#30daysofdorian

Karl shook his head. He was a broad sort of fellow with soft blue eyes and an impressively well kept beard. “We had an ordinance from the Council. No more magelight.”

“…they want you to use… open flames… in a library?” Dorian asked slowly. “Does this ‘council’ know that books are typically made of paper and parchment and therefore are quite flammable?”

“Hm,” Karl answered him, smiling and noncommittal. “We have your paper on interdimensional temporal analogs. I’ll show you.”

“Gladly.” More than he expected from a glorified prison. The reason his father had thought to bring him to this dismal place was entirely unclear to him. They hadn’t seen the sun once since they’d set foot underneath those ominous statues in the port—men and women twisted in expressions of agony—and Dorian was wondering if he would return to Tevinter with a deathly pallor. “What manner of study do you conduct here, Karl?”

“This and that. I used to-“ He shook his head, drawing a long drawer out crowded with scrolls. “Mostly, I help the elders with their work. Keep the books organized. That’s a task that takes a fair bit of time as you can imagine.” He poked through the scrolls, checking labels by the flicker of a flame through glass. “What is it like?” he asked quietly. “Up there?”

It was the first time Karl had asked anything of the sort and it caught him off guard. How much was he supposed to say? Would it hurt father’s business if he confided in the apprentice? Dorian glanced over his shoulder, lowering his voice. “In Tevinter, the land is so riddled with magic it seeps into the soil. It makes everything hum, feel more alive. I hadn’t noticed it until the first time I left. The world feels dead here.” He dropped his gaze, tucking his hands into his pockets. “No offense.” They had a mage, manually organizing scrolls. It seemed a dull, meaningless, unnecessary sort of task. “What do you mean: you ‘used to’?”

“Before they moved me here. I’m from Ferelden. I trained hounds and pigeons and hawks there.” Karl’s smile softened. “It was my home. I was in love.” He cleared his throat as one of the plate-clad Templars walked past them, lifting one of the scrolls. “Here you are, my lord.” And Dorian had a sudden rushing sensation that the man’s quiet, happy smiles since he’d met him that morning were largely for the benefit of the people guarding him. 

More like a prison than he’d believed. 

As the footsteps faded, Karl took the scroll back with a shake of his head. “You don’t want that. It’s a history of spoons. Actually, there’s an interesting little section on filigrees, but… One moment, I’ll find the paper. I had some questions actually. Quite a bit was censored before it reached us. Is your tour taking you as far as Ferelden?”

“No, not quite so far as that. Montsimmard is our last stop.” Ferelden was a backwater, his father had said, with little but fleas and rain. Karl had seemed pleasant enough, though. If he’d come from Ferelden, it couldn’t be that bad, could it? “Would you have me send a message to her on your behalf?”

“Him.” Karl bowed his head. “I’d be grateful if you would try. I’m not certain if they’re getting stopped on my end or his. Haven’t had word from him in months and the man’s a chatterbox. Ah, here we are.” He drew a scroll free with a gilded baton and a series of inscriptions on its sheath. 

Him? A man? 

“You see when we received the shipment, it had to go through a border station - all the scrolls from Tevinter do - and they’ve made a muddle of specifics in section four…”

Dorian blinked. He was staring at his own manuscript, but all of the details were wrong. Sigils misplaced, text blotted out. He winced, shaking his head. “Anyone who tried to use this would be incinerated, at best. It’s utterly useless as written.”

“We had gathered as much,” Karl surmised, gently touching the parchment as though it could be valued as anything more than kindling. “Terrence did try, despite my warning, poor man. Dreamers will dream. Still, the summary was inspiring. I had a theory…” He set the scroll down and glanced over his shoulder, drawing a long folded sheet of papers from inside of his robe and carefully shifting his broad shoulders to conceal them in a corner. “That this might be closer to what had been intended? I don’t see why they bother mucking about with these things. It’s not as though we’re likely to get ahold of the lyrium, let alone the ingredients required. Still. Makes them happy. I guess that’s something.”

Dorian studied the scroll, humming to himself. A bit of a brutalist approach, surely, but it was nearly there. He traced a few sigils with his fingertip, lines appearing burnished into the parchment. “Not a bad go of it.”

“High praise,” Karl breathed, casting a quick grin in his direction. “I’m a glutton for theory. Yes. That- I wouldn’t have thought of it that way. Thank you.”

