A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words. - Unknown

"Safe" turned out to be anything but. Blades were waiting on the stairs to her quarters, Crows by the look of them and armed to the teeth. Bianca was in Varric's quarters and Lavellan's bow was somewhere past the assassins in her rooms. All she had were the daggers in her boot and a quick arm to throw them. Varric had nothing but his fists – nice dwarven fists that had withstood a few brawls, fortunately. Still, they were fighting Antivan Crows. Even at their best, it was not enough to fight the Crows without armor or weaponry. Close quarters on the edge of a plunge made for tense fighting, and there was the poison to worry about, as well. At least two of the assassins went plunging to the stone floor below, but there were three more still standing.

Varric shouted and she turned, saw him fall to the floor, a dagger standing out of his shoulder. Before she could react, they were on her, blades glittering with blood and steel. She edged away from the two above her on the stairs, keeping her back to the stone wall. Her foot nudged the dwarf's prone form and she found herself wishing they could be anywhere but here. She heard herself cursing them as she lifted he left hand, green fire flaring from her palm. The room was distorting, she could see figures shifting on the other side of the veil … all she had to do was … jump.

"Sit still."

"Ow! That hurts, you know."

"It'll hurt worse if you don't hush," she chided.

"Fine." He looked around them speculatively – it wasn't a place he recognized, but it didn't look like the Fade, either. "So, where exactly are we?"

"The Glade," she said, her voice a little sharp when she said it. They were sitting in the grass on the edge of a green glade while she used the remnants of his shirt and moss from a nearby rock to wrap his arm. They were both sporting a variety of cuts and bruises, some fairly serious, but he was the only one who had been outright stabbed. Fortunately, it didn't seem like any of the blades had been poisoned. She glanced around nervously, "It's … a place from my dreams."

"So it's the Fade."

"Maybe? I'm not certain. Something's wrong with it."

"It looks okay," he said. It was an open place in a deep forest. Tall trees bordered a green full of flowers and moss. On one side, opposite them, was a Dalish altar almost completely covered with flowers and ivy. There were even halla grazing nearby, their ears flicking back and forth.

"You haven't really looked," she answered, tying off his bandage and sitting back on her heels.

"I'm a city dwarf, your Worship. The woods aren't exactly my thing."

"This is the Grove of Andruil," she explained. "In the Free Marches, Varric. Last I checked, that was several days journey away from Skyhold."

"Oh."

"Exactly," she seemed to be watching the altar itself, he noticed, and a particular halla who lay upon it. In fact, at the sight of that Halla, her anxiety had increased to the point that he could see her pulse beating at her throat.

"So, what's so special about the Grove of Andruil?" he ventured, trying to distract her. "I mean she's the goddess of the hunt, so it makes sense that you're here."

"When I still had my vallaslin, it was her symbol that marked me. My entire life, I was raised to honor her and follow her path. If I had been born a healer, it would have been Sylaise, but I was never gifted enough with magic to heal anyone."

"So this is where you'd go to worship?" he guessed.

"Yes," she nodded, rubbing at a cut on the side of her hand and hissing a little. "Every season we'd come here to pray and make offerings. We thought we knew who it was we worshiped, but it appears my people are woefully misinformed about who we are … or were."

"What changed?"

"The Temple of Mythal," her voice shifted, her expression one of disbelief … or betrayal. "I read what was inscribed on the walls there after Morrigan helped me understand the texts the scholars sent back to Skyhold. None of the gods were the same, but … Andruil …" she shut her eyes. "Andruil was mad with bloodlust. She sought to kill the Forgotten Ones and her fury tainted the world, along with all the creatures in it. Only Mythal could stop her."

"Maker," Varric breathed, his eyes widening.

"I …" Lavellan had opened her eyes, looking at him as she spoke, but she froze at the expression in his eyes. "Varric?"

The Halla with the glowing red eyes was standing directly behind her, long tendrils of scarlet light creeping along its body, staining the snowy hide.

