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[justice_is_blond]

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a dream visit, timing is *handwave* just y'know whenever

[minrathousian]

It's the strange holes in the dreamscape, like wounds that are struggling to heal, that capture Atticus' fascination and draw him in. They're beguiling in their complexity, and in their wrongness; there shouldn't be holes like this in the Fade, like some living thing had once been here, and now was no longer.

Just past the glittering edge of that scar is the fledgling foundation of a building, strange in its normalcy given the unaltered environment of the Fade around it. Bent at work laying stone is a blonde man with a grave face; the spirit the labors beside him isn't one Atticus recognizes immediately, but curiosity has him draw closer to them both. What sort of dreamer is this man?

[justice_is_blond]

There is always work to be done, and it will never be repaired. Anders is dimly aware of the fact he's been working at this building for very long and has made little progress, but Mercy is encouraging him onward and he'll try nonetheless. Giving up isn't something he can do.

What he's put together crumbles beneath his fingers and he rests his forehead in his hand for a moment, and the spirit with him rests a golden hand on his shoulder. He turns to her and the blue-ringed holes distort as they try to widen and shrink at the same time. The building in front of him becomes a little fuzzy and a little grey before Anders exhales heavily and turns back to it, picking up a stone and putting it in the newly formed gap. The building solidifies again and the spirit straightens to go gather more stones.

Anders pauses after the third stone is placed and looks around, expression vaguely puzzled. Something is off, but no demon is presenting itself and taunting him, no archdemons are roaring in the distance. After a moment, Anders shakes his head and goes back to work. It will come clear soon enough. For now, there is a building to repair.

In the meantime, an orange tabby threads its way between Atticus' legs before trotting off to the side, unseen by Anders or Mercy.

[minrathousian]

The cat doesn't startle Atticus, but to glimpse it here is a surprise nonetheless, and it succeeds in drawing his attention away from the man and spirit as they labour at their impossible task. The cat doesn't seem to be a Fade spirit; perhaps a shade of the dreamer's mind. He shifts his eyes back to the crumbling building architecture in front of him, and the man at work struggling to put it back together. The sight of it, surrounded by so many other crumbling, incomplete buildings, makes for a dismal, desolate-looking dreamscape.

For a moment, he deliberates over his next move. Then, lifting one hand, he raises his arm up towards the sky--and slowly, the building begins to assemble itself, piece by piece, brick by brick.

[justice_is_blond]

He draws his hands back as the buildings begin to heal, watching guardedly. Mercy's bright golden glow fades to a subdued glimmer and Anders stands, now looking around. Things simply aren't that easy. Or, at least, they're not that easy for him. Something else is here, watching and waiting, and that is always the way of the Fade.

A few moments later he finds something of what he's looking for - a figure who had been behind him, missed before. He steps forward and puts himself between Mercy and them. She is no fighter. Not like-- and at the unfinished thought the blue of the wounds flares bright for a moment.

"I'll make no deals," he says quietly. "There is nothing you can give me." What he wants will never be accomplished by a demon. ...Or someone who has randomly entered this, as they might well be. It pays to be on the safer side. He's learned this by not playing things safe many, many times.

[minrathousian]

The flash of brilliant, lyrium-blue snags Atticus' attention, and he cuts his eyes toward the ragged holes in the Fade.

"I'll make no deals. There is nothing you can give me."

"All I require," he replies, approaching one of the wounds with almost cat-like interest, "is an explanation." He reaches out one gloved hand, but stops short of actually touching the hole; he knows better than that.

Instead, he turns his attention back to Anders. "What created this?"

[justice_is_blond]

The being could be a spirit of knowledge, seeking information. The thing about the Fade is that anything can appear in any way and nothing can be trusted, but he couldn't see any large risk in answering.

All it could do was hurt, and he could deal with hurt. Mercy shifts behind him. There's a comfort there, a forgiveness that she's been working on him accepting. That he's been working on him accepting.

"I was joined to a spirit once," he says finally, watching one of the holes drift. "He was thrust into the living world when he tried to save myself and some friends from a powerful demon, and he became my friend."

The dreamscape is gradually becoming darker, to the point where most of the illumination comes from the blue tears and the faint glow of Mercy.

"He changed. He couldn't handle the living world and how his purpose was constantly unfulfilled. He lost his way. And when he would not return to the Fade, would not go through the pathway made open for him, he was... we ripped, we tore him out."

Anders reaches out and touches one of the holes. It is him, or the lack of him, and he knows these gaps well. There is no clean cut when two parties were partially merged. There is no surgical precision.

