A Lannister Always Pays His Debts, The Calling, Say Something, Reparation, Motoneuron, Leave Your Castle, Victory, Aesir.

Okay so because of how close the finish/upload times are now I haven't actually proofread this. It's pretty raw. Idk.

I'm also not finished 26 yet so I'll keep things up to date on my profile. If I don't get it done today or tomorrow, 26 will probably be posted on WEDNESDAY.

Disgrace of Redcliffe

Tainted Insight

Connor woke up feeling… better…?

He was groggy… felt heavy… but… not cold? Warm. Deliriously warm… His eyes sank shut again without having seen anything but the haze of firelight and the edge of his own blankets. He was warm, Maker, he'd almost forgotten what that felt like. The toastiness of fire-side crackling, the soothing stretch and release of his lungs breathing openly. His head lolled and he winced at the graze of long copper threads brushing his shoulder, irritating his chin: he hadn't shaved in so long that his face was overgrown…

Hadn't shaved in… hadn't bathed in-? Maker the sheets were rank around his body, he was warm but filthy, and- and…?

"Connor?" And he was not alone here. One of his arms moved, his hand folded between someone else's fingers, someone who squeezed tight and then felt up his wrist. "Connor?"

"I must still object to this, my lady," a familiar voice uttered. "In a few more days the hold will be much stronger, but until then-"

"Be silent, I- Connor?" It was his mother's voice and her hands gripping his. Connor opened his eyes properly and his vision swayed for several blurry moments, but he could see her sitting on he edge of his bed gazing at him. Her thin lips were pulled back with intense worry, eyes pleading and distraught. She'd pulled her thin hair back in a tight bun behind her head, and wore a noblewoman's fine white and gold winter gown.

"Connor?" She repeated, seated close enough that she could pull his hand up to her heart and reach out to stroke his face. He was still propped up on the pillows piled behind him. "My poor boy, can you hear me?" Hear her, see her, but still he laid there and struggled to believe that it was her. There was a heavy, crushing weight of disappointment settling over him now, because with this there was no plausible way for Connor to deny it: his family was responsible for this. They'd done this, arranged it, planned it, paid gold for it. Hesserian's Merciful Blade- they'd abducted him.

"My son, say something…" Lady Isolde pleaded. Grief and disappointment still had Connor spellbound when she turned her gaze and hissed at the hidden Crow: "What have your poisons done to him?"

The man was out of sight and separated from Connor by the gathered folds of a woven red bed curtain. He had heard him speak once before this upset, and now the Crow spoke again:

"He is lucid, your grace. I think he simply did not expect to see you here." Lucid, yes, one of the many benefits of demon-infested runs through the Fade. Connor's memory and awareness during his waking hours was commendable to his prison guard. Speaking of memory, however, Connor's recalled a feral demand from his last dream. Under the blankets his fingers were compliant as his thumb twisted and rolled across his bare fingers, the hand in his mother's grasp writhing the same way, startling her.

'One bolt could stop her heart,' something whispered to him, a foul and noxious hate that startled him so badly it brought shameful tears to his eyes. The conjuring mark for lightning hovered in his mind. He could bring it forth in his palm, turn his fingers to her chest, and shatter her body with the spell before the Crow could even think to kill him.

"Maker Be Praised, you do know me," her misplaced relief fanned the brewing revolt in his gut- kill her? That wasn't him! Connor's own mother murdered by his magic? No…

All she had to do was embrace him tightly with her own pitiful sobs, and Connor felt the taint's violent impulses rise back up again. Fire, lightning, ice, the sheer concussive force of getting her away from him. The need was strong but the act revolted him. He couldn't, no- it wasn't right. It wasn't him, it was the taint. He forced his eyes shut against the horrible thoughts and tried to speak:

"Where- is my ring?" He gasped, and she let go of him with her face ripped between joy and confusion. Had she expected him to cry out for her instead? After everything she'd done to him?