Cullen nearly broke his hand, he'd punched the wall so hard – while wearing gauntlets. Cassandra wasn't far behind. They'd heard Varric's shout only to enter the tower stair to find three confused and soon to be dead assassins staring around in utter confusion. Cassandra tipped one over the rail while Cullen laid the other two to rest. Then she, staring down into the dark at the base of the tower, cursed and began shouting for a ladder to be brought immediately. "We must be sure neither of them were thrown down."

There was blood everywhere and they were busy for a few moments turning over bodies, but neither of them found either Varric or the Inquisitor. Dorian ran up the stairs to check the bedroom above and, after a shout and several explosions, came back to report that while the last assassin appeared to be deceased, he had found no sign of either the dwarf or the elf.

"They can't be dead," Cassandra said, disbelieving. "If they were dead, there would be bodies."

"They're not up here," Dorian called down the stairs.

"That's impossible. Everyone saw them go into the Tower, so unless they fell …" Cassandra argued, mostly with herself.

"The last time the Inquisitor fell, she created a portal into the Fade," Dorian pointed out.

"You think they went back to the Fade?"

"The Tevinter mage is correct, I believe," Morrigan said from the lower doorway. She nudged one of the bodies with a toe and made an expression of distaste. "I felt the pull as she opened the veil – though I am not certain they went properly into the Fade. Alas, I arrived too late to follow her directly."

"Morrigan," Cullen's growl won him a startled glance from Cassandra and a sideways look from the witch.

"It will take some effort to follow her path, but I can try, Commander. I would not leave her there."

"Do it," Cassandra did not hesitate.

He reached for Bianca out of instinct, but she wasn't there, which meant he couldn't shoot the demon halla in the face with a frost bolt. The Inquisitor, equally weaponless, was sliding away from the creature on quiet feet, but he could see the shudders rippling through her. Whatever had been keeping her together in the real world was a lot farther away when they were in the Fade. This was her nightmare, and this was not a dream.

"I think it's time to run," he said, grabbing the elf's hand firmly in his and dragging her out of the glade and into the woods. His shoulder ached with a sharp, burning pain which should have slowed him down, but he focused on it as a reminder that he was real and that this was not a dream. They crashed through the underbrush – well, he crashed, the Inquisitor ran on near silent feet; dwarves weren't exactly built for forest-running. Now that he'd got her moving, she was shifting fear into action and doing what she did best – changing the odds.

The forest ended abruptly on the edge of a rough-hewn escarpment that drifted in the void above other, similar islands. It didn't look like the regular Fade, exactly, though the floating islands were a familiar theme. It looked as though someone had ripped chunks out of the real world and sent them flying into the sky until there was nothing below them and only the Black City high above. They stared at it for a moment, breathing hard, her hand grasped tightly in his. Behind them, in the distance, they could hear the crashing sound as the halla attempted to pursue them.

"Varric, we have to keep moving," she said, turning her head to listen behind them.

"There'll be a way to get to the other islands. There usually is," he answered, turning to from the ledge and back into the forest.

"How do you know?" She asked, moving ahead once more and leading him through the trees. If she looked over their shoulders constantly, he couldn't blame her. That halla was terrifying him, too, though it seemed they had outrun it for now.

"Had a few experiences in the Fade with Hawke," he stopped walking and she turned to see why. "I thought you read The Champion of Kirkwall?"

"I did … oh!" She laughed suddenly as she remembered, "I remember it now. Hawke went into the Fade to deal with the apostate mage who was in a coma."

"That's right," he answered, and they started walking again. "I was about to think you lied to me there, Inquisitor."

"I would never," she grinned as they clambered their way around a boulder and slide down the opposite side. They'd had to let go of each other for a moment, but the minute their feet hit the ground, she held her hand out for his once more. He took it without question, noticing the way she relaxed when he did, so they kept walking while he told her what had really happened when he'd been in the Fade with the Champion.

