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Hollow Like My Soul	By : TheStarvingArtist Category: +A through F > Dragon Age (all) > Dragon Age (all) Views: 6981 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN DRAGON AGE. This is a work of fiction, and I make no money from it. This fic contains dialogue from the game.

Chapter List
- 1-Hollow Like My Soul
- 2-Part Two
- 1
- 2
Summary:
What if the Herald never became the Inquisitor? What if no one believed it was Andraste in the Fade? What if the Herald was kept a prisoner of the Inquisition, blamed for the state the world was in? Instead of open adulation, the Herald is spoken of in whispers and quiet prayers in backrooms. So few believe this woman, who came from nowhere, was touched by grace, and even fewer are willing to fight to free her.
Author's Note: This comes from the deepest, darkest corners of my brain. I thought I got this out of my system when I wrote The Hanging Tree prompt, but then I got intrigued by Samson--and so this is becoming a side-thing. There will be smut. It is just dark and sad until then. For Samson Positivity (I know I'm past the day, whatever, it's never too late to be positive towards Samson).
Also, I know there's really no cure once you start growing red lyrium--beyond death--but just... bear with me.
An AU where the Herald does NOT become the Inquisitor and in fact remains imprisoned. Dark things, bad things, possibly non-con later, I'm sorry. This is the same Rio from Her Destiny Lies Elsewhere, but different story-path. (Sorry, not a Bull romance in this one.)
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Part One
I don't know what I expected when I woke up here.
Well, I guess I didn't expect to be cuffed, chained, and dragged out of a dungeon... I didn't even remember how I got there, and it didn't seem like they cared to find out. I didn't expect to be bruised and battered, and I didn't expect to find a glowing mark on my hand that lanced sharp pain up my arm and across my chest.
They were all mad at me. Every face I passed, every unfamiliar sneer that greeted me out in that cold mountain air, just drilled it into me that everyone was mad at me. That I was to blame for something big and nasty...
Well, it was probably the hole in the sky. At the very least, that was part of it. Gagged and bound as I was, I couldn't even protest when they brought me close to it.
The huge thing that came out of the rift made me scream. I tried to run, but they caught me and pulled me back as the others fought and took down the beast. Whatever it was, it shot sparks and lashed out at them as if they were ants, right up until it fell. I worried I would be next when I was instructed to close the Breach, to seal it tight and stop more demons from coming through.
Honestly didn't think I could have fucked that up, ya know? But somehow, I, Rio, managed to do just that. It stopped growing, which was probably the only reason they didn't kill me right away, but in the end, I was still thrown back in my jail cell after I failed to close the Breach.
Things didn't get any better... If anything things got worse. Much worse. I told myself as I sat in my jail cell, night after night, that I would never take my tiny apartment for granted again if I could just go home. I was rarely allowed visitors, and if I fought or struggled, they would take away my food. A crust of bread and barely enough food to keep my strength up, but goddammit, I felt like I was wasting away when they refused to feed me.
Others came and went. There was the Seeker, Pentacost or something, always scowling and rough with her. There was the Commander, whose face might've been handsome if his eyes weren't the coldest shade of amber I'd ever seen. Damn. What a shame, to be so hated by someone so pretty. The Spymaster was pretty too, but goddamn, if looks could kill, I woulda been dead a long time ago.
The diplomat was at least kind of nice to me. Josephine was her name. She looked like she believed me, or at least, I think she did... Guess it didn't really matter, in the end...
There was an elf that came and studied the mark. He rarely said anything, simply staring at it from every angle as I was forced to stand very still against the bars with my arm stretched out. Solas, the guards called him. Funny, I thought it was Soulless at first. He'd been in good spirits when we'd met on the mountainside, but he was quiet and distant now. That's right, keep your thoughts to yourself. Not like I needed a friend... Not like anyone believed me when I told them who I was...
The dwarf that came was probably the closest thing to a friend I was going to get. He asked me about myself, about where I was from, and he didn't scoff and mock me for it. But he only visited me twice—after that, the Seeker told me that “Master Tethras was no longer permitted near the cells”. There was a rumor around the guards that he'd tried to stage a coup to get me out. Guess it didn't work out so well...
Another man came after a while. Greywall, I think, of the Black Wardens? No, wait, that wasn't right... Blackwall, Grey Wardens. Yeah, that's it. God, these people had some strange titles. I didn't know what a Warden did, and I tried to ask him what makes a warden grey, but I guess he didn't like that. He went from almost sympathetic to scowling under all that hair and stormed out of the dungeon without so much as a goodbye.
There was only one man that really scared me, though. He was big, and mean-looking, grey-skin, scarred, and bearing an eye-patch. He looked me up and down and I wished I could hide more under the thin blanket I'd wrapped around myself. The part that scared me the most were his horns—big and pointy, like a bull's, and very much real. What was this guy? He didn't really talk a lot, just muttered a few things to the guard before he left.
Another elf pushed her way in, saying she wanted to see me herself, and she cursed up a storm until they let her in. She was a tiny thing, with blonde hair and a foul mouth on her, but she seemed nice enough for a couple of minutes, until she found out I was a mage. Hell, I didn't even know I was one until someone said something. By then, of course, it was too late—Sera couldn't bolt out of there fast enough. After a lifetime of wishing I was special, that I was somebody, I was starting to see that it wasn't all that it was cracked up to be...
The worst part was the nightmares. Green light flooded my eyes, skittering sounds echoing in my head when I thrashed in my cell. A few times, I woke up to find my blankets smoldering around me. They stopped replacing my sleeping mat after I woke up one night and had set it on fire in my sleep. That was new to me. I didn't know what the hell a mage was, but apparently, the setting of things on fire was not uncommon. One time, a guard spat at me after I tried to curl up on the ashy remains of my blanket, said I deserved to be made Tranquil for what I did.
I wish I hadn't asked. Why the fuck did I have to ask? I would've been fine not knowing...
The worst part was that they held it over me after that. They knew what I was afraid of—not just dying anymore, after the things I'd seen, but of still being alive, trapped in my own skin. I made myself sick a few times, worrying that they really would do that to me. I fucked up so badly, whatever I don't remember doing now, that I was almost certain they were waiting for the right time.
The night I closed the hole in the sky, the really big one that was so close, I could hear it rumbling in my cell, I thought that was going to be the end of it. The other mages, the ones that were free, not Tranquil, but not cursed with this mark, they were finding other ways to weaken and close the rifts, and they were starting to succeed. I was running out of time, and the guards knew it.
It was to be a hanging.
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Hollow Like My Soul