#fadebred

good enough.

———— if he ever makes it there, if he ever forges his way past this never ending battlefield, if he can slip the spells flying and the blades sweeping. but that’s asking for too much. for far too much, when there are people to be protected and his instinct TO PROTECT and perhaps he’s bitten off more he can chew / clothes singed and arm bleeding and abdomen bleeding and he’s bleeding and bleeding and bleeding / with no potions to spare / and fighting, still. his blade finds temporary refuge in the chest of a TEMPLAR before he turns it against another and it’s never ending, isn’t it?

well. that’s fucking war.

“he does love to exaggerate, varric,” she states quietly and cups her chin in her hand thoughtfully, “but whatever he may have said about cassandra wanting to skin him alive was, in fact, probably true.” she pauses to take a sip of her drink, nose scrunching before she continues. “she’s...spirited, our seeker. i’ve managed to assemble more than a few spirited compatriots, really.” 

Perhaps he is getting rather old. ... No, never mind.

❝ If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to get yourself killed, ❞ age has mollified his temper to an extent, though not nearly enough to soften the ever sharp edge of that damnable PANIC which grips at him each and every time she brushes near to probable death. Her AND Helia, given their propensity towards finding trouble alongside each other ——— yes, Dorian is going grey at an alarming rate. Yes, he feels as though Livia will rise from the dead at any moment to murder him properly. Yes, he admittedly signed up for this in one way or another. That hardly means he has to be HAPPY ABOUT IT.

   ❛ this sort of — fell into my possession during my last trip through orzammar. ❜

     he’s trying desperately to sound casual, as if he didn’t spend two sovereigns and the better half of an hour trying to convince one rather sentimental dwarf to part with the blasted thing. carver turns a small deepstalker of whittled ivory over in his hands, hoping the motions will distract from the tremble in his thickly knuckled fingers. he lifts earnest eyes to hers in short bouts, lest his nerve give way. 

❝ all of this pointless revelry. there are better things to be doing than wasting time on frivolous balls, ❞ as if this had been going on for days, rather than barely an hour and then some !! well, he’s never really been one for the frippery and niceties of high society / and that is a memory discarded as he considers the exit and whether or not he’s been here long enough to warrant leaving.