Marian wakes slowly, languidly, and cracks open her eyes to see mid-morning sunlight pouring in from the window across from her bed. The room is sun-warmed and still, soaked in hazy light, and she sighs happily, turning her face into her pillow in hopes of going back to sleep.
After a moment she decides it's not to be and rolls onto her back, stretching her arms high over her head and pointing her toes. She holds it for a long one-two-three count and then relaxes back into her mattress, sighing. She feels rested, which is a nice change, but she also feels off-kilter, like she had a strange dream she can't remember.
The best cure for that is her mum's tea, she decides, and rolls out of bed and dresses quickly in a vest and trousers before dashing down the stairs and into the kitchen. Her mother is kneading bread at the table, and there is a glorious aroma coming from the large pot suspended over the fire.
"Morning, mother dearest," Marian says, dropping a kiss on her mother's hair before she hunts down the teapot and pours herself a mug. "Is that dinner I smell?"
"Keep your fingers out of it, young lady," her mother says, turning the dough with a thwack and a small cloud of flour. "I managed to save you a scone, but sleeping layabouts deserve no breakfast."
"That's all right," Marian says cheerfully, rummaging through the larder for a bit of butter for her scone. "Beth promised to do my chores this morning anyhow."
Mother laughs, sectioning the dough with quick, ruthless twists of her hands and tucking them away to rise. "So that's why she left so early. I won't ask what you're holding over her head," she says with a sly glance.
Marian grins. "That's probably for the best," she agrees, and tucks into her breakfast.
Afterward, she pours herself another cup of tea and wanders outside, pausing around the side of the house to look at her favorite view of the river and gently rolling hills beyond, the astonishing green of the grass, the little patch of trees by the fence that bends in the breeze. Yesterday she'd seen a mama hart and two babies grazing on the other side of the river, but they're not here today. She sips her tea and just enjoys the sunshine, utterly content.
She glances up at the sun to check the time; it's almost exactly mid-morning, and she blinks, confused. Hadn't it been almost exactly midmorning when she woke up? She must have done it wrong, she finally decides, and then thinks nothing more of it.
Her father is in the barn, checking the cow's feed. "Morning, Papa," Marian says, resting her chin on his shoulder.
"Good morning," he says, amused. He gives her a nudge with his shoulder and she takes the silent hint, moving back and letting him turn around. He promptly steals her tea and finishes it off while she glares at him. "What?" he asks her, laughing. "Wasn't that for me?"
She growls at him, prompting another laugh, and goes to check on the newborn calf she'd helped deliver last week. He's still tiny, spindly, and delightful, but he's filling out nicely. Marian watches him sleep for the moment, putting off all the things she needs to do, until her father joins her in leaning on the gate.
"Where's Carver?" Marian asks him.
"He's taking a delivery over to Old Man Macready's place," her father says, glancing over the calf with a more clinical eye than hers. He seems satisfied. "I don't expect him back until later. He's got eyes for the daughter, doesn't he?"
"Does he?" Marian asks, thrilled to the bone. She's going to make Carver's life miserable. It's one of the joys of being the eldest.
"Oh, my favorite child," her father says, throwing an arm around her shoulder and hugging her to his side, surprisingly strong. A panicked signal lights off deep in her mind, but then it disappears again so quickly that it leaves her confused and wondering what she'd been concerned about.
"You say that to all three of us," Marian says, trying to cover her funny turn. She feels normal now, full from breakfast, safe and warm where her father holds her – though she'd be better if she'd been able to finish her tea. Maybe her strange mood is something left over from her dream?
"That doesn't mean it's not true," her father says, smug. "In any case, since Bethany got up at dawn this morning to do all of your chores..." He trails off, eyeing her like he's waiting for her to spill Bethy's secrets. Marian keeps her mouth shut. "That means someone needs to slop the pigs."
She groans, but it really is only fair, so she takes a bucket of slops in each hand and trudges out to the wallow. The stench here is unbelievable, and much as she tries to hold her breath as she empties the buckets into the pig trough, it still penetrates.
It reminds her of something, actually, and she wracks her mind to figure out what as she heads back to the barn with the empty buckets.
She can't remember.
That's odd. Her memory is normally exceptionally good. She turns her head to ask...
There's nobody there.
