WHO: Adalia, Alistair, Freddie, Herian, Loghain, Medicine Seller, Melys, Nathaniel, Notas, Teren. WHAT: Rescuing a king, maybe. WHEN: Early Wintermarch WHERE: An island off Seheron, the Fade NOTES: Violence, disturbing imagery.
It's a dream. Adalia knows it's a dream — or at least she thinks it is. She's pretty sure.
But it's lifelike enough that the reality of the setting doesn't matter. This moment haunts Adalia, both in dreaming and in waking moments, and it does not matter that now as she dreams she knows she's dreaming, she's always sucked in. She can tell herself over and over that this has already happened, the deed is done... but it never matters.
She walks through overgrown ruins, stone walls and towers crumbling, the scent of woodrot and nature heavy in the air. There's a book clutched close to her chest as though it holds the answers to everything, and four people walking around her. One tall and gold and shining, a massive sword strapped to his back; one human with a sword and shield in hand, walking closer to her than the rest; one woman cloaked in finery, even in the dirt, a raven perched on her shoulder; one elf skulking ahead, hood pulled low over her eyes as she shies away from the midday sun. Two men in armor walk with them further back. They hunt a dragon, but they aren't afraid, not really. They've made it this far.
Adalia can map out everything that happens next to the minute.
Their quarry, unnoticed, slinks to the top of a crumbling tower. Lia, up front, makes some stupid comment about how easy this will be. No one laughs, but they don't really feel it either. What a stupid mistake they're making.
The dragon lands behind them with a crash, and they each turn around just in time to see one of their armored compatriots torn in half in the dragon's jaws.
Akrasiel and Mat run forward, weapons drawn. She doesn't want to watch this part, but she watched when it happened. The dream won't release her.
It wasn't even that big of a dragon. Barely out of childhood. They really could have taken it, if they'd been the ones to catch it by surprise instead of the other way around.
Acid pours from its mouth down onto Akrasiel and Mat, and Adalia watches as the skin sloughs from their flesh and they writhe in agony.
ii. you are part of a machine, you are not a human being
She's been waiting for him to reappear in her life for months now, and it feels too easy to consider that she has escaped his influence entirely. That his mind cannot stretch across these particular planes to touch hers, when he's mucked about in her dreams before. She's wondered if the thread between them was cut, or just so lax she couldn't feel it tugging between them, and what that might mean for the deal she's struck —
If it's a dream, it's a very life-like one. She can't afford to act counter to its trappings, just yet.
Adalia sits in a throne next to massive black dragon, looking small and fragile next to the mass of black scales and claws and teeth at her side. The room they're in is huge, unquestionably a throne room, full of courtiers standing away from Adalia and the dragon. Its tail makes a soft grinding sound as it sweeps lazily across the marble flooring, a sound which turns to something not unlike nails on a chalkboard when the dragon gets agitated and the sweeps of his tail become more forceful — as they are now.
"I begin to tire of this," he says, his voice a low, menacing boom. "If you cannot come to an agreement on your own about something as simple as property disputes, perhaps you should not have your property... Or your lives."
The two supplicants standing in front of the dragon who had been arguing moments before suddenly go silent, staring up at him in shock and fear. Their eyes dart between him and Adalia, pleading, but Adalia says and does nothing.
"You waste my time. You waste the time of everyone assembled here. You clearly don't know how to manage your property. My verdict —"
The dragon's eyes glow green, and acid begins to drip from between its teeth to land on the marble floor, pocking the smooth stone where it sizzles and pops. Adalia, heedless of the acid, reaches over and places her hand on the dragon's massive flank. He blinks, turns his head to her, and growls. She just stares up at him.
iii. do you feel like a young god?
Adalia is screaming, when she's found this time. It's a dream, but that doesn't mean she can't really feel in it, and her bones are distorting, breaking and reshaping, trying to become something new. Her skin shimmers as black scales crawl up her neck, her shoulder blades protrude grotesquely from her back and she claws at them with fingers turning into talons.
He does not understand how he came to be here, but there is something viscerally wrong with the sight of a young girl suffering.
But he has visited enough other dreams to know that this isn't real--and if he can only convince her of that, if he can break through her pain--
"Adalia--!" He finds he knows her name, knows her face, but from where he cannot tell, cannot place it. Loghain comes quickly to her side and tries to steady the shaking, thrashing of her limbs as they transform under his touch from human skin to--to scales.
