Kidnapped (Alarian)

The angst gets worse. Also kinda graphic so be warned.

There's a hand over my mouth and a harsh voice whispers in my ear “If you scream I'll slit your throat.” I concentrate on the shape of the hand, it's rather small, almost fragile. This is no Qunari, it's a human, in fact it a human woman. Based on the voice anyway. “Stand up.” The voice commands not moving the blade from my neck. I carefully stand up and walk towards the door, opening it without a sound. “Down the stairs, now.” I comply and go to walk down the stairs, but then another door opens, and Varric steps out into the darkened hallway. He squints at the figure whose hand is clamped over my mouth. “Inquisitor?” He whispers. I turn my head and look to see none other than Marien Jade Trevallyn: The Inquisitor. “What are you doing here?!” She whispers to Varric coldly. “That's classified I'll have you know. And what are you doing?” Varric replies smoothly. I go to say something, but the blade goes farther into my neck. “Just taking my little friend here to Skyhold for a meeting with myself and Commander Cullen.” Varric doesn't have the best night vision, unlike me, as elves naturally can see well in the darkness. And so he doesn't realize the danger of the situation. Varric doesn't see the inquisitor very often and doesn't know how much of an anti Semitic psychopath she is. It's rather ridiculous someone can hate a group of people that much. And I have a rather bad feeling about this meeting…

 Marien dismisses Varric, and he doesn't hear my small sound of protest. If only Fenris or Zevran had stepped out instead, they could have done something, figured out what was happening. I walk down the stairs carefully, the blade against my skin moves a bit each time I step, finally after what seemed like ages we get to the bottom of the stairs. I slip on my shoes and she takes the blade away from my neck for a moment as I tie them, then opens the door silently and shoves me out into the cold night air. She puts up the good of her cloak, and I do the same. “Let's go.” Marien says roughly, tying my hands with a rope and tugging me along. I begrudgingly follow, wishing that if I screamed it wouldn't mean my death, or worse. We trudge along, through the countryside, avoiding all major cities. Eventually we stop by an old willow tree, miles away from my home. The inquisitor ties the rope to a tree branch ‘so I won't run away’ and then pitches a tent, then instructs me to go gather firewood and start a fire, “That's the only thing mage's are good for anyways. Chore workers.” She mumbles as she untied me, and warns that if I run I won't live to see tomorrow. That's where she's wrong though, you see, I'm what's called - Immortal- even if I die, I'm just back again shortly after. Both a good and bad thing.

 I come back after a while with a stack of firewood and arrange it so it will light, then cast fireball and the wood ignites, burning brightly. The inquisitor pulls out some dried meat and other little things, fruit, some crackers, you get the point. I look at them longingly, about to ask if I could have some, but she looks at me coldly “If you're about to ask on whether or not I'm sharing the answer is no.” I look down, staring at my feet for the rest of the time until the fire begins to die. She leans against the willow tree with her hands behind her head, as I sit in the dirt tracing patterns with a stick, and I softly say “Marien?” She looks at me. “Why do you hate me so much?” I don't look at her, but I can tell she wasn't expecting that. “Why do I hate you? Because your...you. Your people are greedy and blind, you follow a false god, not the almighty maker.” I look up then, “You do realize that our religion was around first, right? And that we aren't that different, we simply don't think Andastrate was the Holy One, in our religion we believe that they have not yet come. And let me tell you, I've met Andastrate, she's not that great.” Enraged Marien leaps up and goes over to me, her arm raises, and comes down across my face with a Slap! “You say that one more time you little bitch I'll beat you! Do you understand!” I rub my cheek where her hand hit and don't answer, she grabs me “Do. You. Understand?” I nod and she lets go, I move back, away from her. How long does this have to last?

The night draws on and on, Marien crawls inside her tent for the night and leaves me out in the cold. I rekindle the fire and wrap my cloak tightly around myself. Watching the flames leap and crack as they fly into the night distracts me for a while, my eyes start to feel heavy, but I don't sleep, if I sleep who knows what might happen. Instead I keep myself occupied, watching the stars make their nightly journey across the sky, keeping the fire going by rekindling the flame every now and then, singing old songs to myself, twirling the rope in my fingers and waiting for daylight to come. Eventually it does and the inquisitor crawls out of their tent and quickly packs it, then reties the rope around my wrists and we walk for another day. This continues until we get to Skyhold. We walk, we stop and set up camp, we argue more, Marien eats and I get nothing, gradually losing weight and energy until one time in the mountains I fall and pass out from exhaustion, and then Marien goes to sleep leaving me to fend for myself. After what seems like weeks Skyhold comes into view, I'm not looking forward to this.