There's no one on the farm except her father puttering in the barn and her mother in the kitchen. Carver is off courting and Beth is in town. She knows that.
Then who'd she been expecting?
Marian sets down the buckets with a clatter and her father pokes his head out of the last cow's stall to look at her. "Something wrong?" he asks, concerned, his voice so deep and comforting.
"I – " She pauses, looking for the words to describe how she's been feeling today.
There are so many things she wants to say to her father, fascinating things she's learned over the years, questions she wants to ask him. Now she'll never be able to do any of those things, because he's dead.
She remembers now, sitting with her mother and Bethy in Lothering, the slow, tearing grief of learning he was dead; she remembers the Blight, and Duncan, and Alistair and her companions and her dog. She remembers the Circle, and the abominations stalking the halls.
She remembers the demon.
Her breath drags in and out of her throat, and she holds it for a moment, suppressing the tears as hard as she can. "You're not real," she says, her voice thick. She feels betrayed, used, dirty, and yet she also feels the most horrible longing to go back in time half an hour and stop herself noticing the cracks in the façade.
The demon must have dragged them into the Fade. That means...
Marian closes her eyes and brings her will to bear down on the world around her, and when she opens them again, she's armored and armed in the Warden colors that have come to mean safety. She unlimbers her staff as the thing wearing her father backs out of the stall.
He comes to her swiftly, reaching for her even as she backs away. "Marian," he says, distressed. The illusion is finely crafted, she'll give the demon that, she thinks, trying to detach herself from the situation. Her father looks just the way she remembers him.
"Don't," she pleads, retreating until her back hits the wall behind her. "Just – don't."
It pauses several paces away from her, dropping its hand and and shaking its head. "Foolish child," it says; it's no longer pretending to be her father now, its voice swiftly dropping into an inhuman register, slow and thick with disgust.
It hurts so much to hear that from her father's mouth, to see the cruelty and disgust on his face, even though she knows it's not really him. Her eyes burn with tears she can't allow to fall.
She was able enough to change her clothing into her armor. Maybe she can do something else. She closes her eyes and commands herself to wake up, to be somewhere else, to see anything other than her father's face when she opens her eyes.
Marian opens her eyes. She is still in the barn, still huddling against the wall, still facing the shade of her father. The thing moves closer, stalking her, growling. "I have given you so much and you cast it back in my face," it says. "Can you not be content with the peace that I offer?"
"I won't live a lie," she says, her voice small and wavering. She means every fucking word, but it's still the hardest thing she's ever said. She wants this dream so badly she can taste it, for the templars never to have found her, to simply live with her family the way they should have lived. For her father to be alive, to be proud of her, to be anything except dead and rotting three years gone.
He is so close now that she can see the fine striations in his eyes, in her father's eyes. He looms over her, using her father's height to its advantage. "It seems only war and death will satisfy you," it growls. "So be it."
And then it wraps one hand around her throat and cuts off her air. Her hands go to his wrist, clawing and struggling, but he's strong, stronger than she expected, and she can't budge his arm or pry his fingers away from her windpipe.
She needs to breathe. Her chest aches from more than just heartbreak. She's hitting him now, kicking him, doing anything to force him to let go or back away, but he absorbs every blow without even a blink, watching her face as she slowly suffocates to death.
Marian has only one option left.
She slams her conduit to the Fade wide-open and electrocutes her father until he is nothing but a charred corpse on the barn's floor.
Marian sucks in frantic, harsh breaths as best she can through her damaged throat while sobbing her heart out.
A long time later, when she can breathe, she forces herself to her feet, wipes off her face and checks the house. As she expected, there's no one there. She still can't get out, no matter what she tries, and she's interrupted several times when the grief strikes anew and more tears fall. For lack of anything better, she goes back to the barn to search it again.
His body is gone. In its place stands a stone obelisk, lit from within with a gentle blue light that soothes her as she drifts closer. She's no interest in touching random Fade objects that beckon to her, because that's a recipe for terrible things happening, but she hasn't found any other way out. Alistair and the others have to be here somewhere. She has to go.
Taking a deep breath, she lays her hand on the obelisk's side, and with a flash of blinding light she's thrown elsewhere.
It takes her eyes a long, precious minute to adjust. She waits with her staff in her hand until her vision clears, and she's honestly surprised that nothing tries to attack her in the meantime.
