"Yeah," the Bull says, some deep fondness in his voice that, for a second, nudges at the weight settled in over his mind. Horns pointing up. As a rallying cry, it's not half bad. His boys have really taken to it. "Yeah, we've got that one. But that's for us. Good for team cohesion, and all that stuff. We could use a couple more for business. Moot point, though, since we already covered that if any of us is getting a song - aside from the boss, pretty sure she's already got at least one - then it's going to be you. Only the bravest 'vints are going to come up and duel you then."
"Well, yes, but I'm trying to offer some consolation, here." He's teasing, still, and making an effort to maintain the lightness in his voice, in answer to the warmth in the Bull's. "After I've ground Corypheus' face into the dirt, the bards may be scrambling over themselves to pen dozens of songs about me, but you, at least, technically already have one.
"And besides, at this current juncture, I haven't even got one, whether it's for personal use or public enjoyment. So you could consider yourself to be winning the race, at present. Even Sera has inspired a song before I have. It's practically criminal, honestly."
The warmth in the Bull's voice doesn't quite last. Not that deep, genuine part, anyway. He still sounds friendly, a part of him enjoying the conversation well enough and the distraction it provides, but he isn't really putting his back into the act. If the Chargers were actually here, he would - but that would take a lot right now. Might do the Bull more good just thinking about them than actually having them here. "Hey, you could always write yours, like we did. Or commission someone. Don't you nobles like doing that anyway? Pay Varric to help. I bet he could come up with something fun."
"Maker," and there's a touch more dread in his voice than fully necessary. "I've read that man's writing. I don't want Varric anywhere near a song about me."
Ahead of them, the Inquisitor lets out a sound of triumph when her scavenged gears open yet another door, this one spilling out into a cavern. Dorian pauses as he regards it. It's breathtaking, admittedly, with old dwarven statues illuminated by fissures in the land above, and all that expansive emptiness stretching out beyond them.
In a whisper meant mostly for the Bull, "Well. I'm not sure whether to be humbled or horrified."
The Bull gives an unhappy grunt, pausing next to Dorian to take the whole thing in. "Dwarven architecture," he murmurs back, gamely. Well, a little sullenly. But he says it, instead of complaining. "This is the kind of place tama would have insisted on bringing us, if it was aboveground."
He lets a hard breath out through his nose, trying to shake off the way Dorian just admitted that this place is getting to him, too. Yeah, the Bull had a sense outside all his own crap that there have been a couple moments when Dorian seemed to be trying just a little too hard, and there's probably a reason that he's hanging back here with the Bull rather than going up ahead with the rest of them and getting involved. But there's something about outright hearing it.
Doesn't matter. He isn't going to let his own shit turn itself into weakness again, get in the way of his willingness to do what needs to get done. "Come on," he says a little louder, and tilts his head toward the doorway as he steps up through it.
"I know this place is big," he starts once he's through and looking around, unable to keep himself from trying to ask. "But we've got to be getting closer to what we're looking for by now, right? Feels like we've been down here for a while."
"Or there's rather more to go. They're called the Deep Roads for a reason."
But he steels himself, following after their adventuring party. Shaper Valta seems rather enthused, making her guesses as to the area they've stumbled upon. Heidrug Thaig, she calls it, a place thought lost to the ages. How she can tell is beyond Dorian, but she is a Shaper. She's meant to be able to sense these things, he thinks.
Valta is discussing the place's history to an attentive Evelyn, while Renn and Cassandra are markedly less fascinated behind them. Cassandra says something about taking care around raw lyrium veins, and Dorian just peers out over the wide, cavernous expanse, imagining how long it would take someone to fall from that fissure at the surface before they hit something solid.
A long time, it looks like. What a terrifying thought.
He tears his gaze away from the cracks above them, away from where the light is spilling in, and focuses on the path the Inquisitor is forging. He doesn't quite clear his throat, but he does, at least, make a small sound.
The Bull grunts again, this time sounding more acknowledging than unhappy. It's nice to think that Dorian's saying that more for his own sake than for the Bull's. Which isn't a kind thought, but it's one that puts a little steel into the Bull's spine, so he might as well use it. It's a little easier to keep up the act when it's someone else who needs him to.
