I had my second lucid dream in a week that night. Which was just typical. Normally I didn't get more than one visit to the Fade every two weeks or so, and there'd been one delightful month where I'd avoided 'waking' in the other realm at all.

Honestly I should have expected it. Whenever one thing went wrong, everything went wrong, so naturally I got a Fade night after my avalanche of bad news.

Even better, tonight was a packed house! My eyes had opened to find my Dream-catcher's net visible in all directions, the fire crackling to cover up what had to be constant whispers from my numerous guests.

Just outside it were more than a dozen spirits, most of them trying to figure out a way to get my attention. They prowled the circle, poking here, clearly trying to shout over there. One of them kept running into the ropes, clearly convinced it should be able to go through them through brute force.

Or maybe it was flummoxed by the fact that a fire-net was stopping a being made of fire from getting through.

"You're not the brightest Rage around, are you?" I shook my head, watching as it bounced back again with a new set of black marks across its body. "It's intent and will, it's not actually fire."

The demon ignored me in favor of another attempt. Snorting, I pushed myself up to my feet and tried to get a better look at the others. "Are you three singing in choir or something?"

The trio of Despair demons kept moving their mouths in perfect unison, and I silently thanked God I'd gotten my silencing upgrade done in time. Tonight would have been absolute hell without that. They weren't making any attempt to get through, so I ignored them and swung around to look at the next spirit on the offering.

"A little baby Desire who's way too young for me." Said Desire demon, one of the usual naked variety, gave me a rather severe looking pout. "Sorry babe. You're slinky, overblown, and obvious. Not my type. Go find some poor bastard who's most desperate than sane."

Desire rolled her eyes, but showed more sense than the others; she spun around on a heel and stalked off, tail thrashing irritably behind her bare ass. I watched her go for only a beat longer than I really should have, then turned to the last collection of spirits. It was the largest such group, occupying nearly half the circle.

The center-most figure was tall, skeletal, and draped in mismatched armor and robes. Thinner, smaller versions of it were spread out, all of them trying to used their long claws to pull the gap in the nets wider.

Apart from scorching their nails off, they weren't having much luck.

"...and we round out the ensemble with a Fear demon and his scarecrows." I rubbed tiredly at my temples, "Guess I'm afraid that I really am stuck here, then."

Fear bowed its head, confirming that for me, then tried to push a hand through the Dream-catcher. It managed to slightly bend one of the ropes before it had to yank its hand back, shaking it painfully.

I didn't feel any sympathy for the thing. According to Longing, Fear demons weren't big on letting their victims survive their nightmares.

Speaking of Longing, I took a second, longer glance around, but I didn't see the Elder Demon anywhere. She must have been off eating someone else, or hadn't noticed that I was self-aware in the Fade again. Good. The longer I could avoid her the better.

Rolling my neck, I strolled over to the edge of my safe-zone, carefully checking the netting to make sure nothing was weak tonight. The demons helped with that; several of the little Terror ones followed me along the entire perimeter, while Rage kept trying to bash his way through. That kept the entire Net online, making it easy for me to see if there were any damage.

So far it seemed to be holding up pretty well. My one bit of good news for the day.

No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than a flicker of green light jerked my attention around.

Just off the circle's center, an emerald wisp of... well, something like smoke was gathering together.

"Fuck." Striding closer to it, I brought a hand up and tried to prepare my flamethrower spell. I still wasn't terribly good with it, but it wasn't like I could beat a demon to death with my tiny fists.

The smoke coalesced slowly into... well, nothing really. A greenish cloud of fog that began drifting around aimlessly. Light from the netting and the distant Gallaws played over it, letting me... shapes inside of it. Trees, maybe. It was hard to tell. They were constantly moving, like I was trying to watch a B-movie where the camera shook constantly.

"...what the hell?" I frowned, peering more closely at the thing.