"You're Irving's apprentice, aren't you?" someone says to her right. Marian turns, bringing her staff to bear as she does, to find a mage in Circle robes standing, his hands held up in surrender. "You left with the Grey Warden, did you not?"
She recognizes him from the Circle, though she doesn't know his name. Marian lowers her staff. He introduces himself as Niall and carefully explains the nature of this place: the demon they'd faced has trapped herself and each of her companions in their own individual dreams that they cannot or will not try to leave.
He tells her about Uldred, and the abomination he has become; he tells her about the Litany of Adralla, with which he once hoped to take back the Circle; he tells her about this little corner of the Fade, the sloth demon's island protections, and that her companions are probably there. Probably. Then Niall points out the obelisks which he thinks transports the user to the different islands, and then he has the balls to mock her when she moves to use it.
Just because he thinks the situation is hopeless doesn't mean it really is, and too many people are counting on them for Marian to simply give up the way Niall has.
The obelisks take her to many places, and in each she encounters obstacles, puzzles, enemies beyond counting, and more shapeshifting than she can shake a stick at, which expands that secret place in her mind where the imprints live. She learns so much that she never expected to find here, grows stronger in ways she can't explain, and gives four trapped, desperate souls the release that they each ask for in their own way.
She hates this place. She cannot bear the thought of being trapped here for all eternity while the demon sucks out her soul and consumes her life force. She'd rather die, like those lost, wretched souls.
Killing each of the demons lowers the barriers around the little islands on the outside, and if she's reading the runes right, there's four of them, one for each of her friends. She picks one at random, closing her eyes against the blinding light – seriously, what is with that – and when she opens them again, she's on the island, a little patch of the Fade that twists even more strangely than the rest of the place. Marian searches it until she nearly trips over Cú, who is sleeping nose to tail, curled up in the smallest ball he can manage.
"Hey," she says softly, stooping down to smooth a soft hand over his head. "I was worried about you, boy."
Cú whuffs a little in his sleep, and she wonders what he's dreaming, if it's a soft bed and a bone or dog heaven with squirrels as far as the eye can see. She gently scratches around his ear. "It's time to wake up, dog," she says firmly.
He cracks an eye open, and when he sees that it's her he stretches and gets to his feet, nosing at her hand until she obliges him with more petting.
"Now," Marian says to him, standing. "What do you say we go find the rest?"
Cú barks once, turns in a tight circle, and runs off toward the obelisk; for a mad second, she wonders if he's somehow caught their scent, but then several feet short of the obelisk, he just disappears.
"Cú!" Marian calls desperately, but there's no response; when she searches the whole island again, he's nowhere to be found. Cú is gone.
She stands for a long moment with her eyes closed and her fist pressed to her mouth to tamp down the maddening, slippery grief. She can do nothing but hope that his disappearing act means that he's awake and not dead.
She slaps her hand onto the obelisk and flings herself to the next island, exactly the same as the first. She searches what seems like the entire island until she realizes that she missed a small opening between two outcroppings and slips through to find Leliana on her knees praying to an altar with a elderly, robed Chantry Mother by her side. She doesn't seem to see the Fade as it is, or notice Marian at all.
The words of the Chant are so familiar, even comforting, and Marian closes her eyes, just for a second, to pretend that they're for her, for her father and her family. Then she feels guilty for taking what doesn't belong to her. "Leliana?" she asks hesitantly.
Leliana breaks off mid-prayer, raising her head to look at Marian in surprise. The Revered Mother turns too, and fixes Marian with a glare. "What? Who are you?" Leliana asks.
Marian's heart sinks. Cú had known who she was. She'd never dreamed that the others wouldn't. Wynne is likely enough to trust another mage, at least a little, and she thinks Alistair will probably respond to the Grey Warden uniform she bears, but Leliana has no reason to listen to her at all.
"I beg you, do not interrupt the girl's meditations," the Revered Mother says to Marian. She can only assume that the Mother is the sloth demon's creature.
"Revered Mother, I do not know this person," Leliana says, confused, distressed. She stands then and Marian looks her over. She doesn't look to be hurt, but there's a strange, hazy look in her eyes.
"Don't you recognize me?" Marian asks, pleading. "At all?"
