#poor vida

He had not explored the Fade in the presence of others in…a very long time.

To be sure, hardly anything was different from his previous visits to the Hinterlands. Tufts of grass bended to an otherworldly breeze, the sun still hanging in its eternal position to the right of the Black City, always in view no matter where in the Fade you were. Soft footsteps travelled around the surface of a glistening lake, the reflections muddled and twisted.

The elven apostate traced a slow, steady path through the Fade, trained footsteps making no sound as he traveled. Familiar spirits of compassion and the occasional faith hovered around him in balls of light, yearning to interact with their old friend.

The new sensation, Solas quickly discovered, and the reason there were so many spirits around who weren’t during his last visit, were his companions. Dwarves didn’t dream, so Varric was not present, but Seeker Pentaghast and the Herald, however, had joined him in the Fade.

Of course, they were not in the Fade in the same manner as he. A ways off, he spotted the Seeker, sword brandished and twirling in the air, catching would-be attackers in the neck before they could reach her. To him, the outside observer, it looked like she was fighting the air, with a ball of white light floating in circles around her, but Solas knew better. Cassandra was destroying the Breach with swords alone, fighting side-by-side with Anthony. He smiled at the dreamer. Soon, she would defeat the Breach itself, and she and the spirit impersonating Antony could live together in peace, the evil vanquished. It was a good dream.

Curious, the elf looked around, searching for the other dreamer who should be close by. Dreamers rarely experienced the Fade very far from where they had laid their head to rest, but he couldn’t immediately see where she—

Ah, that was his mistake. That was not the sun he had seen during his walk. Rather, it was the Anchor, its energy shining in the Fade like a torch. That was why there were so many spirits about. They were excited, confused, energized by the draw of the mark on her hand. The glow came from the other side of the lake, pulsating like a star from the night sky had crashed onto the surface, hot and brilliant energy shaping the Fade around them.

As he circled the lake once more, however, he could feel the Fade shifting, its movements becoming sharper, less fluid and more definite. More…active. His breath became visible in puffs of gray clouds, a chill racing down his spine. Instinctively, his hand reached for the staff on his back, but his better judgment told him to wait until he was closer, until he could better see. It was clear the Anchor drew more than just the benevolent spirits to her.

Despair.

As the Herald came into view, he could see her lying on a bed, erected by the Fade, with golden embellishments throughout the wooden frame. Sitting upright, she seemed occupied with something immediately in front of her, oblivious to her surroundings. Her eyes seemed to shift back and forth to things he could not see. He could, however, see the pair of Despair of demons looming over her.

They hadn’t sensed his presence yet, waves of icy chill dripping from their torn and ragged cloaks like water dripping from a coat after being in the rain. They were floating at the foot of the bed, facing away from him as they gave the young noble their undivided attention, not yet sensing his presence. These demons had likely scared off the nearby benevolent spirits, leaving them to wander across the lake, concerned yet unable to help.

He normally made it a point to avoid tampering with other people’s dreams. It interfered with the natural processes of the Fade, and provided he made his presence light enough, he could pass by unseen. But the Anchor wasn’t a natural process of the Fade, and because it was still fresh, it was unlikely the Herald’s spirit had yet been able to compensate while dreaming. Hence, the two Despair demons currently occupying her. Killing the demons, however, would likely wake her in a panic, for demons always entered dreams pretending to be something else. To her, it might look like her sister was being murdered, or her house set on fire. No, the demons here had to be defeated from within the dream, in a way that preserved the dream state of the Fade but not the demons, allowing the benevolent spirits to take over. Thus, against his better judgment, he slowly and carefully made his way to the bed, and touched his hand to the bedpost.

A flash of light engulfed him, quickly settling down to form shapes and noise around him. He was now seeing her dream.

