Chapter Text
“Is that the best you’ve got?” Evelyn Trevelyan demanded, striding past Dorian from the diminishing green light of a magically fueled vortex through time. They stood in the great stone hall at Redcliff castle: Alexius, crumpled to his knees, positively hale in comparison to the last Dorian had seen of him; Felix behind him, resigned but not angry. Alive.
Not the morning of their battle with Corypheus. Not even close.
“You’ve won,” Alexius stated, grinding the words out bitterly, “there is no point extending this… charade.”
Felix went to his father’s side. Dorian watched, and felt his heart beat so hard it hurt his chest.
“You’ll die.”
“Everyone dies.”
Sweet Maker, what have I done? Dorian couldn’t pull his eyes away from the pair until the Inquisitor’s scouts had approached to remove the defeated magister from the room. The chamber felt stable, no ambient magic in the air, no reedy whispers of the fade- at least no more than Dorian had become accustomed to when the rift had filled the sky. His hand went compulsively to his chest and met only with fabric. He spotted the fallen amulet, dull and cracked on the ground. It looked like a husk, a small grey repository something powerful had escaped from and left ruined.
If it breaks, what then? There’s no way to know.
Evelyn was watching him, the wariness in her posture offset by the concern in her eyes. How must I have behaved? Flippantly, of course. What did I say? How is this real? The spell had been a success- was a success- both then and now, again- Dorian’s head hurt suddenly, a deep throbbing he guessed was the shock of the situation threatening to wear off. His spell had worked, essentially, but the amulet had somehow called to its, what, predecessor? Double? He had moved through time and not disrupted it; or the fabric of reality had acted in self preservation and compounded the threat against it into the single moment when that threat was resolved.
Only Dorian remembered . Years worth of things that hadn’t happened yet. Possibly he’d forgotten even more. The shock redoubled its efforts, and panic was thankfully shoved aside. His lips twitched, pulling up at one side into what Dorian feared was a dreadful approximation of an unconcerned smile, and he swallowed thickly to steady his voice before venturing, “Well, it… seems that’s over with.”
Vishante kaffas , it was just beginning.
Someone cleared their throat behind them, and Dorian’s body jolted fractionally more upright. There was a tale he’d read as a boy of a brave young somniari who traveled to the fade to retrieve his younger brother’s lost soul. The mage found it, and began to escort it back to his brother’s body, but demons had followed and pretended to call out in his brother’s voice, and when he had turned around at the last moment to assure himself his brother’s soul still lingered, the demons seized upon his self doubt and both boys were lost. It was a warning to never show weakness. Now, the memory of it boiled like a fever in the pit of Dorian’s stomach, holding him from turning. What if this was his test? What if he stood in Skyhold still, and demons waited for him to doubt and turn, and look?
The noise attracted Evelyn’s attention as well, and she frowned past Dorian to the source a mere fraction of a moment before the hall’s doors were opened and it was filled the sound of marching soldiers.
“Or not,” Dorian added, mentally noting the reflex to do so. His mind was in disarray, his body primed to collapse, and he felt himself default to a posture and a tone he hadn’t had to rely upon in months, possibly a year. At least he was no longer anyone’s primary focus. The King of Fereldan was there to kick them all out of his country. It was considerably more interesting than his own unsteadiness.
In Dorian’s peripheral vision he saw Cassandra holding herself painfully upright, lovely eyes narrowed more than usual as she watched the proceedings like a hawk, unaware of his appraisal. He felt an itch at his shoulder blade, his own keen sensitivity to being watched making it known he was, and, though he wasn’t ready, Dorian turned his head further to look over his shoulder.
The Iron Bull’s attention was squarely on Dorian. He saw suspicion in the set of Bull’s jaw and the angle of his brow, if not outright hostility, but it didn’t matter, nothing else mattered, because Bull was standing there, alive. Dorian wanted to run to him, although he’d probably be met with an axe to the skull. In the moment, it seemed worth the risk, and Dorian felt himself shifting his weight when Fiona’s voice rang with jarring clarity in his ears.
“What are the conditions of this arrangement?”
“Better than what the Venatori were offering, I hope,” Dorian blurted out, forcing himself to turn back and address the gathered tableau, focusing solely on Evelyn. He didn’t doubt she would have come to her decision, the right decision, without his interjection but it was early days, still, and there wasn’t an abundance of support for the magically disposed in the room. He only hoped his words were close enough to the right ones.