"I'm sorry," Leliana says, studying her face with care. She shakes her head a little, like someone trying to dismiss an unpleasant thought. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Marian tries reminding her of the dagger training around the campfire just last night, Redcliffe, Alistair and the others, anything she can think of, but nothing seems to get through the cloudy, almost drugged state of mind that's keeping her there until Marian brings up Lothering and the chantry there.
"You left for a reason," Marian says. No matter what she thinks of Leliana's vision, Leliana had believed in it so strongly that she'd left the Chantry to fight an impossible battle.
"I – " Leliana touches her mouth, taking a step toward Marian. She looks to be thinking hard, and Marian thinks – hopes – that she can see Leliana's eyes growing clearer. "I remember," she says after a long moment. "There was a sign..." She presses her hand to her face, hard, as if that will help her remember.
"Leliana," the Revered Mother says in a scold. "We have discussed this sign of yours. The Maker does not care to interfere in the affairs of mortals. This vision was likely the work of demons."
"No," Leliana says, dropping her hand. She is far more present than before, even if she still doesn't seem to recognize Marian, and the haze is nearly gone. She stands straighter and lifts her chin, speaking with bright certainty instead of the confusion of before. "The Maker cares for us. I believe He misses His wayward children as much as we miss Him. My vision may not be from him, but it guides me to do what is right, and my Revered Mother knew this." She shakes her head. "I don't know who you are, but you are not her."
"We should go," Marian says to Leliana, ignoring it completely. She needs to get Leliana away from the creature now, because if it reacts the way the thing in her dream did, then Leliana is too close for comfort. It could be on her in a second.
"Yes," Leliana agrees, examining Marian thoughtfully. "Let us leave. My head has not yet cleared, but you are... familiar." Marian smiles gratefully at her and she smiles back.
"You are going nowhere, girl. I will not permit it," the thing says, harsh and demanding, and reaches out with a hand that is suddenly not quite as human as it was, with long fingers and longer claws –
Leliana gasps, throwing herself away from the thing and into a backward somersault, coming up on her feet with daggers already in hand. "What is that?" she demands, her voice high and tight.
"I don't know," Marian answers, unslinging her staff.
They despatch it handily enough between the two of them. "Holy Maker!" Leliana says, breathless from the fight and not a little green in the face. "She was a..."
"A demon," Marian supplies, stowing her staff away and approaching Leliana cautiously. She doesn't know if Leliana is going to disappear the way Cú had, and Leliana still doesn't seem to recognize her. "Are you all right?"
"My head feels heavy, like I've just woken up from a terrible nightmare," Leliana says, shaking her head again. The fog is almost gone from her eyes. She stows her blades and takes a breath, and then between that moment and the next, Leliana is plucked from existence so neatly that Marian doesn't even see her go.
Shit. Marian puts her staff away, suddenly furious, and stalks back to the obelisk, slapping it so hard that her palm stings. She's going to find each and every one of her friends, and rescue them and anyone else she can find, and then she's going to find the demon and set it on fire.
Wynne is much easier to find on this new island, but what Marian finds gives her pause. She's surrounded by bodies, all dressed in the so-familiar Circle apprentice robes, and Wynne keeps turning, looking between them with heartbroken devastation writ large on her face.
Marian swallows. "Wynne?" she asks, hesitant. She doesn't see anyone who could be the demon here, and she doesn't know what that means.
"I failed them," Wynne says, stripped down to naked pain. She sighs, closing her eyes. "Maker forgive me, I failed them all."
One of the bodies looks a little bit like Kinnon, Wynne's apprentice who failed his Harrowing – and hadn't Marian thrown that in her face at Ostagar? The slow burn of shame is only what Marian deserves, she decides. "They're not real, Wynne. This is just a dream," she says, speaking softly to avoid startling Wynne. She looks at the bodies again. "A nightmare, really."
Wynne looks over, curiously unsurprised to see her, though Marian supposes that if Wynne recognizes her, it wouldn't break the illusion; she fits into this sort of dream. She was an apprentice of the Circle, after all. The only difference between her and the bodies is that she's alive and breathing. "They died and I did not stop it," Wynne tells her. It's clear that means something just from the way she speaks, slow and bitter and lifeless. Does she feel more responsible for failed Harrowings than she'd let on at Ostagar?