"Connor, I need you to focus…" She said, but with the space open between them he clapped a hand to his own chest, fear and taint nipping at him when the solid lump of his pendant and key were missing. His shirt was white and not black, he had none of his armour or belongings. "Your father is still angry and has not forgiven you for the vicious words you shared in Denerim." Why wasn't he in Denerim? Where was he? Where was he? Was this Redcliffe? How long had they-?

"I know I can convince him to see reason eventually, but Rowan does not have that much time, my sweet." She implored him, hands taking his face and the unwanted contact made him try to pull away- no! "I cannot bear to explain to her that her father and brother have clashed so violently, but giving you your name will only upset your father further: so you will take mine, because as my son it is your right to do so." But she'd done this to him- why would he take-? "Connor, until you and your father can forgive each other, you are known here as Enchanter Dufort. It is your name, and it is your right." He didn't want it!

"My oath-" He gasped again, hissing through his teeth and feeling up along his throat and neck, confirming at there was no string, no leather strap, no chain holding what was most precious to him. "My oath pendant-" Maker! He needed her to let go!

"Baubles and trinkets are things we must let go of and ignore." She scolded him, finally letting his face go. "You are here now, Connor, and-"

"No." His magi signet ring from Surana's hand to his after his Harrowing. His knife from Master Dennet promising him something unspoken and undeniable about a life beyond Skyhold. His Warden pendant draped over his head by Nathaniel after the joining. They were his. He wanted them back.

"I must cut this short, your Grace." The Crow's voice interrupted. "This is not a kind topic and his anger will undo days of hard work, the Warden taint is-"

"A crime against my son's soul!" Lady Isolde shouted, "and I told you to be silent!" Connor laid the hand she had been holding across his gut, his body still propped against the bed's pillows. The taint licked and hungered at him, heating his blood as insult and anger and disbelief all began to mix violently at his core. His ring, his knife, his pendant: he wanted them back. They were his. He wanted them back. Sod the name- he didn't care, he'd go by Connor The Bastard if he had to before taking the name of the woman shrieking at his bedside, hysterical filth dribbling past her thin lips.

"Magic alone was the Maker's curse!" She carried on, ignoring the Crow's protests and her outrage flamed by his calm voice. "The taint is because of that rat-earred-" No.

"Mother," she looked and the taint ripped his arm up, the back of his hand striking her chin and cracking her teeth together. The block knocked her clear off the bed and to the floor with a scream. The pillows behind Connor's body vanished.

"Compadri!" Before he could drop flat without support: now there was something around his neck. A thin strap closed across his throat with two strong hands twisting the ends to choke him. The sigil in his mind flared and electricity crackled between his fingers as he pulled his arm free of the blankets- but someone grabbed the wrist and a blade bit down sharp through his twisted shoulder. The pain made the spell falter, the taint securing his focu-

"I warned you!" The Crow's leader, the one Connor had seen again and again and again, took his free arm, twisted it out painfully and slammed his closed fist down on Connor's face. He lost the spell and couldn't breathe, gagging against the painful welt cutting into his throat and the flooding warmth spilling down his chest and arm. The blood came out free and thick as the knife was ripped away, his heart slamming his ribs as the taint burned through his body, reinforcing and spurring it to keep fighting. He kicked his legs at the blankets and felt shock hit him like a cold dart when he found something tied around each ankle and tethered to the bed, only a few inches of give on either limb and not enough time or strength to get away.

No- no he would not die like this!

The taint surged like a hungry beast, devouring the poisons lurking in his blood and- and causing another spark of panic? He didn't feel poisoned? He-? No- No, no, no…

Cold.

No-

Cold…

Fear made his heart seize, the taint tearing away the warmth and jolting his body with the cold, cold, cold that had tormented him for days. He choked and tried to cry out against the strap cutting his throat, both arms restrained as he started to shake, and go chill, and go cold- no, not again…

Panic and fear made the taint fail like a wave breaking on a shoal before the shore. Words were spoken and his bleeding throat was freed at last. He tried to breathe and- and-

Tried. Failed. No-

Cold lungs, half-breaths, his chest seizing up too cold to open, ribs brittle. No, no, his magic slipped away under the barrier of ice clouding his eyes all over again, panic screaming as hands left his body but he couldn't move except to curl his icy fingers and struggle with his bound legs. There was speaking, there were voices. Had the knife been poisoned? Why had the taint-?

