Healing the Dark - Dragon Age Inquisition Fanfic

She lost track of Cole fairly quickly into their foray through her mind. But she would hear his voice now and then, encouraging, guiding. Especially at times when she would start to forget it wasn't real. The things the demon showed her, of a world devastated at her word. It seemed to believe she could become some kind of leader to the Inquisition. Or perhaps it would try and make her one.

But whenever she got lost, or when she would get too absorbed in what she was seeing, overcome by all the death and destruction, Cole's voice would pull her from it, guide her past it.

Just keep going up.

As she climbed to the top of the stairs, eyeing the big, heavy wooden doors before her, she heard footsteps behind her. She turned around to come face to face with the shade of herself. It grabbed her by the throat and slammed her against the doors.

"Unfair, unfair!" It spat. "That thing kept you whole, kept you from giving me your shape!"

It lifted her off the ground, her feet unable to touch it. Her hands clawed at the shade's wrist as she struggled for breath.

"What could you gain from being me?" She gasped out.

She had no power in the Inquisition. She wasn't a leader; she wasn't one of the decision-makers. The only decision she'd made was to enlist the templar's help, and look where that had led them!

"We'll start again. More pain this time. The Elder One still comes."

It raised its other hand to her face, the greenish glow of some kind of magic circling around it.

"It's frightened of you," she heard Cole's voice again, and so did the demon.

It was enough to distract it as it turned to shout at the boy. She raised her hands, blasting it back with fire. It dropped her to the ground, and everything just... vanished. The next instant she was back outside of her head, Lord Seeker Lucius flying backwards, but shedding that skin as it hit the floor.

She gaped at the horrifying creature in front of them, its body twisting and contorting as it let loose with an ear-splitting shriek. It dissipated into smoke and lightning, shooting off through the door and vanishing. The hall had more Templars and people in it; Envy flew right over them, creating a massive magical barrier to keep them out.

"The Lord Seeker!" Barris cried out.

"No, a demon," she said, rubbing at her throat where the creature had grabbed it.

If it had all been in her mind, why did it hurt out here?

"Did anyone else see a boy beside me?" She asked the others, looking for any trace of Cole.

"What boy?" Barris asked.

"Pale, wide-brimmed hat, blonde hair."

"I saw no one. The Lord Seeker was alone when you revealed his true nature."

She looked to the others. Surely Solas would have seen something. But they all just shook their heads, some of them looking at her a little concerned, like maybe she was going mad.

"An Envy demon replaced Lord Seeker," she told them.

"Envy! Then the Lord Seeker..." Cassandra trailed off.

"Is caged or dead," Barris finished, his voice heavy. "And my Captain knew. It's the red lyrium, isn't it? I knew that wretched stuff was risky!"

"Red lyrium?" Varric asked. "You've been using red lyrium? That crap's more than just risky. It's evil."

"They often give us new kinds of lyrium. Our commanders... some used the red stuff first to prove it was harmless. The knights would have been next. That demon turned our leaders so we couldn't question when this started!"

"We need to stop it," Cassandra said.

Barris looked at one of the Templars nearby. "Templar! What is Envy!"

"A coward, brother."

"It studies, makes fewer mistakes. But most of all, it hides," another answered.

Sounded about right from her recent experience.

Barris looked back to them. "We need our veterans. Our commanders have turned, but the lieutenants may still be fighting. We'll hold the hall. You find the lieutenants and the uncorrupted lyrium stores. Bring them here, and I'll give you Envy."

"All right," Cassandra said. "For now, Holli, here is the safest place for you."

Holli looked dubiously at the magical barrier not ten metres away with a demon that had tried to steal her face not ten minutes ago.

Aside from that, she supposed it was the calmest place they'd seen, and there were plenty of well-armed Templars about. With the door to the hall shattered, the Templars were attempting to barricade it against the monsters the other Templars had been turned into. It was quiet right now, but it probably wouldn't stay that way.

"There are plenty of Templars here. Solas and Sera can stay with you. The rest of us will find the other Templars and the lyrium."