Just beyond it, I saw Terror staring at me from the other side, hands on its hips. I was about to ask what it was looking at when it jerked its attention up and over my shoulder. Its skeletal mouth moved, then it simply vanished as if it had never been. All of its little Terror demons faded away right alongside it, the entire posse gone within a couple of seconds.

...dammit. I could guess what that meant.

"Hey, Longing." I called without turning around.

"Good evening, Maeve." The sibilant purr replied. "One moment. I cannot abide poachers."

I waved vaguely, still not looking backwards. The three Despair demons scrambled past on my left, cloaks tugged up and over their heads as they vanished into a shadowed alley. Despair wasn't all that bright, but they were a lot smarter than Rage.

Its bashing kept up for another second, then there was the distant sound of a tea kettle boiling over... and the attack on my Dream-catcher abruptly ceased.

"How long was that fool at it?"

"Since I woke up here." I replied. "Busy night, for the Fade."

The Demon prowled around the right, coming into view. Tonight she was rocking my skin-tight jeans, and a cut-off ACDC tank-top that showed off the ruby in her navel. It was the same outfit I'd worn when my brothers had taken me to my first concert, though she filled out the top far more than I ever had.

She eyed me, looking almost sour. Her tail was thrashing nearly as badly as baby-Desire's had been, arms crossing her chest. "You're a mess."

"I know. Let me guess. Too many other emotions, not enough desire for you?"

Her twisted lips told me I'd hit that nail on the head.

My education on demons and spirits had been pretty limited. Longing hadn't been about to teach me anything I could use against her, after all, but I'd picked a few things up over the course of our training. Combined with my vague memories of the games, and I thought I had a decent understanding of them.

The most important thing was that Demons could only feed on the core emotions of their nature. Longing, obviously, fed on longing, though she seemed to find any kind of Desire palatable... but she only fed on that.

If I was feeling other emotions; anger, fear, despair, hunger... it... muddied things up for her. It made it hard for her to pick out the only kind food she could eat.

Not that being a mess made you any safer in the Fade. It just meant you attracted a wide variety of weaker demons, like I'd just seen, instead of one strong one of a specific type. Which really wasn't any better for your long-term health.

"What do you think this is?" I asked, poking a the drifting mist. My finger went right through it, but for a brief moment I was certain I saw some kind of stone splattered with blood. That faded away a second later as the green mist reformed into nothing in particular.

She barely gave it a glance. "A dreaming mortal who isn't lucid."

I immediately jerked my hand back from a second poke. "That's Merrill?"

"Merrill?" Longing perked up. "Who or what is Merrill?"

My teeth ground at the slip. Longing knew I was from another world, and she had several years of my memories... but she hadn't picked out the hours I'd spent playing Dragon Age among her haul. It had only been after her big bite that she'd realized I knew far more about her world than I should have, and I was sure the demon had been kicking itself for not taking a deeper look inside my head ever since.

It was probably why she'd so frequently tried to play hardball in her negotiations once our initial deal was up.

"No one you need to be involved with." I turned away from Mist-Merrill, crossing my own arms to mimic the demon's pose. "What do you want tonight?"

"To know who Merrill is." She replied at once.

"Uh huh. Try again."

Her hands fell to her hips. "You know I'll find out eventually. Either from you, or from finding her dreams when she is not protected by your quaint little ward."

I shrugged, "Probably, but that's a problem for future-Maeve. Present-Maeve wants to know why you aren't off seducing virgins or something."

Longing huffed. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a virgin mage? By the time those foolish Circles let them out to dream, they've long since found a bedmate to play with. And the ones who aren't confined are children with petty desires, or are warded by a teacher."

"So go look." A hand rose, making a shooing gesture. "I'm sure you'll find one in a couple of years. Let me know how it went when you get back."

The demon rolled its eyes, "You are aware you're not as funny as you think you are, yes?"

"I'm hilarious."

"If you were there would be a Spirit of Laughter here." She countered, making a show of looking around. "Alas, I see none."

"I... that's... oh fuck off. It's probably just scared of you."

