Chapter Text
Two figures rushed up the stairs carved on the side of a snowy hill. Isa heard the sounds of fighting, but she hadn’t got the slightest clue of who were fighting as everything she knew of the situation so far was that she had gotten her bow back, she had a strange glowing mark on her hand, and right now she was led through a demon-infested valley by a woman called Cassandra. Oh, and the sky was tearing apart above them. Just a normal day in Thedas, right?
Isa was a member of a Carta crime family called the Cadash. If she happened to be a traditional dwarf, she would surely have shat herself by now, but luckily she was not. She had lived on the surface all her life, travelling across the Free Marches and partaking in the family business. At the moment, however, she was running straight into battle like some damn warrior because she had practically been given no choice. On top of all that, she had no memory of what had happened before she woke up in a cell to find herself about to be interrogated by two humans. Just lovely.
When the rescue group of two, one of the participants unwilling, reached the top of the hill, they found an elf and a dwarf battling a bunch of demons. There was something distantly familiar to the latter of the rescuees, but Isa had no time to ponder upon it right now as she drew the first arrow and shot it towards one of the lurking menaces. With their strenght raised up to four, the group finished their remaining foes without any difficulties. When Isa was sure that it was finally safe to lower her weapon, she placed it in the leathery case she carried for it on her back and sighed deeply.
”Not used to demons, are you?” someone suddenly asked her.
Isa raised her gaze that was of the shade of a smoky brown quartz and just as glimmering.
”I can handle anything in need of killing”, she replied with a hint of arrogance in her voice.
You’re not the one to fear, you are the cause of it, she added silently by reiterating the words of her father in her mind.
”Really?” the other dwarf inquired and brought forth his crossbow, ”so does Bianca here, you two are so much alike!”
”Sure, why not”, Isa shrugged and offered him her hand, ”I’m Isa by the way.”
”Varric Tethras: rogue, story teller, and occasionally unwelcome tagalong”, the dwarf winked at Cassandra while he shook hands with Isa.
”Tethras”? Do I know him from somewhere?
”Nice to meet you.”
”Like wise.”
Right after Isa let go of Varric’s hand, she felt how somebody grabbed her left wrist.
”Quickly, before more come through!” the elf shouted and guided her hand towards the green swirl in the sky above them.
A winding ray of light erupted from the strange mark on Isa’s hand, and after it made contact with the swirl in the sky, the latter vanished in some kind of magical explosion. When the elf finally released her hand, she pulled it away from him as if he had just hurt it and grimaced.
”What did you do?!” Isa demanded, unsure of what had just happened and feeling immensily uncomfortable because of it.
”I merely saw a chance and helped you to take action”, the elf told her, ”so, technically, the credit for sealing the rift is yours.”
”I... I did that?” the young dwarf’s irritation diminished a bit.
”Indeed. Whatever placed that thing in the sky also place that mark upon your hand. It seems you hold the key to our salvation.”
Isa fell silent when bafflement surrounded her like a hazy cloud, and she blushed a bit. She had learned to be so reserved that it often made her ill-tempered and touchy even when she had no reason to be. Apparently the elf seemed to notice it as he took no offense.
”My name is Solas”, he said cheerfully, offering a hand to her as it were, ”I’m glad to see you have recovered well.”
”’Recovered’?”
”What he means to say is that ’I prevented the mark from killing you while you slept’”, Varric clarified.
”Oh”, she tried to pull herself together after getting an explanation, ”thank you.”
The elf smiled to her.
”You’re welcome.”
When Isa turned to look at Varric, she saw how he stared at her in turn, evaluating her with his gaze. Noticing that, she grew even more certain that she had seen him somewhere before, in the Free Marches perhaps? In Kirkwall, or...?
”Are you quite done already?” Cassandra asked impatiently, ”we have more pressing matters to pay attention to than an idle chat!”
Much to her own surprise, Isa shook her head and turned to look at the human as if the blame was all hers.
”You’re right”, she admitted, ”let’s go.”
After fighting their way deeper into the valley, the group reached a bridge protected by gates. In addition to that, there was also another small rift infront of them, but it was dealt with just like the one before it. Solas praised Isa for becoming more proficient in sealing those things which, according to him, were tears in the Veil. Isa didn’t comprehend how she could become more proficient in something she didn’t even understand. And what that so-called ”Veil” even was anyway? Surely an elven thing - or human one, but certainly not dwarven. Oh, bloody hell... Why was she even here? She was a thug of the Carta, not some dazzling heroine who always saved the day! The more Isa tried to make sense of her current situation, the more confused she became, and by the time the gates were opened before her and the others, she wasn’t even sure who she was even supposed to be anymore.