"Some luck and excitement at last," the Crow stated, looming over him like death. His 'Compadri' retreated silently back into the shadows of the room, shadows Connor could hardly make out anymore. He was cold- so cold, cold all over again. "Such a pity when our nature demands one thing and our bodies another, isn't it, Enchanter?"

Connor couldn't speak, couldn't breathe- couldn't answer. He was shaking all over, eyes struggling wildly as he found himself flat on his back, bleeding and freezing and Maker help him he must have been dying. The blood slipping out of his skin was just as cold as the rest of him, if not worse.

"You will keep your Grey Warden nature under better control," he was told. "And I will let you suffer like this for now in order to teach you why."

The Crow snapped his fingers and Connor's body convulsed blindly as pain, pain, incredible pain speared down over his flesh. His lungs coughed, eyes burned, and over his own hoarse, broken gasps Connor heard water drip and trickle from the soaked bedding. Water. It was just w-water-?

"You see, Ser Knight?" That sing-song voice asked the spinning shadows. "The withdrawal will punish him better than fists or whips could manage. Embrium numbs the body- without it the skin is too sensitive. It opens the lungs, therefore without it they clamp shut. It warms the body, and when it runs out it leaves the subject feeling-" Cold, cold, unbearably, painfully, overwhelmingly cold… "The surest way to control someone is to make it so that they need you, is this not better than whatever that sword would have accomplished? Go now, let him suffer." The Water was growing colder, becoming icy. It was freezing, he was freezing, a second skin of crackling frost and sharp, naked fingers of pain. Andraste- make it stop, make it stop, make it stop make it stop make it stop make it…

Connor didn't go back to the Fade because Connor could not sleep. He lay frozen, drenched, bound and bleeding and he couldn't escape. He needed the rotunda and the black city and the yellow sky. He needed respite and escape and safety and not this- Maker, not this- make it stop…

The hands that straightened his body out hurt him. He laid there with his convulsions, unable to harness the taint a second time and honestly too scared of what might happen to him if he forced it to come back. The pain singing through his cut shoulder and roped around his neck screamed like nails down his mind's slate walls, and the blind fear of the hands that lifted and dropped his wet body kept him choking for every breath. His shoulder was padded and bound in gauze, his left arm folded up across his chest and covered in wraps to keep the shakes from disturbing the wound, something tingling over the rip that meant it may have been dressed in elfroot. The linen wraps did nothing to calm him, they were frosted chains cut across his body and binding his frozen ribs closer together. Something was rubbed down along the raw welt across his throat, and when they went to dress it Connor struggled to cry out or flinch away from the sensation of something closing around his neck- make it stop.

He couldn't hear anything over the frantic thunder of his heart and his own raw, ratcheting breaths. The bed was cold, it was so damned cold, the water soaking through the blankets, through whatever straw or wool or feathers or wood were beneath him. His heart was ripping from the frigid tendrils of pain curling around it, lungs sloshing with weight and damp that was trying to drown him. If he wept he didn't notice, if he prayed the Maker couldn't hear it. Just make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop…

There didn't come a cup or a laugh or an inane and almost friendly comment. What came was the wooden spout of a funnel wedged between his chattering teeth, and then a luke-warm river that burned and sloshed and melted down his clogged throat. He swallowed automatically, choking on some but prepared to suck it down if he could, anything to make it stop. Just make it stop…

"Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm…" Connor repeated to himself as he landed in the Fade. He was formless at first, frightened, anxiety shedding off his spirit like old skin under an Orlesian sun. He was not calm, but he told himself to try, just try and filter through his own emotions before they drew something devastating and ugly down on his head. Connor was in no state to run about fighting demons right now, he would be in bad enough shape when he woke up again, he needed to be calm.