"As all things should be."

"Whatever, Thanos." I huffed. "Look, can we just get this song and dance over with? Make me an offer so I can say no, you can get insulted, maybe throw a memory at me, and then we can settle down for the night."

Longing waved a dismissive hand. "Another night, perhaps. I ate well this evening, and have no need to bait you. So long as you are polite, at least."

"Uh huh..." I drawled, not believing her in the slightest. This was probably another game of hers. Trying to make me relax a little, be less suspicious of her. "...does that mean I get advice without you charging for it?"

"Only so long as it pertains to our original arrangement."

I scowled. "You could have just said no."

A clawed finger pointed at me, "You are the one who thought she had graduated from her lessons. I was the one who told you that you hadn't yet mastered the basics."

The fact that she wasn't wrong was really irritating. "I'm close enough, and you spent half of our training sessions trying to trick me into making another bargain."

"Yes, of course." That finger turned around to point at herself. "I am a Spirit of Desire. That is what we do."

"And it was annoying." I countered. "I was good enough to make the Dream-catcher, wasn't I?"

It was her turn to look sour; point scored for Maeve. "...it is a clever application of Fade magic, I will grant you that. Anchoring it to your realm so remove the need to recast it was intelligent as well."

I rolled my eyes, but reciprocated to soothe her ego before she got huffy and pulled out the painful memories again. "Yes, you were the one to recommend I pour mana into something daily to stop it from building up inside of me. Thank you for that advice."

Her smile was utterly patronizing. "See? Politeness did not hurt you at all."

"Fuck off."

"Is that an..." Longing's voice trailed off, her head tilting. "...more visitors. Strange."

Frowning, I glanced around as well. I found it after a second; another Despair demon was lurking in an alley, head tilted back as if it was sniffing the air. A longer look let me find two more of them trying to circle around behind Longing, though they scattered when she turned to glare at them.

"I'm not that upset." I heard myself say, frowning. "A bit, yeah, but I'm more angry than despairing."

Longing gave me a sharp look. "They're not here for you."

Almost against my will, I found my eyes falling to Merrill's foggy dream. It had grown significantly in the minute since I'd last looked, covering nearly a third of my circle, and it was still expanding.

"Oh shit. She's having a nightmare. Can you wake her up?" When the Demon gave me a level look, I growled at her. "Longing..."

When she simply crossed her arms, I let out a frustrated breath. "What happens if her dream fills the circle? Will it break the Dream-catcher?"

More silence. Her tail twitched.

"God damn you." A bit of mist drifting in front me made me jerk several steps backward. The emerald fog was taller than I was now, which couldn't be good. A quick look showed that the net was confining it, but I didn't like the way the crackling from the fire-ropes was getting louder.

"I'm not making another deal!"

"You desire knowledge." She countered. "I can not be anything but what I am in this circumstance. Make me an offer, or wake yourself up."

I bared my teeth at her, gave Merrill's nightmare a final glance, and snapped. "Wake up!"

My eyes shot open to find my Dream-catcher shaking wildly above me. It wasn't on fire or anything, but unseen wind was spinning the thing around like there was a tornado in the room. Worse, there was the slightest tang of wood-smoke in the air, and I didn't think it was coming from the fireplace.

Shit.

Rolling out of my hammock with a curse, I yelped at the sudden pain from my knees when I landed. Scrambling up, I started to race for the door and froze when I saw the little hoop's swaying slow significantly.

I stayed still, watching it for most of a minute. It didn't stop moving, but the gentle swaying was a far cry from the wild bouncing it had been doing before.

"So..." I glared at the thing, shook my head, and yanked my door open. Whatever nightmare Merrill was having was still affecting it, still probably filling the protective space to the brim. "...Merrill!"

She didn't respond to my first shout. Or to my sharp knock on her door.

"Merrill! Wake up!"

In the silence between my second shout and second knock, I thought I heard a quiet gasp. "Merrill? I'm coming in, please don't cast at me!"

