Chapter Text
Tony woke in stages. The first feeling was one of absent pain, which led to confusion. When she'd fallen unconscious, it had been a merciful respite from it, but now there was nothing left of it at all. There was a brief feeling of falling, disorientation that made her press her heels into the ground and jump. The jump was little more than a shake, and the chair she found herself sitting in scraped an inch back on the stone floor.
She opened her eyes to stare at the floor in confusion--the apartment she shared was fully carpeted, stone would have been easier to vacuum--before looking up and examining her surroundings. Stone walls. Iron sconces holding torches, most of which were not lit. Metal cages with closed doors, holding nothing within but empty beds that made her back ache just to look at them. Tony kept her eyes wide, willing herself to adjust faster to the darkness.
A door opened, and she immediately regretted opening her eyes at all, squeezing them closed once more. The light lanced through her eyelids, staining her vision red as she rapidly blinked.
Two incredibly unlikely women entered. One was wearing plate armor that clanked while she stomped. The other was wearing a sort of... Tony squinted at it. Maybe a dress? It was long enough to be a dress. Pants were involved, and boots. Also a hood, which covered up almost all of the woman's red hair. This woman crossed her arms over her chest, clearly unamused, and Tony returned her attention to the knight-looking person.
Just as the knight opened her mouth, Tony said, "Hello."
The woman jerked back, like a kitten that had been booped on the nose.
"Do you know where I am?" Tony squinted past the knight and the redhead to try to get a look outside, but there were merely stone stairs and more torches. "And why I'm wearing... this?" She held up her arms, which were imprisoned at the wrists in a sort of hands-exclusive stocks, like her fingers were criminals.
Moving her arms had been a mistake. First, the knight growled at her, which Tony did not care for. In the next second, there was a flare of lime green in her left palm, accompanied by a sharp pulse, as though she were being stabbed by an invisible knife. Tony let out a cry, more of surprise than pain, and let her imprisoned hands drop once more.
"Tell us why we shouldn't kill you now," said the knight. She was more in her element now, Tony couldn't help but notice. Maybe she was a cop.
Tony looked up at her, trying to guess what sort of response she was supposed to give. The complete lack of context kept her silent.
"The Conclave is destroyed," the knight continued, wind having fully returned to her sails. "Everyone who attended is dead. Except for you."
Tony did not know what a Conclave was, but she sensed the implied capital letter. She looked between the two severe women and decided not to ask.
"I'm sorry," said Tony. The knight sneered, and Tony continued, "I--that's not an admission of anything, but I am sorry. People've died?"
"Explain," the knight bit out, grabbing Tony's wooden arm prison. The jostling did not help the pain in her hand.
Tony swallowed another yelp of pain. "Please don't do that," she said in a rush.
"No one can be this stupid," said the knight. "Tell us what you know. What that is," she said, her anger gaining steam.
"I am this stupid," insisted Tony. "I don't know what's--I mean, I know that's not what you want to hear--"
The knight, her patience extinguished, kicked Tony's chair in the leg with her armored boot.
The redhead barked, "Cassandra!"
It fell back to the floor with a clatter, and nearly carried Tony with it. Tony stood up straight, incredibly surprised to learn that she had not been tied to the chair in any meaningful way. It was only then that she realized she was the shortest person in the room. Embarrassed, she knelt down, righted the chair again, and sat once more.
No one spoke for a tense moment.
"You did not try to run," said the redhead. "That is good."
Tony thought of many things she could say, and settled on, "Might as well die seated."
Cassandra the knight and the redheaded person exchanged a meaningful look that Tony could not decipher. The redhead took a step forward, and Cassandra retreated, scowling and red-faced, possibly embarrassed by her outburst. Cassandra was clearly the bad cop, and so Tony found herself relaxing a little when she gave her some space.
"Do you remember what happened? How this began?"
"No," Tony said immediately.
The redhead did not glare. Her forehead didn't go wrinkly, her brow didn't scrunch together. It was somehow worse than that. She stared through Tony, pinning her to her chair with the intensity of her scrutiny. Her gaze felt heavier than chains would have been.