The Inquisitor and I enter the castle under the cover of night and Cullen greets us near the door. Or should I greets Marien, and gives me not more than a look of disgust. “Great to see you too Cullen, always so polite. True champion of chivalry.” I say sarcastically. That was a bad idea, as Cullen is much bigger than I am and then picks me up by my collar, and drags me down to the dungeon. I kick and try to claw my way out of his iron grip but it only tightens and his sharp gauntlets cut the back of my neck. He grabs the keys from their place on a wall and unlocks a cell door, pushes me against a wall and then I feel shackles around my wrists. “I'm going to enjoy this I think.” Cullen muses as the shackles lock into place. I look him in the eyes, trembling. What's going to happen I can't even think, he leaves and comes back with a box, rummaging through it before finding the correct thing. A straight blade, like one used for shaving or other things of that sort. Like the one in Auschwitz- wait...no. No no no no no No. He walks over to me and grips me by the jaw “Not even your magic can help you now, little elf. Now your truly helpless.” He takes the blade and cuts into my hair, just when it was starting to grow back to normal, just when I thought I'd gotten away. I silently cry as lock by lock the golden strands fall to the floor. Whence that is done Cullen tosses the knife back into the box and look at me “And to think, by now your stupid friends must have forgotten about you. Sad.” He says with a sadistic grin.

20 lashes for screaming, a kick in the gut for talking, a slap in the face of other beating for crying, 5 cuts on each arm for protest or fighting back. When will it end...when will it end?! Can anyone harbor this much hate, and take it out in such a way? I'd never thought it'd be possible, and that none of the inquisition finds out, it's amazing they cover their tracks so well. On one of the rare days I'm allowed out from that horrendous dungeon running errands and other work I walk to the stables, pick up the package from blackwalls quarters and hear him talking with someone downstairs, “Rather strange how little I've heard from the warden these days, say- who was that new servent I've seen running around? Awful thin that poor thing, and won't talk either. Strange.” I look down at myself, I can see my ribs again, memories flash through my head and I start to feel sick. I run to the bathroom and vomit. After splashing my face with cold water I feel a bit better. Blackwall and the other person look up at me. I wave my apologies wordlessly and quickly scurry back to Skyhold. On the way I bump into Cole, he looks me up and down “hurting, broken, confused, why, why, why, why?” I look around to make sure no one is within earshot before leaning in and whispering to Cole. “Help me Cole.” I say as my voice breaks and tears roll down my face. His pupils widen “Ali?” He asks. I nod. “What happened to you?” I explain what happened before needing to go, if I'm late then Marien will start to wonder, and who knows what will happen then. I just want to go home!

MEANWHILE IN DENERIM

“What do you mean, The inquisitor just showed up and was standing next to something in the hallway?! And next we wake up and find their missing!” I yell at Varric, he really needs to get his vision checked, but more importantly we need to find Alarian! He takes a gulp of his coffee “I'm sorry Fenris, I can't see well in the dark.” I groan and walk over to the staircase “Leliana, any leads yet?” I yell up the stairs and Leliana pops out of her study “Blackwall sent me a telegram, there's been a disheveled looking elf sighted around Skyhold, about five feet.  they don't speak and have very short dark blonde hair with bangs that cover their face. Looks as if it were messily cut, only appears when doing chores and quickly disappears otherwise. I think that's our elf.” Better be. “Any idea as to why their there?” Leliana scratches her head “Well Josiephine said that the Inquisitor had left a few weeks ago and came back late at night, and she hasn't seen much of commander Cullen, said he's been in the dungeon a lot, seen him sneaking down there.” I bunch my fists, I swear I'm going to tear out that man's heart and feed it to him. “So are we going to go get back our Warden?” Leliana gets a bag from the study and Zevran does as well. Hawke comes out from another room dressed in armor “Let's go get our warden back.” Alistair peaks out of the doorway “I'm coming too. I'm a warden after all.” Hawke smiles and wraps an arm around him “We need all the help we can get Mr. King of Ferelden.” And so off we head to Skyhold. God I hope their still alive by the time we get there.