"But this isn't real," Marian says, trying again to reach her, to make her understand. She moves closer, picking her path over one of the bodies.
Wynne turns a sharp look on her. It takes more effort than she'd like to suppress the automatic apology. "How can I disbelieve what I see, what I hear and smell and feel? Death... Can you not see it? It's all around us," Wynne says, hopeless, defeated. She returns her attention to the bodies as if they're magnetized, like they've a hold on her they won't release.
Oh.
In hindsight, it's infuriating how long it's taken her to spot the demon's creatures here. Marian prides herself on being intelligent and sharp of eye, in the way of intelligent people everywhere, and since she'd left the tower, the world seems intent on proving to her that her mind doesn't count for as much as she thinks it does.
"There's still time to save the Circle," Marian says.
She's not sure Wynne even hears her. "Why was I spared, if not to help them? What use is my life now that I have failed in the task that was given me?" Wynne turns her back on Marian. "Leave me to my grief," Wynne says distantly. "I shall bury their bones, scatter their ashes to the four winds, and mourn their passing till I too am dead."
"No," Marian snaps, infuriated by her apathy, lunging forward to take Wynne's shoulder and shake it hard. "Maker, wake up! Don't you recognize the Fade when you're in it?" The look Wynne turns onto Marian's hand on her shoulder could freeze a dragon, and Marian quickly drops it, but she's succeeded in getting Wynne's attention once again.
"I had not considered that," Wynne says, looking around. Now that Marian's closer, she can see a little of the haze that had been in Leliana's eyes there in Wynne's eyes, too. It seems to be characteristic of the mental confusion that they're feeling, that Wynne is showing now. She's frowning, her brows drawn together. "I have always had an affinity for the Fade, and I assumed I would be able to recognize it." She passes one hand over her face. "It is... difficult... to focus. It feels as though something is... stopping me from concentrating. I have never had so much trouble..."
"But try," Marian urges her, ducking her head a little to look Wynne in the eyes. "It's important." She can't believe they've remained unmolested by the demon for so long. They've wasted too much time already; for all she knows, the templars from Denerim are here already. They have to hurry.
Wynne lowers her hand, studying Marian intently. Slowly, she nods. "Perhaps... some time away from this place will help me think clearly."
Marian can't help the relieved breath she takes then. "That sounds like a good idea," she agrees.
Wynne suddenly looks away then, horrified eyes locked on something behind Marian. Behind her can only mean –
She spins, backing toward Wynne, as the bodies on the ground begin to move, groaning, slowly getting to their feet.
"Don't leave us, Wynne," one of the apprentices begs, reaching for her. "We don't want to be alone."
Marian spins fire from her hands, setting two of them aflame before she takes down her staff and lays into the rest. After a shocked moment, Wynne joins her, determined and fierce. It's her imagination, or perhaps it's the Fade, but there's something of an aura about Wynne, something more felt or perhaps heard than seen, a brightness, a subtle pressure. It flares when she's using magic. No doubt it's down to casting spells here in the Fade itself. Perhaps the same could be said about her, and she just can't see it.
When they're done, Marian puts away her staff and eyes Wynne cautiously. She's still no idea whether Wynne recognizes her or not, and she doesn't want to get too close in case the demon confuses her into thinking Marian's an enemy. She looks all right, though.
"Is it over?" Wynne asks, looking around. "Thank the Maker – "
Then she's gone, just like Leliana and Cú, and Marian swears viciously.
There's only Alistair left, so Marian picks the last island in the chain and puts her hand on the obelisk.
There's just one path, so she follows it down and around and back up, hating the Fade with every step she takes, until she finds Alistair happily chatting with a redhead and surrounded by laughing, playing children.
This is what the demon is trapping him with: dreams of a wife, children, a family? Two of the children run by her, one threatening the other with a toy, and Marian watches them go for a moment, remembering when Bethy and Carver were that age, thinking slugs were the height of humor... Shaking off her own memories, she turns back to Alistair and the woman and takes a moment to just watch, despite the fact that she'd just finished telling herself that there is no time for delay, that the templars are coming and their bodies are dying. In fact, she can't look away. Alistair is happier than she's ever seen him, content smile, glowing eyes, and all. He's talking with his hands and laughing at everything. A small, unreasonable part of her is jealous that she has no role in his dream, that she can't make him this happy, but it's easily ignored. The larger part of her is simply unwilling to interrupt. She doesn't want to force him to face reality.
