I am Lena Wolf, Lena's life as it happens Options

[Lena Wolf]

Midyear, 3E411 - In Death, Sacrifice

"Close the breach..." Dorian stood in the Fade next to a giant tear in the Veil looking down at the battle in Mundus, as if looking through a window on a street below. What he saw looked like a riot rather than a battle with everyone running in every direction without rhyme or reason. In the centre Fiona was battling a giant Pride Demon... and holding her own. "At least the demon will wear her down," Dorian thought. "We would have a hard time defeating her otherwise. Well done, Anders." He smiled an nodded to himself, turning to the task at hand - closing the breach.

Dorian was not planning on returning to Mundus. He would be trapped in the Fade forever, but it was a worthy sacrifice. With the breach closed, the Wardens stood a chance of defeating the demons and Fiona and ending the Blight. Many more Wardens would fall in that battle, and Dorian was ready to take his place in it. He rolled up his sleeves, took out his dagger and without hesitation made long and deep cuts in his wrists allowing the blood to flow freely. He needed a lot of blood for this. He cast a spell. The Veil around the breach lit up in a cloud of shimmering mist that was pulling it together, knitting up the rip. Dorian had to repeat the spell several times, slitting his wrists again and again, but eventually the breach was closed. He could no longer look at the battle below and no more demons could be drawn into Mundus through the rip in the Veil.

Dorian dropped to the ground. He lost a lot of blood - too much for someone not trained in blood magic. He would not recover. He smiled and closed his eyes.

...

"Where to next?" Lucanis looked at Emmrich with a question. "Can you sense where she's gone to?"

"To Mundus," Emmrich sighed. "She opened a portal and..."

"She took the fight to the Wardens," Avernus nodded. "The song has stopped..."

"Stopped?!" Lucanis wasn't a Warden, but he knew from his time with Anders that the song never stopped.

"Well... for me not entirely," Avernus smiled. "But I am very old. For most Wardens, the song will have stopped. They must be extremely confused."

"So that's her weapon - confusion," Varric scowled and stroked his crossbow. "Don't you worry, Bianca, she can't get to you..."

"I should hope not," Lucanis smirked to himself. There were sides to Varric that were positively endearing, while others were utterly repulsive... how they could coincide in the same person, was a mystery of creation without compare. "We must find her though," Lucanis continued aloud. "We cannot stop."

"You have become very... driven," Emmrich said quietly. "Is that because..?" He stood quite close to Lucanis and spoke very softly, keeping their conversation private.

"Yes," Lucanis nodded. "You can sense it too, I guess. I am Spite now... Or he is me... and we are also both Anders..."

"No-no, you are still you, Lucanis," Emmrich smiled. "You are just that little bit more determined, now that Spite is fully joined with you. And you are also taking more risks, just like Anders always does... but you are still you, have no doubt."

Lucanis smiled and sighed, it seemed he needed to hear it. He could not just brush his doubts aside, it was not that straightforward.

They all felt they had to do something, but no one knew what, they tried to think of something... then suddenly a huge explosion ripped through the air.

"What was that?!" Varric and Lucanis cried out together.

"It sounded like the Veil just got ripped apart..." Emmrich fixed Avernus with his gaze. "Demons will be pouring out of it."

"We must close it," Avernus nodded. "Lead on."

...

"The breach is closed... someone closed it..." Emmrich stopped, looking at Avernus in surprise. "But how could they..?"

"From the inside, I guess," Avernus nodded. "A Grey Warden did it... there is a Warden here in the Fade..."

Between Emmrich's ability to navigate the Fade and Avernus' connection to the Warden in it, it did not take long for them to find him. Dorian was sitting on the ground, his wrists bleeding, his eyes closed.

"Dorian!" Avernus ran up to him. "You are not dead yet, not yet, not like this... not while I am here..."

...

"The breach is closed!" Anders stopped in his tracks, turned around, looking for Dorian... "Dorian..." He shook his head realising what happened. "And should I fall in battle, you will pour your hurt into it and it will heal you," he remembered Dorian's words. Oh yes, the hurt... Dorian would not survive this... closing that breach would take all of his blood... he was no blood mage... Anders felt his heart squeeze into a tight ball and not release; he felt his stomach fall cutting through his liver; he felt a jolt shoot through his legs until he could feel his legs no more... He had enough hurt to kill everyone on the battlefield... but he really only wanted to kill one person: Fiona.

