Chapter Text
It didn’t start out as a shitty day. Kiran had woken up at her own leisure, the sounds of a storm emanating through the window of her bedroom in her warm, if not cozy, apartment. She rose with a sigh at the crunchy noises that accompanied her morning stretch, and made her way to the window. Hurricane season in Texas brought with it blistering heat and torrential downpour, so the sight of tree branches and leaves whipping about in the wind came as no surprise. The green tinge accompanying the view, however, did. Kiran squinted at the view before her, dark brows drawn together as she leaned forward towards the window, wondering if perhaps a film had collected on the glass itself.
I really don’t clean shit around here enough if the damn window is turning green even with all this rain. Do people even wash windows? Mom probably did, knowing her.
The thought of her parents brought a small pang of pain to her chest that Kiran promptly stomped down as she rubbed at the windowpane. As she attempted to rub away the weird green shit, she realized that it was actually intensifying, and clearly coming through the window instead of clinging to it. In fact, as she braved the elements and popped the window open, the green tinge seemed to move in waves with the storm itself. Kiran started at the sight and slammed the window closed, immediately reaching for her phone before remembering that she knew no one in the area, and certainly not anyone close enough to ask why the fucking wind and sky were turning green outside her window. She started pacing back and forth in front of her bed, debating if perhaps chemicals had gotten into the water or if her hangover from the night before had decided to manifest with visual hallucinations. Either way, she thought to herself, she was not going outside. Kiran had seen enough apocalypse movies that she knew wandering into the thick of things was at best going to get her into trouble and at worst, leave her with some kind of toxic poisoning from whatever was swirling around in the air. With an ever worsening headache and no idea what was going on, Kiran shrugged to herself, muttered a quiet “what the fuck”, and curled back up in her bed. If she had known that was the last time she was going to fall asleep in that apartment, she might’ve picked a thicker blanket.
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The next time Kiran woke up, it was to the feeling of wild horses stomping over all the soft matter in her skull. Or at least it felt that way, as her senses slowly returned to her. Along with the realization that her head hurt like hell came the awareness that the bed underneath her was hard. Really hard, almost like it wasn’t a bed at all. And it was much, much colder than September in Texas ever should be, even with how much she ran the A/C. Shivering, Kiran pried open her eyes and swore. Instead of the smooth planes of her ceiling, Kiran’s eyes met the roof of what appeared to be a cloth tent. Sitting up and looking around, Kiran’s eyes flitted down to where her body was covered in the same shaggy blue blanket that she’d fallen asleep in, and that was where the similarities ended. The tent she had woken up in smelled of herbs she couldn’t place, and the poorly made sleeping bag under her was dirty and stained with what looked like… blood? It appeared in large swaths across where her head had previously lain, and as she stood up, a wooziness came over her.
Fuck a hangover, what happened to me?
Carefully, she reached a hand up to where the pain seemed to center at the back of her head, and felt a thick bandage wrapped against it. Her short hair was tight against her skull and matted around the bandage, crimson strands tangled up in knots that snarled around her fingers as she frantically ran her hands over the wound.
Okay, so the storm must’ve cleared the apartment and knocked me around, but where did emergency services take me?
Prodding the wound unleashed pain that nearly made Kiran vomit, but as she rose and steadied, the wooziness faded away and her surroundings came into clearer vision. The tent was sparsely furnished, almost entirely empty except for the bedroll she’d been laying on and a chair next to it. The tent flap was a mere few feet away from her makeshift bed, and appeared to have a sigil of some sort embroidered on it. As Kiran went to take a step towards it, something yanked her foot back and she immediately crumpled to the ground. Yanking back the blankets over her feet revealed loose shackles around both her ankles, obviously designed for a larger frame but adequately restricting her movement beyond a simple twist or turn.
Well. fuck. I don’t think FEMA usually ties up the people they rescue, and the cops wouldn’t keep me in a tent outside. I need to figure out what’s going on before this goes even more tits up than it already has.
