My room has walls now. This is the first thing I notice when I wake within the dream, by now a familiar sight after falling asleep. I'm uncertain of the exact order in which I am meant to have these visions, but I'm beginning to predict them before I wake. I rub the scales from my eyes, sitting up in the luxurious bed my subconscious has so eagerly provided. A hand touches my shoulder, and I lean into it before realizing that there shouldn't be anybody with hands around here, and instead I jolt away.

I slip out of the bed, rolling on the ground and rising to one knee, my sword appearing in my hand with a single thought. I'm in boxer-briefs, staring up at… a girl. She's about four feet tall, give or take an inch either way. She has black hair cut short like Cassandra's, and Lysette's pale pink skin, and a slightly crooked nose that reminds me far too much of Varric. She looks about five, maybe six years old at most. She wears a white shift, skirt falling around her knees and arms bare. She waves at me in greeting.

"Hello!" she says in a familiar voice, and I blink when I realize that Beck has a fully formed body now. "I made myself realer again!"

"Realer isn't a word." I reply, rising to my feet and willing some pants into existence to cover up my legs. "And… you have a face now. And hands."

"And feet!" she proudly proclaims, raising an appropriately proportioned human foot for my approval. "And I have a mouth and eyes and a nose and I'm still working on some ears 'cause they don't fill in so good."

She turns her head and I see that while she does indeed have the general shape of an ear down, she lacks any canal or the folds that form the inside. The result is uncanny, and she notices my slight discomfort almost instantly.

"And realer is a word." she declares. "The book says so."

Beck has a body now. This is also new. I mean… demons can look human. Cole had a human body, but that was a little special. So maybe this is special too? I can't recall any other incidences of spirits attaching themselves to Templars and feeding on the Lyrium they drink, to be fair. This may very well be another expansion on the rules. A weird expansion that hurts my head to ponder, because Beck is looking and acting far more human than I was ready for.

She hops down off the bed… they? Not sure about gender. That's its choice, I think. At the same time, I have no idea how to ask. Whatever. Beck stands in front of me, and smiles up at me with Solas' weirdly perfect teeth and now my head hurts even more.

"Sorry if this is weird," she says. "I was trying to make your memories more real so you could remember them here, but then they got all tangled up with me, so I used them to help make me more real instead. And now I look like this!"

"So you do." I nod, before giving her a pat on the head. "It's a very nice body. Slightly disconcerting to look at, but very cute."

"Cute is good." she nods. "Cute means protection, like babies. Am I a baby?"

Fuck. That's a question. My instinct is to deny it, but upon further thought I have to reconsider. I mean… before we got glued together by magic, Beck was just a random spirit of Calm. Now she's… I mean, look at her. She's got a body. A brain body that exists solely in my head, but that's one up on most spirits. And she's asking questions about her own existence, which Marcus is ninety percent sure is a sign of sapience.

"I… I guess you're a child?" I hazard. "Kind of. At least a little. You are a rather new thing."

"Newer than you." She nods sagely. "And you made me real enough to ask the question. You're the reason I'm real. You…"

She ponders herself for a moment, frowning and looking at the floor in another Lysette-like way. She curls her upper lip, rubbing it against her nose in a way that reminds Marcus of himself, all while shifting her balance back and forth, shifting from her heels to her toes.

"Does that make you my father?"

I choke on air, which is a new experience. If my mouth had been full of any sort of liquid or solid I would have done a spit take, but instead I cough violently, one hand braced against my chest. Beck steps back, alarmed, but after a few moments of this I manage to stop and take a deep breath. She looks down at the floor, and I shake my head to clear my muddled thoughts.

"That's… that's a question." I repeat myself, out loud this time, because wow, we are just going for it today. "I… uh…"

It's an entirely valid question, if a little unnerving. I suppose Beck does exist, at least as she does, because of me. If she wasn't glued to my arm and my mind (and my soul, perhaps) then she would just be a normal Spirit of Calm, floating around in the Fade and doing whatever it is spirits do. Instead she's asking questions, and learning things. That's not typical spirit behaviour, not from what Marcus recalls. Spirits are simple entities that embody their emotion of birth. Cole is special, or… will be special, but he is also very singular.