"Oh, Maker's mercy, child, look at me," the words are rough, pleading, and he reaches up a hand to frame her face, to try to turn her eyes to his to give her a fixed point to focus on. "Adalia, you're dreaming--this is the Fade, this isn't real. Do you hear me?"
Her voice cuts off mid-scream when she hears Loghain's voice, and even as it feels every bone in her body is splitting and knitting itself back together, she leans toward the familiarity of a friendly face. What he says, though — it sounds familiar, too, like she's had to realize this before, like it's something she's always known.
How can it hurt so much if it's just a dream?
When she looks up at him, one eye is her normal, natural storm blue. The other is shading reptilian, her pupil narrowing to a slit as the iris and deepens to a sickly green.
"It hurts," she whimpers, like that should be all she needs to say — it's too real, too potent to be a dream.
"It hurts," she says, and for a moment he sees another little blonde-haired girl, in pig-tails with skinned knees, looking up at her father in angry reproach for his inability to make the pain just stop, just make it stop hurting--
But Anora is a grown woman now, he knows. Grown and well able to look after herself, and not weeping in front of him in agony as her body betrays her.
And Loghain, powerless to do anything to stop it, to do more than take her hand and cradle her head, staring down in anguish at her face. "I know," he answers her in a rush, looking swiftly around, searching for something, anything, that he might be able to leverage to ease her suffering. "I know, my girl, but it's a dream, it's only a dream."
Such shallow comfort those words provide. But they are all he has.
This — this is familiar. Not just the hazy setting around her — it had never mattered before, but now that she's paying attention, there's really no mistaking the way the world around her shimmers back and forth between distinct and indistinct, a real place and not — or even the terror of being something she never wanted to be. Being held, though, comforted as she cries and whimpers... That's the stuff of her dreams. How many times has she dreamt of having a father to hold her through pain, to reassure her that this too shall pass?
She should have known as soon as Loghain appeared. Of course this isn't real.
The dream won't leave her without a fight. There's one last stab of pain and Adalia screams, digging taloned fingers into Loghain's hand as her shoulder blades grow outward and split her skin open, reaching for the sky like wings —
and then it's over, and Adalia collapses, no evidence of her horrible transformation left.
He catches her in his arms, though she falls from no discernible height--this young woman who has suffered, who still suffers, who so carefully hid that pain during their brief conversation by the fireside when he found her newly expelled from the rift. He would never have known, he realizes, staring at her face now.
There's blood on his hands from where the talons of her fingers dug into his skin, but he pays it no mind, ignores the ache; it will leave him in time. Instead he sinks down onto whatever it is that must pass for a chair in his place and holds Adalia against his chest. "Shh," he whispers, eyes gone distant, watching another child run beyond the hedge of her mother's rose garden, "shh, I'm here."
What good that had ever done them. What good his presence had ever done anyone who had relied upon him. Tell those words to Cailan's corpse, fetid and lost to the darkspawn long before he could be found and burned.
For long, long moments, all Adalia can do is curl into Loghain's chest and take deep, shaky breaths, trying to chase the ache from her limbs. The last time this had happened, it hadn't hurt — then again, Alacruun was manipulating her dreams then. Maybe if he hadn't meant it as a gift it would have.
Eventually, she sits up, inspecting her hands and neck for scales and talons and anything else that isn't supposed to be there. Satisfied on that count, she reaches back to feel at her shoulder blades — there isn't even so much as a rip in her dress to suggest the trauma that had just occurred. Now she reaches for Loghain's hand, meaning to inspect where she had pierced the skin with her talons.
"I hurt you," she says, her voice soft and slightly raspy from screaming. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I can fix it, if you — I mean, it'd be magic, but I can —"
Better to babble and avert her eyes than deal with whatever awkwardness must be coming. He didn't ask to have her dumped in his lap like this.
It's something of a relief as the girl comes back to herself, even as the rest of him knows that... something... remains amiss, here. Loghain helps her to her feet and gives her shoulders a reassuring squeeze--she's strong, anyone who could endure a nightmare such as that has to be, and he won't have her doubt it for a moment.
"There's no need," he assures her quickly, brushing off her concern for him. "I am far more durable than these old bones would have you believe."