“As am I,” Dorian murmured, ducking his head. It had only been a spell to harness energy from storms. Why in the world had it been fiddled with? Why had they banned magelight, of all bloody things? Why had Karl been taken from his home? Was it because of- A fog seemed to creep into his mind then, slow and opaque, making it difficult to think. Karl was rolling up a piece of parchment and stowing it away. “I apologize, what was it we were speaking of?”

“What weren’t we speaking of?” Karl asked with a little roll of his eyes, waiting again for the heavy footfalls of a Templar to pass. “Magic in the soil, you said? Anders would bloody love that.”

“Anders?” Dorian asked softly.

Karl nodded once, his smile warming, his eyes softening. “That’s one of his names. One of many. Too brilliant to have just the one.”

“…and you love this-“ Dorian blinked, something not quite making sense. “This Anders. From Ferelden.”

“From the top of my head to the tips of my toes. And the backs of my knees. Definitely those.” Karl ducked his head, nodding down the row of books. “Do you want to see- he does these drawings of cats that are amazing. I’ve them in my chamber.”

“Cats,” Dorian repeated, bewildered. This man has just admitted to a near stranger that he- Love. The death of duty, his father had said. A fool’s solace. Dorian nodded his head, too confused to protest. “Yes, why don’t you- I’d be interested in seeing them.”

So he followed the initiate down the hallway and around a corner, up a staircase and around another bend until they reached another narrow door. Karl ducked inside, waving at the door. “Shut that?” he asked, kneeling and pulling a board from the wall under the window to draw a pile of papers from the floor. “Just need a moment to find them.”

It took him more than a moment, untying ribbons and retying them, sorting the piles of papers into stacks around the floor like a squirrel with its hoard of nuts. Letters. Notes. Sketches of animals. Karl grinned, collecting a few deeply-creased papers that had clearly been folded and unfolded many times and held them out. “See. He can get all the poses. Impressive, yeah?”

Dorian stared at the paper in his hands, holding it like it was a priceless artifact. To Karl, it certainly was. There were five depictions of the same cat, with the inscription ‘Prince Fuzzybum’ emblazoned along the top in an inelegant scrawl. Sleeping peacefully, batting at a butterfly, lying on its back, curled into a ball, and licking its lips lazily, the chubby striped cat was caught forever on the tattered parchment. Something in Dorian’s chest ached. “Very impressive,” he agreed, feeling dizzy. “Why are you here, instead of there?”

Karl’s proud smile slipped as he took the paper back, carefully smoothing it with his thumb. “It’s safer this way. It’s supposed to be,” he added, the furrow between his brows deepening. “I thought it would be. I’m not so sure anymore. I suppose that’s not really a thing, up north, is it? Mages not being allowed to- Because the Chantry says we’re supposed to put Andraste above all else. I tried to, for a long time.” He laughed a little. “She can’t compete with Anders. Too bad for her.”

Family above all else. The Imperium above all else. Perhaps they weren’t so different, after all. 

A sharp pain shot through his temples and Dorian doubled over, reaching towards the other man for support. His vision blurred, his stomach lurching.

“What-“ Dorian muttered, feeling as though he might spill the contents of his stomach. “Where-“

Karl’s hands were steady on his shoulders. Warm. More slender than they’d seemed. “I’m with you. You’re alright.” The deep Ferelden accent was gone, replaced by clipped consonants from the inner lakes and rounded Carastes vowels. “You’re strong. Be in this moment.”

There was something so familiar in that voice, but the moment Dorian had the thought, it slipped away like sand through his fingertips. He leaned into the touch, his frame shaking violently.

“Which moment?” Dorian whispered, but his own voice sounded far away and warped. “Where am I?”

“He told you about the man he loves,” Karl said slowly in a voice that wasn’t his own, watching him. Something about the way he watched - solemn and steady - felt so familiar. Familiar like the voice. “And you told him. You told him- What did you tell him, Dorian?”

“I don’t know,” Dorian whispered, his voice catching in his throat. “I can’t- I don’t-“

“Skin like whisky?” Karl laughed, the Ferelden drawl returned with gusto as he leaned against the bed a few feet away. He had a few papers in his hands. “You’re a poet. You need to help me write something better. Mine are all: ‘your hair is good, I want to pull it’.”

Whisky?

