Night
Title: Night
Fandom: Dragon Age
Rating: PG-13, slightly violent bits, insanity
Characters: Ciprian Amell, Leliana
Summary: M!Amell never thought things would end this way. Sometimes, between screams and the laughter of the man next door, he wonders what has happened to the rest of them. Possible implied M!Amell/Leliana.
Note: Done for the dao_challenge lightning round, prompt Night.
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The site was left structurally sound but spiritually damaged. Possibly because of this, the Chantry chose to put it to use as a prison. Accused maleficarum and apostates are held in the confines of Aeonar. Those who have a powerful connection to the Fade, and particularly to demons, will inevitably attract something across the Veil, making the guilty somewhat easier to tell from the innocent.
--From Of Fires, Circles, and Templars: A History of Magic in the Chantry, by Sister Petrine, Chantry scholar.
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He spent the first night screaming.
-
He never thought things would end this way. He’d been a Grey Warden, the Warden-Commander of Ferelden. Now, he’s just another among the poor, screaming insane locked away in Aeonar.
He cannot remember what it is to live without nightmares, without the whispers pressing against his skull, begging for him to giveingiveingivein, wanting to see through his eyes, to speak with his lips and to smile and to stretch flesh, blood, bone and break.
He doesn’t know why he doesn’t give in. He curls up in a ball in a corner of his cell, thinking of Irving and clinging on to the Chantry’s teachings among everything. Some of them here are possessed, he suspects. Abominations.
He is too tired to shiver at the thought, and too innured to seeing abominations. Killing a whole Tower full of them will do it to a person. The Templars here are among the Chantry’s best and most ruthless, and sometimes, his weary mind sticks dead faces on the blank helments of his jailers. It could even be Cullen, his mind whispers, Cullen staring at him with such fury through the eyeslits of his helmet, because he hadn’t and couldn’t have been strong enough to call the Right of Annulment down on the whole Circle.
After one week of short sleep, he can’t tell the difference between what is real and what is just a dream, another figment of his imagination. Maybe Aeonar isn’t real, and maybe it is the walls that are a figment of his imagination.
There is no magic here, in Aeonar.
After the first week, he doesn’t think he could even summon a small spark.
The marks he draws on the walls stop after the first week, and he adds to them only fitfully. This is time: there is only before Aeonar, and after Aeonar.
-
Sometimes, he wonders if the female across the hallway is Lily.
Sometimes, he wonders if being a Grey Warden was just a dream, and he has spent his whole life in Aeonar for helping Jowan escape.
-
Sometimes, he catches a glimpse of her.
He doesn’t know if she is Lily or if his mind has painted her features on some other nameless mage. Some of the ones here aren’t even mages. They’re just nameless people who defied the Chantry.
He rocks himself back and forth, to try to stay awake.
Gazhrikd tries to speak to him in his sleep.
He is afraid that he’ll give in.
-
He doesn’t know when he starts screaming.
Sometimes, he doesn’t stop.
The Templars don’t care. They never do.
-
Next door is a mage, he guesses. That is his best guess. Whoever it is has been in Aeonar for far longer than he has, and he’s already beginning to crack apart at the seams.
One night, the screams stop.
The silence is ominous. It is heavy and presses down against his skin. Ignoring the goosebumps, he closes his eyes and tries to sleep.
It makes no difference in the dark.
So he sleeps with his eyes open.
-
To pass the time, he leans against the walls, feeling rough stone against his shoulder-blades. His prisoner’s smock is torn, but none of the Templars care. The cloth is thin and of little protection against the cold. He could tear the Veil. He should tear the Veil.
Yes, Gazhrikd breathes.
He is too tired to deny the demon. Instead, he rubs at his arms and closes his eyes and tries to summon up images of his companions. Or perhaps they are part of his dreams and nothing real. Leliana, her hair a vibrant red in the eternal gloom of Aeonar, Aeonar with the window-slit too thin to allow anything more than the tiniest ray of light through, and perhaps that is the cruelest of things. (He barely remembers the sun and the moon, the wind and the trees.) Zevran, and the scarlet tattoos curled on his cheek.
He’s scraped his knuckles somewhere and they are crusted in blood. Once, he could have healed them with barely a thought. Absently, he sucks on them, tasting the grime and the dried copper of his blood. The raw flesh protests.
It is the only thing that reminds him he is still alive.
-
The dead don’t speak.
The dead don’t have names.
He can’t remember his.
Or maybe he doesn’t want to.
-
This is hope:
As fragile as a song in the night. For one moment, he hears it, the same Dalish song she sang at the campfire that night. It curls about his ear, brushes softly against his throat, nestles in the hollow of his collarbone as gentle as a kiss.
He is going mad.
No one sings in Aeonar, and when the song breaks off, he realises he doesn’t know if it is a memory, or if it has come from his own throat.
It sounded like Leliana.
He prays to the Maker that she has not been sent to Aeonar.
-
Despair is what comes after hope fails.
He weeps until he is bone-dry.
-
He doesn’t know how many weeks have passed.
He is tired, and too ready to die by the time the Templar comes for him.
