The Slothquisitor

Baldur's Gate III - Astarion/Liv Vires

Bright Lost Things (94k I Various Ratings I M/F I Complete-ish) - A series of mostly standalone fics following the events of the game and beyond. The series itself is ongoing, but the individual fics are complete.

What Moves in the Dark (94k I E I M/F I Post-Campaign I Complete) - The Netherbrain is defeated, and all of Astarion's plans for his future dissolve when his closest friends leave him for Avernus. Struggling to find purpose and a way to walk in the sun again, he meets Liv, a wizard working in an alchemy shop in the Lower City. She has her own reasons for wanting to help him, but their search for a cure is put on hold when a mysterious blood illness begins sweeping the Lower City. Together, they team up to solve the mystery.

Invisible String (61k I M I M/F I Modern AU I Complete) - Brand new to Baldur's Gate, without friends or family but with a dream job as an archivist at Baldur's Gate University (that barely pays anything), Liv is introduced by a friend of a friend to Astarion whose social media career seems to be stalling and is therefore willing to rent out his spare bedroom to her. The roommates mostly avoid one another, and in a burst of loneliness, Liv joins the new app everyone in Baldur's Gate is talking about: The Weave. Who knows, maybe she really will meet someone and fall in love...

Dragon Age: Inquisition - Cullen Rutherford/Mara Lavellan

Reparation (160k I M I M/F I Post-Canon I Complete) - After the Inquisition is disbanded, Cullen Rutherford seeks a new life with his family in South Reach, alone. He works to open up a Templar Shelter in order to help Templars overcome lyrium addiction with the help of a healer Mara Lavellan. Cullen and Mara don’t see eye to eye on everything, but when an old danger appears they have to work together to keep Thedas safe, all while trying to keep the clinic running.

Camina has remembered nothing, and Neve wonders just how long they will pretend like her memory will return. None of them have glimpsed anything of note, anything to fear. Though they have yet to test her new powers, to see what she can do in the Crossroads. Perhaps tomorrow is always the reply. None of them seem willing to test the careful detente they've found.

When Davrin steps into her office, she's not sure what to make of it. They haven't been alone since that night a few days ago, and she both dreads and yearns to talk about it in equal measure. Back in Minrathous, Davrin had always seemed too wise to try and tease any meaning out of whatever they were, knowing that their time was limited. There had been something about Davrin being the only one in her city who understood the full depth of her grief, who felt that same ache. She had told herself that was why they'd sought comfort in each other. But in the Lighthouse, that explanation feels flimsy even to her. She chooses not to interrogate it further.

Neve greets him with a smile. "You know, I think it's been months since I've been this caught up on the administrative side of my job." She gestures to the notes she's been organizing, finding new tasks to occupy her time during these days in the Lighthouse.

Davrin nods. "Tell me about it. I think I finally wrote out a report that the Inquisition cartographers won't come back to me demanding more description."

She laughs. "Were your reports always lacking?"

He shrugs. "Only so many ways to describe a road or hill or tiny village."

How different their work, she thinks.

"Have you talked to Lucanis recently?"

She shakes her head. "Not really. I get the feeling he's been avoiding me."

"Yeah, and everyone else."

"I don't know what more we can really do."

"Bellara thinks he's getting ready to leave."

Neve considers that. "Leave? With Camina here?"

Davrin drags a hand down his face. "If I could understand it, I wouldn't be sitting in your office."

She knows what he's here to ask. "And you think I can get through to him?"

"You seem to fare better than the rest of us."

"I don't think that's quite true," she replies. "Maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing if he left."

Davrin looks surprised at that, but he takes a seat. "You've been arguing we needed to get him out of Treviso for months, and you'd just let him head right back?"

"I can't stay here forever either, can you?" Neve replies.

Davrin shifts a little before resting his forearms against his thighs. "I hadn't given it a lot of thought, if I'm being honest."

"The Wardens and the Inquisition aren't clamoring for you back?"

"I think I maybe earned a little shore leave," he replies, grin just this side of mischievous.