But the demon. Absolute, was it? She was different too. She spoke. She felt anger as well as pride. And the Envy demon showed… shows fear, and anger, and it enjoys what it does. It can feel a breadth of emotions. Is that because it's rare and powerful? Or do all demons do the same when they exist for long enough? Does it apply to spirits as well, this undefined exception to the rule? Am I even smart enough to try and figure this all out on my own?

Probably not. There isn't a stat screen I can use, but I'm fairly certain I'm sitting on a middling intelligence score at best. Beck stares up at me, blinking once. I don't know how to answer her. It. Fuck. This is hard. Whatever. She looks like a girl, sounds like a girl… assumptions are asses and all that but I don't even know if spirits have a full concept of gender so does it matter?

"I'm making your mind ache," she says suddenly, frowning. "Sorry. I didn't think it would hurt. I just wanted to know. I can just call you Markus, if you like."

"I…"

Fuck it.

"Call me what you will." I tell her, reaching down and giving her head an affectionate pat that makes her scrunch her face up in a way I don't think she learned from anybody else. "Father or Markus or "hey you", it doesn't change what we are."

"Friends?" she chances, and I smile.

"Friends." I agree. "Beck and Markus, a spirit and an ex-Templar out to save the world from a wannabe god and his band of assholes. Sound good?"

She thinks about that for a long moment or two. Then she nods her head once, smiling wide.

"Yes." she says. "And we're gonna save the world. No take-backs."

I give her a fist bump, something she picks up on right away. Then we sit on the bed together, and I try to make more things. I make my sword, obviously, then a set of armour. I can make my armour, but the more advanced plate of my superiors is a no-go. Same goes for most helmets, and weapons that aren't my sword.

"You need to know they're real before you make them." Beck tells me, leaning against my arm. "Sight and sound and smell and touch and taste."

"I have to taste a sword?" I ask, and she nods once. "Alright… I'll, uh, take it under advisement. What about…"

I reach out with my hand, and manifest the spirit blade hilt in it. It is cool to the touch, a real weight in my hand. The topaz is already glowing blue when I summon it, which is odd. Then I ignite it, and the blade flashes into exist. Except it's much longer than four feet; it stretches up into the sky, through the new ceiling. I blink.

"It's realer here," she says. "Since I don't have to help it be real. So it can be as real as you want."

"As real as I…" I frown. "Is there a way to make it shorter? Less real?"

"If you want," she says.

I do. So I want it to be shorter, thinking about how much more convenient it would be if it were only a few feet long. Lo and behold, it shrinks to fit much better in the room. I cock an eyebrow at this discovery, and will it to be even shorter. In an instant, I'm holding a spirit dagger.

"Wait…" I interrupt myself. "Could I do this in the real… er, waking world too?"

"Yes." she says. "You want it to be real there. I want it to be real too, because it would help you and I like that. So I make it real for you. I can make it less real if you like, but not much more real because otherwise it's too real and might break."

"Wait wait wait…" I stop her with a raised ha ok nd. "You can control the length?"

"Yes." She nods.

"Okay, so if I wanted you to make it, like, ten feet long, you could?" I ask.

"It might break if I do that." she replies. "The longer it is, the more real it is. The more real it is, the more it needs to follow the rules. So it can break or bend if it's too real. But if it isn't very real, it can ignore more rules. Like how hard metal is."

"So the smaller the blade, the better it'll… cut stuff?" I ask, and once more she nods. "That's actually kinda cool. But if it was longer, it wouldn't cut as well. Okay…"

Now it's all coming together, and I'm liking it more and more. I have a magic sword. A proper sword, literally made by and of magic. That's some proper storybook hero shit right there. I'm into it. I will the blade to ten feet in length, marvelling at all the frantic BS I could pull with this ability. I could stab a dude from a spear distance without moving a muscle. I'll need to test it though. Four feet went through Garviel's robes and flesh just fine, but ten feet… that might be pushing it.

