dirth ma, harellan.

shame is not the light of a candle flame he can snuff out whenever he wants to. it is not a sun he can swallow.

teething wind chills his ears and sets an ache into his jaw. temples throb.

pride is a backward thing. it leads only to isolation, breeds loneliness but still demands an audience. but hubris is a poor performer. he has playacted for too long, too badly, for too many too-large crowds. exeunt the wolf to its dreams and its misery, to monsterdom and ruin and more death, always death.

he wants to turn tail and flee so keenly that it makes him sick. but lone desire, lone regrets are immaterial.

        If you were to ask him which way is up and which way is down, Dorian would be hard pressed to give you an answer. Up and down are so very relative, after all, and this place is relative and this landscape if relative and if he were to shift ever so slightly ——— ah, there, the part of waves, the drying of sand beneath / before the ocean crashes against itself once more. The Fade is a strange and mysterious place ( is it? is it so? ) and he feels at once infantil and ancient, here, standing on the shores of a beach both familiar and not. Where is this? Oh, here, there, everywhere. Solas speaking isn’t half as surprising as it should be and Dorian tucks a small portion of expectation beneath his breastbone, tucked snugly against his still beating heart. Does Solas’s heart beat, here? Does Solas have a heart?

        Ah, an unnecessarily cruel thought, tainted with anger that exists even here. It’s less along the lines of PERSONAL BETRAYAL / it’s hardly as though he and Solas ever got on especially well ( he had tried and where he had tried he had failed miserably and he knows that, now, as he knew that, then, and has quite the stunning tendency to stick his foot into his mouth besides, and at some point they could be nothing but vaguely cordial to each other, if not outright antagonistic, set in stone ) but Dorian had RESPECTED HIM if nothing else / it’s far more a betrayal of circumstance : righteous fury in place of another. For another. That’s what love inevitably becomes, doesn’t it?

        He licks salt water from his lips. Above them a moon is full and waxy and threatening to crack / the other is shattered, scattered across the sky, turned to fragments of stars. Destruction, and all that. ❝ I think you’ll find the world is excessively mysterious, ❞ his voice echoes and the scene shimmers, briefly. When he speaks again the echo has gone, as if it had never been there at all, ❝ Just the other day I found myself wondering about the natural resistance which dragons have against the Blight. Did you know? They can be tainted as any other living creature may be, but their bodies for a protective wall around the infection to stop it from spreading. It remains there, active, yet they continue living their lives, free of the risk of turning into darkspawn. Utterly fascinating, that it exists and we haven’t the faintest clue how it works. ❞

        Solas is nowhere to be seen and Dorian finds he’s not especially bothered by that. He’s somewhere or perhaps not here at all, who’s to say? The Fade is sprawling and infinite and it’s not as though Dorian finds himself able to wander it, not willing to beyond vague academic interest. Silence falls, and waves crash against the shore : oddly muted. Clouds begin to roll in and he can smell a storm on the wind. The reflection of the mind of a dreamer.

        Who’s the dreamer, here?

        ❝ I’m not certain you’re sorry at all, ❞ he speaks coolly, measured and calm, and when is Dorian ever measured and calm but for when he does so intentionally? When is he ever without intention? ( here’s a hint : never. ) He stares at the waves and feels a vague sense of nausea, even here hating the ocean, sees lightning on the horizon / rain begins to drizzle. Lightly. Lightly. And, there. A flicker. The shadow of a wolf in his periphery. ❝ Perhaps that’s unworthy of me. It’s not as though I understand the way you think, or your motivations beyond what the Inquisitor has told me, ❞ not an apology, more a statement of wonderment / wondering, chin raising as he stares at the sky / rain falls. When had he begun to hate rain?

        ❝ Then again, I’m not certain you’re here at all. I haven’t the faintest clue why a demon would choose to take your form in my dreams, and I certainly wouldn’t dream you ——— if I had, you’d be wearing something more colorful. A dashing shade of red, perhaps, ❞ he speaks to excess, superfluous, always. Too much, to some, and just enough, to others. He’s always figured that Solas thought him the type to speak FAR TOO MUCH, purely because he likes the sound of his own voice. Not that he was necessarily wrong. Rainwater drips into his eyes, salt as the sea. Damn Fade. ❝ And no Fade construct of you could sound quite so… hubristic. Do we both know how it works, Solas? ❞

        Quiet descends once more, the ocean riotous before him / them : Solas stands at the outskirts of his vision, back straight and shoulders square and head held high. PRIDEFUL. Always, always. But aren’t they both creatures of pride? To the point where it has become a frank character flaw? Dorian would say that’s precisely why they had never gotten along, but that would be a blatant lie. There are approximately half a dozen reasons why they had never gotten along, if not far more.

        The concept of looking at Solas feels somehow forbidden ——— as if it were impossible and if he were to try, it would be as though he hadn’t been there at all, disintegrated, faded into nothingness after all as the world around them would deconstruct itself and Dorian would be left within the raw Fade once more. But, there : that familiar form not so familiar after all and Dorian wonders, obliquely, that if he tried harder or said different things ( if anything different could have been said / he has a sneaking suspicion that the pair them existing in this way was inevitable ) where they would be, now.  Perhaps it would have been a PERSONAL BETRAYAL, then. ❝ We will stop you, ❞ so devoutly !! So determinedly !! With utter and unshakable absolution. What a fool.