Whatever sort of life it is that Atticus Vedici enjoys at remote Skyhold, it's doubtful news of it has journeyed back to Kirkwall. The specifics of it hardly matter, in any case; he has been provided a looser leash, but a cage is still a cage, and it is not freedom. The chains of policy and procedure still bind him, and not for the first time since he was subjected to the base indignity of a phylactery, Atticus has come to view his gamble with bitterness.

Thus, in dreams, he subverts his imprisonment, and spins nightmares for his jailers like silk.

But that dark impulse is not what brings him to the outskirts of Benedict's sleeping mind. As he lingers amid nebulous shape and shadow and observes the boy in his dreams, he devotes only some passing thought to his motivations. Is it curiosity alone? Boredom? Sentimentality?

(With Atticus? Who fucking knows.)