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overthinkingfeathers · 6 years

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@carabas mentioned Imshael offering more choices than his original three a while ago, and the idea has been bouncing around my head ever since, so.

The man at the center of the courtyard wasn't human.

He was doing a good job pretending. Tiny details were wrong - skin not nearly flushed enough from the bitter winds, footsteps vanishing seconds after he moved - but those were things Lavellan wouldn't have noticed immediately, if at all. No, the telltale sign was his energy, the massive pull of Fade behind him. Once, before Cole and before the aching mark on her hand, she wouldn't have noticed. Now if she closed her eyes, she could almost see the outline of it, trace the tendrils that were spiraling to her. The anchor, it seemed, was always hungry for the Fade, and spirits provided.

Of course, the fact that he was standing calmly among patrolling Red Templars was a bit of a giveaway too. She never would have mistaken him for harmless.

"Ah, so the hero arrives. But is it hero? Or murderer? It's so hard to tell." He was turned halfway around, dramatically anticipating their approach. Arrogant or justly confident? Lavellan wasn't sure which.

"So this is the demon called Imshael," said Varric, eyeing his coat with contempt.

Imshael cleared his throat, turning to give them the full brunt of an impressive glare. "Choice. Spirit."

"Maker give us strength!" Cassandra hadn't sheathed her sword since they had stepped into the Keep, and now she was raising it, preparing for battle.

"Wait. Wait. Wait. These are your friends? They're very violent. It's worrying." His eyes swept over them warily, taking in the blood and viscera spattered across their armor. The templar nearest him stirred in agitation, and he glanced at his own reinforcements before settling. "True to my name, I will show you that you have a choice. It doesn't always have to end in blood."

Everything she had ever been taught told her to attack, to not even let him finish his offer. Some spirits meant well, but she had heard enough to believe that he wasn't one of them. But the trek up had been tiring, and her mana wasn't fully restored yet. Stalling for a few minutes wasn't the worst idea she had ever followed through on. "Talk."

"Yeah, that... never ends well," Varric muttered.

"Simple. We don't fight, and I grant you power. Shower you with riches. Or maybe virgins. Your pick. Then we all live happily ever after." He smiled. "Well, not all of us. But who's counting?"

"No." This was the spirit that Michel was so worried about? Lavellan had overestimated them both.

"Hmm," said Imshael. "You made that choice too quick. Decisive. I like that. Most people go for the easy ones. Let me try again. How about... safety?"

Behind her, Varric snorted. "A demon offering safety? That's a stretch."

"Oh for... Choice! Spirit!" He raised his hands in exasperation, then smoothed back his hair as if to calm himself. "Not for you, Inquisitor. You're quite capable of handling yourself. No, safety for your clan."

Lavellan didn't say anything.

"Tell me, do you really think they're safe in Wycome? Oh sure, maybe they're treated well now, but eventually a plague or famine will sweep in, and who do you think the humans will blame?"

A muscle in her jaw twitched. This was more like she expected. "Us. They always blame us." It was the answer he wanted, but it was also the truth.

"Exactly!" Imshael seemed pleased that she was following along. Every elf learned that lesson quickly, she wanted to point out. Every one of them lived with fear in the background. "Surely you know by now that you can't protect them. Sitting in your fortress, so far away, waiting for weeks on end for even the simplest reply. Did they live? Did they perish? The mightiest force in all of Thedas and you can't even get an answer."

"Food heavy and tasteless, sleep fleeting, I should never have left, I should be there," Cole murmured behind her.

"Not helping." Neither of them were wrong, much as she hated to admit it. Every time she dispatched teams to help her people, she thought she would throw up. By the time they received an answer, the anxiety had worn her ragged, and she had felt like she was barely holding on. She would gladly throw herself into a rift if it meant never fearing for her family again.

"See, even Compassion here agrees! It is Compassion, isn't it? So hard to tell in this world. Everything's so... murky."

"He's trying to fool you, Herald," Cassandra said. "Be wary. He's just saying what you want to hear."

