faderift | echoes and specters and ghosts of none the wiser

'Cultists suck' just about sums it up. There is a faint laugh and a nod of agreement, but then the dream is shifting around them. And then, of course, someone else has shown up and is calling him a demon. A figment of the Fade, most likely, but is it only a figment or is it an actual demon?

Either way, rude.

"I am not," he says instead, very mature for a being over four thousand years old. "I will admit that I am not human, but I am not a narrow-minded Fade-dweller who latches onto one vice like a hagfish and attempts to possess people." In fact, the Outsider has never once attempted to possess people; he is fairly certain that if he did, back in his world, it wouldn't have been an attempt so much as a success.

"I think I know a demon when I see one."

Smug, Logen just looks insufferably smug — and more than a little bitter. The longer that the Outsider looks, the deeper that impression grows. There's a faint, baleful cast to his impression: A malice at once deeply human, and anything but.

"He does," Wren agrees, quietly. Her face is screwed up in scrutiny, and after a moment she releases her grip, takes a step back from them both. "And I've never seen a hagfish."

Or even heard of it. Something about this, it's foreign. Out of place. The snow steams.

"If you're not a demon, what are you?" She asks. Logen rolls his eyes.

"As though it wouldn't just lie."

Edited 2017-01-24 04:29 (UTC)

Ah. His eyes narrow, attention entirely on Logen for a moment. Just what sort are you?

"They're awful things, but that's not the point," the Outsider murmurs, shifting slightly so that they're all evenly spaced; if the woman decides to join with her not-brother, he'll want room when swords are inevitably drawn.

He doesn't particularly want to have to fight her. She seems kind enough, for a Templar. Still- if pressed, he will defend himself, especially when he has no real idea how injury or death in the Fade will transfer to the waking world.

"I am what happens when cultists use ancient rituals to try and offer someone to the Void," he says after a moment, eyes still not budging from Logen. You've heard of the Void, haven't you, dearest? Maybe not his Void, but something close enough. "My eyes are the way they are because of that."

Black, Void black, deepest depths of the sea black. The hair and the pale skin- that was already there.

"Wren, was it? May I ask- think for a moment. When was the last time you saw your brother? Why would he be here, now?"

A startled glance, between the two. She hadn't thought to consider that.

"Thirty years," Wren murmurs. Counting is difficult here, the numbers slip. "Forty living."

Logen’s a large man, and broad-shouldered. Given a few years to grow, he might pass for soldier, even in cloth. But something about him seems to hunch at the question, grows stooped and almost shrunken. There's an impression of bone pressing against bare skin.

"A far-fetched tale. Clever to pander to you, I suppose. Credit where it's due. But the Void?" He lifts a wide hand to hide his scoff (and the flash of incisors). "Such a feeble metaphor."

Wren sucks in a breath, hand falling to her side, to the dirk that coalesces into being. She raises it to the pair, a slow threat.

"I don’t know what’s going on here. And I don’t care who’s a demon, and who’s a sacrifice." It doesn’t sound like she means that. It sounds like she’s trying very hard to. The hum of the pool grows to a heady buzz. "But I am not going to be late to my own damn,"

She falls short. What was it, again? Training? Wedding? Annulment? She can’t — it’s gone. The waters are too loud, won't let her think straight. She staggers, folds inward, and the blade vanishes. Logen smiles, his lips curling up impossibly around three sets of long, rodent jaws.

They are running dangerously thin on time. 'Logen' is changing, showing his true colors, and Wren is folding in on herself.

"You are dreaming," the Outsider snaps; his own sword is drawn now, pointed directly toward the demon trying to hide under the shape of a man. "You are a Templar; surely you know how to tell."

In any case, it doesn't matter. Not if he can push the true demon off. In the past, some have respected his similarity and his ability to wander dreams enough to leave him alone, but this one- this one is here for the Templar, and he's just in the way, a convenient scapegoat.

He'll have none of that, thank you.

"Focus, woman, before this thing makes you its puppet."

If he strikes too soon, she will attack, thinking the demon is her brother. Too late, and the demon will already have her. He has to find a balance in a place without.

"A puppet at least might be useful." Dismissive. This is far more interesting — it can’t quite help itself.

The jaws unfold into those of a lamprey, then a woman, her skin shifting kaleidoscopic with stone and shade and the deep pigments of an oil painting as it strides towards him, hungry to find the shape of his ~~dis bear~~ despair.

Nothing sticks, as though it just can’t make sense of whatever the Outsider is. Too alien a thing, not a true dreamwalker, and yet not wholly one of its own. It can't find a purchase to grip from, no handhold from which to scrape his mind.

'Logen' hangs just back from the range of the blade. It's nothing if not dedicated to its purpose.

"Do you think it will be over so simply?" A low, dolorous voice, almost melodic. "I have been here before. I shall be here again. You will go, and we will continue without you, every night."

Weight bows its form, burdens a crippled spine. Chaotic flesh twists upon itself like putty. Behind its back, there’s a glint as Wren straightens, the impression of steel and white flame.

"And they will still be there. They will forget you. They will be —"

It screams as the blade shoves out through its chest, ribs extending to scrabble crablike on the air. It's speared in place, but only temporarily, form beginning already to melt and slacken around the sword.