-
Fandom: Dragon Age
Rating: PG-13, slightly violent bits, insanity
Characters: Ciprian Amell, Leliana
Summary: M!Amell never thought things would end this way. Sometimes, between screams and the laughter of the man next door, he wonders what has happened to the rest of them. Possible implied M!Amell/Leliana.
Note: Done for the dao_challenge lightning round, prompt Night.
-
The site was left structurally sound but spiritually damaged. Possibly because of this, the Chantry chose to put it to use as a prison. Accused maleficarum and apostates are held in the confines of Aeonar. Those who have a powerful connection to the Fade, and particularly to demons, will inevitably attract something across the Veil, making the guilty somewhat easier to tell from the innocent.
--From Of Fires, Circles, and Templars: A History of Magic in the Chantry, by Sister Petrine, Chantry scholar.
-
He spent the first night screaming.
-
He never thought things would end this way. He’d been a Grey Warden, the Warden-Commander of Ferelden. Now, he’s just another among the poor, screaming insane locked away in Aeonar.
He cannot remember what it is to live without nightmares, without the whispers pressing against his skull, begging for him to giveingiveingivein, wanting to see through his eyes, to speak with his lips and to smile and to stretch flesh, blood, bone and break.
He doesn’t know why he doesn’t give in. He curls up in a ball in a corner of his cell, thinking of Irving and clinging on to the Chantry’s teachings among everything. Some of them here are possessed, he suspects. Abominations.
He is too tired to shiver at the thought, and too innured to seeing abominations. Killing a whole Tower full of them will do it to a person. The Templars here are among the Chantry’s best and most ruthless, and sometimes, his weary mind sticks dead faces on the blank helments of his jailers. It could even be Cullen, his mind whispers, Cullen staring at him with such fury through the eyeslits of his helmet, because he hadn’t and couldn’t have been strong enough to call the Right of Annulment down on the whole Circle.
After one week of short sleep, he can’t tell the difference between what is real and what is just a dream, another figment of his imagination. Maybe Aeonar isn’t real, and maybe it is the walls that are a figment of his imagination.
There is no magic here, in Aeonar.
After the first week, he doesn’t think he could even summon a small spark.
The marks he draws on the walls stop after the first week, and he adds to them only fitfully. This is time: there is only before Aeonar, and after Aeonar.
-
Sometimes, he wonders if the female across the hallway is Lily.
Sometimes, he wonders if being a Grey Warden was just a dream, and he has spent his whole life in Aeonar for helping Jowan escape.
-
Sometimes, he catches a glimpse of her.
He doesn’t know if she is Lily or if his mind has painted her features on some other nameless mage. Some of the ones here aren’t even mages. They’re just nameless people who defied the Chantry.
He rocks himself back and forth, to try to stay awake.
Gazhrikd tries to speak to him in his sleep.
He is afraid that he’ll give in.
-
He doesn’t know when he starts screaming.
Sometimes, he doesn’t stop.
The Templars don’t care. They never do.
-
Next door is a mage, he guesses. That is his best guess. Whoever it is has been in Aeonar for far longer than he has, and he’s already beginning to crack apart at the seams.
One night, the screams stop.
The silence is ominous. It is heavy and presses down against his skin. Ignoring the goosebumps, he closes his eyes and tries to sleep.
It makes no difference in the dark.
So he sleeps with his eyes open.
-
To pass the time, he leans against the walls, feeling rough stone against his shoulder-blades. His prisoner’s smock is torn, but none of the Templars care. The cloth is thin and of little protection against the cold. He could tear the Veil. He should tear the Veil.
Yes, Gazhrikd breathes.
He is too tired to deny the demon. Instead, he rubs at his arms and closes his eyes and tries to summon up images of his companions. Or perhaps they are part of his dreams and nothing real. Leliana, her hair a vibrant red in the eternal gloom of Aeonar, Aeonar with the window-slit too thin to allow anything more than the tiniest ray of light through, and perhaps that is the cruelest of things. (He barely remembers the sun and the moon, the wind and the trees.) Zevran, and the scarlet tattoos curled on his cheek.
He’s scraped his knuckles somewhere and they are crusted in blood. Once, he could have healed them with barely a thought. Absently, he sucks on them, tasting the grime and the dried copper of his blood. The raw flesh protests.
It is the only thing that reminds him he is still alive.
-
The dead don’t speak.
The dead don’t have names.
He can’t remember his.
Or maybe he doesn’t want to.
-
This is hope:
As fragile as a song in the night. For one moment, he hears it, the same Dalish song she sang at the campfire that night. It curls about his ear, brushes softly against his throat, nestles in the hollow of his collarbone as gentle as a kiss.
He is going mad.
No one sings in Aeonar, and when the song breaks off, he realises he doesn’t know if it is a memory, or if it has come from his own throat.
It sounded like Leliana.
He prays to the Maker that she has not been sent to Aeonar.
-
Despair is what comes after hope fails.
He weeps until he is bone-dry.
-
He doesn’t know how many weeks have passed.
He is tired, and too ready to die by the time the Templar comes for him.
-