"What happened to me?" What was happening? Trying to pull the details from a waking memory in the Fade was almost as hard as trying to recall a dreamed experience when awake. He put his eyes down against his palm, remembering his scars, conjuring his gauntlets and the weight of his vambraces. "I was angry, it called the taint, and the taint did what?"

It had burned through the poisons in his blood, trying to purge his body. But Connor had not been poisoned- had he? The taint wasn't a conscious thing and Connor didn't control it anymore than he did his heart or hunger, but it served a purpose and that was to make sure that when he had to fight, he could do it well and unobstructed by anything around or inside of him. At least that was what several of Carver's books had told him, not to mention the other Grey Wardens. There was no reason for the taint to take him from feeling almost fine to back to just as bad and sick as before. Not unless…

Maker the Crow had said something about what he'd felt but the words escaped him now. Connor paced back and forth under the yellow Fade sky, forming the heels and sides of his boots, the fall of his tunic's silverite edges. His belts and staff and pauldron, remembering himself and who he was. His staff he slung across his back, and when he thought of something worth trying he grounded his feet firmly on the gritty stones, held his palm out in front of him, and focused.

'I want it, I want it, I want it.' He visualized the rift that would need to form, remembered the colour of the bindings and weight of the pages, the flutter of old parchment and vellum. He caught the book when it writhed into existence in the Fade with him, brushing his hands over the old cover. He couldn't read it, not in a dream, but he knew the title anyways: it was Carver's book of herbs and poultices from the Vigil. The pages blurred and confused themselves in front of him, but he wasn't reading for something new, he was reaching for something already known.

No, not this book. This book was for applications, simple recipes, and care instructions for growing and tending the plants themselves. He shut the book and… and then he brought the binding up to his face, taking a deep breath. It smelled like lavender, not because it was really the same book, but because he needed to remember what the original felt like.

Tucking the book under his arm, Connor used both hands to conjure this time. He wanted this, he did not need it, he merely wanted it, desired it, and with a press of both palms and a rolling back of his wrists, he lifted his arms and the Fade groaned, resisted, and then shuddered with a dusty clatter of old bricks. A long wooden table settled on the rotunda's floor and Connor walked over to it, swiping his palm over the dusty surface to reveal the fine grain and annoying set of hammer-marks beaten into the otherwise new finish. The wood was thick and solid, its feet firmly planted on the imaginary ground. He swept away more of the dust and set Carver's book down.

He must have written it down at some point, and that was why he conjured an ink-well and pen, both closed and capped, and pulled the sturdy wood-bound body of his journal to him. He lifted the wooden cover with the words Property of Warden Guerrin, Mage of Vigil's Keep etched across the inside, and let his fingers carry through the thick, fine white vellum pages searching for something he would have written down, must have made note of. Wouldn't he and Jylan have discussed embrium? Hadn't Commander Surana said something to him? He knew this, he knew he knew it. It was addictive, he had to be cautious when giving it to someone, and he knew the reasons why- so what were they? It wasn't in his journal.

Had Jylan said it? Jylan must have said it. Jylan wrote very little down but when he did-

Connor conjured his friend's pale leather recipe book. It was small, no longer or wider than Connor's hand, of pale yellow hide with only a few dozen slips of rough paper inside. He kept it at his belt when working and usually only consulted it to take stamps and acknowledge services rendered from the workshop to the Vigil's denizens. He wouldn't have written down embrium symptoms, but he would have had it with him when he and Connor discussed it, and they must have at some point, and the book would have been there and right now that was enough. Jylan had held this, Jylan had said this, Jylan had… been talking about rashvine.

"Maker take me from this stupid place!" Connor tossed the book down with the other two, folding his arms crossly and tapping his foot, wrestling for a way forward. Surana? The Commander knew enough of herbs and potions to tell their quality and value.

Connor had only ever seen the Commander's writing on scrolls and orders. If the Archmage had a spell book or a journal of some kind then he doubtless kept it in his office or hidden someplace that was none of Connor's business. He summoned three of the thick, pristine vellum scrolls stamped with the Grey Warden's seal, unrolling the white face of one and finding the Commander's crest stretched beautifully across the top and down the margins of the page. The words, as always were a blur, but Surana must have said something, must have warned him or made a joke or thought it was quaint how… something. Something.

