#some like blackwall and ian he gets a second chance at knowing in inquisition

[queenaeducan]

one of the things most compelling to me when i think about my own red lyrium future fic is writing the life makes in his cell. it isn't a good life, but it is a life. and every connection he makes is undone at the end.

[ourdawncomes]

In Hushed Whispers is an incredibly important quest for Thora on her path to becoming Inquisitor for a variety of reasons to the point that it’s hard to articulate them all in one post.

Most of Thora’s discomfort with the worship she was getting as Herald, was uncomfortable because even with much of the world denouncing her, it was more respect than she had been afforded in the past and because she didn’t feel as though she deserved it. Some part of her came to enjoy it, to a point? I can’t say she reveled in it, nor did it outweigh the discomfort which never goes away, but it was nice to get positive recognition. In Hushed Whispers illustrates well what she knew in her heart was true, but was easy to forget or ignore up that point-- that people believed in this cause, believed in her, and would die for her. Even Solas, who had no faith in the Maker but enough faith in her to follow her to his death, even Leliana, who had been furious at her sudden reappearance and reduced to bitter anger, not to mention the hordes of Inquisition soldiers who crushed themselves against Redcliffe’s walls in retaliation. It unnerves her, and continues to unnerve her until her time as Inquisitor comes to an end.

It also changes her relationship and perception of characters, following into the present.

The Leliana she knew was doubting the Maker and his plan, wondering if it existed at all, and in many ways the bitterness that she saw when they spoke shortly after the Conclave had grown in the wake of her torture. Yet when the time came for their final stand, she died with the Chant on her lips, some little piece of her faith remaining after all she has endured.

The Solas she knew was passionate and clearly capable of at least risking things like his freedom in the name of a cause, but his willingness to throw his weight behind her and Dorian in hopes that they could undo what was undone. His insistence that they help Ian, even taking an injury for his trouble, demonstrates the lengths he will go for people he cares for-- things she might not have known about him otherwise until much later.

The Cadri she knew she knew as salroka, someone who had her back and the one familiar face in this mess. Finding her on the Elder One’s side, seeing her switch back just as quick, Thora wants to believe it’s friendship that motivated her cousin’s uneasy loyalty, but can’t shake the feeling that had the odds not been in her favour things may have ended differently between them.

The Sera she knew was a trickster whose motivations and dedication seemed suspect at best, even if her wit couldn’t be questioned. Hearing how hard she had fought, how she had run out of arrows making them pay, makes Thora a little ashamed that she ever underestimated Sera’s motives. It makes her try a little harder to understand her in the future.

The Blackwall she knew was a hero. They’d found him defending refugees from bandits and demons in the Hinterlands, and she knew that as a Warden sacrifice was so ingrained in their order that it’s part of their motto. This quest didn’t so much change how she felt about him but reinforced the good things she already believed. It does make her worry that much more in battle, as it’s always him taking the brunt of the assault. Much later, after he’s revealed to be a fake Warden, it does demonstrate to her that despite everything he does very much live by the best of the Wardens’ code.

And Ian, she had never known. Had she realised it was him Leliana asked to recruit she would have considered not going. When they do meet she looks at him, expecting to see the same hatred and rage in her eyes, but doesn’t even see a shadow of it. It feels unfair, knowing him at his lowest before she’s ever known him at all. She tries not to let it colour how she sees him, though her anxiety will sometimes tell her that Ian’s own anxious behaviour is a manifestation of that same hatred.

The events of the red lyrium future follow Thora for the rest of her life, in the Nightmare she doesn’t see spiders but the faces of her companions with burning red eyes and Leliana’s withered face. Her own nightmares will often revolve around what she saw there, and it being her first real encounter with the Fade that she can remember, it’s hard for her to wrap her head around the fact that none of it happened. Because it did happen, because everything she has ever seen in her life up to that point has happened. She wants to speak of it, sometimes, but beyond the report she writes for the advisors she rarely does. She thinks of it before her decision to disband the Inquisition, she doesn’t want to be the sort of person people will die for anymore.

But finally, it’s also important to her story because it’s the first decision she makes as Herald. She’s picked up agents here and there, helped where she could or when she was the only one who was able, but when Cassandra was around she almost exclusively deferred to her. Here Thora makes her first call as the future Inquisitor, and it’s to give desperate people who made a mistake a second chance. She declares them equals in the eyes of the Inquisition and refuses suggestions that Templars be stationed to watch them or new recruits trained to suppress mages. The reality of it doesn’t settle in until she along with the first contingent of mages start the return to Haven, when she’s sitting in camp with her companions and watching their new allies bed down for the night. She’s not sure what the future will hold, but if it looks anything like this maybe it’ll be better than the last one.