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Insidious Seduction	By : Tanwen Category: +A through F > Dragon Age (all) > Dragon Age (all) Views: 5988 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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When Shaeri wakes, she looks at her fingers - still coated in her own juices - and wants to cry.

She has been pleasuring herself to thoughts of him, again, but she does not remember it. Her throat is hoarse and she knows that she was shouting something to bring herself to climax, but she cannot recall them.

She gets to her feet, shakily, and heads towards her bathroom to clean up. Her hands are trembling as she washes them.

Her hands.

Shaeri lifts her left hand, the one that held the Anchor for so long, and sees - nothing. No green glow. No crack in her skin. The Anchor is gone.

Solas removed it, obviously, but how?

Knowing that it will hurt, she tries to search her memory for the day that she saw him again, after two years. After she defeated the saarebas, when she went to deal with the viddasala. She remembers saying through gritted teeth that she would be the one to kill Solas, and then -

Pain. Searing, crushing pain in her completely unblemished hand. A memory of pain should not hurt this much, but it brings her to her knees. She takes deep breaths to drive it away and wipes the tears from her eyes.

Shaeri rushes back to find the journal where she had dropped it before. She runs through the pages. It is a thick journal, and only about half-filled. There is no account of that event. There are her memories of the battle, of leaving Dorian and Bull and Cole and going forward alone. There is an account of what happened when she returned to face the Exalted Council for the final time, the pages on that entry worn and tear-stained. Perhaps there is a clue there.

She disbands the Inquisition. Makes a roaring speech about how its time has come and gone, how she will follow in the first Inquisition’s footsteps and take a step back.

She feels Solas’ power - Mythal’s power - like invisible threads around her as she speaks. They are her words, but the decision was his. She sees Teagan, the Ferelden representative, nodding approvingly. She feels Vivienne’s - Divine Victoria’s - eyes on her.

And she knows this part is her imagination, but she swears she can feel confusion from her advisers. Because she told them all that she wanted to continue, that she wanted to keep the Inquisition going. That she felt like she had a place and a purpose and a duty to continue to bring order and be a champion for all the ideals the Inquisition has come to embody.

“And what will you do, now?” Duke Cyril asks.

“I will journey to the Dales and assist with reconstruction,” Shaeri’s mouth says. “I will devote myself to the welfare of the Dalish people and become their champion.”

Everyone in the room begins talking, some louder than others. She notices Cullen trying to catch her eye. She ignores him.

“For too long the Dalish have been marginalized,” her mouth continues. “For too long they have been oppressed. I will work with Ambassador Briala to resettle the Dalish who have been displaced by these recent troubles, and assist other clans with journeying back to their home should they wish it.”

“A noble calling,” Cyril says. “I am sure that Her Majesty will support you in this.”

“I am glad to hear it, Duke Cyril.” She turns to Josephine. “Lady Montilyet, if you would be so good as to finalize the details for the Inquisition’s disbanding?”

“Of - of course,” Josephine stutters. She is confused, but she will do her job. Shaeri has always admired that.

Shaeri Trevelyan curtsies to everyone and takes her leave. She wants to run before she has to answer too many questions about this strange turn of events, but her body is simply walking at a smooth pace towards her rooms. Once there, she bars the door and flies into a frenzy, packing only the essentials into a light bag. She knows that her next step is to go to Briala. She has a memory of the passageways that will take her there. She will not have to go out into the corridors and face people again, and she wants to weep for relief. Better not to have to face any of them, especially -

“Shaeri, I know you’re in there.”

Cullen.

Shaeri stops what she is doing, frozen in place. Her body wants her to keep moving and ignore the distraction. But her mind, her soul - they want her to unbar the door and confess all to Cullen. Shaeri Trevelyan is no one’s damsel in distress but if ever there was a time to let someone else take care of a problem, it is now.

Of course, the part of her that makes her body start moving again does not see being under Solas’ complete control as a problem.

“Shaeri, please,” Cullen says. “I need to talk to you. I need to know - what is going on? Why did you do that? Why are you going to the Dales?”

She has to tell him something. It will break her heart if she leaves without a word to him. Not to mention what it will do to him.

“Please open the door, Shaeri - my lady - please, I need to see you.”

Her bag is packed, and she is almost at the secret door, when she somehow manages to force words out. “Dalish curse,” she says.

“What?”

If she doesn’t think - if she just speaks - “Dread wolf take you.” She pauses, and then thinks of Solas, and the excitement and the feelings that come with it. “I love you.”

Cullen will think that is for him, and that is the last thing she can do before her legs take her to the hidden passage.

There is more to that entry, that last day at Halamshiral, but Shaeri has to put the journal away lest she add more tear stains to the pages. She wants to be able to keep reading this page, this memory. She traces the words she spoke to Cullen with a gentle finger. I love you. She meant it, then. It is wrong that thinking of Solas was the only way to tell Cullen that she loved him, but at least he heard it from her, before she vanished from his life.

The way Solas vanished from hers.

Cullen did not deserve to be abandoned any more than she herself had, and Shaeri wonders how he is faring. She holds to the idea that her words about the Dread Wolf will have given them the clue to her disappearance. Dorian and Bull and Cole know that Solas is an agent of Fen’Harel - they were there with her when the viddasala revealed that fact. She has to believe that Dorian will not have accepted her plans, that he will be among those wondering what has happened to her. Searching for her.

She cannot escape, so she will have to be rescued, and she has already done all she can to make that happen.

Shaeri hates waiting. Another thing to curse Fen’Harel - Solas for. She must keep thinking of him as Solas. The words Fen’Harel is my Master come far too easily to her mind, so she must continue to think of him as Solas, to avoid being consumed. Remade into a creature of his will.

She knows she is already very far gone in that process, and shivers, then puts that thought out of her mind. She must hold onto herself. She needs the connection with who she was before. It will give her strength to fight this. To hold out long enough for the others to find her.

She wipes the tears from her eyes, takes several deep breaths, and resumes reading.
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Insidious Seduction