"Yeah?" he asks as he keeps himself walking forward, the mask over his own nerves a little more convincing than it was a couple seconds ago. He moves over as he walks, just a little, to bump his arm into Dorian's shoulder without looking at him. "Any place I've been?"
Dorian hesitates for a second, then, "I'm afraid I can't give a 'yes' or 'no' to this one, but I'll offer that it's not beyond the realm of possibility."
It's darker here, even with sunlight lancing in through the cracks above. In the distance, in little pockets of what was once ancient dwarven civilizations, those lyrium-laced lamps are still glowing gamely.
"Darkspawn all over the place," Lieutenant Renn grits out. "You can see their torches."
... Ah. Not lamps, then.
"Even darkspawn appreciate a little mood lighting," Dorian says, feigning some amusement.
The Bull just frowns into the distance. Knowing the darkspawn are close has him automatically cataloguing all the weak points in their new armour, all the ways he can fight a little differently to give blood spatter less of a chance to get in to them. It's good, he tells himself, that he's one of the ones the rest of them count on to wade into the thick of the fighting out in all the blood and guts, so the ones who can do their thing from a distance get a chance to do it. It's good that a part of him's thinking about ghouls, about the chance of the taint turning his mind that way - or, it can be a good thing, that little, persistent thought. It'll make him careful.
This feeling doesn't have to turn itself into a weakness. It can be useful. Help him do what needs to get done.
They're prepared for this, anyway. As close to it as they're going to get.
Focus. Darkspawn aren't close yet, and Dorian still needs distracting. "So," he murmurs, just for Dorian to hear. "This place you're thinking of. We're talking countries, right? So it's no country we've ever been to together, instead of some library or whorehouse or something you just really like."
Dorian is largely unconscious of it, but he adjusts his mask again. Ahead of them, Lieutenant Renn is telling a cautionary story about a soldier who had accidentally swallowed darkspawn blood – and Dorian is doing his absolute best to ignore the man.
His voice is a little louder in response – whether to force the brightness in his tone or to drown out Renn's story, it's difficult to say.
"I'm not sure any of that was a 'yes' or 'no' question, Bull." That imperiousness is back in his voice, though he lilts the words to take away the bite. He pauses, running through the Bull's comments again, before Dorian lands on an appropriate response. "As utterly charming as I've found Ferelden, yes, my mind strays to another country."
There's always one guy who just can't read the room. It isn't like he can shut Renn up without making the mood worse, though. Maybe normally the Bull would find a way, interrupt with something that sounded friendly, figure out how to distract him - but right now Dorian is who's in front of him, and with where the Bull's head's at it's better if he tries not to make waves. If Renn's little story is getting to anyone else they're going to have to deal with it themselves.
"Hey, some of it could have been yes or no if you're creative enough." Not that he has a lot of incentive to totally play by the rules here, if him not doing it right gives Dorian something more to think about. "It can't be Tevinter, right? Too obvious. Plus, there's not a lot of places there I actually know about. Orlais then, one of the bigger cities?"
"Bull," Dorian says, exasperated, like he's speaking with a very small child who refuses to stop putting foreign objects up his nose. "You're meant to ask yes or no questions."
He sighs, then, realizing that the Bull will simply continue to bend the rules. Dorian runs over the other man's comments again, head tipped back a little as he thinks. After some consideration, he holds up a hand and starts ticking off his answers on his fingers.
"No, it's not Tevinter. And no, it's not Orlais." He lifts two more fingers. "That's four questions down, so you know."
Dorian pauses, lips pressed together. Thedas is a large place, after all, and he wonders if he ought to provide a hint. It's only fair, he decides, considering the Bull had guided him on his slightly lewder round.
"It's a famous location I've yet to visit." After another considering pause, he adds, "I feel you would hate it in there."
"Huh." The Bull keeps walking, eyeing the distant darkspawn torches, focuses on the question and considers. It isn't just his options for what he wants to guess that he has to decide on, but his phrasing, too. Cassandra's making some comment to Renn, interrupting him, and about the time she finishes and Renn draws breath to keep going with that story of his the Bull goes on, his voice just a smidge louder than it was a moment ago. "So this place is famous for magic, the kind you expect people to know you're into. Otherwise you wanting to go wouldn't be a hint."