It's meant to be a joke, or as close to a joke as he can get, but his eyes are drawn to the distant shape of the man in the peculiar machine that haunts the distance of this dream. His expression goes peculiarly slack for a moment as he stares, his mind seeing, almost recognizing. There's something...
The joke lands, as much as a joke can at a time like this, and Adalia smiles, at least. She looks up to say something — to thank him, to reassure him that she's fine, to ask how he came here, any and all of the above —
but Loghain's gaze isn't focused on her, and her eyebrows draw together in confusion before she turns around to look for what he's looking at. As soon as she sees it, she realizes she's known it was here all along, she just — overlooked it. Why would she overlook something so foreboding?
She's beginning to understand why no one here trusts the Fade.
"Do you know what that is?" she asks Loghain, looking back to him with a nervous expression.
He realizes with a sudden, aching certainty, that he knows the withered figure attached to the nightmarish machine in the distance. Loghain makes a noise that is hard to place--not cry, not gasp, just a shaky inhalation, completely unnecessary in this place and yet he cannot stop himself--
He knows where they are, suddenly.
"Maric--" the name bursts out of him, and he steps forward, walking towards the distant figure, but it's like walking towards a distant mountain. He'll never get there, never reach him in time, it's already far too late--
Maric — that name sparks recognition in Adalia, and her eyes widen as she remembers: Maric is the entire reason they're here. They have to rescue him, so Alistair can have the reunion with his father she's never going to have. Someone should get a happy ending, and she was going to make sure it would be Alistair.
But this is a dream, and people aren't supposed to be able to be physically in the Fade, which means —
"Loghain, I don't think he's real..."
It feels cruel to say, after his reaction to realizing who it was, but — he should know, right? She can't let him get pulled into this the way she had been. Adalia can still feel her skin crawling, like scales are just waiting beneath the surface, but as long as she remembers this is a dream she can control it. Loghain can't forget — who will remind her?
"You said it yourself, this is a dream. Right? He can't be here."
He doesn't stop walking towards that distant shape, but something in her voice makes his steps stumble, causes him to dart a look back at her with creased brows and clear incomprehension in his eyes. "What?" He doesn't say the word so much as mouth it, before his eyes are drawn back to that shape.
"I can't leave him," he says, the words coming out of him like bits of broken glass. "Not again. You can't know, you can't know how I searched, how close I came. I have to go."
Already with each step he takes, he's seems to be stepping out of her dream and into--something else. Soon, he will be gone from view completely.
Oh, if her heart could break any further — Adalia steps forward, then stops, nervously glancing around herself. She can't just let him go, right? If he leaves, he'll be stuck in a dream, and she'll fall back into hers. He has to stay here.
But it's so cruel to keep him from Maric, when he's worked so hard to find him — maybe she could go with him?
Loghain is almost out of sight when Adalia finally makes up her mind. He'll never catch Maric this way, it's all a dream — he'll just keep wandering, getting no closer than he started. For his own good and hers, she has to keep him here.
Adalia runs forward, extending her hand as though cracking a whip. A lash of lightning appears in the air in front of her, and she cracks it again, reaching for Loghain. The whip of electricity curls around his waist and she pulls backward with all her might, trying to drag him closer.
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adalia | acid... wounds....., body horror, evil dragon gods from the beginning of time???
ii. you are part of a machine, you are not a human being
iii. do you feel like a young god?
iii
But he has visited enough other dreams to know that this isn't real--and if he can only convince her of that, if he can break through her pain--
"Adalia--!" He finds he knows her name, knows her face, but from where he cannot tell, cannot place it. Loghain comes quickly to her side and tries to steady the shaking, thrashing of her limbs as they transform under his touch from human skin to--to scales.
"Oh, Maker's mercy, child, look at me," the words are rough, pleading, and he reaches up a hand to frame her face, to try to turn her eyes to his to give her a fixed point to focus on. "Adalia, you're dreaming--this is the Fade, this isn't real. Do you hear me?"
no subject
How can it hurt so much if it's just a dream?
When she looks up at him, one eye is her normal, natural storm blue. The other is shading reptilian, her pupil narrowing to a slit as the iris and deepens to a sickly green.
"It hurts," she whimpers, like that should be all she needs to say — it's too real, too potent to be a dream.
no subject
But Anora is a grown woman now, he knows. Grown and well able to look after herself, and not weeping in front of him in agony as her body betrays her.