How many times would he have to harbor that hope going forward? It might be a dream. I might be dreaming.
“The Inquisition is better than that, yes?”
Evelyn did not cut a particularly imposing figure at first glance, but the depth of watchfulness and understanding in her eyes spoke volumes, and the people that were closest to her would come to know that particular tilt of her chin exceedingly well. It meant further counsel would be graciously accepted and disregarded, in turn.
“I know you are a mage, but consider how these rebels have acted. They must be conscripted, not coddled.” Bull’s eyepatch was facing the room as he listened to Cassandra; the curve of his mouth and crease of his cheek gave away nothing of his thoughts. Dorian gritted his teeth and fought to look composed, nonchalant if he could manage. It wasn’t easy. It actually might have been impossible. His fingertips itched to trace the bridge of Bull’s nose, up along his brow to the sweep of his horns. To replace the last memory he had of doing so, sunk to his knees on a dusty battlefield.
Dorian ached.
The rest of the declarations went quickly, neither Cassandra nor Bull nor, come to it, King Alistair seeming especially pleased, though the latter seemed to experienced some relief, at least, as the Inquisitor and her group left the hall.
“Herald,” Cassandra began, keeping stride with Evelyn, and Dorian nearly tripped over himself. Of course, Herald, not Inquisitor. Evelyn wouldn’t be named Inquisitor until after they had arrived at Skyhold.
“Are you going to be ill?”
For a thunderous moment, Dorian was sure his heart had stopped in his chest. He canted his head to glance upward at Bull, hiding his mouth behind the standing fold of his collar. The Qunari’s face was inscrutable, but Dorian could feel the edge of mockery in Bull’s voice. There was no warmth in it. The rumbling quality alone gave Dorian a sense of peace, though, a little part of himself going still while the rest continued its frantic efforts not to fall apart.
“Thoughtful of you to ask, but no. As soon as we’re out of this backwater city and the smell of wet dog has abated, I shall be right as rain.” Maker’s breath , Dorian thought at himself. Bull seemed unimpressed.
“You look a little green around the edges, is all.”
Only because they were going back to Haven, and Dorian couldn’t for the life of him remember how long it had been between their return from fetching the rebel mages to the catastrophic destruction that awaited them there. Dorian could barely remember to put one foot in front of the other, at the moment, although thankfully he arrived at the horse (chestnut, grey forelock, he remembered this animal) that was meant to be his before that basic motor function could get away from him.
“Oh, that’s hardly a concern, then,” he said, catching the front of the saddle with one hand and fitting his foot to the stirrup, “I look stunning in green.”
Something flickered in Bull’s expression as Dorian hauled himself gracefully onto his mount. Dorian realized with a thrill it was surprise. Possibly also annoyance, but definitely surprise. He would never in a thousand ages have been able to catch it, not before he’d fallen madly in love with former spy. Still one, at the moment, he reminded himself.
Would it be antagonistic to offer him a warm smile? Perhaps. Then a thought hit Dorian square in the sternum, one more impact after a barrage, too many in too short a time: What if you change too much and he never comes to love you in return?
He couldn’t bring himself to look away from Bull, physically couldn’t bear to, but neither could he maintain a fully untroubled facade. Bull pursed his lips briefly and glanced Dorian over once, somehow both pointed and dismissive, before lumbering past him to arrive at his own massive charger. Dorian watched the play of muscle along his back and, once he was settled, the expansion of Bull’s chest with each breath.
His amatus, alive, in reach, and yet Dorian had never felt more paralyzed. Reality was settling along his limbs and in his heart like a hundred ages’ worth of sediment. He would have to navigate the tumultuous waters of the forthcoming years, adhering to a narrowly charted course only he knew of, never straying too far for the fear that, in his attempt to right one shattering cataclysm, another might take its place.
Worse still, he would have to deduce why the Iron Bull had ever felt for him in the first place (beyond the frankly glorious sex) and make it happen again.
The Herald said something to Bull that made him laugh, a short bark of sound, and Dorian’s fear was overtaken by resolve. He had willed them a second chance, broken immutable laws of nature to do it, and no matter the adversity, Dorian would not see it wasted.