No, they'd been discussing demons, not herbs.

A curl of paper that made him think of Zevran jogged no memories. Mistress Valora's well-used and tattered hide book also led nowhere. Mistress Velanna's fine ledger and Garevel's unwieldly tome of accounting grids and ordered lists both turned up nothing. Why his book of perfumes and soaps was there Connor did not know, and a green and gold-gilded copy of Ride of the Chevaliers was equally useless to him. Connor had a collection of books, scrolls, notebooks, and stray parchment gathering across the table, volumes and bindings stacking up when his focus faded here and there and the Fade seemed to be saying 'books! I know what books are, let me fill this place with books for you' in response to his memories and summons.

Connor let the Fade go about its business, pretending to imitate something and doing a poor job of it. The rotunda's walls quickly bricked themselves with empty bookshelves, drawing on his memories. Carver's overwhelmed collection of brightly coloured books tumbled and jammed together on the shelves of one, the empty body of Connor's standing closet quickly cluttering itself up with apothecary tools and miscellaneous objects. Surana's crystals and just-so books from the staged estate were left next to half-eaten plates of light food and old wine, scrolls in their stacks and an indistinct mage's staff leaning on the shelves. Jylan owned very little except borrowed books and bundles upon bundles of brightly dyed thread, and Evie's collection of fine bottles, good wine, and sweet-smelling lovelies were quaint and delicate. Velanna's dismal arrangement of tax records, old almanacs, and bland history took up shelf after shelf after shelf, bleeding into memories of Skyhold's own round library, reaching further and further down through developing twists and hallways to bleed into the dark, dank, confounding turns of Kinloch Hold's once-grand collection. The rotunda's yellow body was still whole, but there was a great side of it blown out by Skyhold's amber light, and further down Connor could see the deep indigo and blue of his old, old life…

Maker Take Him, maybe it had been a lesson from his time in the Circle. Connor pulled his staff into his hands and left, ignoring the steps and door that led to places he had already been, he left the relative safety of the rotunda and travelled down. The sky turned amber and dark red as he moved through Skyhold, the Fade echoing with a very bad impression of Spymaster Nightingale's rookery, and then the light dimmed further, to the chill and damp of Kinloch Hold…

It had not once, not since leaving the Circle Tower on that cold and terrible night, occurred to Connor to go back to it. He felt no nostalgia as the Fade fed off the memories of high, vaulted chambers, of the dusty blue marble doorways, the arrays of white light spilling through ornate windows. He'd spent seven long years of his life at Kinloch Hold and while Connor wished with all his heart things could have ended differently, he had no wish to go back to it now.

Connor should have simply given himself the uncomfortable task of thinking of something that reminded him of the Crow. That was the man who'd said what Connor wanted to know, wasn't it? But instead he was here, in the annals of the circle library, plodding his way through the whispers of lessons and sparks of old, boring drills. Now light the candle, now snuff it out, now light the candle, now snuff it out, now light the candle, and now snuff it out. That's not how you draw the mark for fire, this is not the array for lightning, if you connect the lines like this you'll blow your eyebrows off! Maker, he'd spent too many hours in this place with the tedium of spellwork. He remembered lessons only as frightening and anxiety-inducing, but maybe he'd just been dreadfully bored of it all. Outdone by Amara at every turn and with every spell, exasperated by Jylan's unwillingness to do more than balance his ink-pot on his forehead.

