Darkness.
Cullen remembered this darkness, remembered the blistering cold and the freezing wind of the mountain blizzard. Remembered standing at the furthest edge of the firelight from the hastily constructed camp, his eyes searching the darkness for any sign of the Herald. Remembered waiting, praying more fervently than he had in years to see movement, to hear the shift of snow or a cry for help.
But mostly he remembered the darkness, inside and out, wondering if the endearing little elf whose smile seemed to warm him within had survived the avalanche which had covered Haven.
Why he stood there now, shivering in the cold despite his fur, heart racing with anxiety, he didn't know, or question. He only knew he must search the darkness, that someone needed to be saved. A vague memory came to him, of a cave full of dust and blood and despair, but it was fleeting. What was important was that he remain vigilant.
Whatever came, he would stand ready to meet it.
A light flickered in front of him, a burst of bright green that made his heart leap. Yes. That is the person I have to save. Blindly he stepped forward, pursuing that hint of green as his heart swelled with hope and fear.
When his foot landed, however, the darkness lifted, and he found himself in a tavern, of all places. An empty tavern, with sprawling tables and benches and not even a murmur of conversation. Confused, he turned to look behind him, and saw no tavern but a vast expanse of grim, grey rock and a flickering light that made him queasy. Only when he let his gaze move upwards and found the Black City floating above did he understand where he stood, but the realization registered in a vague, dreamlike fashion.
The sound of a door closing behind him caught his ear, tugging his attention away from the Black City, particularly when a familiar voice said, "Uh oh. Nobody's here. This doesn't bode well."
Dorian's comment pulled Cullen around, and as he turned, the world became a tavern once more. Accepting the oddity of the Fade, he focused on the two who had appeared, noting that both Dorian and Mailani appeared dusty and road-worn. He tried to step forward, but found his feet held to the ground as if his boots had grown into the stone beneath them. He looked down at them with a frown, just as another man spoke whose voice he didn't recognize.
"Dorian."
The voice made Cullen's skin crawl, and he looked up from his frozen feet just as Dorian replied, "Father." Dorian paused a bit, long enough for Cullen to see uncertainty become anger as he turned to face the other man, still hidden in the shadows of a stairwell. "So the whole story about the 'family retainer' was just…what? A smoke screen?"
"Then you were told," the man said as he stepped forward, into the light that was all at once brightly lit by candles and lanterns and dimmed by the green darkness of the Fade. "I apologize for the deception, Inquisitor. I never intended for you to be involved."
When Cullen saw the man to whom Dorian spoke more clearly, his eyes widened. The man himself seemed unremarkable - middle-aged with a lined face in a mage's robe. Behind him, however - and large enough to block the view of the Fade on the other side of the tavern - crouched a spider-like creature of monstrous proportions shrouded in a spiky carapace of shadows and with more eyes than Cullen ever wanted to see clustered together. Despite its size, the thing was difficult to see, fading in and out of sight as if it weren't entirely there, and Cullen had to concentrate to see more than a vague outline.
Even more chilling than its mere presence, however, was the long, twisting line which stretched from the thing's mouth to gently coil around the man now talking to Dorian, a cord which pulsed with a sickly green darkness. Its presence sent a lance of cold down Cullen's back, as instinct shocked him with a recognition based more on his visceral reaction than on learned knowledge.
Demon. No other explanation made sense. And not just any demon, such as Cullen had encountered and fought before in Kinloch Hold and, later, Kirkwall and his nightmares. This was a creature of another order entirely, and its focus seemed to be entirely on the events within the tavern. Cullen's attention re-focused on the tavern as he realized that while he was not danger, the same might not hold true for Dorian.
Time had passed, and words exchanged, but it was Mailani's voice which made him truly pay attention to the conversation again. "I should leave you to work this out."
Dorian turned on her, his voice and stance softening slightly when talking to her rather than his father. "Oh, no you don't. I want a witness. I want someone to hear the truth."
"Dorian," his 'father' interjected, "there's no need for this-"
Continuing as if the man had not spoken, Dorian said, "I prefer the company of men. My father disapproves."