But she knows she must.
Marian takes a steadying breath and walks out to meet them. She's no doubt that his wife is the demon in this place. She'd been able to persuade Leliana and Wynne that what they were seeing wasn't real, but talking Alistair out of this one is going to be tricky.
She hadn't thought it possible, but when he catches sight of her, he grins wider, even more brightly. He looks absolutely delighted she's here. "Marian!" he says cheerfully. "It's great to see you – I was just thinking about you, isn't that a marvelous coincidence?"
At first Marian's just surprised that he knows who she is, but then – he was thinking about her? What does that mean? If this dream is supposed to lull him into complacency, why does he need thoughts of her?
Alistair continues, as if he hasn't turned her worldview upside down enough, and gestures to the red-haired woman beside him. "Goldanna, this is Marian. Marian, this is my sister, Goldanna." He laughs. "These are her children, and there's more about somewhere."
His sister?
Goldanna bows politely, smiling, and Marian's so shocked that she bows back, despite knowing exactly what the woman is.
Marian can't believe she just bowed to a fucking demon. She hopes Alistair won't remember this. She hopes she won't remember this.
If Goldanna's meant to be his sister... Marian looks around, seeing all the children in a new light: Alistair's sister, Alistair's nieces and nephews... his family. It doesn't take much to connect that with his love for Arl Eamon, and the way he talked about the fellowship of the Wardens. All he wants is a family, any family, that he can call his own.
Oh, Alistair.
She can't bear the idea of him so desperately searching for somewhere to belong. But it's not the time, nor the place, for her urge to comfort, no matter how much she wants to.
She has to get him out of here. The key seems to be breaking the illusion.
"You look so happy," she says instead.
"I am," Alistair says, watching the children playing. He laughs when one of them dramatically falls backward, playing dead. "I'm happier than I've been my entire life. Isn't that strange?" His face is so soft, so open that it hurts. "I thought being a Grey Warden would make me happy, but it didn't." Only then does he look at her with a content smile. "This does."
Marian hates this.
Goldanna laughs, throwing her arm around Alistair's waist. Marian bites back her instinctive protest. Alistair won't understand, not yet. "I'm overjoyed to have my little brother back. I'll never let him out of my sight again!"
Oh, because that's not creepy at all.
"Alistair, can I have a word?" Marian asks. Maybe if she gets him away from the thing –
"I know what you're going to ask," Alistair says, his face closing down. "And I... don't think I'll be coming." He looks away from her. "I don't want to spend my life fighting, only to end up dead in a pit along with rotting darkspawn corpses."
That stings more than a little. She doesn't have the right to be angry, Marian reminds herself. This is just a dream to him, a dream wherein she probably represents the Wardens to him. And in truth, if she'd had the choice, she wouldn't have joined the Wardens either. But you didn't choose the fantasy over the reality, that petty, jealous part of her says. I also knew about the demon, she reminds herself. It's not abandonment if he doesn't know he's doing it.
It still hurts, though.
"Well, Alistair," Goldanna says, though she's looking at Marian as she says it. Goldanna's got a smile on her face, wide and delighted and just a little bit smug, that makes Marian want to rip her face off. "Will your friend be staying for dinner?"
Alistair instantly lights up, turning back to Marian with a grin. "Say you'll stay," he begs. "Goldanna's a great cook. Maybe she'll make her mince pie. You can, can't you?" he asks the creature.
"Of course, dear brother. Anything for you," Goldanna says, saccharine-sweet.
"I can't stay," Marian says, wary of coming directly at the subject of the demon. "And Alistair, it's important that you come, too."
If he weren't a grown man, Marian would call his expression a pout. "You're acting really strangely," he says sulkily.
Enough is enough. "Alistair!" Marian says, taking him by the arm and shaking him. He frowns, offended, and starts to speak, but she shakes her head and thanks be to the Maker, he stops to listen. "Alistair, think about how you got here; I mean really think."
He sighs. "All right, if it makes you happy. I..." He shakes his head in a tight little movement, the way people do to shake off flies, his voice going a little distant as his eyebrows come down in confusion. "It's a little fuzzy, that's strange..."