There's an opening here; she can feel it. And it would be so very easy to take it, but like a coward, she doesn't. "For as long as they can spare you, I'm glad you're here."

She can tell it's not what he'd hoped she'd say. "It's weird being back. Like…stepping into the past…but of course, everything is different."

She feels it too, that pull towards an earlier version of herself. "I'm surprised Taash is doing so well with it."

"Like anything, good days and bad days, I think."

Neve nods. "I hear that."

Davrin nods, and there is a moment where she thinks he might say something more. Where she's almost sure she wants him to. He doesn't. Instead, he stands. "I'll check back in later."

The desire to keep him here rises in her, to request nothing more than his company. She offers him a smile and watches him go. Replaying the exchange over and over again in the minutes that follow, searching for…what she's not sure.

Eventually, she goes to find Lucanis. She checks the dining hall first, not really expecting to find him there. So it's a surprise to find the pantry door left ajar, even more surprising to find him within. And as it turns out, Bellara was right.

"Are you packing?" she asks by way of greeting.

Lucanis glances over his shoulder, a look of frustration on his face that feels like it predates her arrival. He sighs. "Yes."

He pauses then, glances to his right. "Enough, Spite!"

Ah. Now the frustration and the fact he didn't hear her approach makes sense. His demon must be arguing with him. "You're leaving."

It is not a question, and he doesn't bother denying it. "I'm needed back in Treviso."

She wonders if that's true or if it is just an excuse to get away from the pain and heartbreak of being here. "How can you leave right now?"

They are, all of them, trapped here, like flies in amber. Unable to leave, unable to extricate themselves from Camina's orbit. It's only been a week since they found her, but it feels longer. It feels as though there is no end in sight.

At least he does her the favor of looking sorry. "How can I stay?"

His misery has never been more pronounced than it is right now. He looks tired, hollow. Worse than she'd ever seen him be in Treviso. She never should have brought him here. His leaving is an inevitability she should have seen coming. She is reminded of when Davrin left Minrathous. It hadn't come as a surprise to either one of them that Evka had asked him to head elsewhere, that Minrathous had finally reached a point where the need was greater somewhere else. She thinks that if she'd asked him to stay, he might have.

She hadn't.

"Will you come back?" It's not what she wants to say, but it's all she can manage.

He shrugs. "Maybe…I don't know. I think it'll be easier with me gone."

"For you or for her?"

Lucanis runs a hand through his hair, sits down heavily on the cot beside his nearly packed bag. "Does it matter? For everyone, if we're being honest."

"That's not-"

"I'm the only holdout, Neve. The rest of you have decided. You trust her. Tell me I'm wrong."

Neve shakes her head. "Trust is a strong word."

"But you're not afraid of her. Of what she might be or do."

She doesn't like that he's right. "And you're so objective? Are you leaving because you really don't believe she's her or because it's too hard to be near her when she doesn't remember you?"

His glance away betrays the truth she'd so easily guessed. "We all want her to be Rook, but you're the only one punishing yourself for it."

He has nothing to say to that, and honestly, she's not surprised. "I should go. Apparently, Antiva is holding a summit meeting between Tevinter and Orlais in a week. A bid to avoid war."

"You have to go?"

"I'm the First Talon." He says it like it's an answer in itself. She wonders if he ever considers saying no.

The summit is only a surprise if all one does is read the Tevinter news sheets. She knows better, and the Caretaker delivers her papers from Nevarra and Antiva, too. Her own country teeters on the brink of civil war while Orlais readies to strike. The Minrathous papers paint a rosier view than anywhere else, and she wonders just how much the Archon is suppressing information to avoid mass panic in an already struggling city.

"I'll write if anything changes."

He nods. "I appreciate that."

And really, what else is there to say? She isn't going to beg him to stay or insist that any of this will get better if he suffers here. Once, she had believed that getting him out of Treviso, out from under the weight of being First Talon, might do him some good, might help him keep his head above water. Now, she just regrets her part in it. That all she's managed to give him is more heartache.

