𝒊𝒏𝒃𝒐𝒙.

[thunderproof]

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after sundermount.

[dirth]

When the dream starts, it looks somewhat familiar - the world opens to Sundermount, closer to the peak than away from it. There's no sense of time or weather, nothing that pinpoints where or when the dream is taking place, just the sudden, overwhelming feeling of presence, as if someone is watching and waiting to see what moves will be made, what might happen. There's the weight of expectation, of judgement, something nipping at the heels and urging forward, and it's almost as though there's a gentle fog rolling around the open space, blinding and flickering.

A wolf howls. The fog Fades; it was green, and in the light of some kind of the entrance to Pride's End opens up, a gaping maw that echoes with promise. From the darkness, a figure emerges, not human or elven or anything like it - a wolf, head tilted and eyes focussed, intense and sure, relaxed in its stance. It doesn't speak, but it feels as though words are said anyway: follow. Then it turns and moves, heading deeper and deeper into the cavern, sliding through and finding its feet in the depths.

Rather than the cave being a cave, rather than it being anything familiar, it opens up into a ruin of some kind. There were once high rising columns that have fallen to ruin, white stone broken into pieces around the overgrown grass. There are the edges of what might have been a room, or something like it, and half-surviving murals decorate the outskirts with shining colours of gemstones and gold, beautiful representations of godlike beings that have been lost to time.

The nature of it is obvious - elven, but not the kind seen in books and studies of the Dales and the Cities, but something older. There's a sense of age, of it being longer than time itself. It's as if the world was reborn after this came to be. They're beautiful, designed in a way that is almost reminiscent of Chantries and murals to the Holy Andraste, but decorated with greens and browns, with the colours of the People, magic prickling around and colouring the very essence of the landscape. It's beautiful, even in ruin, and the wolf prowls with a low hanging head, sad and lonely, the soft, huffing sounds of breathing slowly disappearing.

It howls again, sad and low and mournful, distressed and alone.

Slowly, the wolf moves forward, guiding the dream as much as its a part of it, and wanders around the ruins. There's time to explore, to wander, to take in the sights, to explore and see whatever they might like, as if time is meaningless. The light of the sun - if that's what it is - doesn't seem to fade at all, lighting up the ruins for the wanderer to see all that there is to see, to witness the world that once was, crumbled into nothing and left to rot and age over time. It's a representation, a whisper -- this is what the world was, what it had been, look how far it has fallen.

What can you see? it seems to ask. What can you learn? it wonders. What more is there to understand? What is missing?

A wolf howls, the world goes dark, faded with tinges of green, a mist that seems to cover the eyes.

Then there is wakefulness, the echo of a howl left with flickering pictures of a world that once was.

[thunderproof]

Adalia is not, shall we say, unused to the sensation of being watched in her dreams. It's been a while, certainly — Alacruun can't reach her in Thedas, it seems, so she's been left alone in her dreams ever since she fell through the rift — but the feeling is not so unfamiliar that it bothers her.

She's more aware in dreams here than she was in her dreams on Toril — something about how sorcerers here interact with the Fade, it's like lucid dreaming but always, and also not as much? It's strange. Despite the strangeness, Adalia doesn't see much trouble with following the urging of the dream, so long as she keeps her wits about her — demons tempt sorcerers through their dreams, here, and while Adalia's rather certain her soul being tangled up in another deal precludes her from making any more, she's not exactly eager to test that theory. As she makes her way up Sundermount, she takes note of every strange thing, the rolling fog, the howling wolf, the Fading —

and then she is at a cave and a wolf actually appears, and Adalia blinks at it in confusion for a moment before shrugging — sure, wolf spirits come to her in her dreams now, why not — and she follows it without question, wandering into the depths of the cavern. Unlike the sorcerers here, she has never learned to be wary of her dreams, and even if she had she would never be so cautious as to completely ignore something so strange — her curiosity is much louder than her common sense, always, and in this moment, that's hardly a bad thing. The ruins open up around her and Adalia gapes, looking around her with wonder and delight and just a little heartbreak — whatever these ruins were, it must have been absolutely beautiful.