"Well this is sinister…" Following the Fade's path through the library led him not to another turn of Kinloch Hold's spiraling body, but to a small, distinctly red and warm corridor. He marvelled at how distinct it was, stepping from the cold blue light into a hallway that seemed almost fully formed. There were red fur rugs and carpets down the bending corridor, flames hovering where torches had forgotten to form, large stone blocks making up the walls and standing with familiar firmness and warmth. He passed one doorway and saw a familiar hall with pennants waving indistinct in an unfelt air, too curious to be nervous as he passed a stone mabari bust and the too-tall body of a suit of decorative armour. Connor's mind had no reason to think of Redcliffe Castle in his search for answers, even if he had inadvertently thought of the Crow this was far too much detail to be his fault. He didn't even know for sure if he was actually in Redcliffe Castle or not…

There was power here, Connor knew the feeling of stepping into a demon's domain by this point, he knew when the Fade had formed itself over nights and nights of steady dreaming into something almost real. He kept his staff firmly in his grasp, the rod behind him and head slung low as he stepped lightly, telling the Fade to muffle his steps on the rug, to carry him very slowly rather than all at once down the passage. Where there was power, soon there were voices muffled by closed doors: echoing memories brought forth to torment and do harm.

"Monster! Demon!" He heard shouted, slipping smooth and slow against the wall, stopping by a closed door and bringing his staff up straight in front of him. "Cruel spawn! Maker take you!" Connor would call the voice female the way he would say a shiver was a dance, there was indeed movement in the one and certainly words were spoken for the other. But it was a thin, crackled veneer that simply didn't stick, flawed and rasping with a demon's throaty, echoing tones. "The Maker hates you, Andraste turns her back away! You betray everything, ruin it, disgusting creature!"

Something ceramic shattered, there was the heavy bump and thud of furniture being moved. Connor heard the false lilt of the voice and recognized the mimicked accent- the demon was trying to be Orlesian: it was Lady Isolde? That didn't actually make it his mother, but it was trying to be, and if he killed her image in the Fade then perhaps Connor would be better prepared to deal with her again when he woke up and saw her next. Yes, he liked that train of thought, it was far more comforting than wondering who in all the world a demon would be speaking too through the mask of his mother's face and voice.

Velanna's long-gone admonishment about how magic expressed itself in the Fade reminded him of something. Why open the door himself and be right there when he interrupted the demon, when he could do something he'd seen Captain Lavellan do in the Vigil's training yard? He just had to challenge the demon's will on the door without lyrium or any idea what exactly he was dealing with: no problem, right?

This was stupid, but it was going to work. Why? Because it had to, because Connor wanted it to, because whatever he failed to do here he would hear about when he woke up. Because it wasn't fair for a little girl to remain trapped in a dream with a demon wearing her mother's face and screaming at her…

Standing next to the door Connor made a fist, took the dream hard in his mind and punched his arm out, ripping the portal wide open and telling the door that for good measure it shattered against the opposite wall! The demon's will broke against his like a soft wave, its focus snapped by the sudden and violent intrusion. He felt it rush the door and his staff swung in an uppercut from where the wall still protected him, the casting head careening through the bottom of Lady Isolde's chin and jaw, slamming her head back and spouting blood through the dream. A creature of mangled green limbs and shrieking teeth hit the floor and rolled over itself like a macabre doll, howling with sudden fury as Connor stepped into the doorway, staff level, and several thick rolling red ropes of fire spewed from his staff to engulf it.

How dare you!?

With a step and twist that brought him into the room, evading skeletal hands that swept at him through the curtain of fire and lashing out with the haft of his staff, a bolt launching from the end followed by two more as his arms and feet worked independently, carrying him into the small bedroom and manipulating his staff to keep those claws away. Black began to flake and steam off the demon as it struggled, and as it beat and howled against a prismatic barrier he wrapped over himself Connor calmly extended his palm out, lightning crackling from his shoulder and arcing off his silverite pauldron, and let the spell thunder through the demon's head. It vanished in a flurry of black smoke and was gone.

The room immediately began to lose its details. The fire lost focus and reduced itself to something bright and wavering in the general vicinity of the fireplace's bulge in the wall. The bed only had three banisters, the broken china was hovering six inches off the warped and twisting grey floor. The colours lost their pop and the ceiling floated away, revealing the grey Fade and the inky expanse of the black city.

