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You enter the prison that you opened and find you do not have the key anymore. It is locked behind you. You find it silent, suffocating, but still words of its most recent denizen echo in your mind.
The echo is louder in this prison. But you still cannot make out the words. He was calculating, vengeful, and sorrowful. And that makes you so angry.
So, you have your victory. You live.
You fall to your knees. You replay those moments.
Arrows distract that monstrous goddess. You dangle helplessly, your weapons scattered on the ground below where you are held. Your dear friend, your Scout, your partner in crime for more than a year, looks at you.
She has determination in her eyes. But you also know that she is scared. She is remembering her ma, praying to her god that she will be okay. She is hoping that her last letters made it to her friends all over the world. She is recalling her last kiss with her burgeoning qunari love.
She is doing what you were ready to do.
And it breaks you.
You watch her take the brutal attacks of a god on the edge of death. You track her fall, lose sight of her. The moments after are a blur as your Crow completes his contract.
The remaining god retreats, you pull this veil-tearing dagger from the dead goddess.
Are you not proud to have finally reached this moment?
You want to dive after your Scout, find her body, push her to survive. She is a part of the Stone. She must be immune to the Blight. Those wounds would not be the end of her.
But then your Crow's body lays before you. Another dead. How? You did not see him take a hit. You only saw his victory, his miss made right - even though he had already made the god bleed.
Or did you think you'd win the day without some painful sacrifice?
Did this god of trickery not know? Did he not see your Scout, his old friend, willingly lay down her life? Did he not see what had already been wrought? In these moments, you want to scream. Because it wasn't just her - your Detective too! She was taken. Another friend from the beginning. A woman who was needed in her city, who lost everything but was still so determined to see justice for her people. You do not know what is awaiting her from the remaining god. You wanted to find her, you had planned to rescue her. But it seemed that she was also sacrificed on that fucking Isle of the Gods.
To add her Crow, bring this tally to three - it was cruelty behind measure. This was not just a trick, this was revenge. This god of trickery held shades of the others; he did not like to lose.
And you fall, battered and bruised, into his prison.
Your grief radiates in this empty place. It morphs into different forms. You are sad, your heart broken. You are rage-filled, for your gods, even the one helping you, are not benevolent. You are relieved because the goddess of monsters is dead. You are guilty, for your friend is dead but your love is not. You know that your Grey Warden would've stepped up. He would've done whatever it took.
Your tears splatter the ground. You will never see her again. You will never get to visit her home with her in the south. You will have to tell everyone that holds her dear what happened. You will have to tell the leader of the south that under your watch, one of her closest friends is dead.
Your Scout does not get to see the world win. She does not get to be praised for the past decade that she put into this cause.
The dwarves have lost a guiding light. A chosen so bright, so willing to share with the ones around her. She was the most selfless of them all.
She is now just a story.