sunchime | ☆ the vorkosigan saga psl post, volume 3

"Ah."

He was sort of hoping for a more specific answer than that, but then again, what exactly can he expect? God, is this what lucid dreaming is like? Can he wake himself the hell up? This dream feels disorientingly solid, and...oh, shit. Hallucination? God, he needs to check the label on those pain pills.

"Uh..." Miles glances around. It's a shockingly vivid hallucination. It'll wear off eventually, but it's making him jittery as hell. It's not at all a familiar hallucination. "Where am I, exactly?"

Might as well indulge the hallucination enough to make some sense of it.

The answer Miles gets is simple, the one she gives to everyone who had asked. "Skyhold, or so Solas tells me." And it is her's, now that she is Inquisitor. He must have known that too, that leading them here would help solidify her role with them so that when they found out about the focus it would not all come down on their heads. Something she should bring up with him again in the future, maybe.

"Somewhere in the Frostback Mountains, although I couldn't tell you if we were in Orlais or Ferelden." That would become a problem eventually, Lavellan is sure of it.

Miles fervently wishes he could remember what, exactly, his surgeon had prescribed him, but he's drawing a blank. This is a stupid hallucination, he decides. None of those names...words...mean anything to him. What the hell kind of trip is this from his subconscious?

"Right." He rubs his face, trying not to look as disoriented and low key (quickly rising) panic. He tries another angle. "And, ah...who are you?"

That takes her aback, and the surprise is clear on her face. "You... don't know who I am?" Not that she knows who this tiny, twitchy dwarf is either. But she is the Herald of Andraste and the new Inquisitor. "That's new." Her tone doesn't indicate any offense, just simple curiosity. "I could get to like being an unknown again."

But that still isn't an introduction, and Lavellan holds out her left hand -- palm up -- so that the dwarf can see the green, slightly glowing slash across it. "I am the Herald of Andraste, to some. But 'Inquisitor Lavellan' will do for now." She likes it better -- it's still a Chantry organization, but there is less of the connection to a religious figure that isn't her own.

Miles, for the most part, just stares. The lady with the glowy hand and the face tattoos and the pointy ears -- he'd missed those on a first glance somehow, so frigging much to take in -- is clearly someone important in...whatever this is. Actually, the total unfamiliarity of it all is thoroughly alarming, and that low key panic is getting a hell of a lot louder. This is -- bad? Probably? Hallucinations about Beatrice and Murka are one thing -- still pretty bad, but they make sense in context -- but this is...ugh. He's giving himself a damned headache. Another side effect of the hallucination?

Miles closes his eyes and rubs his temples, trying to get his mind to slow down enough to string together two coherent thoughts. This is a hallucination, a very bizarre and disturbingly real-feeling one, and just knowing it's a hallucination is doing nothing to shake it off or make it fade. Medication-related, probably. He supposes he could sit in here making awkward conversation until it passes, but if his addled brain is going to come up with a hallucination this elaborate, maybe he ought to just go with it. Play along until this all wears off or one of his officers notices something's amiss and carts his ass back to sickbay.

He looks up abruptly at Lavellan, a too-bright smile plastered over face to mask the panic. Go with it now, figure out the rest later. He'll probably come to before there even is a later.

"Never heard of you," he tells her cheerfully, smoothing down the front of his Dendarii uniform. Weird that he's still wearing it in the hallucination, but whatever. "But I'm pleased to meet you, Inquisitor." He pauses. "So, er...what exactly do you inquire in your line of work?"

Something is wrong, but Lavellan is damned if she knows for sure what, exactly, it is. Should she call in some medical help? Memory loss of how one stumbled out of the Breach is one thing, but not knowing who she is or what she's doing is completely unheard of -- her already wide eyes grow slightly wider before she shakes her head to clear the thoughts.

And that smile is downright unnerving.

"It's easier to show. Can you walk?" She pushes herself off of the wall, and towards the door. If he can't, well. Lavellan will find someone to carry him. Maybe he'd been their since the Conclave and had only now just stumbled out? But that can't be so -- can it? She'll have to ask Solas, or send him down to check on the dwarf.

