sunchime | ☆ the vorkosigan saga psl post, volume 3

Miles is still, frankly, convinced this is a hallucination. Arguing with every figment he comes across isn't going to make for a fun ride, and as far as figments go, he quite likes Lavellan. She's sensible, to the point, sort of charming. And now she wants him to speak to this Solas fellow. So he goes along with it, making a half-hearted attempt to sit still before springing to his feet to pace restlessly around the room. He takes the opportunity to look around the room -- Lavellan's, apparently -- out of increasing curiosity. There's what looks like a small shrine to some obscure gods, and the desk is covered in papers -- the important-looking sort, official correspondence with all the seals and fancy calligraphy. For a hallucination, it's a pretty detailed one.

It isn't all that long before Lavellan returns though, well before Miles gets bored enough to actually start sticking his fingers in things, and she's brought this other man back with her -- Solas, right? By the look of it, he's an elf, too, though a good bit taller than Lavellan. Some quick introductions are made before Lavellan dashes off -- what to, Miles isn't sure. Some important Inquisitor business, probably. He hasn't really had the whole Inquisition business fully explained to him yet.

"So -- Solas," Miles says brightly, neatly masking up the internal panic rollercoaster with a slightly too-wired smile but a genuine look of interest. "Lavellan said you could explain a few things to me."

Like, say, everything.

When Lavellan had interrupted him to speak, he had thought she had heard an important discovery from her advisors. A matter that required his expertise and one they would need to leave quickly to attend to lest the Breach and the rifts spread out through Thedas grew out of control. What he does not expect is for the request the woman lays before him. So the man they had found required answers. He wonders how interested their guest truly is in what he inquires about or if he's conveniently fishing for information for whatever purpose brought him here. There's enough unknowns to have him curious and he agrees to explain what he can to the dwarf.

He's standing ready when the pair return and he watches as Lavellan leaves. To his credit, his gaze does not linger on her for long despite the temptation and he turns his attention to Miles.

"Yes. She mentioned you were unfamiliar with the Fade?" Given he's speaking with a dwarf, Solas can see some possibility for that. They weren't able to dream with their complete disconnect from magic, a life Solas is grateful he will never have to experience. "With your people's trade dependent on lyrium, I thought dwarves would be better versed in those matters."

Miles's mouth is already open, ready to confirm that yes, the Fade thing, he has no frigging clue about it -- and then his mouth closes, lips thinning in a look of annoyance. Not offense, this time, but come on.

"I am not a dwarf," Miles says, very pointedly. "I am human. Yes, I know I'm very short. Did Lavellan not mention that part to you? I wonder if she did that on purpose."

"She neglected to mention it," he answers dryly. Already he can feel a headache coming on and he wonders if this is the real reason Lavellan ran off and left Solas to handle him alone. He would have to question her about it later.

"If you are human then you should know of the Fade or do you not dream?"

"Oh, I dream plenty," Miles says, "and lately, not particularly nice dreams. But I've never heard of this Fade, with a capital F -- does it have a capital F? You say it like it does. Look -- "

Miles holds up a hand. "I'm going to be totally honest with you. None of this makes any sense to me, and I'm certainly not from here -- in a manner of speaking -- I'm fairly certain I'm hallucinating all this. It's been a bad couple of weeks, and I think my surgeon gave me a bad prescription. So, to cut it short -- no, I don't know anything about the Fade. What is it?"

"It is the name of a location." It's said with the forced patience of one made to deal with such basic questions. Of course it has a capital F. He's wondering if Miles is even interested in learning any of this or if he'd rather listen to himself talk. Most of what Miles is saying hardly makes sense, but he gets the impression that mind altering substances may be involved and would explain the other man's behavior perfectly.

"If you are not from here then where are you from?" Because if he's going to explain the basics then he wants answers of his own.

"Relative to here?" Miles's face cracks with a manic grin. Wherever here is. For all he knows, he's wandering B deck in a stupor, talking to himself. God, he hopes one of his men will stop him and steer him directly to the medbay if he is. "The planet I'm from is called Barrayar, but last I recall I was aboard one of my ships, but that's not really a place to be from. I guess I could say the Nexus, that's -- sort of the whole of human civilization."

Outside this hallucination, of course.

All right. What he can piece together from this drug-induced rambling is planet must mean country and he was aboard a ship sailing towards Ferelden. Was he kidnapped off his vessel? Tevinter slavers may have grabbed hold of him and sedated him before someone managed to free him and the man stumbled away. Normally they targetted elves, but Miles was an oddity if he truly was human and not dwarven.

"Have you seen a map since waking? Barrayar," the word sounds harsh and foreign coming off of his tongue. It almost makes him cringe. "is not a nation near here. Who are its neighbors?"