Magic light sword. Absolutely awesome. No magic to go with it, though. Shame about that. But it is weightless, at least functionally. Maybe I could dual wield it with my normal sword? Wouldn't have to worry too much about tiring myself out that way, with one hand basically swinging a length of nothing that can cut through people. This could be the edge in a fight I've been looking for, to go with the Litany. I've missed the insane superhuman nonsense you could do in the game; no breaking the ground with a single swing of a sword for me. No teleportation or turning invisible or just plain spinning in circles to chop dudes up. But now… I might be a step above your usual bandit with this thing.

"I have a lightsaber." I tell myself, and it sounds so cool I say it again and make Beck look at me funny. "I have a freaking lightsaber. Man, this kicks ass."

"It would cut a butt," Beck assures me, shaking her head. "It isn't your foot."

I pat her head again, before standing up and willing the blade to a sensible three foot length. Then I manifest my longsword, smirking as I take up a fighting stance with both. It only occurs to me after a couple awkward practice swings that I don't actually know how to, y'know, use two swords at once. That never really came up in Templar training. Usually it's sword and board or two-handed weapons. The fact I was too small for both threw a wrench in proceedings, that's for sure.

Marcus remembers the term "short king", which Markus hates. I just shrug it off. Markus Venier, five-foot-four and worth every inch. So what if the Inquisitor to-be is a foot shorter than half his advisors? That just means I can hide behind them when the arrows start flying. Won't even have to duck. I wonder if Sera will be taller than me? That would be kind of embarrassing, when I think about it.

Problems for later. For now, sword practice. Messy, improvisational sword practice, full of nearly hitting myself with my own swords or just clanging them together when trying something. Beck doesn't mock me, at least. She just seems happy to explore all the stuff she can do with a roughly-human body. Handstands and cartwheels abound, which she does without any effort because I decide she can and in my mind, what I decide is what is real.

So long as I make it real.

"Hey, Beck," I say after about half an hour of this. "Do you think I can make food?"

She shrugs. I try it. An apple appears in my hand. I bite it, and it tastes sweet and tart and about as an apple should. Okay. That's even cooler. I make her an apple, but she pulls a face when she bites into it. I chuckle.

"We're at that stage already, huh?" I tease. "You going to spit up everything I make for you then?"

I will the apple away, and try a banana. Except no banana is forthcoming, and I realize that while Marcus may have eaten many bananas, Markus doesn't even know what they are. That's troubling. I try pineapple, plums, kiwi, watermelon… no luck. Same goes for spaghetti and meatballs, and cannelloni, and soon I am lamenting the limited cuisine of Thedas. I am even denied ice cream. Water works, in a cup. Same goes for meat pie.

"So it has to be real to both of me." I say aloud, which makes Beck nod again. "Okay. Good to know. Also unfortunate. You would've loved pumpkin pie."

"Maybe you can make one!" she offers. "There are pumpkins in the waking world. And pies. You could put them together!"

"I…" She isn't wrong, but I have no idea how to make a pumpkin pie. "I'll have to do some experimenting first, I think."

I will my weapons away, because it's getting to be late here in the land of dreams. Before I hit the bed though, I look at the window in the wall. The people closest to me out there are Blackwall, Varric… and Lysette, who joined our returning column without a word the day we left. She hasn't said anything to me since she joined, but she hasn't exactly been keeping her distance. I can feel her watching me most days, which is weird.

I see a dream of…

Well, I see myself. In a situation I immediately flush a hot red at, glancing at Beck to make sure my adopted spirit-brain-child-thing isn't also watching. She's just staring at the book on the table, fortunately, meaning she is denied the sight of a naked Markus walking out of a lake, water running off every detail of my... I close the window, willing a curtain into being, and fortunately it decides to show up for me. The fact that this apparently means I am acquainted with the taste of curtains is something I elect to ignore for the time being.

Okay. Lysette dreams of me, and in those dreams I'm naked. That's… that's something. Something I don't think I like, but at the same time I can hardly say I don't like it. She hates me, I think. Thought. She also wants to see me naked. Or she thinks about it enough that it shows up in her dreams as a centre-stage kinda thing which is possibly weirder. I cup my head in my hands and walk backward toward the bed. I didn't want to know this, but now I do. Forbidden knowledge follows me, it seems.