Miles blinks. Well, at least it's a pretty courteous hallucination. And, admittedly, his curiosity is piqued to see where his apparently completely fucked subconscious is taking this. He wriggles his toes experimentally in his boots before swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and hopping neatly off. He takes an experimental step, clearly exaggerated. At this point he's just riding the panic like a wave. Easiest way not to get caught in the undertow, anyway.

"Legs in functioning order and reporting for duty." Yeah, that grin is definitely a little alarming. "Lead on, my lady."

Lavellan leads him out the door and onto the ramparts of Skyhold -- they'd give him one of the tower rooms right off the tavern for lack of anywhere else to put him -- the walls have been crumbling a bit, but there's a roof over his head. Which is more than some people can say for their rooms. She should ask Cullen about that, if he wants it fixed, but he'd been... off since their arrival at Skyhold.

She doesn't take them very far, however, just enough with a good view of the mountains, the camps in the valley, and the giant green gash in the sky, shining the same color as the mark on her hand. "That is what I inquire into." As it were. It's gotten a bit more convoluted since Haven, but Lavellan believes they are finally on the right track. "We call it the Breach, and you and I both walked out of it."

Only she was left with a gift, fade touched, while he was unmarked. The religious ones should like that -- even if she isn't special, she still is.

To his credit, Miles's eyes do go wide when he sees the giant green tear in the sky. He does stare. A lot. Right, so...what part of his subconscious is this part of his hallucination supposed to represent? For that matter, what the hell part is the Inquisitor herself supposed to represent? Well, maybe his addled brain needed to come up with some justification for all of this. Whatever it is. It's starting to make him seriously uneasy. He scratches at his arm through his uniform. It feels too real. Too vivid. God, he hates hallucinating.

He stands there staring with his mouth open for a moment before he wheels back around to face Lavellan. His chin jerks up toward the sky.

"I...fell out of the sky."

Right.

At least he's having something of the correct reaction to the Breach, Lavellan thinks, if not her or the Anchor. It's a start.

"More like walked. I sealed the Breach up as best as I could." It's clearly not very well done at all, but Lavellan doesn't know what else to do about it. No one does, not until they stop Corypheus. "I take it you weren't guided by something vaguely woman-shaped?"

Probably for the best. How was Thedas to survive there being two Heralds?

"You were?" 'Guided by something vaguely woman-shaped'? Ye gods, what is his subconscious trying to tell him with that one? He's going to give himself a headache trying to figure it out. Miles shrugs and shakes his head, his hands finding their way into his trouser pockets. "Lady -- Inquisitor -- I don't even remember the walking part. All I remember is being barely conscious and what might have been the rockiest horseback ride of my life."

He assumes he was on horseback, anyway. What else??

"Oh no, not horse. The Iron Bull carried you over his shoulder. He's down in the tavern if you'd like to say thank you. Can't miss him, he's the one with the horns." Lavellan leans up against the ramparts, her eyes flicking back to the Breach. "I was." Don't ask her how, she doesn't know.

He's a more complicated problem, anyway, and her's to deal with. "You're welcome to stay here until you remember more." Lavellan isn't about to shove him into the mountains like he is. It's the least she can do at the point.

Alright, this is getting to be a little too much, even for Miles. His jittery brain is on overdrive, trying to compensate for what he's sure is a hallucination, working himself into froth and one hell of a headache. He squints at the Breach for a long moment, pressing the heel of his hand to his temple.

"Yeah, I don't think there's much more to remember." He looks back at her with an odd expression his face -- barely contained panic contorted into something that resembles confidence and conviction. God knows how he does it. He's started talking rapidly, rambling, like he couldn't put a sock in it if he tried. (He couldn't.) "Have you ever noticed how dreams never really have a beginning or ending? You're dream, and you're just sort of there. You know the context, but you're just there. Only this isn't a dream -- I'm fairly certain I'm hallucinating, and I've got to tell you, I have no frigging clue what the context for this is supposed to be."

She should be doing something about the panic, she thinks. It seemed to be the role she was fitting into. But Lavellan can hardly name the source of either the panic or the confidence, or see to it that something's done about it. She's just met him. Not, Lavellan reflects, that has ever stopped someone from unloading all their troubles on her before.

"You don't dream," Lavellan states, very matter-of-factly. "You're a dwarf." So how would he know what that feels like? At least, she supposes, there's nothing else he could be. Someone, somewhere, had talked about half-dwarves with humans. But what would their connection to the Fade be?