With a frustrated huff and more than a few swears, Kiran adjusted her body enough to reach the tent flap with just her fingertips even as the shackles pulled on her sore ankles. The light fabric should’ve flown open at the slightest nudge, but Kiran’s confusion reached a new peak as she realized that it wasn’t budging. Even worse, the embroidery she’d seen on the tent started moving. What had seemed to be thread now revealed itself to be a quickly shifting pattern of light, rippling in shapes and lines and glowing as the tent flap appeared to reinforce itself against her weak attempts to push it open. Kiran growled, a sound of sheer frustration, and thought about her options. Wherever she was, they must’ve assumed she was hostile if she had been shackled even as she was unconscious. And there was a good chance that she may even be unconscious, considering tents generally did not contain glowing hieroglyphs and a will of their own. But she’d never felt this level of pain in a dream before, and a feeling of impending doom settled in her gut as she considered what it would mean if this wasn’t a dream at all. She was at someone’s mercy, god knows who, and had no way of getting herself out of it without a moderate degloving injury. So she did the only thing she could think of. Kiran opened her mouth and let out the highest pitch wail she was capable of, and held it out as long as she possibly could. The absolute silence that followed made her realize that there had been noise outside the tent, a dull rumble of voices and feet hitting the ground, which she had effectively silenced with her banshee call. When the background noise threatened to resume, she geared herself up and let out an even louder scream. And another. And another. She didn’t stop even as the sound of heavy running approached the tent, and honestly would’ve kept screaming if not for the absolutely ridiculous sight that greeted her at the tent’s entrance. A man, tan and dark-haired with delicate lines of ink emphasizing the angles of his face, burst into the tent in full armor, a sword at ready. Kiran’s eyes widened and her voice left her as she realized the sword was being directly pointed at her, and it was no Renaissance faire prop. Light gleamed off the sharp edge of the weapon, and the man’s face was pulled into a suspicious grimace as he started towards her. Letting out a squeak, Kiran scrambled backwards as much as her shackled feet would allow, muttering under her breath about crazy larping kidnappers and green storms and shitty sleeping bags. Unfortunately, scrambling back that far meant Kiran’s head made contact with something hard behind her, pressure hitting right on her previous wound. Pain surged through her entire body as she went limp and fought to stay conscious through the fog. The last thing she remembered before fading back into the dark was a…Scottish accent?
The next time Kiran awoke was to far less pleasant surroundings— which was saying a lot, considering the shackles. This time, the dull ache in her head was second to the bruises she felt all over her body, amplified by the hard floor beneath her. A different view greeted her when she managed to pry her eyes open once again—she appeared to be in a medieval cell of sorts, and the strangely tattooed man from earlier was passed out right outside the door. His sword was laid across his lap, a slight snore emanating through the room, and Kiran felt a touch of embarrassment that this was what she allowed to scare her, even to the point of injury. An idea (a stupid one) formed in her head.
Well, it didn’t work the first time so I may as well try it again. Plus it’ll wake him up, pretty sure that’s not how you stand guard.
Kiran took a deep breath and let out yet another glass-shattering scream. It did the trick of waking up her guard perhaps a bit too well. Before she even finished a full breath’s worth of screeching, the guard was in the cell on top of her with a hand pressed over her mouth.
“Sweet Maker, lass— is this sport for ye, or a torture tactic? I needn’t remind ye who the prisoner is here.”
Fuck’s with the Outlander accent? Kinda hot— wait no, really not the time, man has sharp object.
Except he hadn’t brought the sword with him when he leapt onto her, likely because his hands were occupied muffling her infernal screams. In a fit of genius, Kiran did the first thing that came to mind. She bit him, hard enough to draw blood. As he swore in a thick brogue and reared up from surprise, Kiran took the opportunity to knee him in the balls, mind completely on getting out of this godforsaken situation.
“AnDRASTE’S FLAMING TITS—“
She head butted him before he could get out whatever insult he was readying, and the force of her combined attacks finally knocked him off of her enough for her to wiggle out and make a mad dash for the door. Oddly enough, he seemed to be taking his sweet time recovering, allowing her to get past the cell door and down the adjoining hall. She made it all the way to a door that she hoped and prayed led out of the prison and away from the guaranteed enemy she just made. She could still taste a little blood in her mouth and felt a twinge of guilt.
There’s a lot of bacteria in the human mouth, that is gonna sting— can’t feel too bad though, still a man with a sharp object. That I fucking forgot to take away from him, great.
With that thought, she flung herself through the door and found herself flying face first at an animated suit of armor. Or at least that was what she thought at first, until she realized it was in fact a person in that armor, and they looked severely displeased with her. Gauntlet clad hands clamped around her upper arms and forced her upright enough to see just who she had collided with. The man was tall, towering over her modest 5’7”, with wavy golden hair and piercing amber eyes that at once held accusation and exasperation. His frown pulled at the scar bisecting his upper lip, and Kiran gulped a bit at the realization that maybe Outlander guy had been the lesser evil. At least she was able to catch him off guard— this one had her in a hold so tight that she knew she’d be sporting bruises for days. Behind her, she heard Outlander’s slow footsteps, which she now understood was because he knew there was nowhere for her to run. He came through the door behind her, cradling his bitten hand and sporting a slight forehead bump. Neither of which, she thought, made him less attractive, now that she could look at him without true panic blinding her.