"Oh," said Tony, distantly terrified. "Wait a moment--yes, I think..."
Cassandra snorted. Leliana didn't smile, but she also didn't stab Tony with her eyeballs, so it was an improvement.
The only issue was that Tony really didn't remember. There was no clear line, no narrative to the flashes of memory she did have. She remembered the apartment, the window shattering, and then being on a mountain for some reason. Mountains were not her scene, traditionally; she did not hike for fun, and only ran when chased. There had been a whole mess of green light, which also didn't make sense to her. Tony's truth was flimsy, and worse, she lacked the time and space to create a convincing lie. She was going to die because her dreams were dumb.
"I was running," said Tony, frowning. "I was being chased, so I ran up a rocky slope, and at the top there was..." She gestured with her hands, forgetting why that was inadvisable until there was another stabbing pain. "Jesus," she swore. "Sorry. He wasn't there. There was someone, though. They had a woman's voice."
"A woman?"
"No idea," said Tony. "But they had a woman's voice, and they were made of light, but not green light, which distinguished them from pretty much everything else. They reached out their hand, I think to help?"
Another important look between the two cops.
Tony shifted in her seat. "This all sounds like bullshit, of course."
"Not entirely," said not-Cassandra.
"Oh good," breathed Tony. "I don't know what else to say. There were a lot of, like, half-formed ghosty things, as well. Does that--is that anything?"
Cassandra sighed, an invisible weight heavy on her shoulders. "Go to the forward camp, Leliana," she said, and moved toward Tony again, who leaned back as far as she could in her seat. "I will take her to the rift."
Leliana turned to leave. "Bye," said Tony. Leliana paused, shook her head, and then kept walking away.
"I figured I was having a nightmare," said Tony as Cassandra released her wrists from the stocks. "I mean, you know. Me, mountain climbing? Kind of a giveaway." Cassandra gave her a look that was fifty percent confusion, fifty percent anger. Tony chose not to respond to that look, as the only response she could think of would be pissing her pants. She asked, "What did happen?"
Cassandra replaced the stocks with rough rope. Tony didn't know if she preferred it. She felt like she didn't know anything at all.
"It will be easier to show you," Cassandra said.
The air grew colder as they ascended out of the dungeon, and by the time they exited out into the world, Tony was shivering like a chihuahua. The wind picked up, tossing a flurry of snow into her face and whipping through her clothes as if they weren't there. Her boots, at least, withstood the snow. God bless Doc Martin, wherever he may be.
There was a hole in the sky, haloed with sickly green light. It flared, stoked by some celestial poker, and pain shot through Tony's left hand. The mark there responded to the evil aurora, flickered and burned in her palm. It felt like holding a pan's handle straight from the oven, and then being unable to put it down.
Cassandra was saying something, but Tony did not, could not, listen. She'd fallen to her knees in the snow, immediately soaking her trousers. She plunged her bound hands into the ice, trying to cool the green light she could not drop, but all she ended up with were blue-tinged fingers.
"It is killing you," Cassandra continued, hauling Tony upright again. "It may be the key to stopping this but there isn't much time."
"Stopping...?" Tony looked up at the glowing sky again. The evil northern lights gleamed back at her, a beautiful menace. "Oh. Got it."
"Come," commanded Cassandra. What could Tony do but follow?
They travelled through a depressing Renaissance Faire. There were no roasted turkey legs that Tony could see, and everyone was glaring at her. Tony, shivering and deeply confused, kept walking, trying to keep pace with Cassandra's marching.
"They have decided your guilt," she said.
"Popular choice," said Tony. "What did I do?"
Cassandra gave her a disgusted look. "You are the sole survivor of the Conclave. Our most holy, Divine Justinia, was taken from us by the Breach, as were any mages and Templars who could hope to reach a peaceful agreement. The people of Haven had hope, and they believe you have taken it from them."
Tony did not know what to say to that. She had thought the mountain nightmare had been bad. This--being the scapegoat for an unnatural disaster--was immeasurably worse.