No one argued her orders, and the heavy hitters left with Cassandra. Solas gestured for the three of them to move to a quieter corner of the hall. There were a few crates piled up there, and she and Sera climbed onto them to sit down.

"Tell me what happened," Solas said, looking at her neck.

"Is it actually bruised?" She asked.

"It's starting to."

She explained what happened when Lord Seeker grabbed her, about being in her head, about having thought she was in the Fade at first, everything the demon had made her watch. And the boy who had helped her through it all.

"Who, or what, was the boy, do you think?" She asked him.

"Another demon probably," Sera said, picking dirt out of her nails with her little dagger.

She looked to Solas for his opinion. No offence to Sera, but this kind of thing seemed more like his wheelhouse.

"Without meeting him myself, I cannot say," he replied.

"He wouldn't still... be in here, would he?" She asked, tapping her head. Her eyes widened with a sudden fear. "I'm not, like, possessed, am I?"

He didn't outright dismiss the worry, which she was both grateful and unhappy about. He raised his hand, silently asking her permission before he touched her, used his magic on her, and she gave him a nod.

He placed his hand against the side of her head, just gently, and she could feel his magic shift around her, into her. After a few moments he pulled away.

"I sense no other presence in you," he told her.

She breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks."

She leaned back against the crate, looking up at the roof. Never in her wildest imaginings would she have thought anything like this would, or even could, happen. Despite accepting she was here, there were still moments, some days, where it just felt so unreal, so fucking absurd.

Back home, all she had to worry about was making sure her mum didn't kill herself, didn't get Holli killed, and her grades. Demon possession, death via sword or arrow, and figuring out a way to cross world barriers had been so far removed from her daily life it wasn't even a wandering thought that crossed her mind.

The barricade the Templars had set up suddenly blew inward, red Templars flooding the room. The non-mutated Templars were quick to act, clashing with their former brothers.

"Quick, up to the mezzanine," Solas told them, ushering the girls through the throng of Templars and away from the fighting.

From there, Solas and Sera used their range to fight. Though Holli had improved a lot with her magic, she wasn't sure how her aim was, and she didn't want to risk hitting an ally. Fire was what she practiced with most and what she found easiest to work with. Probably because it had been the first element she'd managed.

At the other end of the hall, red Templars were still entering through it, but there was enough distance between their Templars and the door she could attempt to block it off.

With her hands gripping the wooden railing of the mezzanine, she stared at the door, willing fire into existence. It shot up quickly, the flames taller than she had intended, but it did cut them off from the door.

"Well done, Holli," Solas said, the praise causing a gushing warmth in her chest. "Be careful not to let it get away from you."

She nodded, completely focused on it. She could see red templars on the other side of it, and she wondered if they would abandon sense and try to run through it.

Cutting off the reinforcements gave the Templars room to breathe at least, but there were a fair few of them lying on the ground. Injured or dead, she couldn't tell from here.

One of the other doors to the hall slammed open, and more mutated Templars came streaming in. It was difficult to split her focus, but she conjured another wall of searing flame, managing to catch a couple of them on fire.

A third door burst open, and she was ready to cut them off too, stopping herself at the last second when she saw it was Cassandra and the others. Thank fuck for that. The group immediately set to helping the Templars take down the mutants.

When they were finished with the ones inside, Holli dropped the fire to let them take out the ones still outside. When the battle had ended and the hall had fallen silent, the three of them rejoined the others.

The reprieve was temporary; there were more red templars out there making their way towards the Great Hall. Barris and his Templars would bring down the barrier while the Inquisition members defended them.

"Should I block off the hall again?" Holli asked.

Better to just keep them out than risk more death and injury.

"Nah, we can handle this," Bull told her.

"Just keep back," Cassandra told her. "While you may be getting better with your magic, you're hardly battle trained."

Holli huffed but did as she was told. Keeping a distance from where they would make their front line and where the other Templars were trying to bring down the barrier. Sera came to stand beside her, her bow in her hands.

"I'll be your last line of defence," she said, poking fun at Holli's uselessness.

