"Keep your wits about you, mage, because true tests...never end."
Alistair watched as Neria Surana, elven mage-maiden and Grey Warden, tossed in her sleep. Her brow furrowed and she whimpered, clenching her hands. Firelight made deep shadows in her hair and glistened on her sweat covered brow. She sat bolt upright with a sharp indrawn breath, eyes suddenly open but unfocused.
"Did you dream about the Archdemon again?" Alistair leaned forward from his place by the camp fire, concerned and a little curious.
The elf moved slowly, as if through syrup, or weighed down by some ethereal burden. She turned her head, strands of hair slipping past delicately tapered ears to fall down her back and cling to the quilted golden silk of her mage robe. Lips parted, eyes wide, she shook her head.
Her lips moved softly and she murmured something low and unintelligible as she lay back down. Alistair caught only a few words, entwined in the smoke-wisp breeze of the night, "...demon...harrowing...green...let...mouse..."
Alistair chuckled at the thought of a green mouse, and grinned crookedly and the elven maid. She'd rolled over though, her back to the snapping fire, and didn't see the smile or the gentle look in the almost-templar's eyes. Instead she faced the night, reaching a hand out towards the pools of dappled moonlight in the grass. She closed her eyes, waiting for sleep and the inevitable dreams that came with it. A shiver rippled down her spine but whether it was anticipation or dread she couldn't say. Consciousness hung heavy in the black behind her eyes. It stretched and dripped and frayed and when she opened her eyes again she was in the fade, where all creatures went in their dreams(save for the Dwarves -and how empty and peaceful their dreams must be, rippling and warm and monotonous as the molten stone beneath their city) but where only the mages remained aware.
This time Neria found herself in the middle of a lake. She looked down marvelling as beneath her feet the liquid remained unbroken. The water was still and black, her reflection the only thing marring the surface. Her reflection and the stars. They twinkled languidly in the water: jewels swathed in midnight silk. Two of them glowed bright, and near, and green. The maid looked up to find them in the sky, but already they were next to her. Burning green stars over a waning-moon smile, slanted and knowing. He had discarded the Senior Enchanter's robe he had worn in her Harrowing, the single slip that had immediately shown his story for the lie that it was. He now seemed clothed in dusk and dawn: grey and indigo, violet and sapphire and peach, all the changing colours of the sky chasing each other through the folds of his robes. He loomed over the slight elf, even in his human form.
Neria dipped her head in acknowledgment, greeting him with the name she knew him by. "Mouse."
The demon quirked his lip. "Mage." His voice was somewhere in between 'Mouse' and 'Demon', deeper than it had been as timid Mouse with a dangerous rumble underneath, but not the throaty growl of the fully unleashed Pride Demon.
She sighed. "I knew you would be here. Somehow I knew, even before I slept."
The demon chuckled. "Clever mage."
Neria gestured around at the scenery, as clear and sharp as shattered glass instead of the usual Fade haze and blur. "Did you...make this?"
The demon cocked a fine blonde eyebrow and grinned arrogantly.
Neria ran a hand through her thick hair, pushing it back from her face. "Are we going to play this game? Circles of equivocations and half-truths? Is this a...continuation? Why where you in my Harrowing? Are you in all Harrowings?" She looked up into the face of the strange being before her. "Why did you let me go?"
Mouse tilted his head to one side, amused. "You saw me for what I was from the beginning, mage. You were the first to do so. It...piqued my interest."
The elf maid huffed, frowning in frustration. "You didn't answer my question."
The demon chuckled. He reached out a hand and rested it on her cheek, smoothing away her frown with his thumb. "Oh, but I did. One of them, at least."
Neria chewed on her bottom lip as she pondered the answer, trying to match it to a question. She somehow didn't think the obvious fit was the right one. Distractedly she brushed his hand away, missing the amused twist to his mouth as she did so.
"Okay, okay. What do you want from me?"
"To watch, for now. To see how you grow. To see how you shape your powers. To see how your powers shape you." Mouse caught her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes. "You are determined. Ruthless. You may hide from your companions beneath a meek and soft facade, but you cannot hide your true self from me." He stepped forward, pulling the elf close and leaning down. He slid his hand around to cup her cheek gently, his other hand darting up to grip the hair at the nape of her neck painfully. The demon laughed, hot breath brushing the mages cheek. "Even now, in the clutches of a demon you do not flinch but wonder what you can get from me." He smiled, and it was the sly and toothy smile of a fox. "You would bargain with Pride? We shall see, mage."
The sky suddenly began to lighten around them and Mouse released her, stepping backwards and melting into the water. Neria blinked, and opened her eyes and awareness to dew speckled grass glinting rainbows in the early morning sun. She rolled onto her back and gazed up at the clouds. Mouse's voice echoed as the last vestige of sleep left her mind.
"We shall see."