No translations, just another chat with the ever-delightful Dorian.
Advice
My tent was sealed, and Dorian's crystal glowed on my palm. "I don't think it is lying," Dorian told me. His need to emphasize his own lack of certainty was somewhat less than reassuring. "Non-mages simply aren't vulnerable to demon-possession within the Fade, and you don't seem to be experiencing it as a mage would. If you had a mage's control, you wouldn't need to sit and remember emotionally-charged moments to create the beacons Latha speaks of. You could play them out as though they were happening right there. To me, that implies that whatever...fragment of you got lodged within the Fade while you were there physically, it truly isn't enough to give you a mage's control or a mage's presence."
"I haven't ever tried to create a dream the way you mean," I cautioned my friend. "Though I have tried to get away from Latha and couldn't manage that. I think it was determining where and how we met in the Fade before it told me how to seek Solas out."
"That is interesting," Dorian mused. "How did it feel when you tried to leave it behind? Like you were pressing against something? Trying to - I don't know - walk through invisible resistance?"
"No, it felt like walking away from someone, and having them follow," I told him, trying not to sound impatient.
"Yes," he said thoughtfully, "you don't seem to perceive it as a mage would. I think," and there he went stressing that word again, "only on this particular point, mind, it is telling you the truth. In fact, at a guess, it either knows you will not be able to find Solas without entering the Fade, or intends to engineer a reason why you must, so that it can have a chance to possess you once you are there."
It wasn't anything I hadn't thought myself, but I still sighed. "You think it has become a demon, then," I said.
"No, my dearest Inquisitor, I know it has become a demon," Dorian told me pointedly. "Some nexus at which desire, rage, regret, and despair all meet. I wonder if there is a word for that."
"Solas?" I offered flatly.
"Like you're reading my mind," he replied with relish.
"All right," I said, wondering if he could hear my eyeroll in my voice. "About entering the Fade-"
"Don't," he advised.
"I'm not afraid of a demon, Dorian." There was a slight edge to my voice. "If you care to recall, I have destroyed more than my fair share of them. And don't say anything about my arm."
"I'm not concerned about your arm," he retorted sharply. "I am concerned about you facing a demon tailor-made to play on every one of your longings and disappointments. In the Fade. Where it is strongest."
His words brought me up short. "I have wondered if it could fool me into believing it is Solas," I confessed. "But the more like him it becomes, the more it alternately angers me and makes my skin crawl. I...don't believe it can force me to mistake it for him."
Dorian was silent for a long moment. "It...may be a start. But in the Fade, this demon will be able to reach into your mind and manipulate you from there. It is possible to be so secure in yourself that a demon can find no purchase, but - are you that secure in your love for Solas?"
"Is that something I can know for certain before I am tested?" I asked him. "I think I am. It hurts, but I - I have worked hard to learn to bear the pain without regrets. Not - not because I thought the dahn'direlan would send an accidental demon after me, but simply to better live with myself and the past."
"That's...not a term I'm familiar with," Dorian pointed out. "Is it an insult? A good one?"
"Ir abelas," I said, rubbing my forehead. "I couldn't immediately find another word strong enough. It means - someone stupid enough to try to ward off bees by punching them."
His rich laughter filled my tent. "Dahn'direlan," he repeated. "I'm going to remember that one." The laughter flickered and died. "You're going to do it, aren't you," he said. It wasn't a question.
"If I have to," I replied. "Not that I have any idea how, seeing as I have no Anchor, no access to the eluvians, and no way to redirect one to the Fade even if I did have access."
"Well, as to that," Dorian said, "I wouldn't say you don't have the Anchor. There is still a whisper of its magic around you, threaded through your aura. Residual - or at least dormant - but there for anyone with the eyes to see it."
"Wait," I said. "Wait. Wait - what?"
"What was it Solas said? Drawing you here has allowed me to save your life, at least for now?" Dorian paraphrased. "You didn't realize? Silea, my dearest friend, magic bound to you is bound to you, not to some - singular place on your body. Now, whether the - think of them as ingredients - of the magic add up to anything concrete, usable, that is another question. Just because you are covered in flour, it doesn't necessarily follow that you're holding a loaf of bread."
"Well, do they add up to...bread, or whatever the Anchor metaphor is?" I demanded.
"I have no idea," he answered, and I heard the shrug in his voice. "The Anchor was so complex, so powerful, I doubt anyone other than Solas and Corypheus really understood it. As I said, the remnants in your aura may be the residue of a spell that was not or could not be properly dismantled, or they may be the sign of a spell lying dormant."