"Good night, Beck," I manage to say, before my head hits the pillow and my eyes open again in the waking world.

It's morning. Early enough for the sky to be several colours but late enough that I can hear people moving around outside my little tent. Somebody has a fire going, somebody else muttering about water for tea. I sit up, rubbing my eyes. I feel refreshed, the way I always do after a Beck-and-inner-consciousness dream, like I just took a nice sabbatical for a few days instead of a few hours of sleep. I pull on pants and a tunic, before yawning loudly. My thighs are sore, that ache you get after spending too much time in the saddle, but as I crawl out of my tent and peer up at the Frostback mountains above me, I smile.

Haven by the end of the day. It will be good to get back to Haven, raise a cup in the tavern, rest for a while. I think I've earned that, at least. Then I will be back to moving, into Val Royeaux, to rally what little power I have and fail to gain the allies I need. Then I will take their invitations and do as they bid and maybe, just maybe, put an end to this ridiculous war. Then I can get back to saving the world.

Snow fell in the night, it seems, lightly dusting our tents and the ground. I skitter on my hands and feet across the mud until I can stand up, cracking my back with another yawn. Two soldiers sit by a small fire, warming their hands and muttering softly to each other. One, a human with olive skin and narrow eyes, nods respectfully to me as I approach.

I say nothing, and so they go back to their hushed conversation. I just wipe the snow off a large rock and sit by the fire, let it warm my frigid hands, boots propped up by the base. It's nice, all of this. Out in nature, roughing it a little. Neither Marcus nor Markus have many memories of such things; one grew up in a spire of stone, the other a block of concrete and drywall. There is a woodcutter's axe propped up against my rock, and beside it a small stack of wood covered over by a blanket. I pull it aside and drop another log into the fire, the two men muttering frigid gratitudes as they huddle a little closer.

"Morning, kid." And there is Varric, awake and groggy, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand and waving to me with the spare. "You sleep alright?"

"Well enough," I lie, rubbing my upper arms before reaching toward the fire again. "Odd dreams."

"Yeah, I hear humans get those from time to time." the dwarf replies, before lowering his voice, stepping a little closer. "Listen, just between you and I… Kit was breathing your name a few times last night, real soft and gentle."

I blink. Then I rub my forehead with a palm, dreading a headache that never comes. I look at the dwarf, who grins at me as guileless as you please, before stepping a little closer to the fire.

"I'm just saying, Kid, that bridge isn't ashes just yet." He claps his hands together softly. "Just talk to her. That's all it'll take."

"I'd rather not catch another right hook, if I'm being honest." I reply, shaking my head.

Varric groans and turns to face me, frustration evident on his blunt features..

"Just…" He pauses suddenly, looking past me and blinking. "Incoming."

He turns back around and I am afforded maybe a few moments to think before a hand descends, grabbing my shoulder. It is an armoured hand, though even in the gauntlet it isn't particularly large. Then I am hauled off my rock backwards, a grunt of effort alerting me as to the identity of my abductor. I let out a helpless squawk, but Varric pointedly ignores us, the traitor, and I am hauled through the gentle snowfall to a distant corner of our little meadow, away from the rest of the camp.

She pushes me up against a tree trunk, and leans uncomfortably close to my face. Her eyes are especially blue today, which is something I should not be focusing on at the moment. My life is in danger. I think. Would she stab me right here, so close to the others? Or is she just going to hit me again? That might not actually be… no. Can't think about that right now. Focus on her. Chapped lips parting, she's going to speak. Do what Varric said, he's smart about women. I think.

"We need to talk." I say, before she can finish opening her mouth. "About… everything. Especially you and I, because I'm not sure if you're going to stab me or not and that doesn't bode well for any future teamwork between us."

She stares at me for a moment. She's annoyed, which is a common occurrence now that we're stuck spending time near each other again. The hand not pinning me up against a tree clenches into a fist and I wince momentarily in preparation. Then she sighs, and instead of punching me she just pushes her knuckles into my cheek in some weird combination of caress and punch.

