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Running on fumes and healing draughts, they defeat Saarath.
Better she should say that Lavellan defeats Saarath, throwing the explosive power of the anchor in his face again and again, screaming in pain as much as in rage. Sera has seen the Inquisitor use her sword and shield to defeat mages, knights, dragons, even Corifibutt himself but this time, she is literally killing herself to rip this qunari apart. You’d think that two years would’ve changed anybody’s heart, but Sera knows the Inquisitor better; Solas is just up ahead, and Lavellan won’t let anything get in her way.
As soon as the path is clear, she doesn’t hesitate. Lavellan runs into the Eluvian, blood flying from her weapons as she leaps through the reflective surface. Sera is right behind her, just a step behind, she swears—
But the mirror turns black, solid as a wall, and the Inquisitor is gone.
The Inquisitor is gone, and Sera is alone again.
Dorian is throwing magic at it, flinging obscenities and spells at the mirror in the same breath, while the Iron Bull swings his great sword in the air as he bellows curses in his own language. To no one’s surprise, none of it makes the mirror open up again. It remains black and unmoving, keeping back its secrets and their friend behind its opaque surface.
Sera should’ve been right there with them, cussing out elves and magic and the Fade, trying to put arrows through it maybe, but instead she is quiet. It’s shock, she tells herself. But how can she be shocked when she knew this would happen? The servants had been acting funny, she knew it, and then with the qunari attacking, all of this elf shit, and her hand... her hand.
“We’ll go back,” Dorian pants, his staff striking firmly into the ground, propping him up. “We’ll get help, the others can, together we’ll be able to,” the Tevinter mage can’t even finish the thought, but he is already straightening his back, swaying on his feet and stubbornly putting one in front of the other. Iron Bull is visibly pulling himself together once there’s a plan of action, securing his great sword behind him and turning to follow the mage. The Eluvian that brought them here is mercifully clear and polished like glass, calling them through the portal, when there’s a noise.
Both men turn around, and Sera is standing in front of the black mirror ahead, the one that swallowed up Lavellan into the ether. There’s that noise again, and it’s coming from the elf.
She’s crying.
“Give her back,” she says between sobs. Her fingers are twisting her bow, knuckles turned a pale white, and her expression is wobbling between rage and despair when she suddenly snarls and slams her fists against the mirror. She’s hardly aware of what she’s screaming until Dorian pulls her away, and she’s hitting him instead, still screaming: “She saved the world, she saved me, give her back! She don’t deserve this, give her back! Give her back!”
“Sera!” Both men call her name with varying degrees of emotion, but she pauses long enough for her face to crumple again, shoulders trembling with anger and tears.
“She’s going to die alone,” she wails into the mage’s shoulder. Dorian falls still and that’s when she feels the Iron Bull at her back. His hulking presence is familiar enough that she draws a gulping breath, a shudder surging through her body from her head to her toes as Dorian pulls her in closer. Sera sobs, “She can’t, we can’t leave, not like this. How're we s'pposed to leave her behind?”
The words linger uneasily in the air around them, because no one has an answer for her.
She screams every time the men try to make a move, so they stay huddled around her still form and Sera keeps her red, tear-streaked eyes focused on the mirror. They try to talk reason into her, talk over her head like she’s not even there—though after Bull’s insistence that he just pick her up like luggage, she elbows him forcefully in the crotch. The bigger man stumbles backwards with a groan, but Sera hasn’t looked away from the black surface of the Eluvian. Dorian makes a disgruntled noise, torn between comforting his lover and snarling in the elf’s face.
“You can’t bring her back by will alone!” he shouts, which is when the mirror’s surface decides to clear.
A noise is ripped away from Sera, something between shock and elation, but before any of them can rush the magical portal, Solas steps through it, carrying Lavellan in his arms. She has never looked so small, Sera decides, folded in on herself and cradled as she is. A moment later, it occurs to the elf that Solas has also never looked so cold and menacing.
Dorian seems to be in agreement, because he takes a step back, forcing Sera behind him as he holds his staff out in front of her. There’s a long tense moment, and although it would be three against one, suddenly Sera isn’t so sure they would have the advantage. Iron Bull gasps, a soft, almost delicate sound that’s immediately followed by the dangerous slice of his great sword being drawn from its sheath. “What have you done?” He asks, his voice pitched to a low grunt.
“Take her,” Solas says and Sera can’t believe for a moment that she had forgotten the imperial tone of his voice.
“Bastard, what have you done to her?” Dorian cries, sweeping his staff forward into an attack stance, but Solas holds out one hand, eyes suddenly glowing a bright fey green. Both Iron Bull and Dorian go flying backwards, but Sera doesn’t see it, wide eyes glued to the man in front of her and the slow in and out of Lavellan’s breath.
“Well, that’s new,” she deadpans, a startling enough comment in the face of such tension that Solas smirks for a brief second. Slowly stepping forward again, the green glow leaches away from his eyes until they return to a soft hazel, softer still when he glances down at Lavellan unconscious in his arms.
The look disappears when the elf turns back to regarding Sera. “Take her,” he repeats, just a shade humbler this time. She holds out her arms but she’s unprepared for the warrior’s weight, and they both kneel to soften Lavellan’s fall. Sera takes the stump of her left arm, her shield arm, and lays it gently across her side.
Two teardrops land on the side of Lavellan’s face, and Sera drags her sleeve over her leaking eyes. Her demeanor cuts quickly to anger when Solas stands and makes as if to leave. “She waited for you, you know?” She speaks, emotion thickening her voice, as though she’s strangling with it. “And you’re leaving her again.”
Solas doesn’t reply; in fact, he doesn’t even acknowledge that he heard Sera.
She can hear Iron Bull exhale loudly and Dorian scrambling to his feet behind her but she clutches Lavellan closer to her chest and shouts, “I’m going to make her forget you. Just wait, I’ll make sure of it!” And maybe she imagines how the elf pauses before the Eluvian, only imagines that his hand hesitates midair, but in the next moment, Solas pushes through the clear glass and it turns to black again.
“I swear it,” Sera mutters, lips trembling.
She darts down, lands a quick peck on Lavellan’s forehead, and immediately starts harping on Dorian and Bull to come and help her, just what were they doing, lazing around like that. They settle Lavellan in Iron Bull’s arms and decide to be away as quickly as possible.
The Inquisitor is back, and Sera swears that she’ll never be alone again.