She wants to DIE.

"Thank you."

"If you can come with me -"

Sure fine whatever things can't really get any more socially agonizing from here.

She follows.

Fazil and Mahdi are there. Mahdi's sitting there examining the tilework on the opposite wall. Fazil is praying. They are both dressed in ridiculous impractical things and their hair is wet and someone has done sparkly makeup. 

This is kind of ridiculously reassuring even though she also still definitely wants to die.

"Hey."

Fazil looks up. "Aria - is everything all right?"

Everything is really really really really bad.

"Yeah."

"Come sit down?"

She sits. 

"I had no idea. I'm really sorry." says Fazil after a moment.

" - about Hagan?"

"Yeah. I - lots of people don't like to talk about their past."

Doesn't she know it. "Yeah. Not your fault. But thanks."

She rests her fists in her lap and focuses on her breathing. If she breathes steadily enough maybe she can make the nausea go away.

"As far as I can determine, we haven't broken any laws," Mahdi says. 

Not really the subject of the nausea but probably good to know anyway.

"Do you guys know what happened to North - or Fy - "

"They took them with us when they took us. I don't know where they are."

Nod. Probably North can handle himself. Probably. Actually North has no idea how to handle himself in this situation but hopefully he won't panic and bite anyone. 

The deep breathing is not making the nausea go away but it is keeping it from getting worse, so that's something.

No one comes to see them for most of an hour.

Fuck this place.

She prays, silently. She has no idea whether the Maker can hear her here - probably he can hear her anywhere, there's no reason to expect him to be limited to the Fade - and anyway she doesn't have anything else to focus on, and if she doesn't calm down soon - she feels a little better if she tells herself that it's about being allowed to go home, or given access to the help she needs to defeat the archdemon, about acting like the acting Warden Commander Ferelden and not like a scared teenage girl who mostly sees fancy halls in her nightmares. 

She's both, of course, but it doesn't mean she wants anyone else to know this.

Eventually someone comes for them. "The pharaoh wishes to see you."

"We're honored," says Fazil. He's managing to sound very sincere somehow. 

"You are. Come with me."

She can't decide whether her dominant emotion is terror or fury at this point. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter at all. She just needs to keep everything inside and not let anything spill out and Maker, Maker, Maker, she wants to die.

She follows.

They go up a broad white stone staircase. This floor of the palace has no walls, just pillars and dangling gauze in places and there's a gentle breeze. Everything is tiled with shiny rocks. There are some men standing far away, looking out at the sea. They walk a little closer. Their attendant stops them.

Fazil and Mahdi kneel and press their faces to the shiny tiled floor.

Fuck everything about this entire place.

Pressing her face to the floor is going to make her want to die so much more, but at least it'll make it harder for other people to tell.

She copies Fazil and Mahdi, digs her nails into her palms as hard as she can, and starts silently counting down from five hundred.

There are footsteps. 

"You may look at me," he says, and Fazil and Mahdi raise their heads slightly. He's young.  Light-skinned for an Osirian. It's impossible to say if he looks like Hagan, who never showed them his face. 

"Three orders of business," he says, "and then we imagine you'll want to rest and recover; we have arranged a teleport to wherever you'd care to do that. Firstly, we wished to assure you that we've found no identifiable wrongdoing on your parts, and no signs you conducted yourself as anything less than a credit to your country and your gods. One advisor raised the complaint that perhaps you shouldn't have trusted our brother's claim to be our brother, and we have no doubt the puzzle will make its way into philosophy of law lectures once it's public, where they'll debate it for much longer than seventy seconds and, we doubt, arrive at a solution that pleases us more. Thank you for saving him. 

Secondly, one might wonder - did wonder, actually - why Prince Telcar didn't just arrange you resurrections, at considerably less expense to the crown. He says he wasn't confident it'd work for Aria Tabris, who is from another plane, and who is needed to save it from falling to evil. Osirion knows nothing of Ferelden or its gods, but wishes them order, and is delighted to enable any of our citizens who desire to come to their aid. 

Prince Telcar says he has given this cause his word, and will fulfill it, if you'll have him. He asked us to convey that in a way that doesn't carry any implied pressure. We think this is very nearly impossible, but consider it conveyed with that intent."

           "....your grace," says Fazil and waits for some sort of hand gesture to continue. "...I have no understanding of my duties to your family compatible with taking them into danger."

"We don't either," agrees the pharaoh. 

          Fazil nods. 

"Nor do we have an understanding of your duties particularly compatible with stopping him."

        Fazil nods again, more slowly. 

"Thirdly, we hold you are not fully responsible financially for the expenditure involved in the rescue you requested, the expenditure nearly all being necessary to achieve an end other than your rescue - that is, his. Even the share that would reasonably be your responsibility is beyond the capacity of a committed citizen to repay in their lifetime, so we're waiving them entirely, with the understanding that, should we become aware of opportunities for you to serve us, we will make you aware of them and you will prioritize them."

          "Thank you, your grace."

"Is there anything else?"

Even if she wanted to say anything, she's almost certain she couldn't, so she doesn't.

She's not any less terrified and not any less nauseous but she is maybe somewhat less set on hating him personally, at least according to the parts of her brain that are thinking about things other than how very, very much she wants to die right now.