The hike was awful, which did not make it unique among hikes Tony had been on. At least the uphill climb kept Tony's body heat up, though her sweat only made the wind feel stronger. Cassandra watched her, looking away whenever Tony tried to meet her eyes.
"Your clothes," Cassandra finally said. "You will freeze before we reach the rift."
Tony shrugged, or tried to. It probably just looked like more shaking.
There was a frozen pond, a circle of deep blue ice surrounded by a two-meters-high ledge. There were burlap sacks and crates, as well as...
Tony stopped in her tracks. There were dead bodies everywhere. Before, her eyes had been clouded with pain and watery from the frozen winds--she had thought they were rocks or something. Most of them were face down in the snow. Tony tried to be glad about that. It would have to be her silver lining, that she didn't have to look a dead man in the face.
Cassandra rifled through a sack and threw a blanket at Tony. Tony caught it--no, not a blanket, a cloak, one with a clasp made out of a loop of leather and a tooth the length of her index finger. She pulled it on--no easy feat, with her wrists still bound--and then continued along with Cassandra.
"Th-thank you," Tony stuttered.
"Why are you dressed that way?" She sounded like Tony had chosen the outfit specifically to annoy her.
"It wasn't snowing, earlier," said Tony. "I wasn't on a mountain." She sighed, her breath a puff of mist. "I don't know."
Things continued being shit from there. A bridge collapsed underneath them, and Tony hit every one of her limbs on the way down. It was a miracle she could stand, after. When she was immediately face to face with a monster, she decided that it wasn't a miracle, after all. Maybe this was limbo. Maybe, someone somewhere was feeling torn about how exactly they wanted her to die.
"Stay behind me!" Cried Cassandra, unsheathing her sword. Tony had not been planning on anything else. Unfortunately, Cassandra did not attract all of the monsters to her, and Tony was face-to... face? Something. If it had a face, it was facing Tony, and it was rapidly approaching.
Tony ran. Her cloak whipped up behind her like a cape, letting out what little heat she had been able to trap inside. Her boots slipped on the ice, so she dashed for the upward slope, bound wrists held to her collarbone, fingers clinging to the wool of her cloak. The monster moved like a snake about to lunge, and Tony's feet struggled to conquer the thick, fresh powder.
"Cassandra!" She screamed, beyond terror. "Help!"
There was a roar, followed by the ring of metal slicing through air. The effect was spoiled, in Tony's opinion, by the hissing, squelching noise of Cassandra slaying the monster. Tony did her best not to fall to her knees again, but it was a close thing.
"You," said Cassandra, horrified. "You could have--why did you not defend yourself?"
"I don't want to die like this," said Tony, looking Cassandra in the eye. "I've been cooperating, right? I didn't run. I told you what I saw. I'm cooperating, so you--you can't let me die here."
"I will not." She looked annoyed with herself, as if she hadn't meant to promise anything. She cut through the rope at Tony's wrists, finally letting her free. "Stay close."
Tony did, all the way up another steep slope, but Cassandra was moving quickly. Wherever they were seemed to be entirely composed of uphill climbs. Tony was nowhere near fit enough to run up a mountain and chat at the same time. She focused instead on not falling too far behind Cassandra, and calling out whenever she saw a demon Cassandra might have missed.
They met up with a group of fighters that Cassandra seemed to know. Tony hung back behind a turn in the road, watching as they disposed of the monsters with the sort of efficiency that Tony would have expected from a rehearsed dance. There was a short man with a crossbow, and what appeared to be an elf with a magic staff. Tony was in too much pain to believe herself to be dreaming, but reality was making quite the case for her madness.
Once all the monsters were gone, the elf ran to fetch her, leading her by her raw and bruised wrist to the relatively small green cut in the air. "Quickly! Before more come through!"
The sensation was like pulling a hairball from a shower drain, only moreso, and terrible. There was suction, some sort of resistance and pressure, combined with the throbbing heat of the mark on her hand. When she pulled her hand back, breaking the lightning-like connection between her and the rift, the rift disappeared. She looked at her hand, not daring to hope. She had been right not to; the mark was still there.
