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It is quiet, this dream.
She slips into it softly, in the night. There is a vigil, she knows. People praying for the ‘Herald of Andraste’. No matter what truth has been revealed, some refuse to abandon that notion. Her friends come, too; those that can make it in time.
She knows it’s a matter of ‘in time’.
She leaves messages for the rest. Makes those who’ve gathered leave the room, at the end. After the healers have abandoned her. Solemn eyes and brutal truths.
“I shall stay,” Cassandra insists. “I would not leave you alone.”
“I will not be alone,” she replies.
Because she knows.
This is not something he would do.
And this is not something he would abandon her to.
But Cassandra is still standing there, when at last she slips away.
Yes, it’s quiet, this dream. Still and peaceful, and drifting, and painless. Water lapping the edges of a long, long shore. She feels the pull of it and draws in breaths, distant and growing more distant by the moment.
Perhaps she is wrong.
Perhaps…
Oh.
There he is.
She turns, and sees him standing behind her. Head bowed. Hands loose at his sides.
He’s not wearing his armour. No fancy pelts or ancient, elaborate finery. He is in his tunic and leggings, jawbone necklace hanging from his neck, and she smiles at the sight. He has dressed for her.
There are tears in her eyes when she reaches for him.
“Ma vhenan.”
He shudders, and bows.
So much weight on him.
She should probably be angry, she thinks. And she would be, if she thought for one moment that he had known. That he had condoned what had happened to her. That he had even dreamed that itwould happen to her.
But he didn’t.
He hadn’t.
For all his brilliance, for all his insight, and cunning, and even compassion, sometimes he is just another proud fool.
“I cannot reach you in time,” he says, voice thick. “The network - I tried, but it only got me as far as Orlais. You must hold on. You must wait, and I will reach you.”
“Why? To prevent the chaos of my death?” she wonders. “I’m not Inquisitor any more. The ripples will be small. a few cults, here and-”
“No!” he snaps, and his fist clenches. “My people did this. You did not deserve such suffering. I will make it right.”
She smiles at him, weary.
“You will never fix every mistake, not the ones you make and not the ones your people make, vhenan. And they will make a lot of them,” she says. “My people know what it is like to be thought of as less.”
“So do mine,” he insists. “And they have not forgotten. They merely… they do not understand.”
“No. And why should they? You will make a world fit for them, and unfit for us. It is so much easier, isn’t it, to erase people when they are not real? They already know how to do it. They just need to act like the ones who did it to them.”
He stares at her, and she reaches for him. She’s feeling further and further away, now. It’s harder to think of the big picture. The important things. Right and wrong, and greater goods.
Her hands want to touch him, one last time. So she does. She touches his face, and brushes away the tears that fall from his too-bright eyes, and holds him when he reaches back for her.
“Vhenan,” he breathes. “Vhenan. Hold on. You must. You are so good at it; you must survive again.”
“Ar lath ma,” she says.
“Please.”
“I would, if I could. I would. I am so sorry. I wish I could have saved you.”
He shakes, and weeps, and she does not know how to soothe it. Hold on, he says, and she tries. But it feels as if all of her tethers are breaking, and there is gravity on her that she cannot resist. Even he cannot hold her here much longer.
Some things are bigger than willpower alone.
But it is not frightening. Not for her. It is painless, and still, and she is almost relieved at the calm.
“I will find you again. In another world, I think,” she whispers. “You find me too, alright? Find me too.”
“I will find you in any world. I will love you in every world,” he promises. “I am sorry.”
She cradles his face, and kisses him.
“You have a good heart. Listen to it,” she begs, and that is all she can manage. For a moment longer, she lingers, fading but unable to speak. Drifting off in pieces that quietly slip away, until he is left holding only the faintest of shadows.
And then the dream falls into darkness.
He sits in the empty space left behind.
Alone.