Mailani's eyebrows rose as she blinked. "That's…a big concern in Tevinter, is it?" Cullen recognized her tone immediately - it was a subtle jab at silly shemlen beliefs.
"Only if you're trying to live up to an impossible standard," Dorian replied bitterly, but as he continued, Cullen's attention was drawn to the huge demon once more as it shifted its pulsating bulk.
A shimmer of dark green ran down the cord between its mouth and the figure of Dorian's father, who flickered - a quick blink of there and not there. By the time Dorian turned on him, his anger built into a beautifully righteous wrath, the 'father' appeared completely human once more. His expression was a beautiful emulation of concerned sincerity as he pleaded, "Dorian, please, if you'll only listen to me."
Dorian cut the other man off with a gesture. "Why? So you can spout more convenient lies?" Taking a few steps closer, Dorian raised a hand to point an accusatory finger. "He taught me to hate blood magic. 'The resort of the weak mind.' Those are his words."
Cullen felt the blood drain from his face. Blood magic? Distracted for the moment from the hulking behemoth, he focused intently on Dorian. What blood magic?
Dorian hadn't so much as paused, though his face had darkened with ire. "But what was the first thing you did when your precious heir refused to play pretend for the rest of his life? You tried to... change me!"
The tone of those last few words told Cullen more than an entire conversation with Dorian could have. Blood magic, used to force Dorian to his father's will, either to agree to the marriage - or worse, to change him in an even more fundamental way… Those were no words of a demon, a nightmare conjured up to scare and terrify. The pain in Dorian's face and voice were all too raw and real. His father had, indeed, intended to do just that. Dorian must have escaped, but that level of betrayal…Cullen shuddered. "Thank the Maker you escaped that fate," he murmured fervently.
Dorian's 'father' shook his head, even as the coil around him began to glow. "I only wanted what was best for you!"
Shaking his head fiercely, Dorian said in a heated voice, "You wanted the best for you! For your fucking legacy! Anything for that!" With those words, Dorian turned and stormed to a nearby counter, planting his hands on it as he tried to regain control of himself. Mailani followed him silently, giving him a bit of space to gather his wits about him.
After a few moments, Dorian looked at Mailani, face tight with pain. "Why this?" he asked her, voice shaking with the strength of his emotion. "Why here? Of all the times we had together, why this meeting? Couldn't it have been something a bit more fanciful and beautiful with flowers and unicorns?"
And, just like that, Cullen realized that Dorian still thought this to be a normal dream, as all the others Cullen had seen before had been. Perhaps a bit more unpleasant, but a normal dream nonetheless. He didn't perceive the huge demon towering over the scene, or the fact that his father wasn't part of his own mind but rather an extension of a demon. After all, Cullen had learned as a Templar that the more powerful the demon, the more difficult it was to perceive it while dreaming - even for a mage as skilled as Dorian.
It was Mailani's voice which again drew his attention away from the demon. "I'm sorry," she said softly as she reached out to lay a gentle hand on Dorian's arm. In the next moment, however, she turned to face Cullen. No further words needed to leave her lips for him to understand the pleading in her expression.
Abruptly, he recalled standing in the darkness at the beginning of his time in the Fade, remembered the overpowering need to stand vigilant, to be ready to save someone. That feeling had returned, but he no longer stood in darkness.
It was time to act.
Even as he made the decision, he felt a weight on his left arm and in his right hand. As he lifted an arm newly adorned by his shield, his right hand tightened around the hilt of his sword, each band and twist of metal intimately familiar even in a dream. As he shifted his feet, the mysterious force holding him in place crackled and broke, and he nodded to her. Yes. He was ready.
With a grim expression on his face, he ran forward, each step gaining momentum and speed as he advanced on the puppet of the demon. Ignoring the surprise on Dorian's face as he raced past, he raised his sword and summoned long unused protections against demons and magic as he roared, "You shall not have him!" With the anger and frustration of years of fighting demons both within and without, he swung his sword and unleashed the Wrath of Heaven with a strength greater than he had ever summoned in the waking world.
Light flared from his sword and blasted into the human-seeming figure first, which gave out a cry so loud it echoed in Cullen's head. For a moment, it morphed into a demon with claws for fingers and multiple crab-like limbs emanating from its back before it vanished into a cloud of inky blackness. As it did so, a white-hot energy surged up the line connecting it to the monster above, and the huge creature reared with a shriek that shook the Fade around them.