The elf looked at her hand as well, bizarrely serene. Tony had lost count of the number of impossible things she had seen that day, and yet this man's calm demeanor was threatening to break her composure entirely.
"Hello," she said. She felt she had to say something, and it was all she could manage on short notice.
His eyebrows raised slightly. "Hello," he said. His voice, when he was not using it to shout, was deep and smooth. "You arrived just in time. I was beginning to tire of dispatching demons."
Tony flexed her fingers, fighting against the wince of pain it sparked. Demons, then. Not monsters. "No worries. How did you do that?"
"I did nothing," he said, gently amused. "The credit is yours."
"Okay." She swallowed. "I mean, it'd be nice if I knew... how I did that?"
There was a brief discussion about the Breach and rifts and demons that Tony did her best to follow. She gathered that the mark on her hand was a tool to close these demon portals, which was good, and that it was stuck on her hand, which was bad. She was bruised, freezing, and entirely out of her element--she found it was easier to nod along instead of asking clarifying questions.
The short man--the very short man, Tony saw now, a four-foot-nothing brick shithouse of a person--stepped forward and introduced himself. "Varric Tethras: rogue, storyteller, and occasionally unwelcome tagalong.”
He then winked at Cassandra, which she did not seem to appreciate.
Tony extended her hand to shake Varric's. "Pleased to meet you. I'm Antonia Gonzalez. I don't have, um. A list."
Varric's eyebrows shot up in surprise, but he accepted her hand and even managed a light laugh. "Polite one, aren't you?"
"Terrified one," she corrected.
"Traveling alone with the Seeker, I don't blame you. Speaking of--what's next?"
He and Cassandra began a conversation that was mostly her yelling and him smirking. Tony wondered if there was something romantic going on there. It was very Sam and Diane.
The elf with the nice voice and insane composure turned to Tony. "My name is Solas, if there are to be introductions. I'm pleased to see you still live."
Tony extended her hand to shake, but saw that both of Solas' were on his magical staff. She slowly brought her hand back into the warmth of her cloak. "Same here. Demons almost punched my ticket a dozen times on my way up."
Solas tilted his head, as if he weren't certain he had heard her correctly. "I am not familiar with that phrase."
Tony sighed. "No, you wouldn't be, right? Just... thanks, for the magic, and the demon dispatching."
"Not at all," he said, and would have continued, were it not for Cassandra's loud, angry sigh at Varric.
Solas smiled. "It seems we are moving on."
"More uphill?"
"No, actually."
Tony sighed in relief. "Thank God for small favors."
Varric was far chattier than Cassandra had been, which made things seem to go quicker. They descended the snowy mountain together, Tony hanging back to be by the magic user and the guy with the crossbow.
"So," Varric started, "with a name like that, you've gotta be Antivan. Why no accent?" Tony shrugged and shook her head. "Come on, it's gonna bother me otherwise."
"Long story," she said instead. "Not sure how it ends, or how much sense it makes."
"I make my living off stories," he insisted. "Try me."
She looked over, and saw he was smiling up at her. No one had been that warm since she woke up in chains. It was so disarmingly friendly that she nearly tripped into a snowdrift.
"Whoa there," he said. "My mistake. I forgot the effect I have on women."
"Sorry," she said. "Just." She frowned. "Wearing a shirt like that, and you forget?"
He laughed in two bursts, first in amusement, second in response to his amusement. "You are all kinds of unexpected, Antonia."
"Tony," she corrected. "And so's... everything about all of this, really."
"No shit," said Varric.
There was more fighting, more green light, more pain. Tony did her best not to fall behind, but she was as accustomed to snow as an octopus to the tuba. Her boots were not meant for such prolonged exposure to the elements, and her socks were soaked through. She felt, and doubtless looked, like a drowned rat.
"Hold on, Seeker," said Varric. "Damn your long legs. I need a rest."
Tony felt her face flush, which was embarrassing. "Look, you don't have to--"
"No, no, I'm serious," he said, leaning down as if catching his breath. He'd never lost it.
