Fade Time 1÷0, Dreamwalk Village

Against his own expectations, Fenris was fascinated; and a little creeped out.

Fascinated by the strange, cozy haven Hawke had built for herself among spirits (or had built for the spirits amongst herself). It was beautiful, and lived, and had a palpable aura of safety.

As for the creeps, they came not just from the strange tree, but also because of Crowley; a human man, at least in appearance, who seemed to be at his beck and call; bringing him coffee, biscuits and napkins, checking on him, almost doting on him. It felt... very weird. He didn't know what to do with that level of, for lack of a better word, respect. Freedom, no freedom, he had never felt like someone important. It felt downright illegal.

He wondered if Hawke had put him up to it, but she looked just as confused.

"Hey, Crowley," Hawke shouted after him when he was leaving for more snacks. "Didn't you have something you wanted to ask Fenris earlier?"

Crowley stopped in his track. The back of his head looked inexplicably annoyed. Ravena laughed a low evil laugh to herself and watched intently, chin in hand.

"Oh, yeah," he said, and turned around. He came behind their settee and he leaned on it with his arms wide onto each corner. Then his face came down between the two. He said, "Tell me, Fenris. What are some embarrassing things Hawke has done on the other side? You know, that we might not have been allowed to see because they were so terrible?"

Hawke immediately went poker face. Fuck! This backfired so fast.

Fenris was thinking.

Ravena looked very happy. Murmur was trying to contain a smirk, and sat down to take notes, while Beleth hovered over her. Bucky's head popped up from the hammock.

Fenris opened his mouth, but Beleth suddenly interrupted. "Forgive me for asking, but how is engaging in gossip going to help me on a better path?" he said.

People seemed to have been aware Fenris was going to speak, and looked at him as if he should continue. That also had never really happened to him before, so he hesitated awkwardly. Somewhere in his brain there was a shock of social awareness that made him uneasy. "No, go on, the instance I was thinking of isn't embarrassing enough," he said, and went on thinking.

"Well, first of all, it's not gossip if the party discussed is present to hear it," Crowley said. Hawke pointed at herself proudly.

Beleth crossed his arms and held his chin analytically. "Hmm, so it's more like a public verbal flogging? I see, I see," he said. "But now I find myself even more bewildered. Isn't that worse?"

The circle of people looked back at Professor Crowley. He readjusted his apron, and said, "Alright. Part of being human is being fl—"

"Mortal," Bucky corrected calmly. "Or life form."

Crowley inhaled patiently, mumbling something about youngsters, then continued, "Part of being mortal is being flawed. A lot of mortals feel pressured to be flawless under pain of failure and against a running clock. This is something that makes one feel very unsafe. That conflict is what attracts us as starving demons to exploit so we can alleviate our own feelings of pressure and unsafety in a world that feels wrong, like it's not for us, under pain of immortality."

"Oh, mortals do that to other mortals too," Hawke said.

"An interesting point, but let's stay on topic for Beleth," Professor Crowley said. Hawke raised her palms in peace. "So, what mortals do to avoid that path is cultivating a sense of kinship, and one way to do that is to create a safe space where suffering can be shared, but also not taken so seriously sometimes. We find suffering so tasty because it's so powerful for mortals, but if you take away that power... suffering can sometimes become a positive experience."

"So, making fun of her is a good thing," Beleth said, still confused.

"In this case, yes, because I know she's okay with it, and it's poking fun at something quite insignificant in the grand order of suffering—embarrassment. That's the kind of pain friends can and love to hear about. Long before you know it, everyone participates with their own lived embarrassments, and we're equal again, a bond has formed, and bad memories turn into funny ones. Then we have joy."

Hawke pointed at Crowley like he was on the money.

"What an exhausting train of thought," Beleth said despondently.

"Don't worry. It becomes easier with time," Crowley said fatherly. "But this will be on the test, so pay attention."

"Test?" Fenris said bewilderedly.

"This is spirit school, baby," Crowley said proudly.

"Okay... baby," Fenris said, unsure.

Crowley made saucy eyebrows at him. Fenris laughed nervously and looked at Hawke, who also made saucy eyebrows.

"Stop it, guys. You're making the poor boy confused," Ravena said, smirking.

"Jealous?" Crowley said, vainly tilting his head.

Ravena raised an eyebrow, and her eyes ping-ponged hesitantly. "Please continue," she said, bored, and lit herself another cigarillo.