The tavern disintegrated as wood and brick and stone flew apart, leaving them standing in an empty expanse of the Fade. Above floated the Black City and the other stray rocks which always seemed to be part of the dim landscape, though a thickening fog obscured most of the immediate ground around them.
Instinctively Dorian moved to Cullen's side. "What in the Fade was that...that thing? I've never seen anything like it."
"Nor I." Cullen shook his head as he sheathed his sword. "Are you... all right?" he asked, a bit hesitant since he wasn't sure what effect the destruction of the dream's construct would have on the man to whom the dream belonged.
"Hmm?" Dorian blinked, then looked at Cullen. "Hmm? Oh, you mean-" He gestured around them. "I've had dreams invaded before, though never on this scale. Usually just wisps and shades attracted to a mage's vivid dreams. Solas and I have discussed the matter frequently." The man's head tilted as his face grew thoughtful. "Did I imagine it, or was there some sort of string connecting the demon playing my father and the larger one?"
Cullen nodded. "I assume the monster was controlling the smaller one somehow, though I don't know why."
Dorian tapped his finger thoughtfully on the little triangle of hair decorating his chin. "I think I do." With a grimace, he added, "At least, if my theory about that monstrosity is true. I think I was its lunch. Or at least, my emotions were."
"It was... feeding off of you?" Cullen asked. Abruptly he recalled Alistair's tale of the sloth demon which had briefly entrapped him and the rest of his companions during the Blight. The thought of that happening to Dorian sent a chill through him. "Thank the Maker we put an end to that."
"We?" Dorian asked, amused. "I seem to recall it was you who ran past, sword swinging, and saved the day." He glanced around. "Dream, that is. For which I am most grateful. I'll have to think of some way to repay you."
Cullen shook his head. "I wouldn't worry about-"
A sudden roar cut him off as it echoed around them, so loud the ground shivered beneath their feet. A staff appeared in Dorian's hands as a huge shadow suddenly loomed in the fog nearby. Cullen heard the whistle and shrieks of all manner of demons in that fog, sounds which hinted at the greatest fears in his worst nightmares. His hand tightened on the hilt of his sword as he drew it and braced himself for battle.
"That doesn't bode well," Dorian said, perhaps unconsciously repeating himself from earlier. In the next moment, however, he shook his head. "This is not a battle we need to fight." With a flourish, Dorian sent a white burst of magic towards a startled Cullen, who instinctively raised his arm to cover his eyes against the blinding light.
For a moment, Cullen felt himself falling, the rush of wind and that bright white light overwhelming all of his senses. It ended with an abrupt jerk as he landed, and he clawed his way upright...
...to the sound of birds chirping as the pale dawn light poured through the hole in the roof above his head. For a moment, Cullen simply sat there, chest heaving, as he tried to comprehend what had happened. Dorian's dream had been chilling, and left more than a few confused questions in its wake.
What was that demon? How had Dorian attracted its attention? Its presence must have been connected somehow with the Anchor, which made Cullen wonder uneasily if Mailani had ever been its target - and if so, how that attention had affected her. Her description of Envy and what it had planned for her had given him a few nightmares all on its own. Even worse, if Dorian, a highly skilled mage, hadn't been able to perceive it without aid, would Mailani have even known if her nightmares had been natural or provoked?
Throwing his legs over the edge of the bed, Cullen shivered, welcoming the chill of the early morning as a contrast to the leeching cold of the Fade. "Maker, give me strength," he murmured in a quiet plea. He would not let anyone fall prey to the designs of demons as he had, particularly not someone he was quickly coming to regard as a dear friend. At least Dorian was safe for now.
Cullen shook his head to clear his thoughts, knowing that the subject was better discussed directly with Dorian. Not today, though. A smile came to his face as he rose from his bed and began to perform his morning rituals. Today was a significant day for Dorian, though the mage didn't know it yet. Cullen had to make sure that he himself stood ready to support the man as necessary, as both the Commander of the Inquisition, and as a friend.
It was time, after all. More than time.