She's about to run to a mural, reaching for a pack that is suddenly on her back to pull out a journal and charcoal, when the wolf howls again and it stops her in her tracks. Animals are not Adalia's area of expertise by any stretch, but there is no mistaking the note of loneliness in that call. It arrests her as surely as hearing her own name would, and she turns to the creature with pity in her eyes. Before she can think better of it, she lowers her pack to the ground and steps forward, one step, two — until she's mere feet from the wolf, and she slowly lowers herself to her knees and holds her hand out for it to sniff.

"Hello, boy, was this your home? Are you showing me your home?"

[dirth]

There's no avoiding the way that the dream echoes with the sense of loneliness; it's an intense, painful thing, but wonderful in how mournful it is - it's a beautiful thing that echoes around the ruins, almost as if it alone was a mist. It burns in the back of the eyes, emotion that prickles and slams into the side of the mind, but then it fades; it's as if the creature is gaining control of itself, pushing the pain and sadness to one side, urging things to slip away, trying to get the visitor to focus on the ruins themselves over the shifting feeling of hurt and sadness.

There's some obvious surprise when she turns to face him, walking over, and the wolf hesitates for a moment, moving from one set of paws to another. It's obvious that the wolf is more interested in her interest, and they shift and moves backwards, almost as if they're going to shun the kindness - as if it makes them uncomfortable. It's as if it wants to back away, as if it wants to disappear, but they're the one that guided Adalia here -- so they wait.

Leaning down, it rests its head on the ground, tilting to one side. Clearly, it won't attack, but it makes no movement to get closer either, no movement to embrace the kindness that's being offered.

It just waits. It watches. It's judging.

[thunderproof]

Well that's... not the most inviting any canine has ever been in Adalia's presence, but it's not the least, either. Slowly, waiting for it to growl or snap at her, Adalia reaches for the wolf, and when it does neither of those things, she scritches under its chin. It seems... reluctant, almost, uncomfortable, and her instincts when faced with that kind of emotion is always to dump physical affection on it until the problem is solved.

"I won't let your home go unremembered, buddy. We'll bring it back to life together, okay?"

Even if it can only be brought back in a metaphorical sense. Adalia isn't an archaeologist, she doesn't specialize in ruins and excavation, but she has enough of an idea of how to start that she can go to someone in the Inquisition in the morning to tell them what she saw and work on piecing the purpose and location of the ruins back together. Solas, maybe, or someone else in the Elven Artifacts project. Wolf buddy won't be left forgotten, and neither will this place.

With a final pat to the wolf's head, Adalia gets back up, picking up her pack and grabbing the journal and charcoals out of it. It's a memory device more than anything — clearly the paper won't be coming back out of the dream with her, but if she spends enough time setting the ruins in her mind, even while asleep, she should be able to remember it in the morning long enough to actually write it down. She looks around herself for a moment, slightly overwhelmed, unsure where to start, before she just shrugs and sits down in the center of the room, journal spread open on her lap and charcoal poised over it as she sketches out the shapes of the ruins.

"I don't suppose you can tell me what any of this is supposed to be, huh?" she asks the wolf without looking back.

[dirth]

The wolf seems to perk up a little at her words; there's no visible sign that it intends to move or follow her, but it does tilt its head, letting her touch and pet for a moment before it settles down. We'll bring it back to life together- However she meant it, it seems to please the beast. There's no wagging tail, no sign of anything in the way it moves or shifts, but there's a sense of approval in the air, the feeling of having done something right. It's a dream, after all, and memories intermingling with emotions make for an experience unlike anything else.

Of course, wolves can't speak and this one makes no effort to do anything more than observing for now. It takes a few moments for it to pick itself up and move closer, but it soon settles down properly, making itself comfortable as it rests its head on its legs, eyes drinking in the surroundings. The mist from before, the pale green echoes of the Fade, falls away and reveals the murals in their glory, the shapes and delicate work that defined the world of the Elvhenan before the Fall. There's much here that might be found half-mentioned in the back of a history book, misremembered and described badly, and the shapes of the Gods are clear as day.

Andruil, with a bow shaped like a harp, looking like the weight of judgement. Sylaise, with soft colours of pale whites and greens. June, the anvil, hands on the metal. Ghilan'nain, with a halla before her.