Pull?

Dorian felt ill.

“I’m sorry, I’m not sure I can help you,” Dorian coughed, bile on his tongue. “I wish I could. I don’t- I’m afraid I don’t know how.”

Skin like fine whisky, eyes like mossy pools. He could spend an eternity studying the myriad shades in those irises and never grow tired. Trace the curve of that smirk with his fingertips and still never understand all of its facets. He could-

What?

What could he- 

Why couldn’t he-

Dorian wrapped his arms around himself, closing his eyes tightly.

What did you tell him?

What did he say? 

Where was he? 

Why was everything agonizing?

“He sounds,” Karl was saying, his voice fading in and out, lost in a conversation that Dorian couldn’t quite keep up with, “and I say this with the utmost respect for your lover, like a nerd.”

He-

Dorian doubled over onto the ground, his hands pressed onto the cold, unforgiving stone.

His lover. His lover.

My-

He gasped, crying out in pain, his insides feeling as though they’d been set alight. 

“He sees the world in color and light, hears his magic like music,” his own voice was saying, though his lips didn’t move. Burning, scorching his skin, searing his lungs. “He makes me feel whole, for the first time in my life.”

“Yeah,” Karl sighed, resting his head back against the straw mattress. “Yeah. That’s the stuff. That’s the whole thing. I miss him every minute of every day, you know? How long until you get to go back to yours?”

“I don’t know,” Dorian heard himself admit softly. “He’s training with a Rivaini spiritsinger. I haven’t heard from him in months.”

Who?

Who was he-

“You write my letter and I’ll write yours. Maybe we can confuse the blokes into actually answering,” Karl suggested with a wink. “Keep them on their toes.” 

How could he not remember? Why did everything hurt?

Dorian’s voice was a dim echo, as though heard from underwater. “Yes, why don’t we? Perhaps that will catch their attention.”

“You’re lucky,” Karl said, sprawling on the floor to write. “To love out loud. To see the clouds when you want. Don’t take that for granted.” 

Dorian shudders then straightens up suddenly. “Wine? Or brandy? You have some stashed up here, right?”

“I think I -”

Dorian’s on his feet and has found a bottle still about one third full of brandy before Rhys can even look around the room. He flips the stopper out with his thumb, flops back down on the sofa, drinks straight from the bottle and finally tips his head back. “Maker, Lark... The past - how many days has it been?”

Rhys turns sideways and crosses his legs in front of him, feet on the sofa, but no shoes, only a very, very nice druffalo wool socks one of the grandmothers in Crestwood had sent with the last courier. He sets his fingertips on Dorian’s leg and rubs the inside of his knee.

“You stayed with Felix and Alexius the past three nights.”

“Three nights, so that’s what? Four days? Doesn’t matter. Anders might know. I think Hawke dragged him out to sleep once or twice. But still, doesn’t matter... still too awful for words. Feels longer and shorter both, and...” He drinks again, and offers the bottle to Rhys before snatching it back. “Wait, no. You probably have work you need to be doing instead of indulging me getting in drunk and whining.”

“Dorian.”

“No, really, if you do, it’s okay. I can calm back down. I need to. I shouldn’t have... This has been coming for years. I’ll just take the brandy, if you don’t mind.”

“Dorian.” Rhys catches his arm before he can get up again. “Sit. Back. Down.”

“But -”

“The paperwork isn’t going anywhere. Besides -” Rhys lifts his eyebrows and shrugs. “We both know Josie signs my name better than I do.”

“I’m fine. Or I’ll be fine.”

Rhys nods. “But right now?”

“Right now? Right now I’m... Exhausted and sad and guilty and powerless and angry and disgusted and... Dammit, Lark.” Dorian drops back down with a huff. Rhys loops one arm around his shoulders and lays his hand over the one Dorian let fall in his thigh, rubbing light circles on the back. “And some part of me actually envies him. Not the dying—certainly not the dying—but having a father who cares enough about him to risk breaking the world instead of one who cares so much about the world he’ll risk breaking his son. Selfish, right?”

“No, love. It’s not.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“You feel what you feel. You don’t have to shove it back inside. Not with me.”

Dorian looks up. There are tears running down his cheeks and more fighting to get free of his eyes. “You’re sure?”