[minrathousian]

Friendship with a spirit; Atticus had known others in his time in Minrathous prone to similar hubris. It had ended in the way one might expect, the nature of the death hastily obfuscated, the remains of the body disposed of discreetly. Atticus has never known a spirit to exit a living host willingly--nor to see the host himself survive the process.

He draws his hand back from the blue glow and gives Anders a piercing look through the black helm obscuring his face. "You were an abomination."

[justice_is_blond]

"I've heard it said that if one retains their humanity they aren't an abomination," he says, voice mild. "But according to every other definition of it, yes."

It's not a strong argument against the label at all, but a part of working with Mercy is her requirement to have mercy on himself as well as extend it to others. Both are challenging, but the former more so than the latter.

He studies the figure before him, finally settling on it being more likely a spirit than a demon. There had been no attack and there had been no promises. There's a cold curiosity there that whittles the book-length list of spirit names to a few, in his opinion, Knowledge and Wisdom chief among them. What he knows even less than the being's identity is if spirits feel any sort of loyalty to each other, and if one might find the loss of a Justice spirit to be a wrong that must be righted. There's something of very faint buzz in the air, dream reflecting the tension that he feels as he wonders as he should be bracing for a fight.

Anders crosses his arms a little defensively, though the wall behind him gets a glance. He's neglecting it, and there is some ephemeral reason he needs to keep building it.

"We joined peacefully with no lies or fake promises. Only misguided optimism. There's nothing in any books we could find about a spirit joining with someone rather than a demon joining."

[minrathousian]

The equivocation (if it can really be qualified as such) isn't what draws Atticus' attention, isn't what causes him to draw slightly closer to Anders through the dreamscape around them. It's the act itself of excising a thing from the soul, when all others have believed, forever, that it cannot be done. It's looking a death sentence in the eye and choosing instead to live--or at the very least, to die on one's own terms.

He waves a hand as though brushing the other man's justifications aside. He doesn't care. "How did you do it?" he presses. "How did you free yourself?"

[justice_is_blond]

He feels very distant in this moment, as if he's an object to study rather than a person. It's not an unfamiliar feeling. It's not a welcome feeling. But there is every chance they're in the territory of something far stronger than himself or Mercy and he does not care to risk angering a creature here. He wants to wake up again, after all.

"Binding him and opening a way back. A connection. It was complicated and I don't even remember much of it." It's half-true. He'd avoided knowing some aspects to give it a greater chance of success - what Justice didn't know about he couldn't prepare for - but he'd reviewed it after. He wanted it to be available in case others wound up in similar situations.

"Why? Do you know a mage in danger?" It's not likely, but it's a possibility.

[minrathousian]

”Why? Do you know a mage in danger?”

He does, although what plagues Sina is not something so easily ensnared and ousted as a demon--a task which in and of itself was monumental in nature. The scars in the Fade surrounding Anders are testament enough to that.

It is a possibility, a potential way forward for her, but in her fragile condition, it’s doubtful the shard could survive the process. He dismisses it out of hand.

“This is the Fade. You are always in danger,” he tells Anders instead, his tone a little silky. But to leave the young man with suspicious dreams would only draw attention to himself, and he’s revealed enough of his hand for one night. Instead, he motions to the incomplete building behind Anders.

“Put your hand to your task again,” he suggests, his tone almost gentle. “I think you’ll find, upon a second attempt, that the work comes easier.” He shifts his fingers towards the crumbling bricks and thinks, strength.

[justice_is_blond]

The wall becomes all-important again, and Anders' attention is immediately drawn to it in spite of the words that almost sounded threatening. He has to build what's been broken, what he's broken and others have broken, in order to keep going. Where, he's not entirely sure. He's also not entirely sure it matters right now as he wanders back to his work.

This time when a stone is placed and he uses primal magic to join it to the surrounding stones, it stays. He stares at it in bleary surprise before reaching out and touching it, confirming what his eyes are telling him. Anders grabs another stone and adds it quickly, as if the stability might be a fleeting thing, and the second stays in place too. Some tension leaves his shoulders as he continues working. Actual progress is happening. This area of the Fade is no longer as dark and dim as it had been, and Mercy's faint glow is barely perceptible around her as more light comes in.

The Fade isn't pressing in on him for once, there are no Darkspawn currently howling... Dimly he recalls that there'd been someone with him a few moments ago, but it's a dream and anything aside the stone wall is already getting distant and murky.