Healing the Dark - Dragon Age Inquisition Fanfic

They hadn't made the journey back to Haven right away, lingering near the Crossroads to help the refugees for days. There was clean-up to do, damage to try and repair, and funerals to ready the dead for. Holli tried to help where she could, mostly as a gofer and often a babysitter. Initially it had been one toddler; a frazzled mother had left her daughter with Holli while she tried to care for her injured husband. Who could be more trustworthy than the Herald of Andraste?

Holli had never had much to do with little children. She worked as a waitress in a cafe. And not the nice, trendy, family-friendly kind. 

After that, kids had started gathering about her, some sent there by their parents, she was sure. Others just had nothing better to do. Holli may not have had much to do with kids, but she knew how to play, and keeping them entertained with stories was an easy feat. Turned out Spiderman was a fan favourite even here. Of course she'd altered the world a bit; they weren't going to know what skyscrapers or cars were. But they liked the idea of a boy with spider powers who could shoot webs out of his hands. Most of them. One girl thought it was disgusting. Since Holli had neglected the bit about the web shooters being gadgets, she could see how someone might be grossed out by that. 

Sometimes Cassandra and either Varric or Solas would leave the village for hours at a time. But one of them was always left to babysit her. Since Cassandra was considered something of Inquisition leadership, she never stayed. She had to go out there and further the Inquisition's goals. But they wouldn't leave Holli unprotected. 

She was acclimatising to this place, trying her damndest to accept this was the way things were for now. That acceptance had helped a little. But seeing more people die of their injuries every day was... difficult. And every day more refugees arrived, displaced by the fighting or the demons. There was a pall of despair in the air.

So when more kids flocked to her to play, she tried to make it fun. They'd lost homes and family members and were in a strange place most of them didn't know. She could relate.

"Ralf, you were tagged!" Holli called out.

Kaeso had clearly tagged him, and the boy had kept running. Holli had taught them freeze tag; they already had tag; surprisingly, they hadn't come up with the freeze part. It was one of their favourite games to play. Holli had been kind of enjoying it too. Reminded her of simpler days. Even if she did suck at it. She spent more time being frozen than running around, but it gave her a chance to catch her breath. 

"I was not!" He called back, stopping to pout at her.

"We all saw it!" Laelia said, earning a chorus of agreement from the other children. 

"I was not!" He said, stamping his foot and doubling down. 

"My dude, if you're going to cheat, no one is going to want to play with you," Holli said, hands on hips. 

"Fine!" He spat, storming off. 

Holli sighed. Sometimes they were little shits. "You guys keep playing; I'll go talk to him. Back soon, yeah?"

The other kids nodded, carrying on with their game while Holli jogged after Ralf. Damn it, he was running. She felt a jolt of panic when she watched him run up the path away from the village, outside of its protective boundary. He darted into the trees.

"Ralf, stop!" 

He kept running; Holli pushed herself harder to catch up with him. He suddenly cried out, disappearing from view as he fell down an embankment. Holli skidded to a stop; a familiar tingle had started in her hand. She could see the rift, out of her range from here. And she could see demons. She looked down, spotting Ralf in the rocks. 

"Ralf? Are you okay?" She called.

"No," he sobbed out. 

Fuck fuck fuck. The demons had seen him and were quickly making their way over. She sat down and scooted over the edge, trying to control her slide down to him. It must have been about fifteen feet or so, and the kid had probably gone rolling down it with how sudden it had been. Running through a forest she'd thought the most dangerous thing would be tree roots, not the ground suddenly dropping out from under you.

She made it down to him, completely unsure of what to do now, mindful of the approaching danger. She was an idiot; she should have gone and gotten help. But then the demons might have gotten him before she could get back. Now they were both just going to die. 

"Well, Ralf, demons are going to kill us," she said, peeking over the boulder they were hidden behind. Don't panic, don't panic. "I hope you've learnt a valuable lesson about cheating."

He looked horrified at the prospect. Good. 

"Can you move?" Maybe they could outrun them.

"My leg hurts, and my arm."

While she had taken a few first aid courses, funnily enough, none of them covered how to treat a child while demons bore down on you. His clothes were ripped, and there was a fair bit of blood. She couldn't see bones sticking out at least. Maybe just bad grazes. The embankment he'd gone rolling down was mostly stone.

"It's probably going to hurt, but I'm going to pull you onto my back, and we're going to have to run."

He nodded, and she turned around, trying to pull him onto her back, but he cried out in pain and pulled away. She could hear the demons getting closer, hear them scrabbling on the other side of the rocks. Fuck, trying to outrun them over rocks with a kid on her back wasn't going to work. She couldn't even get him on her back.

"Okay, that's not going to work," she muttered, looking around for a weapon. 