"You will not leave here alive!!!" He bellowed, gathering all of his hurt in a storm cloud. "You will not win!!" He did not need to cut his wrists, he was already bleeding. He did not have enough blood for a storm of that size, and so he used his hurt instead... he could do this... heal pain with more pain... wasn't it what he'd been doing his whole life? But now it wasn't just for his own benefit... now he'd use it in battle! "This is for you!!!" He released the storm in a ball of lightening letting it hover directly over Fiona's head... "In the end my magic proved stronger than his axe," he remembered Dorian telling him about that battle when The Iron Bull turned on them. "He died by my hand... His heart ripped apart by a lightning bolt that flew from my fingers..." The Bull turned on them, there was no choice but to fight him, and Dorian made it count, his love turning to hurt... The Bull turned on them, as he always knew he might, and Wolf knew it too and was ready for him, and Dorian should have known... but his heart refused to accept that it could occur, and so when it did, his heart was filled with hurt, his love turning to pain, all of which he used to kill the man he loved... "And no one ever knew the depth of his feeling," Anders realised. "And now I am doing the same... No meu coração estás sempre comigo... Always in my heart..."

The storm over Fiona's head combined with the lightning that the demon was casting at her, finally causing her to falter. Oh no, she was not immortal! There was a limit to her power, an end to her vitality! She was no longer able to summon demons, she now had to try to survive!

Without any new demons, the battle quickly folded. Even though many Grey Wardens now lay dead, enough of them were still standing, still fighting, still sending those demons back into the Fade. With the weaker demons despatched, the Wardens started attacking Fiona, while still leaving the one most powerful demon for later - their orders had been: Fiona first.

At long last they prevailed. First Fiona, and then all the remaining demons were defeated. The battlefield became eery quiet, and the only bodies on the ground were those of the fallen Grey Wardens; there was no darkspawn and no demonic remains, and even blighted boils and growth had retreated back into the soil. The Blight was over.

"She was one crazy blood mage," Alistair stood over Fiona's body, hoping that she was really dead. "Let's hope she won't rise again..."

"I would not put it past her," Anders smirked, checking her pulse and not finding any. "But she does look pretty dead to me."

"We've done it, Kadash," Taash came up to them. "But it wasn't without cost."

"Yeah..."

The Wardens that survived the battle, were slowly walking around the battlefield looking for anyone still alive, then carefully carrying the wounded back to the fortress. They left the dead on the ground, there would be a pire made for them later...

"But those that went into the Fade... they perished... and we don't even have their bodies to give to the flames..." Some Wardens were saying, shaking their heads. The cost of that victory was high indeed.

It took some time, but then someone spotted a dragon walking through the battlefield... limping through it, barely keeping up...

"Morrigan!" Anders recognised her.

She kept walking in her dragon form, only changing back to human when she reached the fortress. She immediately collapsed and had to be carried - she was badly wounded, and without the strength of a dragon, she was close to death.

"The others are alive," she told Anders. "I led them out of the Fade... they are in the tunnels behind the battlefield... there was some darkspawn, some demons... they need help..."

...

Yes, this story has a happy ending. After all the darkness and despair, the Maker smiled upon the Wardens and their friends. Or may be it wasn't the Maker but sheer luck, we'll never know. However it may be, but Avernus, Emmrich, Varric, Lucanis and Dorian all survived their ordeal and emerged from the tunnels victorious. Of course, a few stray demons and darkspawn could not compare to the horrors that they had overcome before...

No one felt like leaving as yet, no one felt ready to face the life without a constant struggle, and the bodies on the battlefield were still reminding them all of the cost of the lack of such a struggle. This Blight was not crowned with a big feast like the previous one; the Wardens that survived, did not feel like celebrating. Their Order lay in ruin, their Head Quarters destroyed, but just as the archives remained preserved, so was the song in their souls, and each Grey Warden knew that another Blight was already gathering strength, it may be a hundred years or more, but it will surely come, and for that reason they must stay strong, must rebuild and be ready, must watch and wait and carry on their endless vigil...

Join us, brothers and sisters. Join us in the shadows where we stand vigilant. Join us as we carry the duty that can not be forsworn. And should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten. And that one day we shall join you.