"Oh, look at her getting flustered," Hawke said in amusement. "Doesn't she look flustered, Fenris?"

Fenris wasn't paying attention. He had been lost in his own thoughts following those strange instances. What were the feelings he was feeling? On an ordinary day, he might have felt uncomfortable and afraid to pull at that thread, but today, it felt interesting. So, he went on thinking—Crowley's servitude, while voluntary, made him feel confused, and unworthy. The voluntary part might have made things worse, actually. Then when the crowd disregarded the interrupter and listened to him intently, he felt seen and listened to... and unworthy. Why?

Although brave of him to ask, he felt too tired and drained for the day to investigate. He woke up from his deep thought and looked dumb for a second. "Err, she looks... like she's smoking."

Ravena pointed at him like he won a contest. Exhaling smoke through her nose, she said, "I think you're the one who's jealous, my darling."

"Of what?" Crowley said in amusement.

"Of the fact you have to ingratiate yourself by way of food and doting and flirting, while I don't even have to be nice and the boy takes my side," she said nonchalantly.

Crowley crossed his arms, looking quite hurt. Hawke opened her mouth silently, looking very entertained.

Fenris broke the silence. "Have you seen the one where she had to pretend to be a statue for six hours in Hightown?"

"Hah!" Ravena said. "What was she wearing?"

"She had to wear this itchy pink dragon armour, but by the end of it, you couldn't tell because she was covered in so much bird shit," Fenris said.

Crowley's red head was pouring down the settee between them from laughter.

Hawke dramatically turned around to hug the back of the couch as if she was trying to get her head into another dimension.

Fenris looked at her, smirking widely. "Oh, there was this one time we were arguing about politics—"

"Yeah, no, while embarrassing, we all know about you two arguing about politics, honey," Ravena said.

Fenris was about to interject, when Hawke muffled a raspberry through the cushion. "There's nothing embarrassing about a good spirited debate between peers about relevant ideas and matters of the day," they heard her mumble.

"Exactly," Fenris said.

"No, what's embarrassing was how bad you got it for each other when engaged in 'debate'," Ravena said with mocking air quotes. "You forgot to pay attention to everything and everyone else around, who definitely noticed."

Hawke and Fenris looked at each other, the emotion in vogue infecting them.

"Well," he said, coughing. "In this one only Hawke looks bad."

"Oh, no, which one?" she said.

Fenris snickered through his nose, recounting the experience. He leaned back in his seat and said, "Alright. This was about a year ago. You were vehemently set on organising a protest to remove the spikes in the city by making them into an 'art piece' with paper hearts stuck through them, each having a word written on about the principles that they are damaging like 'care' and 'community'."

"That's a cool idea," Bucky said.

Ravena scoffed and made disgusted noises.

"Exactly my thoughts," Fenris said. "So, I told her that her idea made me want to commit mola salsa in protest."

Only Murmur and Beleth laughed, which made people even more confused.

"Mola salsa is a form of ancient Tevinter sacrifice, usually self-inflicted," Fenris said. "And she thought mola salsa was a kind of food, and went on to boast how good a mola salsa she makes every week."

People laughed together, while Hawke nodded in amused embarassment.

"Ah, so it's funny because she spoke with unearned confidence about something she had absolutely no idea about," Beleth said, pondering.

"Correct," Crowley said.

"For the record, I still think that protest would have been cool," Hawke said.

"Aren't paper hearts kind of easy to pull out by the Guard?" Murmur asked.

"The Guard having to contend with the messages on them was part of the idea," Hawke said defensively.

"Oh, Maker, I remember this one time I was trying to possess a guy three hundred years ago," Crowley said conversationally. "He was this Dalish mage, a First of his clan, who wanted to upstage his Keeper in protest against excommunicating surplus mages. Meanwhile, my buddy Corvidey was courting the Second of the clan, who was bucking for promotion, so there was a lot at stake for me. Anyway, my guy was having a lot of trouble and he told me one night that he always wished he could have the confidence to speak in front of a crowd, but... he wouldn't let me speak for him. Sooo, to warm myself up to him, I taught him an entropy spell that, used conservatively, could give the caster a moderate amount of haziness, you know, so he'd loosen up. Well, the boy went in front of his clan the day before leaving for Arlathven and he was panicking so bad he used the full spell on himself. There he was, speaking passionately for his mage brethren while stripping butt naked and, with his little chicken legs, kicking his robes away in revolution!"