"Varric," Tony said, too tired to hide the edge to her voice. "I just want to get where we're going."
Only then did he look up. He was smiling. It was unbelievable, but he was. When had Tony stopped being a prisoner?
"Ask Cassandra to carry you," he offered. "It'll be funny, and she might even say yes."
Tony was at a loss. She'd woken up in a dungeon, for God's sake, didn't he know that? Just because her wrists were not currently bound did not mean she was any less of a perceived criminal. People had died, and other people thought she had done the killing. There was no reason for him to be nice to her, and every reason for him to keep his distance. Was he being stupid?
"You're too kind," she said. "Literally. Stop it."
He shrugged. "Just don't fall into another snowbank, all right? My eyes are up here." He chuckled. "So to speak."
After all that, Tony put her head down and focused on her breathing. Time passed--minutes? Hours?--and they managed to arrive at another green sky-tear, followed by a bridge. Tony, heretofore unimpressed by the stability of bridges in this place, stepped gingerly.
"Well done," said Solas, in praise of her second successful rift-ectomy.
"We made it," said Varric. "Take a break."
Unfortunately, that was not to be. Leliana was there, as well as a bunch of dead bodies and an incensed man wearing red and white. His name was Chancellor Roderick, and in many ways, he was a return to form.
"As Grand Chancellor of the Chantry, I hereby order you to take this criminal to Val Royeaux to face execution," he told Cassandra.
Cassandra did the kitten-boop thing again, a small jerk back, before leaning in once more. "Order me?"
"More yelling," Tony muttered. "How does she find the energy?"
"She has spirit," said Solas.
"Don't talk about her like she's a horse, Chuckles," Varric said, sotto voce. "She doesn't like it."
"And you," said Chancellor Roderick, pointing at Tony. "I don't know who you think you are, but you have gone far enough."
Tony took a deep breath, trying to relax her shoulders with middling success. Finally, someone was making sense. "I agree."
"You--" He stopped, momentarily at a loss for words. "Explain yourself, prisoner."
"Tony," she corrected. "My name is Antonia Gonzalez. I'm from California. I don't know how I got here, but it involved green light, a mountain, and a woman's voice. I woke up in a dungeon this morning, as you probably know. I'm not a fighter--I can't use a sword or magic or anything like that--and I just ran for a million years. I want to vomit to death. It would be wonderful if I could stop here, Chancellor, and you're a wonderful man to suggest it."
Roderick sputtered, and Cassandra cut in. "You can't! We must push forward and close the Breach. The mark on your hand--"
"Is a complete unknown," said Roderick, back on even conversational footing.
"It has closed-- she has closed every rift we have come across," argued Cassandra.
Well, apparently her own execution was not the way to end this bizarre order of events. Still confused about the taxonomy RE: Breach versus rift, she spoke up. "Chancellor Roderick, Seeker Cassandra wants to seal the sky, and thinks the mark on my hand could do it. I have very limited experience closing rifts, I'm sorry to say, but I do have one bit of good news: it hurts."
Cassandra stared at her. "That's good news?"
"Sir," she continued, "if I survive this, feel free to ferry me along to Val-wherever. But if you want me dead, all you have to do is nothing."
Roderick frowned. Perhaps it was the only expression he could make. Stranger things, et cetera. He shook his head, and returned his attention to Cassandra. "You must sound a retreat."
The brief spike in adrenaline left Tony drained. "Look, I'm just gonna..." Tony wandered over to a wooden crate, tested it with her boot for strength, and then sat down. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph." Her leg muscles were on fire. At least she wasn't freezing anymore.
There was an argument about soldiers, and valleys, and temples--Tony wasn't particularly trying to listen. She let her eyes slip closed, and might have even managed to fall asleep if she hadn't felt eyes on her. She opened one eye a slit, and found Solas staring.
"What?" She cleared her throat, immediately shamed by her curtness. "Sorry. Something wrong?"
"That remains to be seen," he said. "I have never heard of a place called California."
She shifted her weight and felt her spine pop. "Eh. You wouldn't have."
