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Teagan dreams and knows that he is dreaming. This place belongs to the distant memories of childhood, but now he walks through it as a man grown.
He hasn’t returned to this region of the Free Marches since the war ended. Since Maric reclaimed his mother’s throne and Teagan’s sister became a queen. He hasn’t stood in this field for three decades.
Yet every detail of his surroundings is familiar. The vibrant red poppies, the far-away hills made misty by distance, the clear sky overhead. He hasn’t revisited this place, even in dreams, for more years than he cares to think about, but he knows every part of it as well as his own study. Perhaps better. He has never spent an hour contemplating walls and floorboards with the intent focus he gave to the grass and flowers of this field.
He wonders if this idyllic locale would be the same if he were to return to it in the waking world. Probably not. In reality, he suspects the field would be smaller, the grass less vibrant, and the red blooms of the poppies as transient as other flowers. But in his memory – and his dreams – the field is untouchably perfect and the poppies bloom forever, their scarlet beauty stretching out towards an unreachable horizon.
When he came to walk through this field as a boy, his mind was filled with thoughts of battle. He longed to learn how to fight, desperately wished to be old enough he could join Father and Rowan with the army, yearned for a chance to prove himself. He wanted nothing more than to help drive the Orlesian usurpers out of his family’s homeland. As a man, he knows better than to believe there is glory in war. As a man, he no longer has any need to imagine or aspire to combat training; it’s a standard part of his daily routine. In the dream, he becomes aware that he has come to this place straight from the practice yard. Although he doesn’t remember the earlier sparring match, there must have been one. His muscles have that familiar ache from being pushed hard, and the sweat of his exertion has yet to fully cool.
As he walks through the limitless field, beneath the clear sky and radiant sun, the heat intensifies. He remembers that summer in the Free Marches always seemed overly warm to refugees and exiles accustomed to the cooler Fereldan climate. As the sweat soaks through his shirt, he pulls the garment off, draping it over his shoulder and letting the faint breeze that stirs the poppies reach his skin. The warmth of the sun on his unclothed shoulders and back is welcome once its heat is tempered by the cooling air. He entertains a fleeting thought about how a sunburn gained in the Fade might manifest in the waking world, then dismisses the concern as a risk he will take willingly. Having this perfect moment in a place out of his idealized memories easily outbalances any minor discomfort he might experience later.
Walking in this perfect place he loved, knowing he has more than fulfilled the aspirations that filled his time here, that is worth any trivial price it might cost.
As Teagan walks through the field of memory, he savors the small pleasures. The cool, springy grass beneath his bare feet. The soft tickle of the poppy flowers brushing against his shins as they bob in the light breeze. This place was always a paradise to him as a boy, and he relishes returning to it now, even in a dream, without the fears that plagued him then. It fills him with a sense of deep contentment, of peace, to stand in this beautiful field unburdened by worries about war ravaging his homeland or family members in danger. Those problems belong to the past, and he is grateful to be free of them.
Unexpectedly, a voice penetrates his thoughts. He can’t make out specific words, merely faint echoes of speech, but that is enough to tell that the speaker is male and young, no more than a boy. Startled and confused, he spins a slow circle, confirming that the broad field is empty save for himself and the poppies that stretch as far as he can see. This place was always somewhere for him to be alone. He cannot remember ever seeing another person here, and that is no different now. There is no boy present who could be speaking, but the sound continues, growing more distinct as he focuses on this anomaly that distracts him from the peace of his surroundings.
Finally, clear words emerge. “You need to stay quiet, uncle.”
Uncle? Teagan frowns, bothered that he cannot recall this boy who must be his nephew. He searches through his memories, struggling against the vague confusion of reality that comes from dreaming, the fuzzy edges between what is and what might be.
A voice emerges from the fog of his mind, and he grasps onto the memory before it can escape. Young, male. Is it the same boy? He isn’t sure the tenor of the voice matches, but he can’t focus on both of them together to compare and be certain. Surely there can’t be that many boys who call him uncle. As he focuses on the memory, the voice he has been hearing fades out of his perception, leaving behind only the laughing excitement of a young boy who grows gradually more clear in his mind’s eye.