She didn’t know what had happened.
She didn’t know what was happening.
And she sure as hell didn’t, or even wanted, to know what was still going to happen.
If the whole situation wasn’t crazy enough as it was, after a rather heated discussion on the bridge between Cassandra, Leliana, and a man they addressed as the Chancellor, Isa had been chosen as the one to decide by which route the group should proceed. Suspecting that neither would be better that the other, she had chosen to take the mountain path.
”Wise choice”, Varric had commented after hearing her decision, but she had barely heard him as the only thing in her mind back then had been that the sooner this whole thing would be over with the better.
Still, while climbing up the stairs and battling the few demons inside the passage leading through the mountain, Isa had feverishly tried to remember where she had seen Varric before. She was now absolutely sure that she had met him somewhere near the Waking Sea, most likely in...
By the ancestors, the tavern!
For the rest of the journey, save for the constant fighting, it was relatively quiet to the point where Varric opened his mouth again. Isa had the distinct feeling that he did it on purpose just to pick on her and it annoyed her immensily.
”So let me guess: surface dwarf”, he speculated, ”maybe part of the Carta?”
*sigh*
Here we go...
”What makes you think that?” Isa asked though she had originally intended to try to avoid an open conversation.
”I can tell a proper Orzammar dwarf from twenty paces away. Also, you have that shifty-smuggler look to you.”
Isa couldn’t help giving an amused laugh.
”I’m not the only one with the shifty-smuggler look here”, she countered.
”Now that is true”, Cassandra cut in, ”but Varric wasn’t the one to destroy the Conclave.”
”That you know of”, Varric joked, ” we shifty-smuggler types can be tricky.”
And when the Seeker grunted in frustration, Isa tittered quietly behind her hand. Now she remembered why the events in the tavern had occurred in the first place.
The group battled their way ever onwards until they reached a site full of rubble among which there were several petrified humans.
”The Temple of Sacred Ashes”, Solas noted with a slight wistful hint in his voice.
”What’s left of it anyway”, Varric added.
Isa, on the other hand, just looked around with curiosity. She had never heard about the temple but she was pretty sure that it was an Andrastian thing. They always had churches and temples, holy fingerbones, and who knows what and where.
”This is where you walked out of the Fade and our soldiers found you”, Cassandra told Isa as if answering an unspoken question, ”they say there was a woman standing behind you, but no one knows who she was.”
”What do you mean?” the young dwarf asked, puzzled, ”what is the Fade?”
”It’s the place where people go when they dream”, Solas explained.
”But it’s generally off-limits for dwarves as we are resistant to magic and lyrium”, Varric played the second tone again while touching one of the petrified humans, ”but this...”
Isa walked silently to the stony figure by which he stood and touched its rough surface which had formerly been skin.
”What could possibly cause people to turn into this?”
”I saw something similar in Kirkwall. The stuff that caused it there is called red lyrium, and it can corrupt even our kind. It twists the minds of people and eventually drives them mad.”
Isa glanced questioningly at Varric and noticed that there was a sad look about him.
”How do you know that?” she asked gingerly.
The rogue dropped his gaze and remained silent for a while.
”Because of my brother”, he told her, ”shall we go now? There’s still a world for you to save.”
Soon after the brief discussion between the two dwarves ended, the group began to continue towards their destination where Isa was to perform miracles and eventually seal the whole green woundlike thing in the sky. How was she supposed to do that? She had the mark on her hand, yes, and she had sealed a couple of smaller rifts so far, but that thing Cassandra and other called ”the Breach” was pretty huge compared to those. From what Isa had gathered from the words spoken to her by Solas earlier, she was under the impression that if she wasn’t able to do it, no one would be. Pretty encouraging thought, huh? ”If you can’t do it, the whole world will end - no big deal, really”.
For the first time in her life Isa Cadash felt that there was the weight of the world on her shoulders. At the moment she was, however, determined to try to help at least, and when the large rift at the temple was opened and one huge demon dragged its ass to the site, she was sure that she should try even harder than ever before.