Quick footfalls echo in the dining hall, and then Bellara pokes her head in the door. "Uh, hey, um….the Archon is here."

Both she and Lucanis stare at her in surprise. "What? Why?"

Bellara's hands twist together. "He says he wants to talk to Rook."

***

The Archon of the Tevinter Imperium stands in the library of the Lighthouse, hands behind his back, glancing about at the murals along the walls. Lucanis had met Dorian Pavus a handful of times in Minrathous, most notably before the final push against Elgar'nan. It had been surprising to hear he'd been made Archon, but not in the sense that he was a surprising choice, just that Lucanis counted the Archon among those he knew at all.

Davrin, Taash, and Emmrich are already in the library. Bellara told him that Willow is staying with Camina in Emmrich's study, so that they can meet with Dorian first, see what this is all about. It all feels like some terrible portent.

"Ah, well this is quite the welcoming retinue," Dorian says with an easy smile and a cheerfulness so at odds with their current situation that Lucanis cannot help but stare. There is something about the way Dorian holds himself that feels a touch too practiced, a little stiff, as though there is some invisible weight he carries upon his back.

Smells like cinnamon and scheming, Spite murmurs, shrinking himself into a corner of the room.

Davrin looks the least impressed. "Please tell us that you heard about Camina from Morrigan, and that we don't have bigger problems to worry about."

Dorian offers a rueful smile. "No, no, it was Morrigan, and I assure you I've kept the information to myself as requested."

"But you want to talk to her?" Neve asks, watching Dorian carefully.

"I understand she's not exactly herself," Dorian says. "But that's not why I'm here. Why don't I lay all my cards on the table, and then you can decide whether you want to turn me out on my ear, hmm?"

"We're happy to hear you out," Emmrich replies with an encouraging nod. Lucanis doesn't like where this is going.

"Tevinter is on the brink of civil war, as I'm sure you well know," Dorian says with a glance towards Neve. "The Tiresias have seeped into the cracks left behind by the Venatori, and then made their entire identity simply being against anything I do or say. They might be manageable, but we are very nearly at war with Orlais."

Lucanis is perhaps the only one who is surprised. He's barely paid any attention to the goings on outside Treviso, and he feels a little ashamed for not realizing just how serious the peace summit Caterina wrote to him about is.

"This is apparently problematic for our Antivan friends. I assume because peace appears more profitable to them than war, the greedy bunch — present company excluded," Dorian explains, ducking his head in Lucanis's direction. "A summit meeting has been called in Antiva City to avoid war with Orlais."

"Still not really understanding what any of that has to do with Cam," Taash says.

"It's just marvelous being in a roomful of people who aren't politicians or schemers," Dorian says with what feels like his first true smile since arriving. "The peace summit is going to fail. Orlais isn't interested in any concessions we might make. During the blight, a splinter group of Venatori helped Gaspard, the little toad, finally kill Celene. I'm sure they've fed him plenty of lies about Orlesian superiority, but those Venatori want me gone. And they'll use Orlais to do it and reshape Tevinter to what they want it to be."

"Rather unpatriotic of them," Neve says with venom.

Dorian laughs joylessly. "They've had less agreeable bedfellows at least."

"You still haven't explained why you need Camina." Lucanis is tired of hearing about politics.

Dorian nods. "Well, I don't come merely to deposit my problems at your feet; I also come with a solution."

The room is quiet.

"I'd like Rook to attend the summit as my guest and ambassador to the Crossroads. Antiva has been clear about what they want. If we serve them up the Crossroads on a silver platter, they'll back me against Orlais and avoid war."

"You cannot be serious," Lucanis replies. "Did Morrigan tell you what she is? That we cannot trust her? You'd walk her into meeting with the most important people in Thedas? Don't you think that is exactly what Solas would want?"

Dorian observes him with a flinty stare. "Morrigan didn't seem quite as convinced as you are about the danger. Tell me, have you observed any troubling behavior? Anything of concern?"

The room is silent for a long moment. "Anything at all?" Dorian asks, glancing around at them all.