Too bad this doesn’t seem like it’ll be THAT kind of roleplay. A girl can dream. Or have this kind of nightmare.
“Captain Rylen, please explain why the prisoner is standing in the middle of the chantry, presumably with your blood on her mouth.”
The words themselves were spoken in an even baritone and faint British accent, almost neutral, if not for the rage belied in those amber eyes. Kiran shivered in fear— she couldn't remember anyone looking at her that way since she was a child and pissed her dad off. The reminder immediately caused her to bristle in defiance, pinching herself against his grip, but refusing to cower before any man like her father. Before Outlander— presumably Captain Rylen— could answer, Kiran decided she would give the man she bit a little grace and interrupted.
“He was keeping watch, I screamed. He didn’t like that very much, and I don’t like being locked up very much, so I bit him, knee’d him in the balls, and head-butted him. Would’ve taken the sword, too, but I forgot.”
Kiran conveniently left out the part where this only worked because she startled him out of sleep, and she detected the barest hint of relief enter his grey eyes. The stark black lines tattooed down his chin twitched a bit as he shot her a suspicious glance. On the other hand, the golden-haired man was aghast. Her summary seemed to have either shocked or upset him enough that he didn’t comment on her interrupting, rather he chose to splutter out angry noises, one of which she vaguely put together to be “Sweet Maker”, though she did not know what a baker would have to do with any of this. Rylen finally found his voice, “She says the truth, Commander. The prisoner took advantage of my underestimation of her own abilities, and the lass fights dirty.” The sound of his Scottish brogue reminded her that she had no idea where she was. Or what was happening. Or why she was being held prisoner. So many questions bubbled up that she thought she would choke on the volume of them, but the only thing that came out was—
“Are we in Europe?”
The British giant— supposedly the “Commander”— looked at her strangely, frustration and confusion warring in his gaze, before he sighed and said, “We are in Ferelden. You will receive no information beyond that until we have ascertained what kind of threats you may pose.”
Suddenly, Kiran realized that whatever was going on, this wasn’t a show, it wasn’t a dream, and she was fucking in for it if people needed to “ascertain” whether she was dangerous. For fuck’s sake, she thought to herself, I’m a goddamn bartender— the only threat I pose is to sobriety. She must’ve voiced that particular thought aloud, based on the men’s faces. The Commander looked her up and down and coughed, “That explains your choice of dress. Were you a barmaid at a brothel?”
The question was asked so matter-of-factly that Kiran took a second to register insult, and was also dismayed to remember exactly what she had been wearing when she had fallen asleep after her most recent night out. She loved how the leather halter top and matching mini skirt made her cleavage and long legs pop. She loved it less so in the cold but the judgement in the Commander’s eyes forced her to stop shivering and straighten up, thrusting her full chest forward, as she spat out, “No, but I’m sure you were a frequent customer, asshole. Guys like you couldn’t keep a woman in bed short of gluing her to it. And I’m a bartender, not a barmaid!”
The Commander’s grip on her tightened up momentarily from where it had slackened as he, strangely enough for the situation, seemed distracted by her breasts. A blush quickly fell over his cheeks even as he glared at her insults and all but dragged her down the hall of what appeared to be a…church they were in? The tattooed guard had disappeared, likely to escape the wrath of the very man yanking her about like a rag doll. She tried her best to take in her surroundings as they hustled towards two wooden doors at the end of the main hall they were in. Groups of people dressed in strange clothing stared wide-eyed as they made their way, and she spotted multiple with… elf ears? Except these didn’t look like the cheap prosthetics she had used for costumes in the past— they were legitimate flesh.
Holy shit, actual elves? Elves exist? In Europe? Fuck, no, he called it Ferelden. Mayb-
Her baffled train of thought was interrupted by their arrival at two grand wooden doors, which the Commander unceremoniously yanked open and shoved her through, before slamming both shut behind them. The noise startled the other four people in the room, all of whose eyes fell on her as she stumbled into the chair that the Commander so nicely pulled out for her. She landed with a thump and his hands stayed tight around her, apparently doing the job of shackles. In front of her stood a young man with a ruffled mane of dark hair and a glowing green fucking hand that was running through the dark curls.
The same green as that weird ass storm— could they be connected? Does he know what’s happened to me?