Plenty of rocks, some branches... Maybe she could distract them, get them to chase her, lead them away from Ralf. Or if she could get to the rift, try and close it, that would stun them, buy them a bit of time. 

Before she could do anything, one of them topped the boulder. Ralf screamed as it raised its claws to strike her. Holli threw her hands up to protect her face and heard a shrieking hiss out of the creature. Holli looked up, no blow coming. There was a shimmering barrier between them and the demons. 

"Oh thank fuck, Solas must have found us," she breathed out, relieved. 

She looked around but couldn't see him anywhere. More and more demons were climbing over the rocks and pounding against the barrier. No one was attacking the demons, though. Could Solas not fight and hold up the barrier at the same time? Where was he? 

The barrier was almost spherical, a bit jaggedy in some spots, but it must have been strong. They weren't getting through. 

She turned her attention back to Ralf. "Okay, let's get out of here. I'm just going to try lifting you."

Hopefully Solas could move the barrier with them. She crouched down, sliding her arms under him and grunting with the exertion of lifting him. He wasn't a small kid, more than half her size. Climbing over the rocks was going to be tricky. 

"If we fall and I drop you, no I didn't," she warned him.

He let out a nervous laugh, his eyes on the demons still battering their shield. Every time they hit it, she felt like a small piece of her cracked, and fear seeped in. How much more could this thing take? She carefully wound her way through the rocks, keeping an eye out for Solas so she could make her way to him. 

"Christ, dude, why are you so heavy? Aren't you meant to be a starving refugee?"

He glared at her for that one. "Why are you so weak?"

"Why are you such a butt?"

She slipped, nearly dropping him and falling down herself. 

"Be careful!" He snapped. 

"Or maybe I should just leave you here."

They both knew she wouldn't do it. 

Just focus on one foot in front of the other. Ignore the demons pounding against the barrier made of magic—a force up until a little while ago she hadn't even believed in. 

"Over here! I see them!" She heard Cassandra's voice call out over the clearing, and she, Varric, Solas, and Inquisition soldiers flooded in. The demons turned their attention from her and started fighting the soldiers. Solas, Varric, and Cassandra came to where she was standing with the boy. 

"You'll need to close that rift," Cassandra said. "Give the boy to Solas."

She looked to Solas expectantly, and he stared back, neither moving. 

"Don't you need to drop the barrier?" She asked him. 

"No. I didn't create it," he replied, reaching out and lightly brushing his fingers over the shimmer. "It feels like your magic, Holli."

She shot him a less than impressed look. "Impossible," she said flatly.

"And yet..." He gestured to the barrier. "Can you not feel it? Our magic is as much a part of us as our arms and our legs. This shield should feel like an extension of yourself. How did it come to be?"

She weighed his words, his expression, the look in his eyes. He seemed genuine.

"We were about to be hit, and it just appeared. I thought it was you, that you must have found us."

He shook his head. "I've only just arrived."

"It can't be me," she said. "We don't have magic where I come from."

"Holli, I think it is time you start accepting what I've been saying." She didn't like the chiding tone. "You are a mage, and this barrier is yours. Only you can take it down." From his hand, fire started pouring out against the barrier. "What does that feel like?"

She could feel it, not the heat of the flames, but like the blows from the demon, like a piece of her fracturing. 

"Like something is cracking. Inside."

"What is cracking?"

"I don't know?"

His brow furrowed at that. He turned back to see the demons had been dispatched by the soldiers, and they were waiting for Holli to close the rift.

"The demons are gone now, we're here, and you're safe. Take a deep breath and relax."

She could see he was telling the truth about the demons, and she did so, taking a deep breath and draining the tension out of her on the exhale. The barrier blinked out of existence.

"See? That was you," Solas said, faint amusement colouring his tone as he took the boy from her arms. "We'll have to teach you control. Now go close that rift."

She nodded, walking closer to it on shaky legs. Closing the rifts was easy now, if still uncomfortable. She pulled it closed, rejoining the others amidst cheers from the soldiers. Every closed rift seemed to be something to celebrate. 

They started walking back to the Crossroads; Holli remained silent while Cassandra scolded her for leaving the village. Holli was lost in her own thoughts.

Was she magic? Solas had been saying it from day one, but there'd been no proof. Should she count today as proof? She would think doing magic would feel like something. But it hadn't really felt like anything. The cracking feeling just felt like anxiety. When the force field had dropped, it had no more impact to it than a bubble popping. 

The thought that maybe Solas was messing with her came to mind, but he really didn't seem the type. And from what conversations they'd had about mages and the Fade, this was an area that he took very seriously. 

"Holli, are you listening?" Cassandra's voice pierced her thoughts.

"To what?" Holli asked, earning a disgusted grunt from Cassandra.

Varric patted her hard on the back as he laughed. 

Shit, what had she missed?