Bellara shakes her head. "We haven't noticed anything."

"It's been a week! Solas could just be biding his time," Lucanis breaks in.

Dorian looks unbothered and undeterred. "Well, there are solutions to every problem. You'll be at the summit, won't you, First Talon? We could work out a contract."

The realization arrives too late. A sound like rushing water fills his ears. "No."

"You are the famed mage killer, aren't you? I understand that there are others with the specialization within the Crows, but I figured you'd want this job considering your history. It's not as if I'd ask you to kill her; I know it's rare, but a Crow of your caliber ought to be able to neutralize rather than kill."

From the fringes, Spite thrashes. Won't hurt. Rook.

Neve looks as scandalized as Lucanis feels. "What makes you believe that the Crossroads are even on the negotiating table?"

For the first time, Dorian looks tired. "Because they have to be. They're already being used. Orlais has their own network, or didn't anyone tell you? How do you think they've been able to carry out skirmishes on the border without angering Nevarra? The Crows and the Shadows have been using the paths since the Blight, and it's just a matter of time before that Fifth Talon of yours tries using them by force — if he isn't already. Morrigan believes that Rook's powers can reshape the Crossroads. Unlock any mirror! Don't you understand what fantastic power she holds?"

"If she can unlock the mirrors, that means she can also lock them," Bellara says. "She could keep everyone out."

Dorian nods. "She could. But I'm asking that she instead let everyone in. On her terms, of course. My people are starving in the streets while warehouses full of food spoil in Antiva because their merchants cannot move their goods fast enough. It's been a year and a half, and the seas are still as perilous as the day Elgar'nan moved the moon. I don't think things are going back the way they were. Like it or not, the Crossroads is the answer. Maybe the best answer to get the nations of Thedas to work together for once instead of plotting ways to stab one another in the back."

Lucanis shakes his head. He cannot believe this. "This is a terrible idea."

Dorian doesn't even disagree. "Do you think I'd be here negotiating with you if I had any better options? Trust me, I'm not terribly enthused about walking in a potential agent of Solas into a peace summit, but if his plans are to tear down the Veil, I doubt he'd pick Antiva City as the ritual site. Solas doesn't care about the politics of this world."

"That's a gamble," Neve says carefully.

Dorian lifts his hands uselessly before letting them fall to his sides. "I cannot fight Orlais and the Tiresias. I can either avoid civil war or protect our borders, but I cannot do both. And every day I let the Tiresias continue to run their mouths and flout my laws across Tevinter, people suffer. I outlawed slavery, but outside Minrathous, you wouldn't know it. I cannot be everywhere at once."

"Opening up the Crossroads to trade won't fix that," Davrin says.

Dorian nods. "It won't. But Rook could make all the rules for the Crossroads. You'd be surprised what concessions the greedy will make in order to keep doing business. Every country, city, and nation state that uses the Crossroads would have to agree to her demands."

"So she'd like…be able to tell your people they couldn't come in unless they followed the law? Like a port control?" Taash asks.

"Precisely."

"Her and what army?" Neve asks.

Dorian grins. "Well, probably mine if we can avoid war with Orlais. You see why it's a negotiation."

Lucanis glances at Davrin and Neve. "We cannot let this happen."

Dorian raises his eyebrows. "Is this decision entirely up to you or doesn't Rook get a say? My understanding is that despite your concerns about her powers, she still appears to be enough herself to make this decision."

"But you could be playing right into Solas's hands," Davrin says. "Doesn't that concern you?"

Dorian shrugs. "Well, that's up to the First Talon."

Lucanis shakes his head. "I won't do it."

Dorian sighs. "I had worried you'd say that. That's alright, I understand your cousin is just as experienced with mages, yes? Or perhaps you have another Crow you'd recommend for the job?"

"You're being cruel," Neve says, staring at Dorian like she's never seen him before.

Dorian at least looks a little chastened. "No, I'm being pragmatic. Where's Rook? I'd like to speak with her."

Emmrich stands. "She is upstairs in my study."