Kiran’s excited thoughts were interrupted by a lyrical voice, coming from a woman in the corner of the meeting room. Her red hair was cut short to her chin, and her ice-blue eyes seemed to stare right through Kiran as she asked in a French accent, “This is the one who fell out of a rift, yes? Could she have not been given a cloak, Commander?”
For some reason, that comment sent Kiran over the edge. She had been kidnapped, held in a cell, and dragged through a church and all these people cared about was an exposing outfit? She erupted.
“Sorry, the jail cell didn’t exactly come with all the amenities, and you dragged me here! Pardon me for not being dressed for church after being kidnapped! And since when does a church have prison cells? Who are you people? Why are you all European? Where am I? Why am I here? How the fuck did you get me out of Texas? Why is his hand—“
For the second time that day, a hand slammed over Kiran’s mouth. Except this one had a gauntlet, and she wasn’t about to risk her teeth biting this one. If she really was in Europe, dental care would be shit. Effectively silenced, she glared up at the Commander and hissed out muffled curses. Another woman, this one dark-skinned and dressed in the most frilly outfit Kiran had ever seen, set down the paper and quill in her hands and turned towards Joan of Arc (as Kiran had dubbed the French redhead). Her eyes held a softness missing from anyone else’s that Kiran had seen so far, and her voice was gentle as she spoke, “Perhaps the prisoner is distressed from her handling and the cold. Lady Nightingale, if you would please retrieve my furs?”
With one raised red eyebrow, Joan leaned over and picked up a dense furry blanket and handed it over to Kiran’s captor. He promptly dropped the blanket over her shoulders and resumed his iron grip on her upper arms. A scoff came from the last member of their little circle as she stepped further into the candlelight coming from the table. Kiran gulped a little as she took in the woman’s armored form, complete with a sword in her hand and a shield strapped to her back. She stood ramrod straight and emanated danger as her scowl settled on Kiran. A light Slavic accent colored her words as she ground them out, “The comfort of an unknown threat is of no concern—
She was interrupted by Joan’s tinkling laugh,”The babbling and screaming aside, she appears to be resourceful, if not a threat. How did she escape Captain Rylen, Commander?”
Her captor let out a grunt and answered, with no small degree of exasperation, “She screamed and bit him. Rylen did not expect her attacks and underestimated what she was capable of—although she did forget to take his weapon, which leads me to believe whoever trained her did an incomplete job.”
Kiran let out a muffled protest and started squirming at that, which led the Commander to let out a “Maker’s breath” as he struggled to contain her without injury. The tinkling little laugh echoed through the room again, and Joan gave a slight nod to the Commander to release his captive, at least for the time being. Kiran took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to keep her wits about her. Or whatever was left of them, after this debacle. Green hand guy offered her a gentle smile and spoke, “We mean you no harm. Do you know where you are? May we ask your name?”
The sudden switch to manners and kind words startled Kiran, but not enough to look a gift horse in the mouth. She’d take honeyed words over a jail cell any day, at least until she could figure out what was going on.
“Kiran, my name is Kiran. I’m from Katy, Texas and that’s where I last remember being,” her brows furrowed as she tried to remember what had happened,” There was a storm, a green storm, and I went back to bed. Next thing I know, I’m here—which I’m guessing is somewhere in Europe? How’d you get me on a plane? Was this some kind of international relief effort? Did the UN send y’all?”
The room abruptly filled with the sound of true laughter from behind her, the Commander of all people struggling to hold it back.
“You saw a green storm on the horizon, and went back to sleep?”
Kiran blushed and muttered, “I thought it would be gone when I woke up. Stranger shit has happened!”
Suddenly, all mirth left the room. Green guy looked down at his hand and shook his head, “Stranger shit has indeed happened, as you say. Stranger still, we do not know what this Europe or Texas you speak of are. Your accent is similar to that of the Free Marches, perhaps your Texas is a village there?”
Kiran frowned, although it was hilarious to think of the entire state of Texas as a “village”, their answers only left her with more questions. Unfortunately, she didn’t get the chance to ask any before she was inundated with their own. Frilly, Greeny, Joan, and the Commander battered her with questions regarding who she was (Kiran), what she did (bartend), and where she came from (“I already told you!”). Stabby, as she had dubbed the woman with the sword, stood vigil in the corner as the interrogation continued. Finally, when they had presumably deemed her as having gone insane or in the process of, they decided she was no threat. Greeny cleared his throat and extended a hand to her, introducing himself as Maxwell Trevelyan and the others as Leliana (Joan), Josephine (Frilly), Cassandra (Stabby), and Cullen (Commander). He continued, “We welcome you to Haven, the base of the Inquisition—
Kiran spluttered, “The inquisition? Like the Spanish Inquisition? Have I gone back in time?”
