Alyss Lavellan was a predator.

Her face was narrow, pointed as an arrow, her ruffled black hair mixing with her dark green vallaslin, looking more like camouflage than a symbol. Her long ears were pointed, listening intently to every sound around her, her large green eyes intent, glittering like a cat's as it prowled.

Her bow in her left hand, the arrow notched and ready in her right, she ghosted forward in a way no shemlen could match, watching her prey with deadly intent.

Ahead, the ram stood stiff even as it lowered its head to the grass, ready to flee even as it ate. It was trembling, frightened by the distant sounds of combat, though while such sounds made the animal tense, they also helped to conceal what little sound Alyss might make.

Slowly taking a breath through her nose, Alyss raised her bow and began to draw the string back. Ahead, the ram raised its head, perhaps sensing the danger, or hearing the creak of the elf's bow, but unsure if to run or not.

Alyss bared her teeth. Got you now...

"Why are we here again?"

With a bark, the ram leapt past a tree, then up a rock with the grace no two-legged creature could.

Alyss' arrow hummed, vibrating as it sat stuck in the tree the ram had leapt past.

Groaning, Alyss lowered her bow, shoulders slumping, air coming out in a furious puff. Her eyes, once glittering like a cat, now flashed lightning as she whipped her head around. "What!?"

Cassandra glared back, like most shems, she didn't know what she was messing with. "This is the twentieth ram you've hunted." She frowned, shaking her head. "Or was it more?"

"Forty-sixth." Solas muttered, the man leaning on his staff, looking patient as ever, yet as if it was becoming an effort.

"Thank you." Cassandra inclined her head at the apostate, much to his apparent surprise, before turning her gaze to Alyss. "Forty-six rams...why are we still hunting them?"

"I'm inclined to agree with the Seeker." Varric muttered, the durgen'len leaning his back on a rock, his giant crossbow resting next to him. "We have more than enough food to keep the villagers fed for the winter, Herald..." Looking away, he muttered an aside. "...or three of them, rather..." When he looked back to Alyss, he was smirking. "They're starting to give us funny looks."

Alyss, biting her lip, shifted from foot to foot. "Right..."

"You do remember that we have a mission, no?" Cassandra asked, shaking her head as she pointed over at the hill leading down to the valley dominating the hinterlands. "People are fighting and dying down there. We're supposed to bring back some peace and stability and force the templars and mages back. I approve of helping starving villagers, but this is getting ridiculous."

"It is getting a bit old, this procrastination." Solas agreed, turning intelligent eyes to Alyss. "So why are we still doing it?"

Alyss rolled her eyes, then groaned as she forced herself to answer. "I'm...stocking up on ram leather, okay?"

A pause.

Then Cassandra spoke, incredulous. "Leather?"

"Well yes, I need new armour, and a bow, and that takes up a lot of leather." Alyss shrugged. "Also, Varric needs a new coat too-"

"I do?" The dwarf asked blinking in bafflement.

"And then we need more saved just in case...you know."

Cassandra's brows furrowed. "That is not a good use of the Inquisition's time...we have a job to do!"

Alyss sighed. "Fiiiine..." Then turned her back to them. "...just one more ram then."

Behind her, the others groaned.

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"Ooookay, this is so not okay!" Sera, rubbing her shoulders with a fury that would soon set her clothes on fire, was staring from side to side, horrified. "I want out, out this moment!"

"So do I, Sera, but calm down." The Iron Bull rumbled, looking only slightly better off than the elf. "We'll get through this together..." He swallowed. "...somehow."

Around them, the fade was a mishmash of green miasma and terrain that wasn't quite real or making sense, the energies around them not quite able to make a world they could understand.

The only one not freaking out over it all of the companions was Dorian. At first, he had been all excited and fascinated by what he saw...but now he looked a little puzzled as he looked ahead to the one who with such great strides brought them down yet another 'path'. "Inquisitor...were we not supposed to take a left before? I thought the light there suggested the right way? Why are we going up this path to...what looks like yet another fight?"

Ahead, the large mirror loomed, the mist coiling thick around it in what surely meant a demonic presence.

"Nu-huh, not going, not doing that again, no ser..." Sera, shaking her head furiously, took a step back, not even noticing Bull gripping her by the arm. "I don't want to get possessed by some creepy-weepy thing!"

