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“I have no idea how I’m going to get away next time,” Dorian says. He’s sprawled on the velvet sofa in their room in the Antivan inn where they’ve risked meeting, eyes closed, his head on Bull’s thigh. Bull strokes his hair.
“You could be kidnapped by pirates,” he says.
Dorian sits up enough to open one eye suspiciously. “Actual pirates? Aren’t they long on the demanding money and short on the graciously transporting you to your illicit rendezvous? Although that’s still probably an improvement over playing politics. At least it would be lively, assuming I didn’t end up walking the plank.”
“I don’t think anyone really walks the plank. No, I know this pirate captain who owes me for a favor I did her one time. She could sneak up behind you and drop a bag over your head—”
“—while I am inexplicably taking a midnight stroll on the seediest docks of Minrathous—”
“And then ransom you to your old friends the Chargers. And then we could return you. Slowly.”
“I like it,” Dorian says. “Of course, if someone snuck up behind me and dropped a bag over my head, I’d probably incinerate her. I’m a little twitchy of late.” His fingers drum restlessly on the velvet.
“She’s from Kirkwall, so she probably has ways of dealing with that. But maybe she should whistle a certain tune, or something. I should ask if she can whistle.”
“You’re suggesting a watchword for an abduction.”
“Just sanding down the rough edges,” Bull says, because he really wants an excuse to see Dorian again this year.
“Probably not practically possible,” Dorian says, but he still sounds speculative, so Bull’s hopeful.
Excerpt from Lightbringers: A History of the Lucerni by Cassia Drusus
In correspondence to Magister Tilani late in 9:46 Dragon, Magister Pavus explains his absence from Minrathous earlier in the year as “due to my shocking abduction by pirates, an act of lawless depravity the details of which I hesitate to recount.” It is unclear to what extent this explanation should be believed, as Magister Tilani, a long-time friend of Pavus’s, writes in her reply, “Your regard for my maidenly modesty is genuinely touching, but I believe I can stand to hear the details of your debauchery, by which I mean, do tell.” Any further correspondence on this matter has been lost.
Letter from Cremisius Aclassi to Dorian Pavus, 9:48 Dragon
Hey, Pavus:
I really need you to take the boss off my hands for a while. We’ve had one shit job after another the last six months, and he’s starting to get this look I don’t like. He says he’s fine, but I say he needs a holiday. Only he won’t take a holiday, because the last shit job didn’t pay us, and he’s determined to get us back in pocket.
So can you please develop the need to go somewhere—not in Tevinter—where you desperately need a bodyguard? If he says he can’t afford to leave, you could offer to compensate the Chargers for his time, but that’s not the important part. I can find us work that pays. I need you to get him out of here long enough to put his head back on right. He thinks he’s not breakable but that’s horse-crap and we both know it.
Please make this plausible, he knows you’re a small army all by yourself.
—Krem
“Admit it,” Bull says, leaning back to toast his feet by the campfire. “Krem put you up to this.”
“Surely you don’t think I need an excuse to go on a treasure hunt through ancient ruins in search of equally ancient books,” Dorian says.
“You don’t normally admit you need help,” Bull says. They’ve been tramping through the outskirts of the Anderfels for a couple of weeks, and the main threat has been weird bears, although they did get ambushed by agents of the Qun in Cumberland and actually worked up a sweat fighting them off.
Dorian looks at him from under his lashes, a look that is almost an effective distraction. “It’s as if you think I had an ulterior motive.”
“Also, I read Krem’s letter,” Bull says.
Dorian gives him a different sort of look. “You don’t usually spy on your own people’s mail.”
“You’re right, I don’t,” he admits. He wants to defend it as justified because if he was being plotted against for his own good, he had a right to know about it, but he’s pretty sure it’s just that his head was in a bad place.
“And yet you came anyway,” Dorian says.
“He wasn’t wrong,” Bull says, and makes himself not let his eyes slide away from Dorian’s. Dorian looks ... it takes him a moment to get it, but then it falls into place that Dorian is glad to be trusted. He’s not sure why Dorian expects not to be trusted, except that nobody trusts anybody in Tevinter.
“You know that none of us think you’re expendable?” Dorian says, so apparently they’re talking about this.
Everybody is expendable, under the Qun. “Still weird, but, yes, I know that,” Bull says. He stretches to ease the ache in his bad leg, his heels nearly in the coals trying to soak up their heat. “And I know that nobody stays a mercenary forever.”
“I’m not saying you have to stop,” Dorian says.
“I’m not saying I’m quitting,” Bull says. “Just that eventually I’d like to quit before I’m used up. I think.” That’s news to him as he says it. The point of being useful is eventually to be used up. But maybe there’s a life on the other side of the Chargers for him, someday when he’s older and creakier.