“Look at me, uncle! See what I can do? Look!”
He is caught off guard when a turn of his head reveals a boy in the field with him, one he is certain wasn’t there before. For a moment, he thinks it might be a reflection of his past self, the boy who walked among these poppies in the Marches rather than the Fade. But the idea is quickly rejected. Even if the boy weren’t blond, he moves with a carefree, frolicking ease at odds with a boy weighed down by fear for his family and home. This boy romps through the flowers, trampling grass and knocking petals loose in his enthusiastic exuberance, but his joyous laughter makes such minor transgressions forgivable.
A closer study reveals a face that feels like it ought to be familiar, bright eyes sparkling with mischief and humor, features boyish but holding elements of nobility. This boy will grow into a handsome man. Perhaps, elsewhere, he already has. If a dreamer cannot be certain of his own age, why should he trust how anyone else appears?
He searches through his memory to find a name or identity for the boy. The child is his nephew – Rowan’s son? – but any further details elude him, slipping away like mist. All he can recall with certainty, beyond a beaming smile and youthful exuberance, is a sense of regret. Although he cannot say how or why, he knows that he has failed this child, this boy who calls him uncle and approaches the entire world with open trust and wonder. He has failed him terribly.
As he struggles to work past the haze of confusion, trying to remember what he has done or failed to do, the figure before him blurs, resolving into a different boy. Their features and coloring are similar. A casual observer might be forgiven for confusing the two, but when details are considered, the contrast is stark. This boy is thinner, more care-worn. His eyes are darker and more wary, his smile guarded, a defense. He moves self-consciously, lacking the first boy’s careless abandon. The flowers crumple under his feet as they did in the other’s wake, but he winces when he notices, glancing around as if anticipating chastisement. His eyes pass over his supposed uncle without recognition, so he must believe himself alone in this broad field. Even so, his first thought is to expect a scolding.
Just as this boy’s features echo those of the earlier one, similar but not exact, his presence prompts related emotions. Regret, guilt, a sense of failing. The remorse cuts less sharply, but the dull ache of nagging guilt is impossible to ignore.
Unable to recall any further details about either boy, Teagan only knows that he could have – should have – done more for both of them.
Before he can remember anything more, the boy is gone, vanishing between one blink and the next. Teagan finds himself alone in the poppy field once more, but it is as if the boy’s departure stole all of the cheer from the scene. The sun no longer warms him, and its light shines more weakly, an anemic glow rather than bright abundance. The pleasant breeze cuts more sharply, raising gooseflesh on his skin. Shivering, he pulls his shirt back on, wishing the garment were thicker to block out the sudden chill in the air. It is as if, without moving or being aware of time passing, he has gone from a Marcher high summer to late autumn in Ferelden.
The scenery, at least, hasn’t changed. He still stands in a field of poppies beneath a domed sky rimmed with distant hills, but their colors are muted in the weaker light, all of the vibrancy leached away. This place that always served as a sanctuary, a refuge, feels unwelcoming, almost hostile. He cannot guess what triggered the change, but he no longer desires to linger in this dream.
Rather than his earlier aimless wanderings, he beings to walk with a purpose now. Fixing his gaze on a point in the distant hills, he strides towards them. He feels the grass bend and poppies crush beneath his bare feet with every step, his heedless destruction of the previously idyllic scene at least equal to that cause by either of the boys. He can’t spare thought for regretting it, however. This place is no longer a reflection of a pleasant memory he wishes to treasure and preserve. With the new, ominous cast to this faded, washed-out landscape, he worries more about preserving himself than the flowers.
He walks until he grows frustrated. If he were in his body rather than his dreaming mind, he would doubtless be winded and growing footsore. He stops, forced to admit that his efforts have brought the hills no closer. He is caught in a gilded cage without bars, snared a trap of his own making, one woven from memories he had willingly surrendered and gladly been ensnared within. Shame at how easily he let himself be fooled wars with concern that he cannot recall how or why he ran afoul of a creature capable of tricking him like this. He clamps tightly down on the rising panic threatening to overtake both reactions.