"You have said that before," he stated. "I have travelled far. It is rare that I have not at least heard of a... city? Country?"
"State," she said. "It's west."
"How far west?"
"Very," she said. "I don't--I'd have to look at a map, Solas. I'm sorry I can't be more helpful."
He shook his head. "It is nothing. We will have time to discuss this later. When you do not wish to... 'vomit to death,' as I believe you said."
"Don't hold your breath," she replied.
"What do you think?" That was Cassandra, and she was looking at Tony.
Tony looked between Solas and Cassandra before admitting, "I'm sorry. I--what?"
"The mountain path is fastest," started Leliana, just as Cassandra said, "There are two paths from which to--"
Tony was being asked for an opinion she did not have. "I don't know," she readily admitted. "I don't--do you really think I have the context to make an informed decision, Seeker? What does Chancellor Roderick think?"
"We cannot decide amongst ourselves," she admitted.
What a surprise, thought Tony. It must have come through in her expression, because Cassandra was starting to frown again. Instead of apologizing for the zillionth time, Tony looked to Leliana. "Is there a way... that is, which way will involve the least amount of death?"
Leliana took a second to consider, intelligent eyes focused on a point beyond her, before she responded. "The mountain path," she said. "It will have less fighting, though likely still corpses."
"Beautiful graveyard y'all have here," said Tony. She stood with effort, feeling as creaky as a tree in a gale. "Cool. Uphill?"
Leliana's smile was barely visible, but it was there. "Up ladders."
"Cool." She limped a few steps, pushing past her legs' protests. "See you later, maybe?"
Leliana simply nodded. Tony crossed the bridge, flanked by Varric and Solas. Roderick gave Cassandra a final pithy remark, and Tony nearly flipped him the bird. Things were confusing and strange, but he was obviously being a dick.
"I know you are tired," started Cassandra.
"Me? No," said Tony, willing her legs to move. "Couldn't be me."
"You are a terrible liar."
Tony felt a jolt of serotonin at that. She couldn't remember ever being accused of that before, and it gave her quite the opportunity. "Now, that? Is true," she said, pointing to Cassandra. "Makes you think that everything else I've said must not be a lie, right? Deductive reasoning. I'm a very bad liar in a very weird situation, and oh fuck, that's not a ladder, that's a--big ladder." She groaned, bringing her hands to her knees and panting at the ground. "Whatever the--is there a word? For a big ladder? Varric, you're a writer, right? Big ladder."
She heard him chuckle. "I'll think about it."
The ladders were awful. There were demons in the mountain path, of course, and the promised bodies.
"Varric."
"I'm here, Tony."
"I'm confused," she said. "You live here? Voluntarily?"
"In a manner of speaking," he said. "It's not demons and bloodshed all the time."
"If you say so."
There was another rift, and in a twist she had not asked for, more demons. These demons were new, all tall and insect-y, and they could teleport and knock people over. They chose to do this a lot, and after a while Tony just stayed down. From her position on the ground, she raised up her hand and closed the rift.
"You make it look easy," said Varric.
"S'not," she said. "Thanks, though."
There was a confusing moment where Tony was being thanked by strangers for choosing to save them. Tony could not recall doing any such thing, but was too tired to do anything but nod. "Living is good," she offered. "Glad to see you're... doin' it."
"You have my sincere gratitude," said one of them, and saluted with a fist on her chest. Tony, barely standing, waved back at her.
"That is going to need some serious rewriting," said Varric. "You were doing so well, earlier."
Tony raised an eyebrow at him. "Wasn't."
"You were! Very exotic and mysterious. A noble, perhaps, from a distant shore? A learned scribe, caught up in magic beyond anyone's understanding?"
"This is not one of your stories, Varric," said Cassandra.
"Not yet," he countered. "Everything's fodder."
"Noble," wheezed Tony. "Hilarious."
"Well it is now," said Varric. "I saw you and I thought to myself, 'now here's someone who doesn't know how to dress for a mountain pass.' I took a stab at guessing, and that's where I landed."
"Solas," said Tony. He looked at her, attentive, but she shook her head. "No, sorry, not--I'm using you as an example."