“What would you do?” Dorian asks.
“Run a fencing school, maybe. Teach dumbass noble kids how to fight dirty so they don’t get killed the moment they set foot on a battlefield. Maybe buy a bar, or a brothel, or something. Somewhere people go when they’re happy.” He’s probably already said too much, and he pokes the fire to avoid saying any more. He knows what he’s good at, and most of the time that’s good with him, but there are times when he wonders what it’s like to have a life where your purpose isn’t either directly or down the line any kind of violence.
“Personally, I think I would make an excellent gentleman of leisure,” Dorian says. “The moment that Tevinter’s affairs are definitively settled, I intend to spend the rest of my days throwing memorable parties.” Bull has no idea whether Dorian intends to let himself be consumed and immolated by Tevinter’s garbage-fire politics, or whether he’s steering toward some kind of future for himself, down the road. He hopes it’s that. He’s aware that he’s being wildly optimistic, but he really wants them both to be happy.
“You do arrange a good vacation,” Bull says.
“I’m glad you approve. I’m afraid the bears were unintended, they’re particularly partial to me. Also that bit of excitement back in Cumberland.”
“Next time, make it a dragon.” Bull has never seriously entertained the fear that a dragon might take Dorian down. Assassins are a different matter, and Tevinter is crawling with assassins. He reaches out a hand and pulls Dorian over to settle between his legs, his back against Bull’s chest. That makes everything better.
“Still a satisfactory holiday?” Dorian asks, lounging as if he’s entirely at home.
“I’ll have to write Krem a thank-you note,” Bull says, and makes a mental note to do it.
Excerpt from An Unauthorized History of Divine Victoria’s Reign, by Anonymous
While wild parties were the norm more than the exception for Satinalia in Val Royeaux, they may have reached their height in 9:49 Dragon, when the guest list for one particularly raucous masked ball was rumored, if not proven, to include Qunari agents, Tevinter magisters, the debatably holy former Inquisitor and Herald of Andraste Malika Cadash, the royalty of Orlais’ underworld, and, most scandalously whispered, the former Left Hand of the Divine, Divine Victoria herself.
“When you said ‘I need you to come to an Orlesian party,’ I thought it was code for fighting our way through a regiment of Orlesians,” Dorian says. Masked and swathed in scarlet silk as the most resplendent of dragons, Dorian might be possible to mistake for an Orlesian, if it weren’t for the fact that Bull would know him anywhere just by the way he walks.
“There’s a regiment of Orlesians here tonight,” Bull says. “Want to start a brawl?”
He can tell even behind the mask that Dorian is smirking. “I can think of more entertaining ways to be scandalous. But surely you aren’t exactly incognito?”
He’s not, despite his own feathered mask that makes him look like the largest and strangest of birds. “No, but you are. Besides, who cares? Nobody’s going to believe anybody’s stories about tonight.”
He’s already seen Cadash and Sera, moving through the crowd like merrily larcenous jesters, although he can see Sera watching Cadash’s back, and he figures Cadash can too. He’s seen Leliana, too, even though she’s making more effort at stealth, wearing dark gray that’s harder to see than black in the dark and a full-face mask that covers her hair. Apparently she's slipped out of the gilded cage of being Divine for the night. He’s seen several of the Carta making back-room deals, and at least one Revered Mother with someone’s hands up her skirts, and a shit-ton of Orlesian nobility pretending to be criminals, and several criminals pretending to be Orlesian nobility.
But none of that is the point of this party. The point of this party, as far as he’s concerned, is watching Dorian say “In that case, let’s give them something to tell stories about,” and tip his mask back to bare his face. Bull kisses Dorian in the middle of the crowd, and lifts him completely off the ground to set him on the gallery railing in the process, because he can.
“Swept off my feet by a mysterious stranger,” Dorian says, striking a pose like he’s not at all afraid of falling. “Whatever shall I do?”
“Make the most of it,” Bull says, and kisses him again.
Excerpt from Lightbringers: A History of the Lucerni by Cassia Drusus
The question of the rumors about Magister Pavus’s Tal-Vashoth mercenary lover remains one hotly debated by historians. Certainly Pavus did correspond at length with the former Ben-Hassrath spy and Inquisition agent who styled himself “The Iron Bull.” The few surviving letters suggest that more existed, but it would be overreaching to presume the truth of scurrilous rumors likely started by Pavus’s enemies on the basis of notes like this one from 9:50 Dragon: “Back in Cumberland, our mutual friends are here. Would be nice if you’d come join the party.”