They're all memories of Gods that had once been, and time never seems to change. It's as if these, too, are a memory, caught in a moment, shared with someone who had stepped into the realm of dreams.

[thunderproof]

As Adalia sketches — she has no great skill as an artist, but she makes do — she keeps up a quiet, consistent commentary. This mural is sort of intimidating, that one's cute, what is that animal, it looks like a deer but the antlers are strange — inconsequential blather, mostly meant to cement details in her mind for easier recall when she wakes up. Of course the wolf won't respond, but she keeps talking to him anyway, because why not, right? It doesn't hurt her, it doesn't hurt him.

"Thank you, by the way. For showing me these ruins. I don't know why you chose me to bring here, but I'm very grateful."

She shifts, facing the wolf more head-on in order to look at another mural, talking as she sketches.

"I don't know a lot about the elves of this world, but I want to. They were dealt such a shitty hand — I suppose I don't have to tell you that, huh Evakyl?"

Adalia smiles, the Draconic slipping out of her without thinking. It fits, though, with the atmosphere of the dream — he is rather a lonely beast, especially if he's grabbing her, and not one of the native elves.

"I want to help them but I don't know how. It's like the mages — I'd tear down this whole world if I thought it would do any good for them, but I don't know enough. I'm an interloper, no matter how much good I want to do. This is a good start, I think."

[dirth]

It doesn't respond - why would it? It's a wolf, nothing more and nothing less - but it listens to her all the same, the idle commentary that colours the world around them. What is most important is that she learns something from this, that there is a chance for her to be educated in a way that the others he had met up with in dreams before now had not. While the wolf might not have worked with the Dalish - and his true nature hadn't worked either - it would be successful for her. It would work to encourage Adalia to see a world she had never been able to see before.

It doesn't move; it doesn't howl again, but shifts, settled, silent, watching and waiting, careful and ready to flee once the memories fade.

Evakyl. The wolf doesn't make any sign of needing clarification, accepting it. It is a title, a name, something given in a dream - it might not last, or it might be eternal.

Eventually, it pushes itself up, moving towards one of the murals, shifting to press its face against the glittering shape of Andruil. It turns and sits, and waits, and then goes to another, and another, until it has taken a full circle around the ruins. Only then does it return to where Adalia sits, almost as if desperate for her to take note of them, to remember, to question.

Who are they? Why are they like this? What was the world before?

Learn, and tear the world down.

[thunderproof]

Yeah, of course he's not speaking. Adalia just shakes her head, goes back to sketching — only to look up when the wolf moves, standing in front of a golden mural and pressing its face to it.

"Well, if that's not a sign..."

She flips to a new page in her journal and sets to sketching the mural, making notes on observations as she goes — they're made of small, individual golden tiles, set in ways that suggest shape rather than clearly delineating it. this one holds a bow and gives her a vague sense of unease, of being prey in the sharp eyes of a predator — the next uses tiles of lavender and green and pale blue, the figure wreathed in laurel, maybe, or maybe an indigenous plant adalia has never seen. She goes around the ring, sketching and noting down everything she can as the wolf moves between each mural. There's a sense of urgency to this now that there wasn't before, a question that must be answered, and Adalia has only the barest pieces of the puzzle, with no guarantee she'll wake up and remember them. Still she sketches, and she notates, committing every mural to memory as well as she can.

It's only when she's finished that Adalia looks back to the wolf, considering, and then shifts to face him head on.

"Sit still," she says, and begins to sketch him too. Time is running out, she can feel it, but she's going to get through all of this. She has to. It's the most important thing she's done since she showed up here, she knows it is.

[dirth]

The wolf seems content to let her sit and draw, even with the knowledge that the dream must end eventually; all dreams come to a close, another chapter in a story, and this one is not going to be any different. It waits as she travels to each mural, shifting from one to another, noting the people, the subjects, the symbols. It wants her to know, to recognise them, to question them outside in the waking world.

When Adalia turns back to start drawing it, the wolf shifts, pushing itself to its feet. There's no hesitation when it moves, bounding away across the ruins and back up to the strange tunnel that seems to lead to Pride's End. It darts away, from her gaze and her sketchbook, up and out as the greenish hue of the Fade seems to seep back in.

The wolf disappears and, as it does, the dream slowly, carefully, comes to an end.