i know you, i walked with you once upon a dream [closed]

[girlinthebox]

WHO: River, Aleron, Simon, Melys, Sina, and Bruce.
WHAT: The Dreamer's going for a walk.
WHEN: Guardian 29
WHERE: The Faaaaaaaaaade
NOTES: CW: Abuse, violence, trauma, etc. Individual starters within.

The Fade is not separate, but intertwined. One half of a woven tapestry, unseen but present and binding. The mages could feel it when they pulled magic through, or walked that plane in sleep. Dreamers? Felt those ties in their bones, the way they tied and plucked at the mundane world of the waking. Their emotions stirred spirits, their memories left imprints that echoed.

Their dreams shaped the abstract around them, without them even knowing. River knew. River had found those paths and wandered them, slipping in and out of one dream and then another, avoiding demons and watching the landscape shift around those who slept in Skyhold.

Here, the bindings were firmer, more secure, but she could see more clearly. Tonight, she made her walk down those paths, following the echoes of sound and emotion like loose strings in different colors. Gather them up and see the picture on the other side.

Carefully, carefully. Here, her touch could alter far too much.

Comments

[lifeofendurance]

As with everything else in his life, Aleron is intent on his goal. That goal is to reach the retreating figure of his wife. There is some part of him that knows that this cannot be real, that he must be dreaming, that he has had this dream before. This time, surely it will be different. The part of him that yearns to hold her again, to beg forgiveness of her, to once again taste the sweetness of companionship... that is what compels him forward. He cannot acknowledge the dreaming. To do so will rip her from him and he cannot bear it.

"Mirielle! Wait! Please..." he pleads with her, voice heavy with longing and desperation, while he continues to follow the echo of her footsteps.

Only out of the corner of his vision does he glimpse the presence of another. But no, he cannot look that way, lest he lose his way in the labyrinth of hallways. For a split second, his attention is torn: inquire who she is and why she is here when she can't possibly be, or pursuit his wife before she vanishes.

He chooses to follow, rushing around the corner to the left.

[girlinthebox]

He will never catch her. She will slip through his fingers like sand, and as thought to prove that point the floor Aleron runs across suddenly pulls weightily at his legs, slowing the pace of his pursuit. She lingers now, around each corner, long enough for him to see her hair, the flow of her dress, the faintest glimpse of what might be her face as she turns. But the hall seems to stretch.

She is so very far away, and he is moving as though through mire. River watches, her eyes on the woman. She's thin, a wisp of a thing, so very fragile. If he caught her, she might simply break in his arms, to look at her.

[lifeofendurance]

The weight pulling at him, slowing him down is unbearable. Strange for a man who has spent his adult life encased in armor, used to being weighed down by it. Weighed down by what it represents in his life too: duty, responsibility, keeping others out.

He'd let Mirielle into his heart and it had crushed him when she died.

The thought that she can be saved this time takes hold and he cannot, will not, turn it loose. If only he can reach her, he knows he can stop it. The last years of his life will be the nightmare and he'll wake to her smile. But first he must reach her. To reach her, he must go faster, move unencumbered.

The gauntlets are the first to go. They are cast aside as he attempts to run across the sinking, fighting floor. Still fighting, still pushing, chasing her footsteps, drinking in every detail of her beautiful face before it goes around another corner. Without looking away or thinking of what he's doing, the fastens on the breastplate are next to come undone. It is cast away in haste, lest the seconds squandered as it blocks his view cause him to lose the sight of her. There it lays, Seeker's Eye face down on hard stone, sinking. Next is the sword belt and tassets. Unnecessary burdens he does not need.

[girlinthebox]

Oh, she wants him to reach her. She's extended her arms, beckoning him closer. But the hallway stretches ever longer. For every step he takes, she only seems farther away, her eyes desperate under the veil of her hair falling about her face.

And she grows paler, like color fading from an aged painting. The stones in the hall fall away, and those that are left are jagged, jutting out from the ground like tombstones. But there is every indication he could reach her if he just kept going.

But only a memorial waits for him if he does. Cold, unfeeling stone, arms outstretched in rigid embrace.

[lifeofendurance]

Oh those reaching arms...

Those are all it takes to spur Aleron on all the more. He can see the desperation in her eyes, even as she beckons for him. The hallway stretches more, taunting them, teasing. She is fading to shades of marble while he struggles with each closing step.

For a fleeting moment, there is a flit of an idea. If reaching for her puts her further away, perhaps turning about will close the gap, overcome the chasm that grows to keep them apart. It would make sense. It would be logical.

But he just cannot turn away from her.

Determined, he digs in harder. He will reach her and save her. Ignoring the unending holes left behind the fallen flagstones, he moves slowly where there is remaining footing. The rocks are sharp and painful, biting and clawing into his bare feet. Where his boots vanished, or when, he doesn't know, nor care. The agony of the pressing forward he ignores. And well that he does. Each slice of rock into his flesh is one more step closer to Mirielle.

Exhausted and bleeding, his hand finally brushes hers outstretched. Cold stone, lifeless. A perfect statue, ever reaching, face marred with terror evermore. He is too late.

"No!" Aleron sinks to the ground, clinging to the fragile statue of his wife, broken, with his face pressed against those dainty feet. "No..."

[girlinthebox]

"She isn't here."

River is there, some distance away behind a broken headstone, watching this man grieve for his wife as though she were still there to touch, to hold, to save. But the stone is empty, an afterimage. What he seeks can't be found here, could never be reached.

There has to be another way. But this is his dream, his fears and guilt and doubts that the Fade reflects back to him. To touch them is to touch his mind, and she is hesitant to do so if she doesn't have to.