My Warden (COMPLETED)

The Song

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She waited, her knees pressed against the chantry floor - harder than she remembered the stones in the circle tower. Andraste stood above her, frozen in veneration with her arms extended, the statue framed by the pea green sky. The Black City floated beyond her head, like a crown of ink dribbling evil in its wake. This was the fade, she was certain of that. It didn't take much to see the obvious fact. She walked into the fade -- well, fell into the fade thanks to the Inquisitor -- and never walked out. That, Lana was also certain of. Except...

Her palms broke and she stared up at the Lady's stone eyes. In the fade nothing was certain.

"I know you are here," she said aloud. "You've always been here -- watching me, waiting, hungering, needing. Hiding will not help either of us."

"You are ready to accept my help, my dear?" it oozed around her, the voice smothering the air around Lana until it snapped back to the spirit rising from the ground to match it.

"Help is a loaded word," Lana answered. She wished she could rise off her knees, but the energy in her body was drained, almost beyond touching. A light breeze could topple her over. "First, we talk, spirit."

"Of course, sweetness. Whatever you need," the spirit floated through the pews as if it didn't see them.

Lana dropped her head, her eyes sliding shut as she gathered her thoughts for this final confrontation. "It took me awhile to figure it out, and you did an amicable job of exhausting me so I couldn't think. Couldn't wonder... Why do I see things when I dream? And not just anything, but something specific, static, in a place I've never been. The fade doesn't work that way, doesn't create new, it only steals and repeated as spirits and demons do. How, how can I see something I've never known? Because...my dreams aren't the fade, they're the real world. The real world where my body is."

The spirit flared a white hot light, but didn't attack her. Instead it hovered aimlessly around in a circle, unable to gather a response to her realization.

"You've kept me trapped here, kept my mind pinned to the fade for, Maker, I have no idea how long. Days? Months? Years? Why?" Lana's eyes flared open and she glared at the floating wisp.

"To protect you, to keep you safe. To guard you from those that would hurt you."

"Why?" Lana repeated.

"For your sake, for your own good. If it weren't for me, the demons would have torn you to shreds, feasted upon you. I sacrificed so much to save you, because-because..."

A cold chuckle rolled through Lana's dry throat, "Demons I understand, their hierarchy -- Pride before Desire, then Despair, Rage, Hunger and so on, but spirits... You have a power that terrifies Jowan, that obliterates Nathaniel, and even sends Wynne packing. And you use it all to keep me here."

"I do it out of love," the spirit shrieked, its face blaring in boiling orange.

"Restraining someone is not love. Holding them against their will, against their choice is not love, spirit."

"You never spoke against it."

Lana slapped her hand against the stone ground, "You never gave me the option!"

Edges of the world faded, the bubble the spirit kept her preserved in wobbling as her brittle emotions surged through it. The spirit extended a finger towards it and clucked, "See what you've done, what you're making me do?" Lana tried to twist to follow but exhaustion tugged on her weary body and she plummeted. Cracking against the stone floor, her head bounced twice, the pain dulled from death creeping through her veins. It wouldn't be long now.