"The head," She prompts, voice dull. So much for punctuality.

Were he human, he might think to call the demon something unflattering. It lost track of its first prey, forgetting that she was also a predator; a hunter of demons, of its very kind. It may continue to hound her in her sleep, but for this night, it is gone.

Almost.

It is melting, form trying to change. The Outsider doesn't give it that change. One thing that Thedas didn't take from him was his more-than-human strength; it takes only one blow to cleave the head from the body, even accounting for any sort of bone. The body dissolves into ash, not even leaving behind a misshapen form; that, too, is his magic, familiar even here.

He looks up, then, to the Templar on the other side.

"I wasn't," he informs her, for the record, "lying."

A sacrifice. Inhuman. And a bit of a brat about it.

She sits down in the middle of the path. The things she isn’t paying attention to — the horizon, the distant shape of buildings — begin to pale at the edges and slip away. That’s the thing about dreams. They’re hard to hold onto, once you’ve realized you’re in one.

But they’ve a little time yet.

"Nor was I. You’re half a templar now." He has slain a demon, however temporarily. Her voice is newly careful, even in the joke. There’s a sense of clarity previously lacking. "Well done."

An impressive blow, and an idea wielded to sharpest effect. Would it be rude, to tell him to get the fuck out of her head, after that? It certainly doesn't seem wise.

It’s evidently time to resume contemplating the Litany before bed.

"If I tell you that I believe you," Slowly, deliberately. Not a true spirit, no, or Dolentius wouldn’t have reacted as it did. She’s seen its disinterest in kin. "Would you tell me what to call you?"

He has a name of her, and not the one she'd have given. Turnabout seems fair play.

Edited 2017-02-02 01:05 (UTC)

The sword vanishes as the buildings do; it is not needed, any longer, and this is a dream. He sits also, legs curling up under him. Casual, but alert; he sits tall, head high, eyes watching -- though of course, it's hard to tell what exactly he's looking at if you're only going by vision.

Half a templar. It makes him chuckle slightly, shrugging faintly. Is that all one needs to do? He has been half a templar since his arrival, then. Still.

"Whether you believe me or not, what I am usually called is apt enough." She can say she believes him. It doesn't necessarily mean she means it. "I am called the Outsider. A few others in Thedas have given me other names, though." Actual names, instead of titles.

He smiles suddenly, amused by some private joke -- which he then shares. "A boy used to call me Raven." Raven and Wren. Get it? Heh.

"Raven," Despite herself, she sounds a little amused at that. "So be it."

Not how she'd address him upon waking, but perhaps that's well enough. They aren't.

"In Skyhold, are you? Or more distant." He's said he doesn't dwell in the Fade — but that hardly much clarifies matters. "I am not ungrateful, but I cannot say how much of this I shall recall."

Or would want to.

If she screeches 'foul demon' instead of 'Raven', he's going to be disappointed.

"In Skyhold," he answers, nod slow. "Unless Inquisition business draws me elsewhere; I have not joined, not formerly, but I find that I like having something to do."

Besides, the shard in his hand aches terribly when he's away for too long.

"Do you usually remember these dreams? The demon said that he taunts you often, or implied it."

Wouldn't that be a fowl demon?

"They lose detail, the longer I'm away." A loose gesture. "I recorded them for a time, but remembering drew more of his kind. Its kind."

She rubs at her throat, watches the Outsider. It's almost easier to continue to pretend he's blind, than to guess where he might be looking — just how much any given moment might observe. Perhaps the whole eye is the window.

"That one is familiar to me. Not bright, but persistent." Will it come back now? She can’t say. Has never seen it dispersed so... completely. "What of you? Will you remember this?"

Wow.

"'Away'?"

Is losing detail good? Perhaps, perhaps not; it did make her suspicious, yet there was his presence to account for that, too. He's still making her suspicious, he knows; his fingers tap absently on his knee, his own nervous tic (or something like it).

"Yes," he answers, readily. There is no reason to lie. "It is different in Thedas and the Fade than in my own world, but I will remember."

It's maybe not the answer she wanted, but it's the true one.

"Away from this plane. Awake."

Most days, Wren's glad not to be a mage. Pretty much every day, really, since the age of eight. But there are times that bit of cosmic fortune stings particularly clear. She need never enter the Fade so completely as — well, as the Outsider seems to now.

"Good." Not the answer she'd hoped for, no, but it doesn't taste like a lie. There's some relief to knowing that whatever the Outsider is, it's inclined to something like honesty. It? Shit.

Him? Yes.

"When we next speak, perhaps it should be during those hours." For the sake of not muddling this further. For the sake of not revealing anything she's willing to kill for. "I shall do my best."

Raven, she repeats to herself, Raven, and not an enemy. Something else. Something stranger.

But the tighter she clings, the more the landscape drops from her grasp. Matter recedes, leaves them on a little, unshapen sliver of Fade. Silver licks at its craggy island ends.

"Raven,"

A final affirmation, before she wakes to a pounding head, an old thirst. White crashes up to swallow the shore.

echoes and specters and ghosts of none the wiser

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