"Well, I've been awake for about thirty minutes, so, no." Miles, sounding a little obnoxious? Gasp. But he's really not a fan of the condescension in the air here. So, naturally, he does what he always does: he pushes back.

"It wouldn't be on your map, no, because it's a different planet. You all don't seem much like the spacefaring type in this age, no, but where I'm from -- " Is it bad to play too much into the hallucination? Is getting into an argument with a figment of his imagination going to pull him out of this? Fuck it, Miles's deeply ingrained instinct to argue is too strong. "Where I'm from, we don't just travel on land, we travel through space. There are planets other than the one you're standing on right now, out there. Are you much for stargazing?"

Ye gods, now he's starting to sound like a recruiter for Survey. "Look, my point is -- I'm not from anywhere around here. So please, indulge my foreign ignorance and tell me what the Fade is. Or -- where. You said it's a location, but what does that have to do with dreaming?"

Seriously, the whole dreaming thing makes no sense to him yet.

To his credit, Solas listens to everything Miles says. That does not mean he believes it and the tirade has the elf further thinking this the Inquisitor has brought an addict to speak with him for her amusement. It would be uncharacteristic of her, but he's not seeing a better explanation offered.

"You need to sober up before I speak with you further," he says firmly. That much he will not budge on. Why had Lavellan thought Miles was worth his time? Is she watching? He resists the temptation to dart his eyes around above him to see if he can spot her further up in the tower.

"I see no point in answering questions that will be forgotten in mere moments."

"I am not on drugs," Miles says hotly, and a beat later he coughs. "Alright, I -- did actually imply that I am, but that's because this is so bizarre to me that the only logical explanation is a hallucination. So."

Miles drags the nearest chair and sits astride it backwards, resting his arms on the back. "When you look at it like that, this is as about as sober as I'm going to get. So please, explain to me at least what this place is." His eyes brighten and sharpen. "You can quiz me on it afterward."

Had Lavellan not told him anything? He stares at Miles as if contemplating what he's done to deserve the man's presence. Sure, his actions had ultimately led to the Breach and he carries his own burden of guilt and remorse, but it's not something the Inquistor knows. Not yet in any case.

So why had she dumped Miles off with him to explain everything?

"You are in Skyhold, a fortress in use by the Inquisition," he says flatly. "If you want further answers, there are plenty of others whose time you can waste."

"Now hold on a minute," Miles says indignantly, starting to slide off the chair to his feet. "I'm confused as hell, and I ask Lavellan for an explanation, and then she drags you here, and now you're telling me to go ask someone else? I think wanting to know a little more about the world I'm in would seem like a perfectly reasonable request. What does a man have to do to get some answers around here?"

Alright, maybe he's getting a little too caught up in this hallucination.

"Not be an intoxicated fool for starters," he answers without hesitation. Solas knows he's being difficult, but he's seriously questioning why Lavellan has decided to waste his time with Miles. There were people with tasks of less importance that could handle sobering the man up until he was ready to listen and retain information, instead of challenging him.

"If you truly want answers, you can return when you are of a stable mind."

Miles's brows draw down and his lips thin. Alright, this is getting irritating.

"Do I seem like I'm drugged up right now? I mean, don't I seem sound enough of mind?" He gestures broadly with one hand, an invitation for Solas to do a little reevaluating.

"Look at me, Solas. I'm coherent. I'm alert. I'm not falling all over myself or slurring my words. I also only just woke up for the first time about an hour ago," he adds, pointedly but quite reasonably. "And Lavellan was there when I woke up, and she's been with me the whole time, right up until skirting off to do -- whatever it is Inquisitors do, I'm still not quite clear on that. I think it'd be difficult to squeeze a little getting high in there, on...whatever drugs you lot have around here."

"You are claiming to fly in the stars when you are not asleep," he says flatly. "And that you cannot locate your own country on a map because it is not there."

What is he supposed to think when Miles insists on impossible truths? Solas knows a great deal of this world and the strange possibilities within it from his long life and travels in the Fade. What Miles is claiming is simply the ramblings of lucid addict.

"Have you any other explanation for his existence, Solas?" Lavellan's voice rings out from the stairwell as she makes her way back towards the both of them. She'd hoped to find them engaged in some sort of intellectual discussion, not butting heads over the details of the man's story. "I was an impossibility once, and now there's no one in Thedas who doesn't know who I am. Accept it at face value and move on."

Except for the man with them, which is part of the problem. Reaching out for Solas, she lets her hand linger on his arm for a second longer than need be before letting it fall and turning her full attention to Miles. "Although it's easier to benefit from a lesson if someone doesn't insist on reality being a hallucination for more than a second." Oh yes, she was listening. And she's very disappointed in them both.