The thing playing his sister laughs brightly and tugs at his elbow. "Alistair, come and have some tea."
"No," Alistair says, not even looking at her. "Wait... I remember a tower. The Circle... it was under attack..." He stops there. Marian could scream – for him to remember so much, and not the crucial point that will allow him to believe her when she tells him what's happening is killing her. "There were demons. That's all I really remember."
Thank Andraste and the Maker. "One of the demons caught us," Marian says, watching his face for... something. She doesn't really know what. "We're trapped in the Fade."
He stares at her, gobsmacked. "Are you saying... this is a – a dream? But it's so real..."
He doesn't want to believe it, and Maker knows she doesn't blame him. How can she? She's been through exactly the same thing.
"I know," she says, heart aching for him. "And I'm so sorry, but you can't stay here, Alistair."
"Something doesn't feel quite right here," Alistair says, staring at her, so confused. "I... think I have to go."
The thing tightens its grasp on Alistair's elbow, its voice now that of the demon's, snarling at them. "No," it growls. "He is ours, and I would rather see him dead than free!"
For all his confusion, Alistair's reaction is immediate and unerring; he slams his whole body into the thing, knocking her off her feet and forcing her to let go of his elbow, and while Marian is still fumbling her staff down off her back he draws his sword and cuts the thing's head off.
And then the children swarm them from every side. Marian's never going to be able to forget slaughtering all these children, never, no matter how much she might want to, and she vows that someone will pay dearly for forcing her to do all the things she's done today.
When it's done, Alistair looks around, slowly sheathing his sword and hanging up his shield. "I can't believe it," he says unhappily. "How did I not see this earlier?"
Marian bites her lip, unsure of what to do, what to say. "It fooled me, too," she offers.
That brings his head around fast, staring at her in surprise and concern. "Are you – " He pauses, like he can't figure out how to ask.
She shakes her head. "I'm all right," she says. It's a lie, but it feels like it won't always be one, and that's enough for now. She eyes him. "Are you?"
He laughs, but it sounds hollow. "Same," he says, looking at the bodies. "Ah, well. Try not to tell everyone how easily I was fooled, eh?"
Before she can promise, Alistair is gone, snatched out of existence before her very eyes.
She is so sick of this.
It's finally time for the central island, the one that's been shielded this entire time, the one that she fully expects to find the demon on.
She's right.
It offers her one more chance to go back to her father, back to her family, but now she's riding on a wave of righteous anger and her answer is lightning to the face. Her friends shimmer into view beside her, talking for all the world like she's the one who disappeared instead of them, and while she's so, so grateful that they're alive and safe and here with her, that doesn't even touch the well of her fury.
The fight is rather a letdown after that. When they're staring down at the demon's body, Niall says behind her, "You defeated the demon. I never thought..." He laughs, delighted. "I never expected you to free yourself, to free us both."
Marian turns, unsurprised to see him. Well, maybe she is, a little. How'd he get to the right obelisks without shapeshifting?
Niall sobers and comes a little closer. "Listen," he says. "When you return, take the Litany of Adralla from my..." He swallows once. "From my body. It will protect you from the worst of the blood magic."
"From your body?" Marian repeats, completely confused.
Niall nods. "I cannot go with you. I have been here far too long. For you, it will have been an afternoon's nap. Your body won't have wasted away in the real world while your spirit lay in the hands of a demon."
Marian stares at him, horrified. "You think you're going to die when we break this spell?"
"Every minute I was here, the sloth demon was feeding off me, using my life to fuel the nightmares of this realm," Niall says. Now that she looks, he's pale and too thin, with huge circles under his eyes that in the real world would have meant he hadn't been sleeping or eating. Here, she's afraid to think of what it means. "There is so little of me left... I was never meant to save the Circle, or even survive its troubles." He shakes his head. "I am dying. It is as simple as that."
"We must be able to do something," Marian says desperately, darting a look at Wynne, who looks away. That's answer enough. It's just that Marian doesn't want to accept it.
Marian promises to take the Litany and after that, Niall seems to fade away, as if that were the only thing keeping him here. The idea of him stuck in a nightmare powered by his own life force, doomed to only watch and wait for uncertain death, is so upsetting that Marian thinks she might be sick.
The Fade around them grows dim and then dark...
In the real world, Marian wakes up.