"I know it's not the right way, but come on, it'll be easy...plus those mirrors make me like, stronger and faster." Alyss replied, not even looking back as she surged ahead in eagerness. "It's an investment."

"You're in the fade, I wouldn't trust anything you feel here, Inquisitor...and are you saying we're walking round in circles in the fade, in our physical forms, in huge danger...for some points you want?" Dorian stared at the elf in horror.

"Shit-biscuit! She's crazy! I'm out of here!" Sera turned and leapt...and was promptly tossed unto Iron Bull's shoulder like a sack of wheat. "Let go of me you lard-tard! And get your horn out of my eye!"

Chuckling, the Bull didn't comply. "Sorry, need to keep you around to know that I'm still sane...you're my warning-bell. As long as Sera sounds a little crazy, I'm fine." The Qunari shot another look around himself and grimaced. "-ish."

"Would you guys shut up, I need to concentrate..." Alyss, leaning close to the mirror even as some of the mist around it began to turn into the shape of a huge terror-demon, pouted at the mirror. "Awww...got more magic? Pointless."

"Well..." Dorian sighed, drawing his staff. "...I'm sure that thing can show you lots of points."

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Her fine dress smudged, Alyss knelt once more in the grass, causing a little tear at the knee as the fine cloth decided to just give in to the inevitable.

Behind her, Josephine was fuming. "Inquisitor! What do you think you're doing!? You're missing the ball and everything! You haven't spoken to anyone!"

Turning, Alyss held up her treasure with a grin, deciding to ignore the diplomat's sour face. "Look what I found! Another of those coins! You said they'd help, no!?"

"Yes, yes I did and I'm so sorry for that now..." Rubbing her eyelids, Josephine took a calming breath. "Inquisitor, while those coins help in making our standing greater, we still need to make a good impression to all and digging around like a beggar is not doing that...oh goodness gracious, what happened to your dress!?" The diplomat turned pale as a sheet as the appearance of her Herald.

"What? There was a lot of coins...some in stupid places." Alyss replied, face perfectly innocent.

"Oh for..." About to berate the woman, though Josephine wasn't sure what good that would do, the Herald never learned, Josephine suddenly stopped herself, looking up as her ears perked. "Is...is that the sound of combat!? Maker! We're too late! Celene might be already dead! Inquisitor, hurry, find your bow and maybe we can..."

Before her, Alyss was nearly folded in half as she bent over a fine porcelain stature, eyes wide. "Oh look, another Halla statue!"

"...ask ourselves why Andraste picked you of all people to get the mark."

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"Inquisitor, the Well of Sorrows has been confirmed as Corypheus' target, it's also confirmed by our scouts tailing him for weeks now, that he's moments away from reaching it." Cullen snapped out the words through gritted teeth. "What are your orders? May I suggest, given that we've now waited to the last possible moment, to try Morrigan's Eluvian? That's the only way to reach him in time now."

"Hang on, hang on..." In their garden, Alyss was staring intently at a pot.

"What...are you doing?" Cullen, afraid to ask, still felt compelled to do so, if nothing else because duty required it.

"Growing elfroot."

"You're growing...what!?"

"Elfroot, I need one more to be able to upgrade the garden here."

Cullen, dropping to his knees, despair gripping him as the last straw landed on his back, could only whimper. "F-for what...?"

Not turning, too intent on the barely visible green bud in the pot, Alyss' tone was full of eagerness "So I can grow more elfroot, of course!"

Cullen, driven too far, too hard, for too long...wept. "Inquisitor, I...you can't...I've done everything in my power to help you yet if you don't...Maker, stop looking at that plant!"

As usual, Alyss looked annoyed when she turned around. "What!?" Blinking at the sight of her commander in tears, the elf almost looked worried. "I'm...sorry? Did you need something?"

Behind him, far off in the distance, Cullen felt and heard the boom, rather than see it. Though he didn't care, all he could do was stare at the elf that had frustrated him at every turn...and feel nothing, the templar now a broken man.

In Alyss' wide eyes, green lights played as another breach, larger than the first, opened far in the distance.

"Ohhh..." Alyss bit her lower lip in worry. "...should I have done something about that?"

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Thanks to Abydos Jackson, for all that she does for me.