"You are a supremely frustrating person." she declares, before she pulls her fist away. "But you are also right. This… can't go on. We can't go on. Not as we are. I don't want to talk to you, though."

I blink.

"So… what are we going to do?" I ask, and she twists her entire upper body and throws me bodily across the clearing, making me stagger a few feet away from her.

"Words are wind." she tells me, before her hand drops to her sword and she pulls it out of the scabbard with a smile that is altogether too wolfish for my tastes. "This is real. Take arms, Ser Venier."

I have my sword on my belt, because I sleep with the damn thing now. My hand drops to the hilt and I draw it, slowly, eyes narrowed. These are real battle-tested blades, not blunted training or tourney weapons. She's in full armour, but I'm in a tunic and trousers. My leather boots are the most well-armoured thing on me. This could be bad. Very bad.

"So you won't talk, but you'll fight me." It isn't a question, because I already know her answer.

"Yes." she replies, before lunging forward in a vicious stab that could very easily carve a hole in my chest.

Beck is already interfacing with me though, so I see the attack coming a few instants before she actually moves. In response I step to one side, her right, where her dominant arm has less room to move. I bat her blade away and slash at her exposed face, fully intending on halting the stroke an inch or two away from her features. In response, she raises her arms and takes it on her heavy vambraces, pushing the blade away.

And then we fight, hard and fast. She stabs and hacks and does everything but kick me in the crotch to win. I parry and deflect her blows, riposting to keep her guard up. I don't need to hit her, just wear her down. She's in plate, I'm in a period-appropriate jeans and t-shirt combo. And when the swing comes that is just a little too wide, I punish her for it, batting it away and stepping inside her guard. Bad range for a longsword, but I'm not going to cut her.

I go to ram my forehead into her nose. She slips away from that and daintily steps back, then forth, cracking our heads together with a heavy thud that sees us both reeling.

"Ah!" she cries out, sword slipping from numbed fingers as she falls back into the snow.

I take the hit a little better, just grunting as I lean against my longsword, now planted in the ground like a cane. That hurt, a lot, but not enough to knock me out. She's in the same boat, nursing her forehead with a scowl.

"I was trying to kiss you, imbécile!" she shouts, and I freeze in place, hand slowly slipping away from the bruise.

"That was a headbutt!" I retort, realizing a little too late that our dance of blades and frustrations has drawn a small audience of several soldiers and Varric. I see silver coins exchange hands and shoot the dwarf a dirty look, but he just smiles in a saintly sort of way.

"It was supposed to be a kiss!" she snaps, before climbing up to her feet and grabbing a fistful of my collar.

Then our lips meet and… well, there isn't lightning, or a flash of desire burning its way through my core, or anything quite so dramatic. It's warm, and a little wet, and while there isn't any tongue she does turn her head so our lips can make full contact. My eyes go wide, then close, because that's what most people do when they're being kissed. Her hands grab my upper arms, and I am reminded by our proximity that she has a single inch of height on me. She uses it to full effect, pulling me closer to her and forcing my head back a little.

Then she stops, after what could have been seven seconds or seven hours, and I let out a grunt of confusion. There's a red bump on her forehead that's slowly swelling in size, something I imagine I am mirroring, and her limps look ever so slightly softer now. Or is that just the hormones kicking in? I'm not sure. She locks eyes with me, and smirks.

"Like that." she declares, before giving my arm a smack. "You're drooling again."

I wipe my chin with a finger and find I am not, and she is a dirty liar. Then she smiles at me, one of her softer smiles without the wolfishness or anger in it, and hands me my sword. I suppose she must have nabbed it while we were kissing, though how she managed that I'm not entirely certain. She pushes it into my confused hands, before turning around and…

Well, she bends down to pick up her own sword. I'm not stupid enough to stare though, so I shoot a confused look at Varric, who has a palmful of silver and a dumb grin on his face. I scowl at him with as much anger as I can muster. He just winks, before walking back toward the fire.

