Somnambulist

He still dreamed of it occasionally. Though not as often as he used to.

He had bits and flashes of the whole event that still ran through his mind when he'd least expected it, memories and vague recollections tucked away the way that an adult mind will try to hold onto the events of a person's childhood. He was, after all, an adult now. According to the years since his birth as well as the weeks since his Harrowing.

The thing was that Connor knew everyone knew what had happened to him. Very rare was the event that happened during the Blight where the Warden Commander of Ferelden was involved that didn't make the stories. The abomination that had nearly destroyed an entire Arling had been whispered about in all the really good gossiping corners the entirety of his Tower life.

Connor had known from a young age that who he was would afford him certain privileges. He was the son of arguably the most powerful Arl in all of Ferelden. Even King Maric himself had sought the aid of his father to keep Royal secrets for him. They might not have ever lived under the same roof, but Connor was keenly aware that his father went further for Elder Brother than he ever had for him. Connor knew that who he was protected him some days from the templars. He knew that who he was sometimes made Senior Enchanters afraid of him and templars slightly wary.

He had only been twelve when the rumors that he was a blood mage began circulating.

That had been the one rumor that had elicited the most anger; anger which he kept tucked away in the dark place deep inside him behind his smug grin. Blood magic was no answer. It was no option. It was not something to be taken lightly, and Connor Guerrin knew better than most people the truth behind that.

The dreams sometimes haunted him. In them he would stumble through the blurry setting, scared and screaming out for his father while ghostly figures passed around and through him. The woman's face he saw was starkly pale and exquisitely beautiful, with golden eyes that seemed to hide some sort of secret. They were eyes that bore through a person, and while he remembered little else, he remembered those eyes narrowing a graceful brow at him and threatening the monster that had corrupted him. He remembered her power, the way she wielded it, and also the giant spider that had ultimately taken down the demon and had set him free.

The dreams also flashed other faces at him. One, pale, beautiful, loving, and looking at him with terror and sadness in her eyes, the colour of apple cider. That face of his mother, which he struggled to hold onto as the years had crept by. She'd done everything she had to protect him, and yet in the whispers in the halls and the library he heard them speak of how she'd allowed a maleficar to come into her home. She had given up her own life for him, allowed her own blood to be spilled for his sake, and every day her face slid from his memory. The last memories he had of her had been clouded by the demon, his last thoughts of her filled with the questions and sultry laughter of the thing that had taken him over in exchange for his father's life.

His act had also been brave. Everyone liked to blame the fact that he had been so young, that his youth and inexperience had allowed him to be fooled into dealing with a demon in the first place. Connor alone knew, though, that he hadn't been tricked. He had done what he'd done for the good of his father. He had sought it out. He had heard her siren's call and had followed her deeper into the dream and made the exchange. His act had been out of love. He had also been willing to sacrifice. He had made it possible for his father to live long enough that …

The other face he saw in his dreams. Dusky and lovely and – as the demon had noted – younger compared to his mother, with cold and seemingly uncaring green and hazel eyes, one embraced by a tattoo that he wouldn't soon forget. Silent and stoic and in the end, pitying. She'd looked on him with pity after she had allowed his mother to die. After she had facilitated it. When it was all over, she had only silently nodded when he had begged for answers. She couldn't even produce a beautiful lie for a scared little boy. All she offered was a well wish that he would be safe.

Safe. Yes, he'd been so safe after her actions had allowed him to be dragged off to that mage prison where he'd had to live. Where he'd had to give up his title and his future and his remaining family. Where he was never certain if who he was would ever be enough to keep him from the wrath of whichever templar had been assigned to watch over his classes that day or who had to drag him out of the broom cupboard.

It was that last face that had driven him on in his studies. It was that last face he saw when concentrated on his mastery of Entropic and Spirit magic. It was that face that pushed him into Fade Theory, where he excelled to his own smug satisfaction. Sometimes he saw her in dreams – hers or his own he was never sure – and it was like she could see him also. She'd always seemed distracted except when she'd looked at him and frowned slightly with guilt, as if asking him to absolve her of the crime of taking his mother from him.

The day would come when he would give her the absolution she deserved.

He wandered dreams frequently, actually. Sometimes they were pleasant enough and he was cradled by an essence so loving and warm that it could only be the echos of his mother's spirit wandering the Fade. Other times it had been dark and cold and he knew that demons followed him around. Spirits, too. They never got too close, any of them, as if it had been whispered even among the denizens there that he had overcome a possession, and that he wasn't worth their time.

They still watched him, though. Some of them tried to speak to him, some even so bold as to offer him things. Power, a chance at having his title back, a chance at revenge. He didn't need a demon to help him, not anymore. They were welcome to watch, though. Connor Guerrin wasn't afraid.

Possession was old hat, and he'd already beaten it once.

The difference was that now he had power. Real power that he had developed and come into, not power granted to him by a demon. He didn't need a demon's power because he had so much of his own, and he knew how to use it.

He had power to wander in dreams. He'd never heard of such a thing in the Tower. None of the other mages had ever spoken of traveling in dreams the way he was accustomed to. He'd found it took him no effort to peek into other people's dreams, much like that Enchanter from the basic healing class he'd nearly flunked out of boredom flipped through books. He'd wandered into Eilidh's easily enough. He remembered the templars in her dreams, with distorted and darkened out faces, and how she'd screamed until he'd dreamed them someplace better. A quiet place where no one was able to bother them.

He saw no problem with this. It wasn't like he was trying to invade, and it wasn't as if she was ever unhappy to see him. It had never occurred to him that this was possibly something he shouldn't be doing. It wasn't as though he was physically there, it was just a dream. Everyone dreamed.

The first time Connor had mentioned this habit of his to anyone it had been to the Enchanter who had taught one of his Spirit Practicals. They had been trowing walking bombs at dummies and Connor'd had the sneaking suspicion that he'd done this before, that he'd already had this lesson, and he intuitively knew how to make the bomb work.

When he mentioned this to Enchanter Gerta, jokingly mentioning the details of his dream, she gave him a long, unsettled and hard look, then sat down, watching him for a long time, quietly.

Not foreknowledge, he'd told her in that distinctly smug way he had. He'd just dreamed of it.

The next day, First Enchanter Irving and Knight-Captain Hadley had sat him down to talk to him. Such lucid dreaming, as it turned out, was not a thing that was encouraged in mages. They didn't say why, but they wanted to watch him more closely. They wanted him to try to not do such things any more.

This was probably the real reason that Uncle Teagan had taken him from the Circle and ushered him off to Kirkwall. Connor hadn't wanted to leave Eilidh behind because he knew she needed him, possibly as much as he needed her, though he'd never admit it. This was his only chance to get out. To finally see his plans unfold. Finally see justice done for what had been done to his family. To possibly understand why people were so afraid of his dream wandering, and to maybe have a chance at the life that was ripped away from him by her.

This was his first passage on a ship. It would certainly not be his last.

As they sailed away from Ferelden and to Kirkwall, Connor looked out over the sea. He'd see her again in dreams, he knew it now. Knew he could do it on purpose. He would also see her in person again, very soon.

Very, very soon.