People laughed, but Beleth was falling on himself loudly and pointing.

"Yeah, Corvidey was next to me doing exactly that," Crowley said grumpily. "Buuut, his stunt actually convinced a lot of people, and he was made Keeper."

"Noice," Hawke said.

"Unfortunately for me, the sudden burst of adulation convinced the mage he didn't need a demon to get ahead, and I was cut loose," Crowley said, scratching the back of his head.

Beleth cackled so hard he accidentally took down a curtain trying to hug a pole for balance.

"Yeah, it's like I'm back there right now," Crowley said with a fake smile.

"So, you really did spend a lot of your time with elves," Fenris said, his tone both curious and judgmental. "I'm keen to know. Why does a Brecilian demon take on the appearance of a human in his 'better' form?"

The crowd fell silent and quite uncomfortable. Bucky, however, seemed very interested in his answer.

"I don't wanna talk about it," Crowley said nervously.

"Why not?" Fenris pressed. "Is it embarrassing?"

"N-no," Crowley said, stuttering and shrugging. "It's not like that. It's... ugh, fine," he said. He inhaled, sighed and brushed the sides of his hair and revealed a pair of small leaf ears.

Ravena dramatically made herself look staggered.

"Interesting," Fenris said, coming forward in his seat. "Why do you feel the need to hide them?"

Crowley crossed his arms defensively. "Well, I spent my transformative years with Hawke in a very human Ferelden. I learned it's better to hide the ears."

"Have you no pride?" Fenris said, which made people laugh. He suddenly remembered who he was speaking to.

"Not so much these days, my friend," Crowley said.

Fenris studied him with his gaze. "Sounds to me like you replaced pride with erasure, not wisdom," he said, leaning back calmly.

"Hah!" Bucky said, satisfied. "Teacher get schooled."

Hawke was very entertained by this. Fenris looked at her. "You don't look so good in this either, Hawke."

"You think I told him to look like that?" Hawke said. "No, no, no. This is my father'sdoing. He spent some time here when I was a child and I didn't know what to do with Crowley. He was the mighty patriarch with the annoying quotes in charge of me, therefore in charge of him. Crowley wanted to take after him. Me? I spent half of my life trying to get away from pasty redheads like me."

"Hey, now, Crowley takes after you too. Otherwise, he might still have some pride," Murmur said sarcastically.

"Oof," Ravena said. "Fenris and Murmur are slaying it today."

"Hey, hey, no," Hawke said defensively to Murmur. "I can't be proud of that shit."

"Who are you kidding? You're the loudest person on Ferelden Independence Day and every year I have a massive headache," Murmur said tiredly.

"Yeah, I'm proud of being Ferelden, but being Ferelden doesn't mean pasty human redheads; it means people who don't take kindly to imperialist scum and their tax collectors."

Fair enough, Fenris thought. Come to think of it, it was never the Hawke men he'd seen interacting much with elves. It was always the Hawke women. "Then our people would probably get along well," he said.

"Of course, they would. Look how well we get along!" Hawke said enthusiastically and scooted closer. She put an arm over his shoulder and crossed her legs in a relaxed way.

Fenris crossed his arms and pushed his eyebrows together. "Sure. Who doesn't have three years to soften a craggy mountain?"

Hawke shrugged and smiled. "It's a good mountain."

Fenris looked at her, one corner of his mouth betraying a smile. Then he cleared his throat. "Yes, it is a good mountain," he said.

Bucky came out of their hammock and hugged Murmur's shoulders from behind. "Aww, don't they look cute together?" they said to her.

"I suppose they look convincing as a couple," Murmur said, holding onto Bucky's wrapped arms. "Although the elf looks very tense."

"Oh, he's like that all the time," Hawke said. "You can bounce a copper off him anywhere you throw."

"Just because one can," Fenris said, smirking meanly at her, "doesn't mean one should."

Hawke smiled with her teeth out. She conjured a coin and threw it lazily in his face. This annoyed him to no end and he tried to throw it back at her, which turned into a childish arm fight until Hawke let go of the coin. While Fenris went down to catch it, she ruffled his hair with both hands.

There was an ominous silence, as Fenris's messy head came up. "I was a slave for twenty-four years. Why am I still being punished?"