Stabby—Cassandra, frowned at her, “What is a Spanish? Why would the Inquisition be Spanish? We were created by the will of Divine Justinia, Maker take her soul.”
Kiran blinked, “Spanish? You know, como estas? Donde esta la biblioteca?”
Josephine squealed, “Ah, you are familiar with Antivan then! What other languages do you speak? Orlesian perhaps? Or maybe Rivaini, you certainly have their look about you.”
“Uh, I speak a little French? Comment ça va? Also don’t know what a Rivaini or Orlesian are?”
“Strange,” came from Leliana, “that you claim to know nothing and yet speak several languages of Thedas.”
Kiran had never liked being out of the loop, and the circumstances of this situation were trying her already fragile temper. She groaned in frustration, “I don’t know what the fuck Thedas is! I don’t know anything! I went to bed and woke up in your weird dungeon church and I just want to go back home! You’re the ones that kidnapped me and brought me here, anyways!”
Cassandra let out a snort, and Kiran noticed with relief that she had sheathed her weapon. “We did not kidnap you. You fell out of a rift in the Hinterlands and we brought you back to Haven for questioning. The last time people came out of a rift, they brought the Blight with them. We could not afford for you to become a similar threat.”
“Okayyyy,” said Kiran, “and a rift is?”
Maxwell took over from there, explaining that wherever the fuck she ended up had holes in the sky that tore through the fabric of something called the Veil, and out of it came demons. So of course, when something fell out that wasn’t a demon, the troops were alarmed and detained her in a magically locked tent until she could be transported for questioning.
Of course, I couldn’t have fallen into utopia or crash landed in Cabo— of course I end up somewhere that demons are real and there are holes in the fabric of goddamn reality. Or they could all be insane?
But looking at all the armor they were wearing and the seriousness of their expressions , something told Kiran that this was real. That whatever threat was out there, it was scary enough that people wore full chain mail and had weapons at the ready all the time. And fuck if that didn’t make her head spin, to the point that she felt the familiar stirring of a panic attack start in her chest. Breaths were getting harder to pull in and let out, her chest tightening as she struggled to keep calm and continue asking questions.
“Then how am I going to get home? Where am I? Who are you people? What is happening here? How do I get home???”
Multiple voices started up at once but it was too late, Kiran’s vision was darkening as the full impact of what they were saying hit her. She was in another world, one that didn’t have Europe or Texas or evidently guns based on their weapons. She was somewhere completely foreign without a clue or a tether to her reality, and her heart was beating so fast that she could hear her pulse in her ears. A strange energy had gathered in the room as she panicked, tension building and the space becoming uncomfortably warm. It almost felt like she herself was over heating, a pressure building in her veins.
“Cassandra, do you feel that?”
Cullen’s voice felt like it was coming from miles away as his frantic tone reached Cassandra.
“Magic. Whatever she is, wherever she came from, she has magic and she is losing control. Cullen, you must—“
“I can’t, Cassandra, there isn’t enough left for me to Silence her, it has to be you!”
“If I do, she will be in a remarkable amount of pain. A Seeker’s Silence temporarily burns the mana from their veins. When she awakes, she will not trust us.”
Leliana’s frantic voice interrupted the argument as she took in the state of the prisoner and the magic swirling around her, heat emanating from her with Kiran’s frantic attempts to breathe, “Do something, either of you, now! Before she erupts this room into flames and takes the Inquisition with her—“
It was too late. The overstimulation, the circumstances, the shouting around her were too much for Kiran’s breaking mind. She let out a silent scream and fell to her knees as fire shot up in a circle around her, burning blue-hot and forcing the Commander to step back. Cassandra muttered a curse and closed her eyes, fists clenching as she muttered under her breath. If Kiran was able to hear anything, she would’ve detected a faint “sorry” leaving Cassandra’s lips before her veins caught alight. If the fire around her was hot, her blood was lava with the way it burned in her body. She writhed in pain on the floor, feeling a thousand explosions through her veins as the Seeker burned her mana. The fire subsided almost immediately, but Kiran remained curled up on the floor, the burn replaced with an ache that seemed to echo in her bones. She felt herself being picked up and carried, felt her skin make contact with the cold floor, and sobs came unbidden until she passed out from the pain.