"Of?"
"Someone who doesn't know how to dress for a mountain pass," she clarified. "But you--you're not cold. Elf thing? You thing? Sorry, that's--rude."
"Perhaps you should focus on walking instead of my choice in clothing," he said.
She did her best. His outfit was easily dismissed, seeing as everyone but Tony was wearing a costume out of The Lion in Winter . His ears proved to be a different challenge entirely. If he noticed her continued confused glances, he was good enough not to say anything.
They eventually arrived at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. It lived up to its name in that there was a fuckton of ashes, though Tony couldn't guess as to their supposed sacred nature. She kept her eyes down as she jogged, pleased to see that her feet were still attached to her legs. She could no longer feel either.
"That is where you walked out the Fade and our soldiers found you," said Cassandra. "They said a woman was in the rift behind you. No one knows who she was."
Tony couldn't summon up the breath to say anything to that. It was a good thing, too, since her first thought was to joke, Was she pretty? That was not the sort of comment to endear her to the Seeker, she knew, but she was running on fumes and everything that wasn't physical pain felt distant. She knew she was dissociating, but made no attempt to call herself back to the present. Floating above and away felt easier.
"You're here!" That was Leliana, who looked genuinely relieved to see them. "Thank the Maker."
The Maker of what? Another comment to keep to herself. Cassandra conferred with Leliana before turning back to Tony.
"This is your chance to end this," she said. "Are you ready?"
Tony looked up. And up, and up. "Are you..." she squinted. The Breach was very bright. "You gonna throw me? Or what? More ladders? I'm--" She focused on Cassandra again, who looked like she'd just eaten something bitter. "Right. Yes. Of course I'm ready. Let's save... wherever we are. Haven?"
"If we are successful, we will save all of Thedas," said Cassandra.
"Rad." She tried not to trip as they passed through the ruined temple. There were suddenly a lot more people around, and most of them were looking at her.
Tony had managed to go about forty paces before she heard the voice. It was deep and gravelly and everywhere, bouncing off the remaining stone with horrible reverberations. Now is the hour of our victory. Bring forth the sacrifice.
"What are we hearing?" Cassandra demanded. Tony had to assume she wasn't asking her--Tony didn't have a single clue. Solas guessed that it was whoever created the Breach.
Tony passed by some glowing rocks without a second glance. They were no more or less strange to her than everything else, but they seemed to bother Varric a lot. There was some more ominous echoing, and then--
Someone! Help me!
Tony's heart sank into her boots. She picked up the pace, sweat dripping down her back. Was someone down there?
"That's Divine Justinia's voice," said Cassandra.
Okay. The dead Divine was talking. Why not? Tony was too busy putting on a burst of speed to worry about the details. She heard her companions break into a run behind her--for once, she was on point.
Before this morning, Tony had never seen a dead body in person. She enjoyed a gorey movie as much as the next guy, and had seen Face/Off upwards of eleven times, but there was simply no comparison. She wanted all the dying to stop. She wanted all of this to stop. And maybe she could be the one to stop it.
Hey!
Tony stumbled. "What?"
Back off, man! You're hurting her!
"That's your voice," said Cassandra, short of breath for the first time in Tony's memory.
Back the fuck up, asshole! Fuck's wrong with you?
Cassandra winced.
Tony blushed. "I, uh. Don't remember... any of this. Sorry for the language."
The evil voice said something very "kill the spare" adjacent, and the group finally reached the center of the temple. The Breach was still high up, and yet Tony could feel it in her hand.
"We may attract attention from the other side," mentioned Solas.
"That means demons," Cassandra clarified for the people in the back.
"Love this," muttered Tony. "Love all this, for me."
Varric hoisted up his crossbow, which was apparently named Bianca. "See you on the other side, Tony."
Tony swallowed, trying to think of something to say. If this was the end, then she wanted to say something clever. Unfortunately, she was too tired to come up with anything passable in the three seconds she had. "See you."
Cassandra yelled, "Now!"
Tony reached up, and green light exploded through the sky.