I don't own Dragon Age or Worm.

Don't ask where this came from, even I am not sure. But it was too silly not to write up, and wouldn't stop nagging me, so... here you all go.

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In Your Heart Shall Burn

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Taylor didn't think being dead would hurt so much.

The feeling of falling, that was expected… if worrying. She'd been falling for a pretty long time, long enough that she might've started to get bored. Problem was, fortunately or unfortunately, there were two things keeping Taylor Hebert sane… somewhat.

[HOST] [ADJUSTMENT]

Every once in a while, something would call out to her on an existential level, reminding the shapeless mass of pain that was Taylor Hebert of who she used to be… to an extent. She remembered her name, and a little of what that meant, but most of it had to do with memories of hair and talking and the shape of herself, or the taste of food, or water… or warmth.

There was something about a locker, which was how Taylor knew she was dead.

Taylor didn't like thinking about that, so, with an agonizing effort, she adjusted her fall through the green-black-glowy-shiny world of pain she was plummeting through.

And kept falling, missing what looked like another of the masses that clogged the air, but that one had another of those cruel beasts that were covered in sharp and pointy… stuff, and there was lightning – oh, she remembered that! – jumping between the pointy bits.

Taylor didn't notice the lightning, last time she ran into one of those. She'd been too busy trying to make it stop eating her notthinkingaboutitnopenoway!

[relief] [trajectory] following the directions – because they hadn't steered her wrong since they started, a short eternity ago – Taylor did her best to correct her spin and kept plummeting. It was the fastest the voice had spoken since… Taylor died, so she figured the ground must be close. Or whatever passed for 'ground' in a place where continent-sized islands floated in mid-air, or battles between the things that hurt her earlier savaged whole cities in battle reenactments, or huge black castles with a cracked throne and wrong runes on the floor just sort of sat there menacingly.

Taylor and her faceless assistant, some billions of hours ago or so, managed to figure out a fact: some of the things in the vast place wanted to eat her. Too bad they didn't figure that out earlier, or some of their earlier grief would've been… less traumatic. Taylor didn't want to think about their claws ripping out her spine again. At least her assistant managed to get her out of that pickle before they could pull Taylor apart completely.

Oh, one of the grounds was getting close. 'Hello ground!' thought Taylor, trying to make herself as flat as possible, or she'd go ker-plow all over the place for sure! A couple other things that might've looked like her went ker-plow when they hit.

[velocity!]

And then Taylor Hebert came to a screeching halt.

It was very painful. If she still had a mouth and wasn't a lump of crystalized Essence of Taylor, no doubt she would be screaming.

[manifestation]

'Thanks for reminding me.' Taylor thought to her partner – or whatever saved her from those… demons. 'Yeah,' Taylor thought, trying to remember what legs and arms and a head felt like, 'yeah, one of those [data] bursts called them demons. Hey friend! Now that I'm not totally focused on dodging huge rocks and things that wanna eat me, mind telling me where we are?'

[status] [regret]

'Well, I know that,' toes, toes… she needed those, right? 'Pretty hard to forget dying in the first place. Don't know why you're beating yourself up over it, buddy. There wasn't anything you could do… right?'

[frustration] [data]

"Whoof." Choked Taylor Hebert as her body finally formed into something resembling her former very much alive self… if her former self was made of mother-of-pearl, had stars in their hair, and lived in a swamp.

Because that green water-stuff-that-probably-wasn't-water-so-she-wasn't-going-to-drink-it was sticky and… there, she remembered how to smell things. And wasn't in pain anymore, very important that one. Things were looking up!

Everything smelt like the locker she died in, except set on fire and then tossed into a septic tank.

"Blehhhhh…" Taylor glared at everything around her, especially those smoke-looking things that resembled people. She learned her lesson last time, though! She was not moving until they moved first!

Also, the stand-off meant she could focus on the [data] her friend sent her… 'Well, at least you tried to protect me. Nothing we can do about it now except hope for the best!'

[agreement!] There, her friend was feeling better! Taylor was so totally going to rock this being dead thing…

Once she remembered how to move, that is. 'Um… friend – actually, do you have a name?'

[data!] [location!] [request]

In order: her friend's name was Queen Administrator, and she used to be a huge… crystal thingy, that made sure other crystal thingies were doing their jobs right. Now, though, she needed to blend in with the surrounding landscape and fauna or it would try to eat her like it tried to eat Taylor, so she was pretending to be a forest surrounding a castle; apparently Taylor's memories said the castle was called Oss-gill-ee-athh, or something weird like that, and the forest was Fang-orn. Taylor decided not to worry about that bit too much…

Because Queen Mini – easier to think about, in Taylor's opinion – was asking Taylor to find creatures or people, so they could both learn more; if Taylor got close to a stronger creature, now that she had a clear shape again – she tried moving one leg forward experimentally; it wasn't easy, staying balanced, but she didn't fall down… not right away, at least – Taylor could take control of the critters, and then Mini could sift through their minds to learn more about their situation.

Which sounded just great to Taylor. Problem was…

'Yeah, Mini, I'll get right on that. First, though… you wouldn't happen to know how legs work, would you?' Taylor fell on her butt rather than pitch forward into the pool of green stuff; her hair was too pretty to get dirty, and she didn't know if the green stuff was part of something else that wanted to hurt her.

[…exasperation]

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