Rhys just nods and runs a thumb over Dorian’s cheekbone. He reaches behind him, drags a heavy quilt from the back of the sofa, and wraps it tightly around Dorian’s shoulders before pulling him close again.  

Dorian makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob and collapses to the side and into Rhys’s lap.  Rhys curls around Dorian, rubbing his shoulders, and whispering meaningless words in his ear. It usually didn’t matter what the words were, just that there was someone to whisper something, instead of being so terribly alone.

When Dorian’s shoulders stop shaking, he sits up again and picks up the bottle of brandy with a still trembling hand. His chest rises and falls a few times before he looks at and then away from Rhys. “You... Seem like you’ve done this before. In the past.”

“More Harrowings than not end with someone not coming back,” Rhys says softly. “We’re supposed to pretend nothing happened, but...” The other apprentices had silently wrapped Rhys up tightly in a blanket the night Tomas—who had the bunk above Rhys’s and never slept well anyway—nudged him awake and said the Templars had taken Margerthe for her Harrowing. He’d pulled the scratchy wool fabric tight around Rhys’s shoulders, while he sat on her bunk and kept vigil, waiting for the Templars to drag her back in, limp and lyrium sick. They never did.

He’d done the same for other apprentices and mages whose friends and lovers never returned from being pulled away from their bed, then traded out shifts the next day with others so that someone was sitting with them, or sneaked into the kitchen to pilfer something that might be tempting to eat. No one wanted a tragic end to a Harrowing compounded by a suicide or near starvation; although, there were times when they weren’t altogether successful. Especially not if one counted requesting to be made Tranquil to escape grief as a failure.

Rhys picked himself up relatively quickly after Margerthe didn’t come back, or so he was told. He couldn’t stay in bed because his plants needed to be watered, and if he smoked a little extra cannabis, it made him hungry for any snacks someone would put in his hands, so he did eat. Mindlessly, and without tasting anything, but it was food. Still, he wore the blanket for two days, pulled tight around his shoulders, and only took it off because a Templar jerked it away after he ignored five orders in a row to take it off.

Dorian huffs. “The more I learn about the Southern Circles the more I want to go back in time and destroy the Nevarran Accord before it can be signed.”

“Mmm.” Rhys curls around him and kisses his hair. “I think we’ll have to settle for ripping it from the ground in the present.”

“As long as it’s gone,” Dorian murmured as he leaned into Rhys’s arms.

“Alexius? The guards aren’t hassling him right now, are they?”

“No. The Templars Cassandra assigned have been very... professional.” Dorian wiggles his shoulders, settling further into Rhys’s lap. “They’re building a pyre outside the walls. Best to move quickly, they said, make sure there’s no body for a demon to possess.”

Rhys nods and smoothes Dorian’s eyebrows. Fereldens do act with alacrity when it comes to disposing of the dead. Understandable. A single possessed corpse only rates as a minor nuisance for Rhys after the past months—much like a single slug in a garden plot. But much like slugs, a group of undead can do a lot of damage. And who would want to risk having to fight one wearing the face of a friend or family member or even a rival.

“Any sort of ceremony?”

“Mother Giselle offered to say final prayers for him, but I... I need to sleep before I can discuss that with Alexius.” He tilts his head to the side and rubs his jaw. “Or at least get a bath and shave. Clean clothes. I’m a mess.”

“That’s okay.”

“I know... I just... I want - that is I need - to not think about it for a bit. It was... Cole was haunting the window ledge outside if that gives you an idea of it. And Felix was... Wasn’t just not himself. He wasn’t human anymore. Starting to fight us, to actually be dangerous.” Dorian hands curl into fists. “I opened the window. Let Cole in. Alexius never saw him. He promised Felix didn’t feel anything.” He pauses, and his eyes go dark and distant before tears turn them glossy again. “If there was anything left of him to feel at that point.” He looks over at the glass doors leading out to the balconies and started to stand up. “Did night fall already? I should go. See if they’re ready to burn -”

“Someone will come get you before they begin. I’m sure.” Rhys holds onto Dorian’s wrist. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

“What?” Dorian holds out his arms and looks down at his very rumpled shirt. “Just to get back into these.”

“I’ll go get something clean for you.”

Dorian sighs. “Very well... You should wash up too. Anders is probably somewhere having a conniption about possible contagions and doesn’t know why.”