"Ha!" Ravena guffawed and crossed her arms behind her head. "I've been asking myself that for a decade," she said, bored.

Crowley inhaled longingly and looked at Ravena. She looked at him with mock pity and said, "Looks like you're stuck with me, Professor Apron."

Fenris looked at Bucky and Murmur, and then Crowley and Ravena, and raised his finger. "Okay. I have questions again."

"Why am I not surprised?" Ravena said.

"Are you... couples?" Fenris said bewilderedly.

"Are you?" Ravena fired back.

"No, no," Hawke said.

"Not yet," Fenris said.

Hawke looked at him, quite surprised.

Ravena, however, stood up. "Well, you've seen what we can do," she said in a quietly threatening tone. "Try not to be a pig. Yes?" she said, and went to her very blasphemous house.

Fenris came close to Hawke's ear and whispered, "Which one is yours?"

It was a small, pretty little house with an open kitchen on the left, a bedroom straight down and another room on the right. There were coats hanging in front, and a pair of boots next to two tiny pairs of shoes. There was a nightstand next to the entrance with pictures of Hawke's family members and a lot of plants hung on the wall. The rest of the walls were covered in animal art, doodles and scribbles. The coat corner had two lines carved in, one for H, one for D. There was a pink and green couch in front of the tiniest fireplace. Between them was a little coffee table with pink and purple flowers and a picture of them all together—Hawke with her tongue out, one arm around (and slightly choking) Aveline, one around Varric, Mojo sitting happy next to an unhappy Fenris, Anders posing proudly with his staff, Merrill doing a peace sign and Isabela holding antlers behind Hawke's head. In the far bedroom where the door was open, a crystal of sorts was emitting music; some old forgotten song she must have heard in an Orlesian café.

It made Fenris feel both warm and melancholic.

"You live in a mansion back home," Fenris said, looking around, while Hawke threw herself on the couch.

"Yeah?" she said, unsure where he was going with this.

He sat down shyly. "This is a world at the mercy of your imagination, and... this is all you need?"

Hawke relaxed down and put her legs up on top of his knees, looking around. "Yeah, pretty much."

"Interesting," Fenris said, at first hesitant to hold on to her calves. "And surprisingly pretty."

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" she said grumpily.

"Nothing bad; you're just quite messy in real life," he said, smirking.

"Yeah, I am," she said in amusement. "The great thing about this place is things just go back to how they were. No labour needed. Well, except for Crowley's things. He likes it hard core."

"A peculiar guy," he said, thinking. "He's your oldest, right?"

"Yeah, I met him quite young," she said. "In fact, he was the reason my magic came out. Not the best coming into magic experience, but also not the worst."

"You were kidnapped, you said."

"Yeah. There was a Bann who was really not happy with newcomers on his land and I got separated from my parents. A nice woman took me by the hand and told me she was going to get me back to my parents, but... she took me to a caravan with other kids. All peasants, mostly elves. Looking back at it, it was definitely sex trafficking. Or the circus."

Fenris nodded, thinking and scowling. "How did you end up with Crowley?"

"They were taking us through the Brecilian Forest. Some poor Dalish kids were picked up on the way. We were all very scared and tried to break free. Some of them knew magic and set the caravan on fire. That attracted Dalish sentinels to attack. It was a whole thing. We ran and hid. Anyway, the commotion ended up in demon summoning, and everyone adult looked pretty much dead by the end of it. Crowley was unbound and very mad and agitated, and came after us. We were sooo fucked."

"How did you know what to do?" Fenris asked.

Hawke grimaced. "I had no idea what I was doing! I rarely ever do," she said. "I just tried to tank and lure him deeper into the forest. Mother told me a story about trees coming to life there. I'd hoped they'd get mad at him trespassing and we could run away. I kept going deeper and deeper, but nothing came to life. When I realised the other kids ran, I just fell down on myself. Crowley loomed over me up high and opened his huge, ugly mouth. I was so terrified, and I prayed to Andraste like mad that he'd disappear. And he did! And for two whole weeks, I was a die-hard believer."

"Wow," Fenris said. "What broke your faith?"

"What you might expect. My worst nightmare came to life in my dreams, and he wouldn't let me sleep. Wanted to possess me very desperately. I was so scared I told my father and ugh... I think he sold everything valuable we had to get enough lyrium to come inside my head. He made a cave in my dream and shoved him in there. For a long time, he was trapped there, and I could sleep again. But after a while, I got sad."