Not a question, so if Dorian wants to confirm that, technically it shouldn't add to the Bull's question count. "This place does the kind of magic you do that research on, then, something you'd want to go learn about? Instead of some kind that you're already good at?"
Perceptive, this one. Dorian casts the Bull another sidelong glance, eyes narrowed not with suspicion but with interest. He's known for some time how clever the Bull can be, but hearing the Bull reason the puzzle aloud is a little fascinating.
And more than that, Dorian is grateful that the Bull's voice is just loud enough that he can't quite hear the rest of Renn's lovely story.
"I excel at anything to which I apply myself," Dorian replies automatically. After a beat, he adds a little more sincerely, "But in this case, yes, I'll admit there's more to learn. That's five, I believe?"
"I've still got fifteen more, keep your smallclothes on." The irony of him saying that last part to Dorian makes the Bull feel like he should grin. He does, a little. The cloth over his face means he doesn't have to worry about whether he's made it big or convincing enough but he does let out an amused breath, nudges Dorian a little.
Anyway, puzzling out his next guess. He's getting close, he feels like. Probably won't need the whole fifteen. "Not a lot of places famous for doing enough magic that I'd be that put off. Not a lot that you'd admit you're not the best at, either. Or are you just in a generous mood?"
The irony isn't lost on Dorian, either, and he lets out a quiet, incredulous ha! in response. Mixed signals, Dorian might point out, but he'd prefer not to invite that sort of commentary. Not with their companions still within earshot.
Ahead of them, Evelyn is frowning at two diverging paths split by a tall stone protrusion – one following the contours of the cavern wall, the other acting as the edge of a cliff. She decides to lead them down the cliff side – no doubt with plans to loop back around to around to explore what she missed. Thorough, she is. Nice that at least one of them can find this entire trip fascinating.
"Do you not consider me a typically generous person?" he asks, his hand pressed against his sternum as he feigns offense. "Why, just the other day, I held a door open for someone, unprompted, and even allowed them to enter the room before me."
"Well shit, I stand corrected," he says, pleased. That laugh was quiet, but it sounded real. Feels good, like he accomplished a little something. "But saying you might not know everything about some magic crap, that's something else. Guess I'm going to have to get used to the idea of you being bad at something. Hard to imagine what, though. You got some kind of weak spot you're not telling me about?"
And if Dorian recognizes that as the bait it is, trying to get Dorian to tell him something about what branch of magic it he's talking about without spending one of his questions on it, that's fine. It isn't the most subtle bait he's ever laid. But then, it isn't really meant to be.
"In all fairness," he says, and there's no reluctance to his voice – only a simple statement of fact, "there is quite a bit we don't understand about magic. Do you remember what I said the other day, about the Inquisition tampering with mysterious forces? It's quite like that, but on a larger scale – one that encompasses every Circle of Magi in Thedas. We think we know what we're doing, but all we're really doing is stumbling around a dark library with a single lit candle."
Solas, for instance, gives off the air that he finds Dorian's knowledge of and skill with magic rather quaint, as though Dorian knows only enough to fill a thimble, compared to Solas. What an insufferable man.
"That being said, I would hesitate to call myself bad at anything. Less knowledgeable, perhaps, and eager to learn, but going so far as to say I'm bad at it? A few steps too far. So, no, I won't admit to a 'weak spot', as you've called it."
His smirk isn't visible, but the Bull can still probably see it in the way his eyebrow has quirked, can probably still hear it in the lilt of his voice. "That's six yes or no questions, by the way."
"Come on, that last one didn't count, that was just me asking about you," the Bull says, barely sounding sore at all about it even though he's technically protesting. "You're really going to tell me magic magic isn't half as in control as I want to think, say you don't really know what you're doing, and then take a point off of me on top of that? You play rough."
And maybe he's emboldened by the dark, or by the bare distance separating the two of them from the rest of their party. In either case, Dorian adds a little more quietly, to avoid being overheard, "I was under the impression that was your preference."
The Bull looks over at Dorian, the part of his eye that's visible through the carefully designed slat in the cloth a little wider. This is a really weird place to feel the kind of triumph that surges through him for a second, but weird or not, that's what's happening. It isn't like Dorian hasn't been giving him signals all along that he's into it, at least in theory, but all but saying that he's into it outright and openly - quiet, sure, but almost openly - that feels like something else.