Rhys snorts, then kisses Dorian’s temple. If anyone was going to contract the blight sickness from poor Felix, it would have happened long ago. “I’ll change the bedding out too for good measure. And because you like clean sheets.” He hopped up and rolled his shoulders, stretching them out from how they’ve been curled into a circle, and then extending his left hand to pull Dorian up.

“That I do, Lark.” Dorian lifted his eyebrows into something that was almost a smile before closing his fingers around the offered hand.

Rhys doesn’t manage to hold back a hiss of pain when Dorian catches his arm. “Lark?”

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

“Rhys.” Dorian’s brows are suddenly stern. He gets to his feet and frames Rhys’s face with his hands and looks him straight in the eye before pressing their foreheads together. “How long ago?”

“A few hours ago.” Rhys squeezes his eyes closed. “And a couple before that.”

“All today?”

“And yesterday,” he adds softly. He doesn’t know why Rifts seem to form in batches. Maybe Solas has a theory.

“Amatus...” Dorian picks up Rhys’s left hand with care and undoes the buttons on his shirt cuff to roll up his sleeve. His fingertips skim over Rhys’s skin, humming with the same soothingly cool magic he’s used before. Rhys has tried the same spell on his own, but it doesn’t work so well when Dorian isn’t the one doing it.

“I didn’t want to bother you. Not when... Well, this does help.”

Dorian peers carefully at his palm and wrist. The Anchor is dormant now, more a tint beneath translucent skin than a glow. “Have you talked to Solas?” He lines his thumb up beside Rhys’s wrist, measuring the progression of the Anchor by comparison to his knuckle, just the way Rhys might estimate planting depths for seedlings.

“I know. It’s spreading again.” Rhys can feel it, working itself way between the compared bones and cartilage and tendons in his wrist. Putting down roots. Just like a seedling.

“Have you shown Solas?”

“Not yet.”

“Lark.” Dorian grasps his shoulders and pulls him close. “Anders then? If not Solas.”

“Anders doesn’t know what to make of it. Not yet, anyway. Cole helps. Sometimes.”

“Dare I ask?”

Rhys shrugs. “He says he gives it a little of what it wants. I don’t understand either.” He’s fairly sure the Anchor wants him dead. Oh not him specifically, it’s nothing personal, it would be doing the same thing to any other poor bastard stuck with it. But it can kill him without Cole’s help, so certainly that’s not what Cole is using to temporarily sate its appetite.

If Rhys washes himself up relatively quickly, he takes more time with Dorian, rubbing his shoulders while he soaps them and massaging his scalp, before leaving him to soak in the water. It doesn’t take long to strip the bed; although, he belatedly realizes he’ll need to ask one of the maids for clean sheets, and settles for tossing a spare blanket over the mattress before checking on Dorian and running down the stairs.

Annalise—the first maid he runs into—smiles and tells him she’ll be right back up with linens. Leliana catches him leaving Dorian’s room with an armful of clothes, but it’s only to tell him that Mother Giselle and Rutherford have decided to wait until the morning for a cremation. There’s time for Dorian to sleep a bit, and eat. He probably needs to eat too.

“Give him my condolences,” she as she walks Rhys back to the door leading up to his quarters. “It is hard enough losing a friend. And I have gathered Felix was more like a brother.”

“What’s being done with Alexius right now?”

“If he wishes to remain with his son’s body, I will see to it that he is allowed. We gain more from being kind to him right now, in the eyes of the Maker. And pragmatically. His willing assistance will be of great use.”

“So you don’t think bringing him here and letting him live was a terrible idea?”

“No. I recognize it was spontaneous on your part, and certainly, I’ll keep a close eye on him. But he’s far more valuable to us alive and cooperative than he would be dead.” She pauses by the door and briefly touches Rhys’s arm. “It is good for me, I think, to be around someone who hasn’t lost the instinct for kindness. Go. I’ll have food sent up, and see that you’re undisturbed for the rest of the night.”

Dorian—acclimated as he is to servants working in the background—is half asleep in the tub when Rhys gets back up the stairs, and Annalise is half through remaking the bed. She rolls her eyes when Rhys insists on helping her finish but permits him. She even nods with approval at how he’s folded and tucked in the corners before disappearing with the armload of used sheets. A practical skill from the Circle.