As the pervasive sense of wrongness intensifies, every instinct screams at him to run, but he resists the internal urging to flee. If walking didn’t bring him any closer to the hills on the horizon, he won’t get there by running either, and he’s reluctant to waste whatever mental energy sustains him in this place by giving in to futile desperation.
“I told you what would happen if you didn’t stop shouting.”
The air around him fills with invisible energy, raising the hairs on the back of his arms and neck. The original boy’s voice, the one that first unsettled him from his reverie, returns. Or perhaps it never left, but he can focus on it clearly now that he’s no longer being seduced by the illusions around him. The voice is not solely that of a child. It hums and buzzes with darker overtones, giving a menacing edge to what should be a young boy’s idle threats.
As the voice speaks, the sky grows dark, menacing clouds the color of a day-old bruise abruptly blanketing the sky from horizon to horizon. Teagan turns a circle, scanning warily, hoping for a break in the oppressive sky cover, a hint of light he can fix onto. But the clouds are monolithic, and he can’t see any reprieve from the darkness hovering over him.
“I came here to help.”
A different voice slips into the dream, strangely clear despite the rising wind. Female, confident, reassuing, an auditory equivalent of the light ray he seeks. Teagan trusts this woman, although he can’t say who she is. He struggles to recall, and for a moment there is a glimpse of dark hair, green eyes. But the face fades before it can form, more of the dream’s trickery. There is only one woman in his memory with that strength of purpose, one he has always known will protect him. From the earliest points he can recall, when faced with irrational terrors, safety and Rowan are indistinguishable.
His sister appears in the field as if summoned from his thoughts. Despite the cold wind that flings her hair wildly about, her shoulders are square and head unbowed. Teagan moves to cross the spans that separate them, seeking the comfort and security of her presence in this suddenly hostile landscape. But as he approaches, Rowan wavers, her form becoming less solid. By the time he comes within a few feet of her, she is nearly insubstantial. The color and vibrancy have leached from her, as well, leaving her grey and transparent, the poppies behind her visible like patches of blood seeping through her armor. Rowan looks at him, eyes meeting his, the first thing in this dreamscape to acknowledge his presence. She stretches a hand towards him, her face lined with pain and fear, her mouth opening in a silent plea. Teagan lunges towards her, but she is gone before he can cross the remaining distance.
The last shreds of warmth and hope flee with her. The chill wind shifts from merely uncomfortable to biting, cutting through his thin linen shirt like gossamer. He shivers violently, teeth clattering despite his attempts to clench his jaw together. Without warmer clothing, his extremities will begin to go numb soon, and he is at risk of severe damage from exposure within several minutes. Assuming nothing worse happens in the meantime, which seems an unreasonably optimistic hope.
Before he can take three more steps on feet rapidly growing clumsy from cold, his vision flickers, the surroundings going dark for a heartbeat. He cannot distinguish whether the flaw is with his sight or the dream landscape. It happens again, the pulses growing longer and more frequent. Reflexively, he spins around, staring for the source of the disturbance, but all he can see – when he sees anything at all – is the same empty field, muted and drab under a blackening sky. He is entirely alone, the absence of a clear threat alarming. The bursts of darkness become more frequent and last longer, blanking out the world. Fragments of sound break through, shouts and the clash of arms, out of sync with the pulses of light and dark. His pulse accelerates and his breath comes out harsh and shallow with panic as he strains to see anything of use in the brief flickers of light. His feet have gone almost fully numb. He has no way to tell if the ground beneath him persists when his vision fails or if the entire dream world vanishes in those moments. And he isn’t sure which possibility he finds more disturbing.
The bursts of light are rare now, reduced to lightning flashes in near omnipresent gloom. Staggering, disoriented, he falls to the ground – to what he thinks is the ground, although even that is suspect as the dream and its dreamer disintegrate.
With a sudden, sharp pain in his head, everything explodes into whiteness, and then it all goes mercifully dark.