Lucanis stares at Emmrich. "You cannot possibly think this is a good idea."

Emmrich sighs. "I'm afraid it is not my decision to make."

Taash shakes their head. "Yeah, I don't like it, but it's got to be Cam's choice. And…you know, shit's bad out there. If this could help…"

Lucanis wants no part in this. Can't they see the danger?

Dorian looks directly at him, for the first time since he arrived, looking truly apologetic. "Please believe me. If there was another option, I'd take it." And then he disappears with Emmrich upstairs.

***

Willow had fully believed in her husband's abilities to find some reason to turn the Archon of Tevinter away. Former student or not, Dorian has no right to come to the Lighthouse making any such demands of Camina. Instead, she finds herself surprised when he glides into the study behind Emmrich. She very nearly turns them both away. Her friend has done enough. Has given enough to this world. She doesn't care what title he or anyone else holds; Camina has earned some Maker's given peace and quiet. And she'll fight for it even if no one else will.

But she hesitates because she trusts her husband to know this, to be of the same mind. But if Emmrich is bringing him here, something that Dorian has said has overridden that, so she stays quiet.

This is only the second time Willow has met Dorian Pavus, but of course, she's heard plenty about him. He looks every bit the part of Archon in deep midnight blue robes exquisitely tailored and the height of Tevinter fashion, she's sure. His long, dark hair — shorn close on the sides — is streaked with more gray than she remembers, some of the strands a startling white. The dark kohl and golden eyeliner are doing the hard work of concealing every obvious sign of tiredness, but she thinks she spies glimpses of it in the way he moves.

"Hello there," he says, kindly inclining his head in Camina's direction. "You don't remember me, but we've met before."

"Camina, this is the Archon of Tevinter, Dorian Pavus," Emmrich says.

Camina's gaze cuts to Will before turning her attention back to Dorian. "I knew the Archon of Tevinter?"

"Doesn't exactly speak highly to the quality of your taste in people, now does it?" Dorian says, mouth smirking into a tease. "To be fair, you knew me before my ascension. I've heard I was more fun then."

She knows her friend well enough to see that his self-deprecating humor has charmed her. Still, she seems to sense Willow's displeasure at this meeting even existing.

"Were we friends?" Camina asks.

Dorian pauses at that. "I wouldn't presume to speak for you, but for my part, yes, I considered you a friend. Though we were more…acquaintances than true friends. There wasn't a lot of time for tea dates and slumber parties while you were busy saving the world."

Camina glances around awkwardly. She'd been reading in a side chair, blissfully unaware of Dorian's presence. "Um, please. Take a seat."

"Why don't you take my desk, Camina?" Emmrich suggests.

Cam looks grateful for the direction, gestures to Emmrich's desk, and sits stiffly. Willow doesn't want to leave, but she wonders if she should. She glances in Emmrich's direction. Dorian is the one who responds, who seems to sense her internal dilemma. "Please, feel free to stay. Nothing I have to say to Camina is anything the two of you can't hear."

The offer should comfort her; instead, it leaves her feeling even worse about whatever it is to come.

Camina drums her fingers against the wood of Emmrich's desk before deciding against it and clasping her hands together. "So, what is it you want from me? Whatever it is, it's got Will on edge, so I'm dying to hear it."

Dorian smiles. "None of your friends seem particularly enthused by my proposal, but I'm hoping you'll decide to help me anyway."

Camina shrugs. "I'm not sure what help I could possibly be to you, but I'll hear you out."

"I think you'll find that you hold a lot more power than you think," Dorian begins. "You are perhaps the most powerful woman in all of Thedas, you know."

Camina laughs in disbelief. "I think you're misinformed."

"Morrigan believes you have the power to remake the Crossroads. The power to shape them. Change them. Open and close mirrors. I'll let you in on a little secret: everyone wants to use the Crossroads."

Someone who is not Camina might be thrilled to hear what Dorian says, but Willow knows her friend, knows that she doesn't like what she's hearing one bit. "We don't know that. I haven't even seen the Crossroads."

