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The third time Rook runs into the weathered door, she has to admit that something strange is going on.
“I don't know what malevolent force is controlling the layout, but this needs to stop,” she hollers. There is no response, of course, but she's tired of the never ending silence. “I'm not going through that door. You can't make me do it, so just cut it out.”
The door doesn't change, but when she turns around she spots a sliver of a path leading Maker only knows where. She knows for a fact it hadn't been there a minute ago. As soon as she'd seen the door, she'd started looking for alternate paths.
“Thanks a lot! It's better than nothing, anyway,” she grumbles, kicking a rock towards the void surrounding her.
The pathway narrows until she is forced to edge along a sheer drop into nothing. Refusing to complain — she's not sure what is listening or how vindictive it's feeling — she shuffles silently until the path widens back up.
This new path leads her back to where she'd fought Elgar'nan. Solas as well, but she's not thinking about him right now. The image passes through her mind swiftly — Solas lying pale and still on the ground — before she viciously shoves it away.
“Everything is fine,” she reassures herself, walking past the statue of Neve on her way out of the area. She's met with the choice of four paths, even though it had been two the last time she'd been led here. Two of them are linear with doors clearly visible at the end, one of which is the weathered door again.
“I said I won't do it!” Rook calls. The feeling she's been ignoring — someone is watching her, judging her, trying to manipulate her into something — intensifies for a moment before fading into the background again. Shivering, she eyes the two pathways without clear ends.
One of them disappears into a wall of fog, the other into a series of twisting walls. She'd tried the fog once, and had been forced to crawl at points to avoid walking off the edge. She isn't interested in trying that again so soon. “Maze it is. Haven't done one of those in a while.”
Nothing acknowledges her, but that's preferable to the dreadful feeling of being a bug under a looming shoe. Varric hasn't reappeared since their first encounter. She doesn't know how long she's been here alone — not alone, Solas is just sleeping — in the unchanging light of the prison.
It can't have been for long, though, because she hasn't needed to sleep or eat or take a shit or- Her train of thought is interrupted by the sound of footsteps.
“Hello!” She yells. There is no answer. Turning a corner, she finds herself facing the weathered door again. “Stop that! Hello! Is someone out there?”
Turning in a circle, she strains her ears but can't hear anything except her own ragged breaths. “Hello! Fucking answer me! I heard you! I HEARD YOU!”
There is nothing. Tears well in her eyes and she irritably rubs them away with the collar of her shirt. “Just fucking great. I'm going crazy.”
Exhaling a frustrated sigh, she takes a left and jogs to the next intersection. There isn't any way to tell which path is correct, but it's not like she has anything better to do. She takes another left. There's a crossroads next. Two of the paths look exactly the same as every other one she's taken so far, but the third leads to a regular door.
“Is this my way out?” She doesn't wait for the answer she knows isn't coming, and just opens the door. Ghilan'nain towers above her as Lucanis dives. She ignores the vision and trots to the next door. It leads her to Strife's death, and she stays to watch it through.
“I know you never liked me, but I did my best. I'm not sorry I saved our people over a stupid map. Getting sent back to Minrathous was worth it.”
The first sword plunges into his chest and she turns away. Varric is leaning on the wall next to the warding crystal. “If he hadn't sent you back to Minrathous, you wouldn't have met me.”
“And what a tragedy that would have been,” Rook says with a grin.
“Happy to see me, kid?”
“You would not believe how boring this place is.”
“I would, actually,” he chuckles. “It grows on you after a while, though.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Like moss?”
“Something like that.”
She sets off for the next door and he falls in with her. “Is there even anywhere to go?”
“If you ask very nicely.”
“I haven't felt particularly nice in a while,” she grumbles. A rock in their way looks particularly kickable, so she does. It lands in front of Varric, and he kicks it back. A feeling of warmth suffuses her, only to be immediately lost when they open a door and she's faced with Solas' prone form.
Sighing, she turns back to Varric only to find him gone. Equal parts rage and sorrow drive her to yell at Solas. “He can't be around you even when you're in a fucking coma?! That's such bullshit. I can't fucking believe you've found yet another way to ruin things for me!”
There is no response. He hasn't responded to anything she's done for the past however long it's been since she woke up and he didn't. She'd dribbled water on his face, dragged him across rubble, screamed in his ear. Nothing.
“You can play dead as long as you want, you coward. I'm not going to let you die. You can't trick me like that.”
Rook kicks a rock in his general direction before setting off again. He isn't dead yet, and that's all the reassurance she needs for the moment.
The feeling of being watched intensifies the further she gets from him. Gritting her teeth, she ignores it and slams a door open. Directly in front of her — close enough that she can't even fully open the door — is the weathered door again.
“I. Said. No,” she yells, punctuating each word with a hearty kick. “I'm so tired of this!”
“If I am a coward, what does that make you, I wonder?” Solas' voice whispers in her ear.
Whirling around, she finds him in the exact position she'd left him. “What the fuck, Solas?!”
There is no response. Enraged, she grabs a rock and chucks it at him. It thunks into his chest, but he doesn't react.
Cradling her head, she sinks to the ground and buries her face in her knees. “I am not going crazy. I am not. It's this place. It's being alone. It's keeping some asshole alive so the Veil doesn't come down. I. Am. Not. Crazy.”
A burst of laughter comes from behind the weathered door. It breaks her.