Teagan is lying on a stone floor. The flagstones are hard and rough against his back, a stark contrast to the yielding grass he halfway expects. Reality and dream blend in his mind, leaving him disoriented, with no idea where he is, what he is doing on this floor, or why his head throbs with his pulse. Although he suspects the latter two questions share the same answer.
Isolde’s worried frown provides his first piece of clear understanding. He’s at Redcliffe, then. In Ferelden, not the Free Marches. That’s a start, although it doesn’t yet explain why he’s lying on the floor in his brother’s home. He scans the room for information and is met with concerned, familiar faces. Alistair, all grown up and looking surprisingly at home in battered armor. Meriana Cousland, the last person he expected to come to his aid but one he is most grateful to see. Seeing the pair of them, recent events flood back in to his mind. Eamon’s illness. The attacks on the village. The timely arrival of these Grey Warden saviours.
Connor’s possession.
The pieces fall into place, and he remembers at least fragments of the dream that held him trapped while, as he is told, the demon that holds his nephew held control of his body. A sheepish apology from Alistair explains the knot rising on the back of his head. He supposes he should be grateful he only got knocked out with a sword hilt after the demon forced him to turn on his allies, but gratitude for that blow may come more easily later, once he can move without his head throbbing.
Wincing, Teagan rises to his feet as the conversation moves on around him, turning to what should be done with Connor to prevent further tragedy. The blood mage, having somehow escaped his imprisonment in the chaos, arrives and offers a solution, of a sort. Teagan mistrusts how readily everyone listens to a man who has proven himself unspeakably dangerous. What could Isolde have been thinking, turning to a maleficar for her son’s education? The woman’s foolishness has nearly cost her son his life and sanity, and it may still claim the boy’s father.
Before Teagan can think past the pain in his head to find more diplomatic words, Meriana steps in. She flatly refuses any offer of blood magic, insisting on undertaking the trip to the Circle Tower at Lake Calenhad to retrieve sufficient lyrium. “Enough lives have been lost, and I won’t help a child by killing his mother. If I have any say in it, no more harm will come to your family.”
She looks at Teagan rather than Isolde on those final words, her green eyes painfully sincere, and he wonders if she remembers, as he does, that this might have been her family, too. Bryce and Eamon had been in the final stages of negotiating a marriage contract to bind Redcliffe and Highever more tightly as allies. But that was before the rout at Ostagar and the massacre at Highever. It might as well have been another lifetime, given all that has changed.
Skeptical as he was about the match – a teyrn’s daughter should surely have better options than a bann two decades her senior – he is surprised to realize he now regrets that a final agreement was never reached. The Meriana he has seen since her arrival at Redcliffe – strong, brave, and compassionate enough to risk her life against a danger that need not be her problem – is a woman he would be honored to know better.
For a moment when she first arrived and offered aid, he had entertained the fleeting notion of reopening the negotiations himself. With Connor’s magic no longer hidden, Teagan will return to being his brother’s heir, and he will need a wife. Whether the Landsmeet grants Meriana her family’s title or not, the Cousland bloodline is more than worthy. They could be a good match, both politically and, he suspects, personally. But he will never suggest it.
Because Teagan sees the worshipful looks Alistair gives her, and the shy smiles Meriana offers in return. They both deserve whatever happiness this Blight and their duties as Grey Wardens will allow them. So Teagan ventures nothing beyond courtly admiration, flattery a noblewoman would recognize as sincere but meaningless.
In the wake of the blood mage’s offer, plans are made quickly; there is little time to lose. Who knows how long the demon inside Connor will remain dormant after this minor defeat? Teagan wishes the Wardens’ party well and promises to hold both the castle and the village, keeping Redcliffe safe until they return from the Circle. He tries not to think about how little his efforts mattered in the face of the demon’s power before. Surely he is better prepared now that he knows what to expect.
As the Grey Wardens depart for Lake Calenhad, Teagan sets to the tasks of restoring order, something to keep everyone busy in the aftermath of tragedy and horror. He puts aside the memories of red poppies and green eyes that creep into his mind. There is too much to be done for him to be distracted by thoughts of what was. Or what might have been.