"Lucky me."

Holli kept one eye on the fight and one eye on the barrier. She could feel the magic from it being this close to it. It wasn't like Solas's or Vivienne's. It was... it gave her the ick.

When the Templars brought it down, that felt strange too, the way it just... blinked out of existence. Cullen had told her Templars 'denied' magic. This sort of felt like they had just slapped it out of existence.

With the barrier down, the Templars joined the rest of the Inquisition in finishing off the other Templars. Envy never made itself known; was it even still outside, or had it fled?

Once the fight was over, Cassandra had Sera stay with Holli and the Templars while they left to take down Envy.

While she didn't want to fight, she hated this feeling of uselessness.

"And they keep us little girls out of the fight," Sera huffed.

"I think I'm the little girl, and you're my babysitter," Holli corrected.

"Well, you have the magical hand; can't let anything happen to that."

Holli grunted her less-than-enthusiastic agreement.

When the others returned, it wasn't without injury. Though whether that had been from Envy or the battle with the Templars, she didn't know, but Bull had a big gash down his back. While Cassandra went to speak with the remaining Templars, Solas called Holli over.

"Do you still want to learn to heal?" He asked her.

Her mood lightened considerably. "I do!" She said, skipping over to them for the lesson.

"Wait, I'm going to be your first time healing?" Bull asked, hesitance in his tone.

"It's for a good cause," Holli told him. "Let's do this."

Bull took a seat, and Holli stood behind him with Solas. Even sitting down, Bull was taller than her.

"Now," Solas began. "As I've told you before, healing magic is about encouraging the body to do what it already knows to do, just at a faster pace."

Holli nodded.

"You merely need to funnel your magic into that process."

"So, doing it this way skips certain healing stages? Or the body just goes through them quicker?""Explain how a wound heals to me," he told her.

"Blood vessels constrict, and platelets gather to form the clot. It'll start to scab over to help protect the tissue underneath from germs. The blood vessels will open a bit to allow more blood flow. Fresh blood brings more oxygen and nutrients. White blood cells—macrophages—will help clean it and fight infection."

"What is she talking about?" Bull asked. "She's making up words."

"I am not," she argued.

"Ignore him," Solas told her. "Continue."

"Blood cells arrive to help build new tissue, and they'll create collagen, which acts as kind of a scaffold that other cells can be built on. It'll start to look like a fresh scar, but it'll slowly fade over time."

Almost word for word from her books. She looked to Solas. They had spoken a lot about the medical field in her world as he read through the Atlas of Human Anatomy. He was smart and had probably retained most of what he'd read. But they'd gone into the different kinds of cells and their functions, and she'd told him about the different kinds of germs and how to protect yourself from them.

"Now use your magic to make all that happen."

He was curious to see if her more in-depth knowledge of the body's healing processes would make a difference in how she used her magic to heal it. If she managed it at all.

She placed her hands tentatively on Bull's back, over the wound. He felt her magic begin to stir. It happened in a matter of seconds and had Iron Bull leaping out of his seat and yelping in pain. But the wound was gone. Barely even a scar. He'd never seen it done that quickly or so thoroughly. Even magical healing left far more prominent scars.

"Ha! I did it!" She bounced up and down in her excitement at the accomplishment.

"You did?" Bull asked, shifting so he could try and feel where the gash used to be. "Why did it hurt?"

"Is that not normal?" Holli asked, her exuberance brought down by the fact.

"Nor does it usually heal so quickly," Vivienne noted, taking a look at the site herself.

"Shoot, did I fuck up? Is the wound still underneath the skin or something?"

"Let me see," Solas told Iron Bull.

The giant turned his back to Solas so he could examine him. When Solas used his own magic to assess the site, he found no trace of the wound, internally or externally aside from the faint scar.

"No, it is completely healed."

"So I just need to figure out how to do it without hurting and work on the scarring."

Solas nodded. The fact she had done it so quickly was interesting, and she looked no worse for wear. Healing magic was by far a more draining application on a mage, no matter how skilled and experienced.

Curious.