It was decided that Dorian and Morrigan would enter the Fade in search of Varric and the Inquisitor. Cassandra agreed to watch over the sleepers, but Cullen had to be convinced that he was needed on the other side, in case someone randomly combusted into an abomination. It left him seething with frustration, pacing from one end of the Inquisitor's chambers to the other until Cassandra told him to either sit down or get out. He sat down, though he continued to glare at everyone and everything. Morrigan rolled her eyes and muttered something about Templars that nearly set him off again, but soon enough the adventurers were stretched out on the carpet while Morrigan cast her spell.

Dorian woke in a long, arched hallway, elven by the look of it, with trees visible through the clerestories. It looked, he thought, like the Hall of the Emerald Warriors and he paced around for a few minutes, observing the curve of the architecture and the echoes of spirits long past. Elven men and women were fighting in the halls, the twanging of their bow strings startling him when he walked too near an archer. For a moment, he thought he was looking at Levellan, but then the head turned and he saw the woman had bright hair instead of dark.

"This is odd," he muttered, remembering that there was a hole in one of the walls that lead outside. He took that route, edging past a pair of spirits engaged in a secret liaison behind a ghostly tapestry. He paused for a moment of appreciation, but the treetops outside shivered and he thought he heard something intelligible in the rustling of the leaves, so he pressed on, ducking through the broken wall to find himself in a hazy, disorienting forest.

The Fade can be a tricky place, even when one is on the very edge of it.

Remembering the instructions Morrigan had given before they'd set out, he kept an eye out for exits. It was not unusual to wake up in separately in a fade-walking dream, and neither mage was sure exactly how they would locate their lost friends. Morrigan had said to watch for her signal, so that's what he did, though he wondered how she would pull it off in someone else's dream. He focused on remaining calm and being as unattractive to demons as possible and, eventually, he came upon a clearing in the center of the forest full of Halla and adorned with a simple, ivy covered altar. He approached the altar, eying the symbols carved into it with curiosity, and was about to touch one of the gem stones set into the pattern when a low growl rose from behind him and he froze.

"Slowly, slowly," he murmured to himself, turning to see what creature had decided to take him out to dinner.

The wolf's hackles were lifted, gold eyes narrowed in suspicion as it bared its teeth at him and snapped. Dorian backed slowly, cautiously away, moving to the opposite end of the altar. The wolf danced closer, closer … and he realized with the clarity of a dream that this had to be Morrigan. Both his hands went into the air, palms facing her, and he spoke very, very calmly into the Glade without directly meeting her gaze.

"I don't know why you're so angry when you're the one who brought me here."

She paced around him, her fur shivering as she growled, but she did not approach or bite and the tenor of the growling shifted. He crouched down in front of her, holding out a tanned hand, the rings on his fingers glinting in the dappled light. "Come on, Witch," he murmured. "I know you remember why we're here. You wouldn't forget, not after you've poured so much effort into everyone."

Her lips rose, revealing fine, white fangs, ready to snap his fingers off at the knuckle. He halted, held his hand in front of her, and willed himself into stillness, clarity, friendliness. If a wolf could scowl, this one did and sat back on its haunches, looking disgusted. Within a moment, she was herself once more, sitting on the moss in front of the Altar of Alduin clad in her usual garb.

"Welcome back." He said, only to see her lips curled in a way that reminded of the wolf she had just been. Dorian watched as she levered herself up and began to look around, her demeanor stiff and annoyed. "So, were you stuck like that?"

"Of course not," she snapped as she stalked across the clearing. "Have you seen aught of our stragglers?"

"Nothing as yet. I had no more arrived than you were growling at my back," he said, following her.

She paused, studying the ground at their feet. "There is blood here … and the moss is disturbed." She took something from among the greenery and held it up for him to see – a bit of scarlet silk with golden threads.

"That's Varric's," he said, smiling for the first time since they'd got here.

"So they are here," she nodded. "I had begun to doubt."

"Frankly, so had I," he admitted. "The question now is how do we track them. I am afraid my woodcraft is poor."

"Mine is not," the witch grinned suddenly, looking rather more feral than usual. "I grew up in the Kocari Wilds as a girl and have learned to turn my magic to certain purpose in the woods."

"Then we are fortunate you are here," Dorian said drily. "Do lead on."