Rhys sets aside the clothes he grabbed from the chest in Dorian’s room and digs a far too smooth for his own taste silk robe from the chest of drawers which some vaguely important person in the Marches had sent as gift along with a note about his daughter being close to Rhys in age. It should do nicely to wrap Dorian up tightly in. He’ll like the texture.

He’s almost surprised when Dorian doesn’t make many sounds of protest when Rhys dries him off and bundles him into bed. Though it has been a week and change since he properly slept, so that probably explains it. Rhys steps back down to shirt and small clothes himself and climbs under the fresh blankets, settling next to Dorian and wrapping his arms tightly around him.

“Isn’t there something you should be doing, Lark?”

“Not unless there’s something you’d rather me be doing.”

Dorian’s responding snort is amused, and Rhys, realizing one way what he just said could be taken, finds that he’s smiling a little to himself. “I mean, if you -”

“This is good.” Dorian turns over and rearranges the blanket around him so that Rhys is under it as well and there’s one less layer between them. He yawns, snuggling close and tucking his head against Rhys’s chest. “You’ll wake me in the morning, right? Before they... I know I need sleep, and it’s not a pretty thing to watch, but -”

“Of course, I’ll wake you.” Rhys rubs his fingers up and down the back of Dorian’s neck. “And stay with you. But try to sleep now.”

Dorian closes his book and quietly leaves his secluded corner of the garden. News like these are too interesting to keep working on old tevinter tomes. His steps take him back into the main hall, guided by the cacophony of angry voices yelling over each other. He keeps himself to the shadows, casting a light illusion spell over himself to stay hidden and studies the scene before him.

Inquisitor Lavellan sits on the floor in front of her throne, Varric stands on the step leading up to the throne and Cullen paces around them, stomping up and down the stairs. Josephine leans against the backrest of the throne, frowning at the Commander but keeping quiet. The Commander and Varric are not quite yelling, both of them aware how much Lavellan and Josephine hate yelling, but their tempers are too high to speak reasonably.

Cullen points his finger at Varric, even though he obviously speaks for Lavellan’s benefit. “He doesn’t even deny that he’s guilty, he should be put on trial.”

“And then what?” Varric yells back. “Do you know what kind of figure he is for the mages here? He’s a spirit of guidance by now, they worship him.”

“He still should be punished!” Cullen turns to Lavellan, lowering his voice a little when he catches her frown. “People died, not only in the explosion but also in the aftermath's chaos.” He turns back to Varric. “You should know that.”

Varric pinches the bridge of his nose and then looks up as if he wants to ask for help from the Maker himself. “You know, if you’d asked me maybe six or seven weeks ago, I would have agreed with you. But now, after seeing those templars...”

Tingling under his skin tells Dorian that his illusion spell is running out, and he uses the last bit of stealth to slip past the guard through the door that leads to the dungeon. The air is wet and strangely warm down here from the many hot springs that warm the castle through ingenious plumbing. He steps carefully on the wet stairs; he wouldn’t be the first one to slip here and tumble down.

The guard at the prison cells raises his eyebrow but only nods. Dorian is well known by now as belonging to the so-called inner circle and the days of him being questioned at every step as the evil magister from Tevinter are finally gone. Mostly.

He walks toward the cell with a glowing lock in front. Of course they would use a magic lock for a mage. Looking into the cell through the bars, he sees a slim figure in filthy clothes, leaning back on a stool so that his long, greasy hair sticks to the stones of the cell. Dorian wonders if the man is asleep when he suddenly speaks.

“Well, your’re not a templar.” Dark eyes turn to Dorian, studying him. “Tevinter mage, if I can guess.”

“Guessed correctly, I’m impressed. People usually go for evil magister first.”

Anders grins and Dorian is struck with the impression that all that dirt and greasy hair hides a beautiful man.

Anders touches the metal ring around his throat, a magic suppressing collar. “Can I have another guess? I owe this thing to your expertise.”

Dorian laughs out. “Correct again. I wasn’t convinced that the southern way of lacing food and water with magebane was the best way of going about suppressing magic. Magebane is nasty stuff and poisonous in the long run.”

“And we wouldn’t want to do unhealthy things to mages,” Anders growls bitterly. “I’m sure your fellow mages love you for this.”

Dorian shrugs. “I’m from Tevinter, I’m the first one to tell you of the marvelous and terrible things an angry mage can do. Ask me about time magic sometimes.”