Here, she'll start them both off. "The Fade is a different realm that exists alongside this one, separated from the waking world by the Veil. It is the source of magic and the realm of spirits and demons." See? That wasn't so hard.

Somehow Miles doesn't find it all that surprising that Lavellan was listening in, but he raises his hands in sheepish concession. He's a little reluctant to engage too much with the hallucination, that sort of thing leads to madness and Miles already toes the line there. But he might as well play along for this, at least, because he is curious about what they'll come up with, and fighting with Solas is such an irritating waste of time.

"Thank you," he says with some relief to Lavellan, although it's a little pointed. He waves his hands, as though banishing the rest of his hallucination shtick. Magic, huh. "But you do, at least, have to agree that it is possible that I came from another world. A very different world."

Lavellan's mere presence causes him to relax. So she hadn't hung him out to dry after all. If he had her by his side to deal with what was turning into a more frustrating than productive conversation then he may be able to suffer through it after all. His gaze tracks Lavellan as she moves before shifting back to Miles. He could play nice if she truly thinks this man deserves answers.

"A very small possibility." Not a slant at Miles' height, but the truth as Solas knows it. "The Fade is the only other realm that exists."

"Perhaps he came into the Fade through some other connection? Regardless, it is your area of expertise." She reminds him, raising a brow before she moves to sit behind her desk, fingers tented in front of her. "We can figure out the details of it later. Right now I don't think he's in any position to pose a threat to us."

So she's extending him some level of trust until he proves otherwise. It's the least she can do, at this point. Turning her attention back to Miles, her lips thin in slight disapproval. "If you come from some other world, you're here now. It's clearly in your best interest to figure out how this one works." An open invitation to ask questions, yes, but she's remaining here for now. At least to keep them from fighting again.

"That's what I've been trying to do," Miles says exasperatedly, looking a little annoyed. He throws himself back onto the chair, straddling it backwards and pointedly ignoring the fact that his feet don't reach the floor. "All I'm looking for is an explanation. For -- all of this."

He waves vaguely around them at the world at large. He fixes Solas with a thoughtful frown. "The Fade is the only other realm -- that you know of. Clearly I had to come from some other place. So -- why don't we start with what the hell the Fade has to do with dreaming in the first place?"

Is this hallucination getting a little too meta? Miles glances at Lavellan in inquiry. "You were surprised I dream. Why is that, exactly? Besides your assumption that I'm not human, which I would like to point out once again, I am."

His gaze lingers on Lavellan, finding her preferable to focus on than Miles at the moment.

"Because I made the wrongful assumption that you were a dwarf," he answers bluntly. "Dwarves are cut off from the Fade." Meaning they don't dream. It's how they are able to mine lyrium without ill-effects. He had tried asking Varric how the man handled being so removed from magic and been surprised how nonplussed he was. Like many in modern Thedas, it was hard to miss what you could never truly experience.

"When you dream, you are open to more possibilities including accessing the Fade. With greater magical potential comes a stronger connection that many fear due to the dangers associated with it." Only dangerous because of the lack of understanding. If Thedas put as much energy into studying the Fade as it did fearing and demonizing the realm, they might be in a very different place.

"As did I. You are the right height for one, if not as stocky." That aside: "The relationship between magic, dreaming, and the Fade is complicated. As Solas will spend hours telling you. But take away one of the three and you lose the other two, to some degree." And take away they did, amongst the Circles. Lavellan can never imagine facing down the choice to lose her magic, her emotions, and her dreams if she felt she couldn't survive temptation by demons; she's grateful for never having to have made that choice.

But she feels as if that's clear enough for the moment. Dwarves cannot access the Fade, therefore they cannot access magic and cannot dream. They cannot dream, so they cannot be mages and can't access the Fade. They cannot be mages, and therefore will never dream, never experience the Fade.

Now that explanations are actually happening, Miles is paying rapt attention, tapping his fingers along the back of the chair as he furrows his brow in thought. He's starting to get a picture here, albeit not a very clear one yet. He's vaguely aware that he's getting a little too into this hallucination, but whatever, it'll run its course or something. This is actually interesting, and -- he could use a break from the dreams about Beatrice.

"What are the dangers associated with it?"

"Possession if one lets their emotions get the better of them and attracts the attentions of a demon." Spirits tainted by those here. With the Fade separated and spirits no longer coexisting with the rest of the world, they were susceptible to outside influences that could mean the end of both them and their chosen host. It was a deadly combination and while Solas understood the inherent fear brought by interactions in the Fade, it would be unnecessary without the follies of mortals thrown into it.

"The manifestation in this realm varies depending on the emotions associated," he continues. "The spirits that live in the Fade become twisted, feelings such as rage, fear, and desire can be turned against an untrained mage and cause devastation."

☆ the vorkosigan saga psl post, volume 3

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