And they'd have to be a little taller than the average dwarf.

Kneejerk reaction to injured pride kicks in and Miles's expression immediately flattens, looking annoyed.

"I am not a dwarf," he says hotly, even if he has called himself the same in bouts of hypocritical self-deprecation. Then the rest of her comment catches up to him and he frowns at her. "What do you mean, I don't dream?"

That's unexpected.

"If you aren't a dwarf, what are you? You're missing the ears to be an elf." As for the dream question, well. That throws Lavellan more than anything else. "Dwarves don't dream. Exposure to lyrium severs their connection to the Fade. Surely you know this." It's why only the dwarves can mine the stuff, it's why there are no dwarven mages.

Elf? The ears, right. That'd explain it on her. Pretty common old Earth folklore, if he recalls correctly, though not so prevalent on Barrayar. And so Miles realizes, for the first time, that when she calls him a dwarf, it isn't at all a jab at his appearance -- she just doesn't think he's human. He's not actually sure which he should be more offended by.

"I'm a human," he says flatly, lips thinned, and he does feel a little bit like he's going crazy, to have to specify that to the exclusion of other things that walk and talk and think and sort of look like human that aren't human.

"A little short for the species, I know. But I assure you, I've had enough nightmares to know a dream when I see one." There's just a bit of scathing self-deprecation in there, and -- No. Stop that. Miles presses the heel of his hand to his forehead. "Right, so you remember the part where I'm totally lacking context for any of this? Half of what you just said doesn't make any sense to me. I've never heard of lyrium, I don't know what the Fade is, except maybe a bad name for a tasteless nightclub. So no, I don't know any of this."

He certainly doesn't look very human, but Lavellan supposes he would know best, and accepts the correction with a nod. Human then, and not half-anything.

Lavellan frowns and then gestures for him to follow her. "It will be easier if Solas explains. He is our expert on the Fade, after all." And while she might be a mage, even she has to admit that she will never understand the Fade as well as he. "I suppose you can question him about anything else, as well, although you may not like what he has to say."

As is Solas' way. But she appreciates it, and the knowledge she gains, by conversing with him.

Miles spreads a hand in a gesture of acceptance.

"Well, if this Solas is the expert, then by all means, because I really have no clue about any of this. I'm sure that makes me sound quite mad to you," he adds with a bit if rueful cheer, "but I'm about as much in my right mind as is possible right now, given the circumstances, so I appreciate the benefit of the doubt."

Ha pauses, though. "Should I be anticipating some unpleasant answers?" God, that does nothing for the panic. Fascinating as all this is, he'd like to be back in his bunk and sober, maybe with Elli for company...

Leading him across the ramparts and the bridge over the courtyard to lead him back into Skyhold proper, Lavellan thinks on this. "Madder than I must have sounded," she confesses. "But they made me Inquisitor anyway, so there's hope for you yet." That isn't exactly what she meant when it came to Solas, but it fit enough that she doesn't bother to correct him.

"Depending on what you ask. He doesn't believe in softening his words or his beliefs," something that had made her frustrated, true. But there is respect in her tone, and a sliver of admiration. "He has helped me before, and I trust him."

Miles tilts his head from side to side in consideration of this. Lavellan, figment though she may be, seems like a woman of solid character, and quite trustworthy. Miles feels that's a good sign, being able to trust a drug-induced figment of your own imagination. Says a hell of a lot better about him than the alternative.

"I appreciate a man who doesn't deal in bullshit," he says, flipping out one hand. Entirely hypocritical, but Miles only likes being on the giving end of bullshit wherever possible. "No sugarcoating and straight to the point, eh? I could use a bit of that right now. Maybe a little clarity will get rid of this damned headache."

Any members of the Inquisition that they pass on their way to her quarters greet her with a bow and a short Inquisitor, stepping aside for the both of them. Some she nods to in recognition, and others she doesn't spare much more than a passing glance -- there's something she has to do, after all. Past the throne, through a side door and up a staircase -- her room is large, brightly lit, and holds the air of somewhere lived in but only in short bursts of time.

"If you'll wait here, I'll go and fetch him." And attempt to explain the situation as briefly as possible.

☆ the vorkosigan saga psl post, volume 3

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