stone and sickly green energy, like it had looked when she had entered at Adamant. There was a faint trace of the magic used to bring her there, but no opening, so Asala steeled herself and extended a hand to tear open a new portal, willing it to take her back to Mount Weather as she stepped through.