"Yes, of course, the Chantry is the one who upholds their promises. That's why the Dales are swimming with elves right now and why part of Fereldan was set aside just for the Dalish. Oh, and who can forget Andraste's faithful Shartan, forever immortalized in all his elven glory? Yes, the only person fooling anyone about elves is me." Imshael's voice was thick with sarcasm. "Your ability to see right through me wounds, Seeker of Truth."

"Silence, demon! Your lies will not work here!" Cassandra took a threatening step forward, but Lavellan held a hand in front of her, blocking her path. She didn't need to take her eyes off Imshael to feel Cassandra stiffen in rage and surprise.

"I've corrected you over and over again, but you still insist on using that hurtful term. Does it make me a demon to offer options? What's the point of offering something no one wants? Please. Choices were one answer is obviously superior are boring." He turned his eyes towards Lavellan. For the first time he looked sincere, and that scared her more than anything else had. "Herald of Andraste, you have my promise that none of the words I'm saying are false. Choices made in lies are hardly choices at all. No, everything I offer is possible."

"If - if - I take you up on that offer, what do you get out of it?" She shouldn't even be considering this. Damn her. Damn him. Damn this entire world.

"I walk out of here and go somewhere else. Offering the same choice over and over gets boring. I'm ready for a change of scenery."

"That's it? I let you leave, and in return, you keep my clan safe?"

"You seemed surprised that I value my own safety. I know how many obstacles you faced getting here, and I'm not interested in being one more." He grinned and leaned in conspiratorially. "Let me let you in on a little secret. Chantry or not, Corypheus or not, big change is coming, Herald. I want to be here to see it."

"What kind of change?"

"No, I don't think I can tell you. Besides," he waved dismissively, "I doubt you'd believe me. You'll just have to wait for that one."

"Inquisitor, listen to me." Varric sounded more careful than she had heard him ever be before, and hidden beneath the slow words was a hint of long buried pain. "It sounds easy right now, but it's not. That's not how these things work. I've seen it before. I don't want to see it again."

The spirit shrugged. "I suppose you'll have to deal with your friends's negative opinions about this deal, but who cares about that? They're not going to tell anyone."

Beside her, Cassandra snarled and took another step forward until Lavellan's hand was pressed against the cold steel of her breastplate. Still she didn't take here eyes off Imshael.

"I believe our time is running short," he said. "I do like to give people some time, but I don't think your friends are going to grant you the luxury. What will it be? Safety for the people you left behind or an unnecessary fight now?"

The winds howled through the ruins, bouncing off half destroyed statues they would never understand. In the Emerald Graves, despair and rage tumbled through the rifts at greater rates than they did anywhere else. The first time she had heard a despair demon shriek there, she had been overcome with grief. Through eyes that were not her own, she had seen a vast, gleaming army marching towards them. Behind them, smoke had cried out the border towns fate, the fate they were soon to share. And even that was not enough; later, when thousands of trees grew from her people's bodies, they had to spread their roots around statues proclaiming them to be heretics and savages. She blocked here ears in the forest now.

The people with her now would die for her. She would die for them. Lavellan wouldn't deny that. But they were only a few, and the Chantry was many. How many times had she proclaimed her faith in the Elven Pantheon, pointed to the devotion tattooed into her flesh, only to be told her own thoughts didn't matter? She was an icon, an image to be used. "These traditions were forged by the Chantry's most trusted mages," Leliana had said about elven techniques. "That cannot be denied." Good people, people who she trusted and who trusted her, easily led by their religion. And hadn't she learned at the Winter Palace that even city elves weren't safe? They were Andrastian, raised in a city and knowledge about human customs, and they were still disposable.

Her clan wouldn't stand a chance against a city full of strangers. They'd be dead within a year.

"I accept. You keep my clan safe, and I let you walk out of here." The words sounded stronger than she wanted them to. The decision should have been harder.

"The choice is made. The deal is struck. Nice doing business with you, Herald of Andraste." As soon as he said it, the Fade behind him gained in intensity, flashed a blinding green that she was sure no one else could see, and the sense of finality settled in on her. The choice was made indeed.

As Imshael strolled away, Varric echoed her thoughts: "Shit."

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