He was startled by the sudden burst of noise, the chaotic energy of little children running around the room, their images passing through his feet like mist. There were three of them: two boys and a girl, none of them older than probably nine. They ran in little circles around the bed, screaming with laughter as they chased each other with wooden sticks, yelling curses at each other as they pretended to fight. Sunlight streamed from the open window next to him, washing the Herald in a subtle glow.

She was sitting upright in the bed, propped up by several pillows as she cradled a book in her hands. Her bright red hair fell evenly to her shoulders, not in the usual bun to the side like he had known. Her stomach, round and heavy, lay underneath the sheets, creating a nook between it and her chest in which to rest her book as she turned the pages, her face grimacing as she tried to ignore the sounds of her screaming children around her.

An unusual tactic for Despair, he wondered silently. Apart from the loud noises, such a dream was often considered happy, unless this scene was being used to set up for tragedy later, but Despair rarely used such tactics. Such happy beginnings were typically inferred rather than actually experienced.

“Lance, please stop antagonizing your sister,” she said, not really looking at them as she placed a hand on her stomach.

“But she started it!” the little boy cried, hair as red as his mother’s draping over his eyes as he stared at her.

“Did not!” the little girl cried.

“Children, please…”

“Children, please take your game outside. Your mother needs rest.”

The source of the new voice, a man with midnight-black hair and dark green eyes, walked into the room, a knowing grin on his face as he regarded his now-motionless children, his accent reminding Solas of his journeys to Antiva.

“I recommend we take this game outside, hm? There is more room to play out there than in here.”

“But I needed help with my homework!” the other son replied, clearly annoyed his other siblings had ruined his chances.

“Patience, Alfonso,” he replied, soothingly. “Wait for me in the living room, and I will assist you shortly. For now, let your mother rest.”

Grudgingly, the children filed out of the room one by one, the oldest son thumping his sister in the head as they left.

“I wish they didn’t have to fight so often…” Vida sighed, marking her place in the book before closing it. “He plays too rough with her.”

“How else will he learn his strength?” the man countered, smiling as he went to rest next to her on the bed. “He needs to learn how to be a man, after all.”

“I know…” she sighed, a weak smile on her face as he laid a hand on top of hers, feeling the child within her through her hand. “I’m just tired, I guess.”

The couple shared a brief kiss, his right hand cupping her resting arm while his left cradled her chin. For a brief few seconds, the dream hyper-focused, fixating on the way he gripped her wrist, almost as if he was actually pinning her arm to the bed as they embraced, rather than the gentle caress of a lover. Their lips parted in slow-motion, and as her husband rose to his feet, his image flickered, just for a moment, but he immediately understood the purpose of what was going on. Her husband’s image had changed to that of an older woman, with gray hair that used to be red like her daughter’s, stern, brown eyes gazing down at her with an air of smug victory, thin hands waving playfully at Vida before the image changed, the woman changing back to the image of her imaginary husband as he walked out of the room.

He could feel the dream shaking slightly, Vida’s consciousness reacting to the scene. Of course she had seen. She was supposed to. It was then Solas was able to see the dream as opposed to merely feeling it. Only then could the apostate see the faint, almost transparent image of chains sprouting from her wrists, chaining her arms to the bottom of the bedposts. It didn’t look like Vida was conscious for this dream, her eyes slowly dropping to the bulge underneath her hand, so it was likely these chains were perceptions of the scene rather than an actual part of it. Regardless, the scene shimmered, her spirit recoiling from the obvious bait in an attempt to wake up, but Despair’s grip was strong, keeping the dream in place.

Regaining focus, he chose to leave her as she lay on the bed, following her husband through the door of the bedroom and into the living room, where, instead of being greeted with an impatient child learning math problems, he was faced with the husband-image, who was glaring right at him.

“You don’t belong here.”

Gone was the gentle, honey-dipped voice of the husband from Antiva, completely replaced with the icy hiss of the Despair demon.

“I could say the same of you,” Solas replied evenly, knowing this conversation was deliberately kept from Vida’s ears by the demonic duo.

“This is my realm, mortal!” it seethed, its eyes starting to glow a whitish-blue.