“I expected an actual party,” Dorian complains, while making a creditable effort to set the Ben-Hassrath agents chasing them on fire. “Last time, I thought we established that ‘party’ meant ‘party.’”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Bull says. There are a couple of Karashoks waiting for them in the alley ahead, stupid kids who’ve been hauled in to provide muscle for this retrieval job. He knocks one of them down and stabs the other one. He’ll probably live. Dorian throws a fire mine between them and the Karashoks, sizzling the air. Bull doesn’t look back to see if they decide it’s their duty to set the damn thing off.
“I’m just saying that more clarity would have been nice,” Dorian says. “I would have packed differently.”
“I like the outfit,” Bull says. He doesn’t get a lot of chances to see Dorian in his best clothes.
“Can we focus?” Dorian snaps. An elf with daggers has just dropped down from a rooftop in front of them. Probably another agent, possibly a robber with really bad timing. Dorian does something with his hands, and for a moment the air smells like the mud on Seheron the day after a battle, when the sun had been baking what was left. The horror-spell rushes past him at the elf, who drops the daggers and runs. Dorian turns in one fluid movement to check for pursuers behind them, fire wreathing his hands.
“Sure,” Bull says. He’s aware that Dorian can’t keep this up forever, although he’s pretty to watch. “The way I figure it, if we—”
The air is suddenly full of arrows. Bull grabs Dorian and hauls him in close to shield him with his body, and then realizes none of the arrows are hitting either of them.
“Stop messing around, and get under cover,” Sera says, dropping down from the rooftop. “There, that grate.” When neither of them makes a move for it, she rolls her eyes. “Fricking idiots. If you’re out of sight, they’ll go chasing you all over town. We’ll just harry them a little, make them pay for it. If you stand here, then we get to have a big bloodbath that’ll get some of my people killed. Does that sound like fun to you?”
With his blood up, it kind of does, but Bull takes her point. He gives Dorian a shove, and Dorian reluctantly retreats, dropping down the grating into some kind of basement that’s connected by tunnels with a lot of other basements. Sera’s helpfully painted bright red arrows that say “this way to the wanted traitors,” so he and Dorian go the other way.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” he says.
“Nonsense, it’s bracing,” Dorian says. “I’m so rarely chased through the streets from day to day.”
“Still, next time let’s make it a real party.”
“Really when you think about it, a party is a state of mind,” Dorian says, and apparently neither of them can help smiling.
Letter addressed “To The Iron Bull, care of the Chargers, probably at some point in that one little tavern on the road to Val Chevin,” 9:52 Dragon
I’m having a house party for Wintersend. A mutual friend says that I need to be specific that this is an actual party, not some kind of planned mayhem. Anyway, you should come see me, and also not coincidentally see our mutual friend. My only ulterior motive is that we’re having a little “remember how great the Inquisition was” ceremony unveiling a statue of the Inquisitor here in Kirkwall, but everybody I invite says things about how “they’re busy” and “they have actually important business” and “Kirkwall is cursed.” It’s not that cursed. You should come.
—Varric Tethras
“You’re probably going to get a statue someday,” Bull says, sprawling across the bed in Varric’s guest room while Dorian looks out the broad windows at the city roofs of Kirkwall. It doesn’t look too bad from up here, even if the flocks of birds arrowing across the sky are scruffy city pigeons.
“I’m more likely to be stricken from the history books as a traitor,” Dorian says. “The question of my eventual legacy is all very uncertain.”
Bull is pretty unconcerned with the question of how he, personally, will be remembered. The point is living your life while you can. “Nice of Varric to invite us.”
“If the statue of the Inquisitor comes to life and rampages through the city one day, we’ll be blamed,” Dorian points out.
“Try and be an optimist,” Bull says.
“Oh, yes. Everything might go smoothly, even though this is Kirkwall. All could be sunny with an unaccustomed happy ending.”
“I’m willing to settle for things going right today,” Bull says, because he can’t promise that happy ending. What he can do is keep finding excuses to do what they’re both determined to keep doing.
“By all means, let us seize the day,” Dorian says, and swings the shutters closed so they won’t scandalize the pigeons.
Excerpt from Lightbringers: A History of the Lucerni by Cassia Drusus
Magister Pavus maintained a friendship with the Viscount of Kirkwall, Varric Tethras, and the informal nature of their correspondence can be inferred from the following surviving letter, following Pavus’s appearance at a ceremony to dedicate a work of public art:
Thanks ever so much for the invitation, it’s been years since I’ve fought that many demons, and I was at risk of becoming rusty. On the up side, the statue survived the ceremony, which should please Cadash. Possibly the demons were coincidental, it’s always hard to tell in Kirkwall.
So sorry about the guest room bed, it proved unexpectedly fragile. I’m having a replacement sent.
Looking forward to doing this all again soon,
Dorian Pavus