"So it might still kill me," I confirmed. "I thought Solas was talking about dropping the Veil - that I, and many others, were likely to die as the world burned."
"Perhaps he was," Dorian replied. "To repeat, again, I don't understand the Anchor, and I would never touch the remnants of it in you for fear of waking something that could not be put back to sleep." He paused as my thoughts chased each other in a whirl of speculation, and then he sighed. "I'm sorry, Silea. I suppose I owe you an apology, though I recommend you extract them from Vivienne and Fiona, as well. I think, perhaps, I half forgot you wouldn't be able to read your own aura, and half assumed that one of the other mages around you would have mentioned the remnants of the Anchor. Presumably, they made similar assumptions."
"It's-" I began, and then paused. "I forgive you. Although - if the Anchor, or its residue, isn't active, it still doesn't help me enter the Fade."
"Well, not directly, perhaps," Dorian allowed. "but the magic does...change the oscillation of the Veil around you, such that it is easier to manipulate."
"Are you - are you saying I weaken the Veil?" I demanded, not at all inclined to forgive him for leaving this part out.
"No, no," he said with a condescending laugh. "Oh, you non-mages. Everything with the Veil is either weaken or strengthen for you." He was silent for a moment, but I could hear him considering how to explain it to a simple, non-mage plebeian like me. "Look, have you ever tried to pick up a single piece of paper laying flat on a desk or something smooth like that? And it just would not come up?"
"Of course," I agreed, trying not to sound impatient.
"Well, the Veil is like that all the time," he went on. "Nothing but single sheets of paper stuck to desks, filling the entire world."
"Charming," I commented.
"I know, and you do not want to see the nasty cuts you can get if you grab the Veil the wrong way. They make paper cuts look like - well, you get the point," he retorted, making me laugh in spite of myself. "The Anchor ripples the Veil, like a breeze ruffling that sheet of paper. And suddenly you can get hold of it - or a mage can, anyway - for whatever you want to do. Even an apprentice could open a rift to the Fade for you, as long as you're nearby. Don't, " he continued quickly, "bribe or coerce an apprentice to do it. Nine times out of ten they will be completely unprepared to redirect the back-surge of energy, and you'll get a fried apprentice. They leave terrible stains."
"Noted," I acknowledged. "I suppose...it's a start?"
"At least promise to tell me before you go, so that if anything happens-" Dorian didn't finish, but I could hear everything he wanted to say.
"I will. Someone will need to tell Leliana. In case I don't come back," I said, adding what he hadn't been able to.
"Oh no, you're not pawning that off on me," he exclaimed with what almost sounded like real horror. "The most I'll do is tell Bull. He can tell Tethras, Tethras can tell Vivienne, and Vivienne will save it to be used as political blackmail. So you had better come back - you don't want Vivienne to claw her way to the Sunburst Throne because you had the bad taste to lose yourself in the Fade, do you?"
"How about you have Bull tell Varric to tell Cassandra instead of Vivienne?" I suggested mildly.
"Logic. How gauche," he retorted.
"I won't lose myself in the Fade," I told my friend. The Fade didn't frighten me much - I was far more afraid of getting lost in Solas. "Nothing is for certain yet. I still don't know I need to go at all, or how to get there if I do. And I am on my guard against Latha." I took a breath. "I know you don't understand or support my desire to find Solas and reason him into a less insane path, but - look at it this way: Latha told me at least one other true thing. Solas will never be able to fully set his will against me. If anyone has a chance of finding exploitable weaknesses in his plan, it's me. First, though, I need to be near enough to him to get an idea of his plan."
"Logic," Dorian repeated with a sigh. "I know I tell you to be careful far too often - but do it anyway, will you?"
"Yes," I agreed. "And the first part of being careful means getting enough sleep not to ride into a ditch tomorrow."
"Nonsense - that's what you have your retinue for. I, on the other hand, have some very important gambling to do tonight. Fate of the Imperium, and all that," he said.
"Well then, I should probably let you go," I allowed, amused.
"You should, but you don't have to sound so eager about it," he teased. "Goodnight, my dear," he added more sincerely.
"Goodnight, Dorian," I replied. "Good luck with whatever you're gambling on."
"Thank you, I shall need it," he said, and my crystal's light faded before I could even think of asking him to explain.
Since I wasn't willing to let Harding keep me from riding into a ditch the next day - I would never hear the end of it, just to start with - I went to bed.