"Sad?" he said.

"Yeah..." she said, remembering. "It was just... He was just so sad. He was all alone in the dark, talking to himself over and over again, lamenting and judging himself and just... going mad. I went down there, and brought him a light. I started keeping him company when I was asleep, and it turned out he had lost his powers coming here, and it basically felt as if he'd lost limbs, and he was scared. All scared and alone and... yeah. I looked at him and saw no dangerous monster; I saw a terrified, wounded person. And... here we are."

"I see," he said. "Did your father approve?"

"Fuck no," she said. "He thought I was mental, and checked me for possession basically every day."

"To be fair, you were a child," Fenris said.

"Yeah, I don't blame him for that, I guess," Hawke said, thinking. "It feels unfair to me, but when I think what if Devon has this thing too? I'd be pretty fucking scared. I just wished he'd have tried to understand more. I mean, he did, but it took him such a long time. He just stubbornly remained in denial and it wasn't helpful."

"Then you got kidnapped again and met Ravena?"

"No, Murmur came second. A very similar story. Ravena came after that. That was a very different story."

"How so?"

Hawke seemed to hesitate, and she took her legs away from him to hug them. "Ravena... came to me."

Fenris started to frown. "Okay..."

"She... voluntarily gave herself up."

"Why?"

"Ravena was bound by a lone apostate for a very long time." Hawke inhaled deeply and sighed. "Maybe it was for protection at first, but... her role had been mainly sexual."

Fenris frowned again, and his mouth opened slightly.

"A bound demon is a complacent demon," she said despondently. "Then one day he got caught by some Templars. One of the Templars stopped them from killing him and her, saying this was a... once in a lifetime opportunity to get revenge for all the games desire demons played on his mind."

"That's disgusting!" Fenris said, quite angry. He didn't even see it coming. "Even with..." he said, inhaling. He shook his head. "That's not right... it's just not right."

Hawke's eyebrows rose as she watched him. "I didn't expect that from you, honestly."

"Expect it," Fenris said sternly, still angry. He looked down, his head shaking on and on.

Hawke opened her mouth slightly, and sat normally. "Fenris, have you been—"

"I don't want to talk about it," Fenris said curtly.

"It's okay. You don't have to," Hawke said, her voice softening. She scooted over, but looked away so he didn't feel threatened. "But these things we don't talk about... they eat us alive."

"Well, it will have to just keep eating at me bit by bit, because talking about it will swallow me whole," Fenris said angrily, petting his bangs in comfort.

"Hey, hey," she said softly, putting her hand over his. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. Ever again."

It was a little comforting, but Fenris felt weak. He thought she was so strong to open up like that, and he was weak.

"I feel weak, Hawke," Fenris said, still vehemently avoiding her gaze. He sank his claws in the couch. "I feel weak, all the time. That's why Wryme got me so easily in Feynriel's dream. I feel like a fucking failure," he said, and sighed loudly. "And against many logical reasons, I feel jealous of you."

"Why?" Hawke said incredulously.

"Because," Fenris said sternly, looking at her finally. "I don't know how you go through so much trauma and still wake up in the morning all happy and jokes, just ready to take on the matters of the day. Survive the Blight, get your family in Kirkwall, go into the deep unknown, get the mansion you don't even want the proper way. No fucking problem!" he said, outraged. "I thought for sure it couldn't be that bad, you just didn't know real suffering. And now I saw it before my eyes, clear as day," he said. He shook his head and shrugged. "I'm broken," he said, his eyes glimmering and childlike.

Hawke looked at him with the saddest shock bouncing against her brain. She thought for sure he'd never spoken so much before in one go. There was so much hurt behind his eyes.

"Fenris, I... You're not broken. You're not!" Hawke said, putting her hand on the back of his hair. "You were just given a wildly shitty hand, okay?"

"You don't know that," he said.

"I don't need to know much about your past life to infer, quite safely, that your starting hand was a right mess," she said. "Idiots like Danarius can say from their comfortable tiger couches that everyone is equal and you have to pull yourself by your bootstraps and if you're failing the game, it's your own fault. But he cheated and stole and hoarded all the good cards for him and his buddies with the full support and encouragement of the Magisterium."