"But you can feel them, can't you?"

Camina remains silent.

"The Crossroads are the largest bargaining chip in our world. Use of them would change Thedas forever. Beyond the obvious, the trade routes and the travel, the Crossroads would connect our disparate nations more closely together than ever before. And you have the sole power to shape what that could be."

"Let me guess, you want unfettered access?"

Dorian shakes his head. "No. I want you to open access to everyone. Entirely on your terms. The only thing I'm asking is that you keep your fantastical resurrection a secret until the peace summit in Antiva City next week. And that you attend the negotiations as my guest."

Cam's eyes narrow. "You think walking me in will take them by surprise?"

"Isn't it clever? If you walk into that summit with me, not only do we get the fun 'surprise, not dead!' shock and awe of it all, we'll also be able to hand Antiva exactly what it wants: trade routes. They won't allow a war if they think backing Orlais will cost them that."

Camina sits back in her chair. "Antiva has that power? Without an army?"

Dorian nods. "Not all power is measured in military might. Antiva was lucky during the Blight. Their farmland was mostly untouched. My people are starving in the streets. Antiva sits with warehouses full of food and grain and no way to move any of it. Orlais is doing a good job at pretending they weren't hit as hard as Tevinter, but my sources say it's just not true."

Willow would like to question that, but she remembers that more than likely, his Orlesian contact is the Divine herself.

"But if the Crossroads were open to them…" Camina trails off.

"Like I said, you're the most powerful woman in Thedas right this moment, and no one knows it."

Camina is very still. "I don't want that sort of power."

"I knew someone else who felt similarly. It was why she was the right woman for the job," Dorian replies.

"I'm not the Herald of fucking Andraste."

Dorian shakes his head. "No, you are not. You are something else entirely. I understand you've gone through something of a traumatic return back to the land of the living, but the Rook I knew — the woman you were — she wouldn't have been able to sit idle if she thought she could prevent suffering."

It takes all of Willow's might not to step in, not to shove Dorian aside and demand what right he has to manipulate her this way. She wants to kick his ass right out of the Lighthouse, tell him to figure it out without Camina. Does he really need her?

"You really think you could avoid a war if I help you?"

"I think, if I'm very clever and we're very lucky, I can avoid two. So, what do you think? Will you do it?"

Willow wants Camina to say no, but she is afraid that she knows exactly what is about to happen. Are they playing entirely into Solas's hands? Did he send her back with this power knowing that someone, anyone would try to use it? But she keeps insisting that her friend is herself, that she is not being controlled by some outside power, not that she's seen, and so she cannot keep her from agreeing. It all tangles together.

"Can I think about it?"

Dorian nods. "I'm afraid I can't give you much time. A day or two, at most."

"Okay. I promise to think on it," Camina promises.

Dorian stands. "Of that, I have no doubt. I hope that we are able to work together, you and I. That we can make this world better."

Willow cannot read Camina's expression, and that is what scares her most. "We'll see."

"I'll walk you out," Emmrich offers.

Dorian offers them both a smile before disappearing with Emmrich. Willow waits a few moments after the door has shut before she speaks. "You don't have to do this. I cannot believe that Morrigan would go to him for help for you, and he'd turn around and come make demands."

Camina shifts uncomfortably. "He seems rather desperate."

That much is very, very true. As much as she wants to protect Cam from what the world has become, protect her from making it her own personal crusade to fix, she cannot. It's not her place. "I don't care what he said. You don't have to do anything. If anyone has earned peace and quiet, it's you."

"Is what he said true? Is Minrathous starving? Neve…alluded to the city being…a bit worse for wear. But that was a year and a half ago."

Willow hasn't been back to that city in months — hasn't wanted to return to the dust and the haze and the suffering. "Yes."

There is a look upon her friend's face that takes her a moment to place: betrayal. It wasn't a conscious decision to keep this knowledge from her; they had merely grown accustomed to their reality. In some ways, Willow is jealous of her ignorance. Willow knows exactly what Camina is about to say before the words leave her mouth.