"Show's over, folks." he declares. "Let's leave these two to sort out their...affairs."

I turn back to face Lysette, who watches Varric go with a little smirk on her face. Then she looks back at me, and I have to remind myself to blink when our eyes meet again. They're so blue it isn't even fair. How did I not notice that before?

"What… What was that?" I ask her, and she crosses her arms.

"That was a declaration of intent." she replies. "I am now yours to pursue. I hope you wish to do the same."

"I…" I don't know what to say, which is new to me. "I thought you were still angry at me?"

At that, her indomitable smile falters, and I see a flash of shame, or something near enough to count. She takes a step closer to me, and her arms go from crossing in front of her to hugging herself as she swallows nervously.

"I was stupid." she says then. "And I apologize for being that way. I… I let my anger get the best of me, and it was a childish and… ah, shem thing to do."

Shem. Hold the phone for a moment.

"Did… did Devehra put you up to this?" I ask her, and she frantically shakes her head, a little anger entering her eyes.

"No." she says. "Or… not really. In a way, she did. She came to me, a few days after our disagreement. She chewed me out, called me a stupid girl and told me…"

She scowls.

"She told me I wasn't good enough for you." Lysette says, with venom in her voice. "That I was too angry, too hot-headed, too stupid. Bitch."

She spits the last word, before looking back up at me.

"But she made me realize I was being stupid." she says. "I… I was stupid. I got Barrett killed because I let that bastard get under my skin. I was just so angry, all the things he was saying, the way he was talking about me and you and the entire Inquisition, it just came out. I… I wasn't who you needed me to be then."

Then she takes another step closer, and spreads her arms out. She looks hopeful now, a fragile smile on her face.

"I'm sorry." she says. "And I know you don't owe me forgiveness, or anything really, but I'm sorry. And I hope… I hope that's enough for now."

I have to think about it, because this is, once again, a lot. She's sorry. I can accept that. I'm actually grateful that she is, because it eases that dark dread inside that it really was my fault that Barrett died. And she… wants me. Or she wants to pursue me, which is a concept I'll have to wrestle with later.

I should still be angry at her. She got a man killed with her anger. She's hot-tempered, violent, I don't know how she'll react if I ever say no. Her idea of a romantic confession involves a fight with live steel in the snow at the foot of a mountain. I wouldn't be surprised if she stole the idea from some play or short story she read back in Orlais. She isn't… I don't know what I want. I don't know if I can afford to want. I have a world to save. Can I really spare the time to pursue a relationship like this?

I don't know the answer. And something about that thrills me more than anything else. Lysette is an unknown factor. She feels more real than Varric or Cassandra because she wasn't there when this was a game, not as she is. She was someone else, someone lesser. Now she's real. And she wants me. Maybe that's enough. If it wasn't worth considering, I wouldn't be standing here and thinking about it, would I?

That thought, I think, settles it.

"I can't say for certain what I want to say, because I don't really know how to say it." I tell her, a disclaimer to save my skin if this all goes wrong. "You… You're special. You were there when nobody else was. You saved my life, and I think I saved yours. If that doesn't mean something, than I don't know what does. So…"

I step into her embrace, wrapping my arms around her midsection tenderly. She is much less gentle; she squeezes me with her arms, and I can hear the tiniest of delighted squeals escape her.

"I can't say I know where this will go." I warn her. "But… I wouldn't mind going there with you."

"Flatterer." she replies, voice softer than I've heard it before. "You know this means you won't have a moment's peace from me, yes? I've never done this before… but I imagine it is like swordplay. I just have to keep at it, and eventually... "

She kisses my cheek.

"Eventually, mastery will be mine." she whispers, and a shiver goes down my spine at her words.

We walk back to the fire together, hand in hand. She even takes off her gauntlet for me, and I don't mind the slight clamminess of her grip. We sit down on the rock together, and she leans into me with a quiet hum of content. She's warm, in spite of the metal she's covered in, but I imagine I'm warmer. Somehow, that makes me happy.

AN: Ladies and gentlemen, we have achieved premarital handholding. Please avert your eyes.