"Yes, but slaves are the most resilient people you will ever meet, and I bet you silvers to shortcake that every one of them would kill to be in my position right now," Fenris said, annoyed. He looked away, thinking. "And I'm just wasting it feeling sorry for myself."

"Wait. Silvers to shortcake?" Hawke said, laughing.

"It's a saying in Tevinter," Fenris said.

"Well," she said, thinking, "I bet you royals to rum cake that feeling sorry for yourself is probably something you never had time for, and now is the time to feel just that, and that's what you need to do in order to move on."

"I don't know," he said, unconvinced. "That just doesn't seem at all productive to me."

"Believe it," she said. She fought the corner of her mouth not to smirk. "I'll even bet you sovereigns to snickerdoodles that the more you fight against them, the longer these shit feelings stay in power in your inland empire."

Annoyed, but touched, Fenris felt she had given him something to think about.

"As for how I do it... First of all, I drink, which I do not recommend," Hawke said self-consciously.

"Oh, I noticed," Fenris said.

"Second of all, yeah... I do think you have reasons to feel jealous. I'm a human passing by safely in a human world. I have a lot of dream focus and I could build this safe space to come to, and that really helped. And I've had a loving, albeit tricky, family ever since I can remember, and we shared our problems, and they really made it easier to believe it's gonna be okay. You don't have these things. You've suffered alone, for a long time. It's incredibly hard to recover all by yourself. You don't know who you wake up for every day. You wake up for you. I don't think most people can. I don't think I can. I have to wake up for her, so I can find her. It's all for her. I feel like I wouldn't fucking wake up otherwise..." she said. She looked up at him. "It's okay to feel these things."

Fenris nodded, full of thoughts.

"And in those days when you don't want to wake up for yourself, maybe wake up for me," Hawke said. "'Cause you make my day almost every day."

He sat, silent. Unconvinced, processing. A crooked smile came on, and his eyes were squinting. "I... make your day," he said.

"Yeah, man," she said, smiling.

Fenris shook his head, confused. "Why?"

"Fenris, we talk almost every day till the wee hours of the night. We never run out of things to talk about," Hawke said in a tired voice.

He laughed suddenly.

"What?" she said.

Fenris continued to look amused. "Nothing really, other than I've just realised you're a bloody masochist."

Hawke snickered, expecting it. "Well, you are a pain."

"I'm so glad you've noticed," he said confidently.

"But you're not a pain that hurts me, Fenris," she said, shaking her head calmly. She looked at the coffee table, towards the picture of them all together. "I think you've got a broken heart. I think it's too preoccupied with hurting you to notice others. But when you do, you can actually be pretty sweet."

"I'm not sweet," Fenris said. Her face disagreed. "But my heart has noticed you."

"Aww," Hawke said with a warm smile. "See, man—so sweet!"

"Am not."

"Are too!"

"No."

She made a long, interminable raspberry. "... Are too," she said, finally, engaged in a staring contest.

"Shut up," he said and pulled her into a kiss. He couldn't feel much, maybe because these feelings of intimacy were new to him and the Fade couldn't keep up. But when she touched his cheeks, then wrapped her arms around him, something shifted, turned upside down, and grew alive. He could feel her cold lips like a confluence of past memories. Good memories. He could get lost in them.

Then a loud snore came from outside, followed by two smaller ones.

They both blew up in laughter as they kissed and had to stop. Forehead to forehead, they laughed at themselves. Then she gave him one big kiss. She caught the Fade up and left him weak and wanting when she ended it and put her head on his shoulder. Waiting.

"Aaand we've got no panic, folks," she said victoriously.

"Good," he said, patting the top of her head. Then he frowned. "When did you end up over me?"

She laughed. "You didn't notice?"

"No. The Fade is weird," he said. "Can we go home now?"

"Okay," she said. "No wait!" She took his dangly arm from her head to her waist, and fixed the other around her wrist. "Just like at the start."

"I doubt we've stayed in the same position. Especially after seeing that... tree."

"Just to be safe," she said, and seemed ready to go. "Close your eyes, maybe."

But he didn't. He was too curious. And he partly regretted it, because he felt like falling upwards. The room was long gone and instead he saw a black sky, vast and empty. What he thought were stars were actually the parrots he'd seen in his forgotten memory, flying towards him, becoming bigger and more colourful. Lemon, in fact, flew so close it felt like he was going to get eaten.

Then he was back in the cold room with the peacock rug.