I think she tried to say something, but all I heard was a choked off sob. Taking a deep breath, I carefully turned the level, pushing the door open as slowly as I could. To my relief she didn't throw magic at me, or yell at me to go away.

"Flickum bicus." I muttered the spell as quietly as I could, igniting the candle I could only barely see next to the bed. It sputtered to life after a moment, letting me see how my new roommate was doing.

Badly. She was doing badly.

Merrill was laying in bed, a thin blanket half-thrown off, revealing the shift I'd given her to sleep in. Both of her hands were covering her face, her breathing clearly labored through them. Her skin glistened with sweat, and I could smell it even before I padded over to kneel beside the bed.

...and without her armor, I could see thin, barely healed cuts on both of her forearms. The physical sign of her status as a blood mage. She'd already made her deal with a demon, then. Great. Well, at least I wasn't alone in doing something foolish then.

She didn't uncover her eyes when I settled down. Or react when I gently patted her shoulder.

"I'm sorry for waking you." I murmured, not really sure what to say except the truth. "I think you nearly blew out my Dream-catcher."

"...ir abelas."

"It's all right. You saved me from a very annoying demon, gave me a reason to wake up."

There was a quiet sniffle, one hand sliding just enough for her to look up at me. "You... you're a Somniari?"

Somniari... that was... the fancy word for Dreamer. I thought. Or the Elven word. Same thing really. "No. Well, not that I know, at least. Maybe I'm the world's most pathetic one, or something. I can't control them, and I only have a few lucid dreams a month. Tonight happened to be one of them."

Her pale throat worked in a nervous swallow, "You... saw my...?"

"No, no." I quickly shook my head, shifting my hand over to rest on hers. "It was just green mist."

"...what?"

I did my best to describe the safe-zone that my Dream-catcher created amid the reflection of Kirkwall. How I'd first spotted her dream forming, then how it had begun to balloon out across my circle. That I hadn't seen anything more than trees and stones. A bit of blood. Nothing more than that.

"I woke myself up before I could get drawn in." I finished. "Found my Dream-catcher practically flying around the room, and smelling like it was already starting to smolder. It settled down once I was awake. Mostly. Maybe... maybe it just couldn't handle both of us dreaming."

My explanation had seemed to work as far as a distraction went. She wiped her face and cheeks a few times, and let me help her sit up.

"Probably." Merrill murmured, "If your wards protect a space rather than a single mind, they likely couldn't handle two mages dreaming together. That or they couldn't handle my wards being inside of them like that. Why did you make yours that way?"

"I didn't know there was any other way to." I admitted. "That's part of why I need your help with magic."

She rubbed her face a final time, "Ir abelas. I should have asked what wards you had before we went to sleep."

I was waving off her apology before she finished. "We were both drinking. It's fine."

"No, I should have..." Her head shook, "...I should have known to ask. I did know to ask."

Taking a deep breath, I let out it out. Standing up, I held a hand out for her, "Come on. You were sweating, you need some water. Let's sit down by the fireplace for a bit."

Merrill started to reach for my hand, then froze. I followed her eyes to her own arm, where the fresh marks were clearly visible on her arms. She started to pull back, then froze again when I quickly snatched her fingers in mine before she could.

"It's fine." I told her. "It's fine. Come on."

"I... I have it under control. I-I only use my blood, not other people's. And the spirit that taught me is still locked away, and I hardly ever hear his voice. I've only used it a little bit-"

"Merrill-"

"-and for good reasons. I-"

"Merrill!" I pulled, hard, dragging her to her feet. It worked as far as quieting her down, and let my get my other arm around her shoulders. "I. Am. Not. Judging. You."

"I..."

"It's fine. I don't care. Come on, let's go sit down, and drink some water. All right?"

She hiccuped once... and finally nodded. "I... yes. Ma serannas."

And so our first serious discussion got started, in the middle of the night, the first day we'd met.

My fucking life in Thedas.