Connor kept his tunic blue, his silverite shining, leather belts and vambraces supple and dark. His hair was red and his face was scarred, the serpentstone head of his staff crackled with green and yellow before he slung the obsidian-flecked rod over his back again. He kept the floor under his boots firm and straight because he could not wake up yet, not until the embrium and abuse done to his body allowed it.

He felt fear that didn't belong to him. When he looked about the room he saw no one, but he felt the fear just the same. He saw the sugar-sprinkled cookies floating in the mess of broken china, then noticed books with bright blue and green covers- stories of great knights and lords and kings. There was a chest ajar with a plush mabari hanging out of it, a toy sword and shield resting in the corner by a tilted armoire. He told himself to stay calm, this was not his sister's room: it was only a twisted reflection of it.

He felt fear and confusion, a moaning, far-reaching wail of desperation. He didn't hear it the way he would a proper voice, but this was the Fade and it was almost as good. It was fear that choked and sobbed and hiccupped, made her body crush and crumple up like dry leaves. She was small here, as small as could be, small enough to hide and not be seen and not be blamed and not be yelled at. The fear rippled and poured like tears because she didn't want to be taken away, or sent away, or dragged away to nobody knew what fate because the Maker himself hated mages and magic and there were demons and darkspawn all crawling through her, poisoning her, making mama and father hate her and-

"I know you're still in here," Connor said, curious about the way his voice felt in the dream. His lips and tongue moved but really it was his mind that made it work, like a penny falling in dark water whose ripples held more meaning than the sound. "You can come out now, I'm not going to hurt you."

The fear spiked, panic and terror mingling like wheezing breaths and shrieks for help. The emotions wailed and radiated outward, shrinking away trying to become smaller, smaller, stay hidden, hidden, away from him: whoever he was. He'd killed mama…

"This isn't real, none of it is." Connor tried to reassure her, following the strain and sadness and echoing fear through the room, to the bed, to under the bed. "You're dreaming, Rowan."

The fear broke the way a whimper fractured into a full-bodied scream. A ripping, straining pain that the dreaming mind couldn't name sobbed and wailed and screamed, just screamed, and the wiser mage in Connor put the name despair to it, because at too many points in his life he had felt it too.

"Hush, girl, hush," he breathed, fixing his staff to the floor and sliding down it with both hands, kneeling across the rug tucked under the skirt of the bed. "You'll wake up soon and you'll be safe again. And so long as I'm here you're safe anyhow. It's a dream, Rowan, I promise." But she cried, and she wailed, and she sobbed, and the pain echoed and rippled and it did not calm. "Is there any way for me to coax you out from under there?"

The fear crashed again with it's shrill, terrorized screaming, and he held out a hand to the bed, asking for calm.

"Then I'll stay right here." He'd killed mama, he'd killed mama- "No, Rowan. What I killed was a demon wearing your mother's face, nothing more." He'd killed mama, he'd killed mama- he'd hit her and burned her and made her scream and then he- "Rowan- I…"

It was no use. Connor nearly stood up and left her there- not because he wanted to, but because his presence clearly wasn't making things any better. If he stayed in the hall then she would be safe in the room- but this was the Fade and the walls didn't have to stay where they were. Hadn't the rotunda taught him anything? He had to stay in the room in case her distress tempted another demon to find her. There was no point trying to speak to her again until she calmed down: to her this was a nightmare and indistinguishable from reality, to him it was just the Fade. She didn't know any better.

He took a seat against the wall by the fire, pushing the chest of toys aside to make enough room for himself. He made the fire's glow more distinct and properly fire-like, and settled himself down next to it. He told himself he would be comfortable, sitting here, waiting here, and propped his staff against his shoulder as he bent his knees and took a slow, steady breath. He closed his eyes and his awareness of the room didn't change, but he closed them for the sake of not staring at the bed where the muffled cries were puddling. He couldn't calm her, but he couldn't leave her either.

"You'll wake up before I do, and when you look at the fire I won't be here."

Connor's sister cried, and cried, and cried in her nightmare.

And Connor, hurting, waited for her to wake up.

Next update tomorrow or Wednesday, leave a comment below with how you feel about the way things are going! Any thoughts?