“This is neither your place nor mine,” was the apostate’s calm response, his gaze level with Despair’s. “This is her realm, until she awakens. If you and your friend leave this place, I promise to not follow. This is my offer to you.”

Its response was to scream, its body engulfed in the blue-white light as it rose into the air, splitting into two demons in their true form: the form Solas had encountered them in first.

Solas easily dispatched Despair, summoning a wall of liquid fire and pushing it towards them. Panicking at the sudden burst of flame, they were unprepared for the very Fade to rip them from the inside, the apostate’s age-old knowledge of the Fade allowing him to rip Despair from the dream entirely, where the nearby spirits of Valor and Justice would likely destroy them as soon as they became visible in the raw Fade.

The flame receding from his hands, the apostate gazed at the warped image in front of him, his manipulation of the Fade smearing the dream like water splashed on a painting. The chill in the air was gone, and he could feel Vida beginning to stir from her sleep, no longer contained by Despair but unsure of what to do in this dream.

Satisfied, he made his way back to the bedroom, the house morphing into black with every step he took. By the time he reached the door, the house had changed completely.

The bedroom was the same as before, but it was now nighttime, rays of moonlight peeking from behind a cloud and sneaking through the sheets covering the open window.

The drapes formed a small bulge, the young girl shifting as she leaned on the windowsill, strands of bright red hair billowing in the wind as vibrant, blue eyes gazed at the sight of the moon above her.

She looked to be about twelve, little hands gripping the metal looking glass as she raised it to her eye, studying the moon more closely as she traced its features with her gaze. Here, away from her mother and her forced future and the Breach, this was Vida’s childhood wish: to just gaze up at the stars, and dream.

Smiling at the dream, Solas closed his eyes, feeling himself slipping out of her dream, and woke up.

“Good morning, Solas.”

The elf was cradling the cup of tea in his hands when she awoke, exiting her tent without any indication she had ever been sleeping in the first place, her hair neatly tied up in her sidebun.

“Good morning, Herald,” he replied, poking the fire with a stick as Vida took a seat next to him at the fire. “I will be starting breakfast shortly.” He glanced at her. “Did you sleep well?”

He felt the hesitation more than he actually saw it, her training concealing all but the faintest of grimaces before hiding behind the mask she wore so well.

“Not particularly, no,” she replied, not looking at Solas anymore.

Silence reigned between them for a while, the two of them watching the fire crackle as sunlight slowly began to wash over the Hinterlands.

“If I may impart some advice,” Solas began.

Vida turned to look towards him but did not answer, her reaction a gesture of approval.

“Your mark is likely heightening the intensity of your dreams, likely due to your increased awareness of the Veil and the Fade. This added energy is likely too much for your spirit to immediately adapt. Until it does, it is likely your dreams will continue to attract stronger spirits than normal. If you like, I can teach you mental exercises you can do, to help you compensate for the mark.”

Her eyebrows rose slightly, but still she said nothing, surprised and yet not surprised he somehow knew about her nightmare last night, piecing together how he would’ve known about it.

“It would not take much time out of your day,” he continued. “But after performing these exercises for about a week or two, you will have adapted enough to no longer need them. Does this sound agreeable?”

She stared at him for a little while, thinking his proposal through.

“It wouldn’t hurt,” she replied, admitting he knew about her dream. “I’ll give it a try.”

“Excellent. We will start before we turn in for the night.”

Solas made to get up from his spot on the grass to gather the food for breakfast, but Vida stopped him.

“Solas?”

He turned to look at her.

“Yes?”

To her credit, the mask she wore just a few minutes ago was gone, as if it had never existed.

“Do you think any less of me?”

Her candor surprised him.

“Truthfully? No. Dreams are rarely as simple as they appear to an onlooker, or even the dreamer. It is not my place to judge. I have not traveled with you long enough to claim to know you.”

She nodded at that, slipping her mask back on as before.

“Thank you, Solas.”