And Loghain, powerless to do anything to stop it, to do more than take her hand and cradle her head, staring down in anguish at her face. "I know," he answers her in a rush, looking swiftly around, searching for something, anything, that he might be able to leverage to ease her suffering. "I know, my girl, but it's a dream, it's only a dream."
Such shallow comfort those words provide. But they are all he has.
no subject
She should have known as soon as Loghain appeared. Of course this isn't real.
The dream won't leave her without a fight. There's one last stab of pain and Adalia screams, digging taloned fingers into Loghain's hand as her shoulder blades grow outward and split her skin open, reaching for the sky like wings —
and then it's over, and Adalia collapses, no evidence of her horrible transformation left.
no subject
There's blood on his hands from where the talons of her fingers dug into his skin, but he pays it no mind, ignores the ache; it will leave him in time. Instead he sinks down onto whatever it is that must pass for a chair in his place and holds Adalia against his chest. "Shh," he whispers, eyes gone distant, watching another child run beyond the hedge of her mother's rose garden, "shh, I'm here."
What good that had ever done them. What good his presence had ever done anyone who had relied upon him. Tell those words to Cailan's corpse, fetid and lost to the darkspawn long before he could be found and burned.
no subject
Eventually, she sits up, inspecting her hands and neck for scales and talons and anything else that isn't supposed to be there. Satisfied on that count, she reaches back to feel at her shoulder blades — there isn't even so much as a rip in her dress to suggest the trauma that had just occurred. Now she reaches for Loghain's hand, meaning to inspect where she had pierced the skin with her talons.
"I hurt you," she says, her voice soft and slightly raspy from screaming. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I can fix it, if you — I mean, it'd be magic, but I can —"
Better to babble and avert her eyes than deal with whatever awkwardness must be coming. He didn't ask to have her dumped in his lap like this.
no subject
"There's no need," he assures her quickly, brushing off her concern for him. "I am far more durable than these old bones would have you believe."
It's meant to be a joke, or as close to a joke as he can get, but his eyes are drawn to the distant shape of the man in the peculiar machine that haunts the distance of this dream. His expression goes peculiarly slack for a moment as he stares, his mind seeing, almost recognizing. There's something...
no subject
but Loghain's gaze isn't focused on her, and her eyebrows draw together in confusion before she turns around to look for what he's looking at. As soon as she sees it, she realizes she's known it was here all along, she just — overlooked it. Why would she overlook something so foreboding?
She's beginning to understand why no one here trusts the Fade.
"Do you know what that is?" she asks Loghain, looking back to him with a nervous expression.
no subject
He realizes with a sudden, aching certainty, that he knows the withered figure attached to the nightmarish machine in the distance. Loghain makes a noise that is hard to place--not cry, not gasp, just a shaky inhalation, completely unnecessary in this place and yet he cannot stop himself--
He knows where they are, suddenly.
"Maric--" the name bursts out of him, and he steps forward, walking towards the distant figure, but it's like walking towards a distant mountain. He'll never get there, never reach him in time, it's already far too late--
no subject
But this is a dream, and people aren't supposed to be able to be physically in the Fade, which means —
"Loghain, I don't think he's real..."
It feels cruel to say, after his reaction to realizing who it was, but — he should know, right? She can't let him get pulled into this the way she had been. Adalia can still feel her skin crawling, like scales are just waiting beneath the surface, but as long as she remembers this is a dream she can control it. Loghain can't forget — who will remind her?
"You said it yourself, this is a dream. Right? He can't be here."
no subject
"I can't leave him," he says, the words coming out of him like bits of broken glass. "Not again. You can't know, you can't know how I searched, how close I came. I have to go."
Already with each step he takes, he's seems to be stepping out of her dream and into--something else. Soon, he will be gone from view completely.
no subject
But it's so cruel to keep him from Maric, when he's worked so hard to find him — maybe she could go with him?
Loghain is almost out of sight when Adalia finally makes up her mind. He'll never catch Maric this way, it's all a dream — he'll just keep wandering, getting no closer than he started. For his own good and hers, she has to keep him here.
Adalia runs forward, extending her hand as though cracking a whip. A lash of lightning appears in the air in front of her, and she cracks it again, reaching for Loghain. The whip of electricity curls around his waist and she pulls backward with all her might, trying to drag him closer.