Dion't blame the moon, it only glows

[lest_ye_become]

Another night comes to the station. Or night cycle, anyway. And with it come the usual phantasmagorias of sleep... though tonight, there's something special. Here and there might be a shape out the corner of an eye, or a figure glimpsed dimly in the distance. Closer-up it's a thing like an adult, womanly shape, carved out of shadow and specks of

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[try_winging_it]

Hawke is on a ship in the middle of the sea. She's wearing a parody of a pirate's outfit, the sort children invent to play at pirates rather than anything at all resembling something a real pirate would wear; the hat has a huge blue feather. She takes it off and looks at it, frowning. "Any color but blue, I said," she mutters. "I'm sure I said that. No one ever listens to me when I ask them for something."

[lest_ye_become]

"It's not that bad," says a delicate voice underlaid with strange, inhuman harmonies. A figure is perched on one of the rails, one that would be a slender slip of a girl with long, flowing hair if it were really there... though the way it's like an outline carved into place, a window into a dimly-lit starfield, interrupts that interpretation. The outline hints at elements of a sailor's coat, like some faint emulation of the surroundings.

[try_winging_it]

"Easy for you to say," Hawke says absently, still scowling at the feather. The color blue is important, she's sure. There's some reason why she needs to watch out for it.

Oh well. She puts the hat back on her head and looks around for Isabela. If she's on a boat, presumably Isabela is the captain. But the sailors are looking at her as though she's supposed to know what to do. Usually she does know what to do or can make a stab at it, but on a boat? Well, if anyone asks her, she'll improvise. She's pretty good at that. "Get back to swabbing, you lot." She's not sure what swabbing is, but they all scarper, which leaves her free to turn to the strange figure on the rails.

Stars...a hole to the stars? "You're not one of the crew, are you?"

[lest_ye_become]

"Not of this boat," the figure says, and it reaches up to tip the outline of something like a stereotypical pirate's hat that exists only long enough to be tipped. "Are you?"

[try_winging_it]

"I'm..." Hawke frowns, trying to remember. "No, I don't think I am." She looks around and finally realizes what's wrong: she's on a boat, yes, but it's not an ocean, not of sea or even of stars. Instead it's sitting in the middle of the Gallows, and all the statues of tortured slaves are looking directly at her. Worse, most of them look like people she knows.

[lest_ye_become]

"A grim place," the figure murmurs, sliding up to its toes. It paces the ship's rails with an odd balance, swaying with arms held out for balance in a way that somehow suggests it should have no fear of falling at all.

[try_winging_it]

"You have no idea," Hawke mutters, dismissing the figure for the moment and looking around for a way off the ship. She finds a ladder and climbs down, walking over to one of the statues. This one looks like Aveline, indomitable determination still present in her eyes even as her bronze figure is bent into a position of supplication and pain. "Don't worry, Hawke," the statue says. "I'll hold things here."

"I know you will," Hawke answers after a long moment, turning away. She ignores the other statues, even though some of them call out to her, and walks back towards the ship, looking up at the star-figure. "You're a Fade spirit, aren't you," she asks it directly.

[lest_ye_become]

"I am no spirit or god, though I hunt in the places where they might be found," the shadow-being says in a strange, gentle tone. It hops from the deck to the ground in a single smooth movement that suggest at somehow having avoided most of the space in-between.

[try_winging_it]

Hawke frowns. She's dreaming, she's pretty sure, which means she's in the Fade. So far as she knows the only ones who can walk the Fade aside from dreamers are spirits, demons, and mages. And the Maker himself, long ago. This doesn't look or talk like a demon or mage. And if it's the Maker, Hawke really doesn't want to know. "Why would you want to hunt a god?"

In the corner of her eye, another statue writhes: this one isn't one of the bronze slaves, it's new, haphazardly placed in the courtyard, as though it was created on the spot. Raw, red lyrium sparks and hisses. Hawke ignores it. This is a dream. She's already dealt with the thing Meredith became, if not the consequences of it.

[lest_ye_become]

"For power. Or if it's a god that's become an enemy of mine." The figure tilts its head a little, in a vague substitute for the expressions that can't be discerned from its blank face. "If you see a thing with white eyes and a beautiful voice, stay away from it," the figure comments softly, walking towards Hawke.

[try_winging_it]

Hawke takes a step back, suddenly wary. Anyone who openly admits to seeking power is someone to be watched carefully, in her book; games of politics have destroyed more lives than she can count, and all politics are at their heart people seeking power or control of one sort or another. "Why?" she asks bluntly. "And if that's what you're looking for, what's your interest in me?"

[lest_ye_become]

"Because the things I hunt might be found anywhere," the figure says, rather gently despite Hawke's sharper-edged attitude. "Even in you, if I hadn't looked," she adds. "The cho, my prey, they are not precisely gods, but they infest them, sometimes. And without hunters, they would infest everything."

[try_winging_it]

Hawke relaxes a small amount at that. "Infest...what sort of danger do they present, then?"

There are footsteps approaching behind her; she ignores them, as they're just another part of the dream. The dream is clearly symbolism from her past that can be ignored. This figure in front of her seems to be something else.

[lest_ye_become]

"They suborn the will and existence of whatever they grasp," the figure says. Those 'eyes' stay focused on Hawke, but it still somehow gives the impression of intensely surveying their surroundings, not nearly as trusting of Hawke's dream as the woman is. "If left to spread, they claim the spirit and body of everything in an area."

[try_winging_it]

Hawke frowns, but this time it's not directed at the figure. "Certainly sounds like demons to me. Or damned close, at any rate." She shrugs. This could be real dreaming or just her imagination; she has no way of knowing. "I take it I'm not infested by these cho then, or you would have done something about it already?"

[lest_ye_become]

"I had to watch long enough to be sure," the figure says, and it nods a little at her. "They are not demons-not all of them. Those that are are because they have become them, as they might become a man or a beast."