Anders gets up from the stool and walks towards the bars. He is taller than Dorian and despite looking like he hasn’t had a decent meal in weeks, there’s an air of strength and confidence about him that has Dorian take a step back. “Why did you come here? You knew they would arrest you. The Commander seems to know you personally.”

“Curly? Oh, yes.”

Dorian snorts in surprise. “Curly? You call Cullen Curly?”

“Well, Hawke did, and Varric.”

“I must ask Varric why he never told me that.”

“Varric is here too? He just can’t stay out of shit, can he?” Anders wipes the hair from his face, leaving dark streaks on his face. “Cullen, Varric, anybody else here from Kirkwall? Merrill maybe? Dalish elf who knows too much about ancient magic she shouldn’t touch?”

Dorian pulls a handkerchief from his belt and wets it in water that springs from the wall. He hands the cloth to Anders, indicating that he should clean his face. “Never heard of a Merrill, we have Solas for that kind of job.”

Anders cleans his face, revealing a kind face with warm eyes and a cheeky grin in red stubble. “There, pretty enough for you now?”

Dorian lays his head to the side and puts his hand under his chin. “I’m afraid the unwashed hair and coat takes away from the overall effect.”

A smile spreads on Anders’ face and he uses the wet cloth to wipe over his hair, brushing it to the back of his head. The grease keeps it slicked back, and he looks surprisingly serious now, were it not for his smile. The smile makes him look young, daring even, with a livelihood about him that someone in his situation should not even have.

“You are quite beautiful,” Dorian blurts out before he can stop himself.

“Thanks.” Anders turns a bit, draping himself over the bars of his cell as if he’s on display, stretching his arm up and behind him and arching his back.

The whole pose reminds Dorian of body-slaves displaying themselves at one of the many parties he attended. Parties he loved to attend with all their pleasures. Nausea rises in him at the memories. “I would prefer if you didn’t do that,” he presses out between clenched teeth.

Anders looks at him and drops the pose, simply leaning against a bar of the gate. “Can you blame me?”

Dorian steps closer, watching Anders’ brown eyes widen. “Blame you for what?”

“I’ll tell you if you come closer.” Anders looks through the bars, his hands on either side of his face.

Dorian hesitates only a little. He’s one of the best trained mages here and the collar suppresses Anders’ magic, he isn’t a threat. Dorian takes another step closer until he stands right in front of the bars, his nose almost touching Anders’. He studies Anders’ face, the harsh lines carved into it from an equally harsh life, the warm eyes glittering with mischief.

“Closer,” Anders whispers, and when Dorian leans forward, he catches his mouth with his lips, brushing a kiss over it. He suckles on Dorian’s lower lip and then leans back. “Well.” He takes a long breath. “Can you blame me for trying to influence my jailor in my favor?”

Dorian jerks back. “I’m not your jailor.”

Anders laughs out and grabs the collar with both hands. “Certainly looks like it.”

Dorian opens his mouth for a retort when Anders’ hands begin to glow in blue, light traveling up his arms like lightning, and with high pitched noise, the collar snaps in two. Anders throws the pieces through the bars at Dorian’s feet and sits back down on the stool.

“I came here by my own will, I won’t be using magic to fight.” He leans his head back against the wet stone wall and closes his eyes. “I’ve accepted my fate and I’ll accept the judgement.”

“Fasta vass. How did you do that? It should have been impossible.” Dorian steps closer again, regardless of the danger of the unshackled mage in the cell. “Is it that spirit you merged with?”

“Justice is gone.” For the blink of an eye he looks like he is about to cry but he schools his face again. “But he left me with some kind of residue. And I was never...” He trails off, looking into the distance far beyond of his cell’s walls.

Dorian steps right up to the bars. “That’s remarkable. I need to study this, your magic.”

Turning his head, Anders grins at him. “Maybe you should talk to your inquisitor that you need me as a test subject to experiment on.”

“No!” Dorian shouts, his own reaction surprising him, the visceral recoil at this suggestion. “That’s not what I want.” In his imagination, Anders stands by his side as they study the text of an ancient book, flinging spells at each other, laughing, kissing, holding each other. The intense longing in his chest for this idea to become reality has him holding his breath in shock.

Something must have shown on his face because Anders looks at him confused. He shakes his head and leans back again. “Well, pretty jailor, please let me know soon how they’re going to kill me.”