At night, Adaar dreams of flying.
She does not fly as she used to fly in dreams, where she simply picked up her feet and skimmed over the earth. Now she flies as a dragon flies, hearing the creak of wing membranes behind her, the surge of muscles along her shoulders. She glances down and sees her own massive claws, and the earth wheeling beneath her.
Adaar-Inquisitor can look down at the world, like a map, and think Hinterlands, but Adaar-dragon sees only Mine.
Something moves beneath her. She dips her wings, loses altitude. Her shadow passes over a ram and it breaks into a run.
She dives.
The ram dodges left, dodges right, and she exhales fire.
It panics, swerving away from the flames, and Adaar-dragon strikes.
The weight of the ram is negligible, as she flies back to her lair. She tears it apart, gulps, swallows. Adaar-Inquisitor is disgusted. Adaar-dragon tastes only the redness of meat, the redness of blood, red, red, red…
There is something wrong.
The redness is the wrong redness. It is too bright and dry on Adaar-dragon's tongue. She swallows, trying to clear her mouth, but it is full of whispering dust.
Adaar-Inquisitor knows that it is red lyrium, but the dragon knows nothing of lyrium. It swallows again and again, and the whispers bloom into a chorus. ...here we are, Adaar, we are all together now...you can't cut us out now, Adaar, we are here…we are inside of you…we will never be alone again…
"Easy," someone said. "Easy, now. Wake up. It's a dream."
It was dark but there was a dim red light near her feet. Red. Where was she? Her throat was closing up.
"Breathe, Adaar," instructed the voice, which was nothing at all like the voice of the lyrium. It was a voice that sounded as if it knew what it was talking about.
She dragged in air as if she were drowning. Her lungs ached, even as the dream receded—but where was she now?
She tried to sit up, and discovered that she couldn't. Something was holding her shoulders down. She was trapped, like the mages had been trapped in the future, things growing out of them, their bodies pinned to walls like butterflies on a card—
She struck out, violently, and was rewarded with a grunt.
"You've got a helluva right hook, boss."
Memory flooded back.
The red light was the fire, seen through the tentflap. She was not pinned by lyrium, but by Iron Bull's hands on her shoulders.
She took another deep, choking breath, and Bull let her sit up.
"Didn't mean to spook you," he said. "The way you were thrashing around, I thought you'd pull the tent down on top of you."
"Dreams," she rasped. Her throat felt raw. "Was I shouting?"
"You were working up to it, but you hadn't gotten there yet. I thought I'd wake you before you set Varric off. He's had a rough night, too."
Adaar exhaled. "I bet. Is there anything we can do for him?"
"Dorian gave him elfroot and booze. He'll be useless if we get attacked in the middle of the night, but he'll be dead to the world in a few more minutes." Bull chuckled suddenly.
"What's so funny?"
"You. You wake up in shaking night terrors, and the minute you hear one of your guys needs help, you forget all about it. You're a good boss, boss."
"Yeah, well…"
It occurred to Adaar that Bull was rubbing her back, and had been since she sat up. His hand was warm and solid—over the shoulder blades, down the spine and up again, a soothing gesture, as if she were an animal that needed steadying.
He's not far wrong.
She was rather glad of the hand and the warmth and his presence, and that was…
Qunari collusion, probably. I have got to be careful. I don't dare get too comfortable…not with a Ben-Hassrath…
He found the scar under her shoulderblade and rubbed his thumb over it. Even through the fabric, the knot of scar tissue was raised and hard.
I should stop this. I should.
"That is a monster, isn't it?" he said. "Surprised you kept full use of the arm."
"My old company had a very good healer. He didn't much care about scars, but we used to stay he could get a hamhock back on its feet if you gave him a needle and thread."
"He did a good job."
It was very pleasant to sit in the dark and be stroked like a cat. The lyrium dream receded, going away, a thing that had happened, not a thing that was still happening.
I will stop this. Yes. Perhaps in just a moment.
He stopped.
I am not disappointed. Not at all. Nope.
"You all right now, boss?"
"I think so." She could not see his face, only the red outline from the fire. It picked up the edge of horns, his jaw, one arm. No clues to his expression. "The dragon dreams only happen once a night, usually."
"Dragon dreams?"
…shit.
She had been avoiding mentioning them to anyone. It didn't sound good. People showed up and said "Hey, I've been drinking dragon blood and now at night I dream about being a dragon!" and you just expected them to eventually go mad with power and start slaughtering the help. For all she knew, Corypheus had started out dreaming about flying.
Still. The one person in the Inner Circle who thought dragons were wonderful…maybe he wouldn't think she was completely mad.
"Since I drank the dragon blood to become a reaver…I have these dreams where I'm a dragon."
"Really?"
She sighed. "Yeah, really."
"That is badass."
He's taking it well.
"Do you fly? Kill things? Roar?"
"Well, yes. They're not nightmares," she admitted. "Just vivid, and they sound crazy if I try to talk about them. But they didn't mix with the lyrium well at all."
"Nothing does. Do you need some of the elfroot?"
"Nah, I'll be fine." She pulled the blanket up to her shoulders. "I'd rather not have two of us out in case of attack."
He patted her on the arm. "Sleep well, then, boss."
Bull climbed out of the tent. She fell back on the bedroll with a thump, feeling tired and frustrated and alone.
Don't get worked up about it. He's never expressed any real interest. Random sexual compliments are how you know that Bull is breathing, that's all.
There was a sort of universal good-natured lechery to Bull. The same thing that made it hard to take offense also made it hard to take it seriously.
Give him credit, I've never seen him make a suggestive remark to anyone who didn't think it would be funny... She'd seen him work with Scout Harding and never say a word that wasn't fit for the ears of a Chantry sister. Harding was so earnest, it would have been unkind.
Adaar rolled over. The ground was uncomfortable, but at least her bedroll was long enough. Her feet were warm, if nothing else.
It occurred to her, as she was drifting off, that if she had not been yelling, then Bull must have been awake to hear her thrashing. He must have been sitting up, probably near the fire.
I wonder what he was dreaming about…