Well, damn. Maybe he has more to look forward to once they get out of here than he thought.
"Guess that means we match then," he murmurs, voice warm with promise. "That's pretty convenient."
When the Bull answers, Dorian feels a warm flicker of something in his chest. Relief, perhaps, that the Bull hasn't decided to raise up his voice as he had earlier and make a show of it, drawing further attention to the two of them – the same way he had earlier in their game. At least Dorian won't have to hope for an excuse to disappear.
Dorian remains quiet for another beat, smiling to himself, feeling a strangely thrilling sense of satisfaction and pride. Silly of him – he's surely said and done lewder things back home in Tevinter. It's different in the south, knowing that admitting to some sort of attraction aloud would, at worst, lead him to only embarrassment, and little else.
His lips part to speak, except he hears a distant rumbling, like thunder.
"Brace yourselves!" Renn shouts, and he grabs hold of Valta's elbow, yanking her away from the cliff's edge, where she was admiring the ruins of the thaig. Cassandra does the same with Evelyn, the latter of whom looks back at Dorian and the Bull, her gaze darting upward and face going pale.
She shouts a warning, but Dorian's gaze has already followed hers, spotting the boulder plummetting toward the two of them. No time to grab his staff, and he shoulder-checks the Bull, pushing him toward the rest of the party. Dorian plants his feet into a wide stance, throws both of his arms out to his sides and swings them forward, hands forming into fists like he's physically yanking at the Veil. He shoves, and a green ripple of force surges from his arms to push the boulder away – just far enough to keep it from crushing the two of them.
The boulder slams into the path the two of them had just tread, and the stone starts to crack before giving way beneath the boulder's weight entirely.
Evelyn screams Dorian's name as the ground starts crumbling beneath his boots. He has a second to think a little bitterly, Maker's hairy balls, before he plummets.
Falling is an ugly, graceless thing, a distant part of him thinks, as he tumbles through the air, struggling to straighten himself out for some semblance of control. He manages to throw out his limbs, to make himself wide to keep from wildly spinning. It's only then he notices that the Bull has fallen with him, slightly above him, and he doesn't think, just reacts. He manages to flip himself around, and the rushing wind snatches away his mask. Dorian sweeps out his arm, covering the two of them with a flickering, haphazard barrier.
(this is good! let me know if you need more reaction or something from Bull at the end for Dorian to respond to.)
The Bull's no stranger to terrible shit happening without warning, and quickly. And it isn't like he's let his guard down once since that long, grim wait to lower themselves down into this place. But there's some shit there's just no preparing for. Shit like this:
A flash of anger that Dorian shoved him out of the way, instinctive. It's supposed to be the Bull who takes the hits for the rest of the team. Fear, before that anger has time to find its way to anything more practical. That feeling you get sometimes, unreality meeting inevitable fact; the ground can't be breaking apart undreneath him. He can't be falling. When it comes down to it, no one really believes their time is up. Not even when that swooping, clenching feeling that means that means the ground's going to hit him hard is saying differently. Disbelief again, appreciation; the unnatural glowing colour of Dorian's barrier coming more or less to life around them, Dorian not accepting that their time is up yet either and still fighting. An impact on his back. He wasn't that far away from the edge when when he fell, and the rock itself doesn't cut a straight line down; it turns him in midair, and for a dizzy, stretched out moment it gets pretty hard to tell where and when he's getting hit.
A flash of something familiar, right there at the end - the bright, spreading heat of pain to come spreading down his shin, and through his ankle.
The thing he realises after that is that it's dark. Pitch black. Wait, comes the response, the first coherent thought he's had time for in an age. In maybe thirty seconds. Get your night vision first. Then decide how dark it is.
Okay.
He might have yelled at some point, he realises, as his mind starts to piece through the last less-than-a-minute and all its different, jumbled impressions. But there's no need for that now. No room for it. Put it all on the shelf until that changes. He's alive, so he needs to assess.
First priority: seeing. He's still waiting for that. Next.
Pain is probably important. Tells him how capable he's going to be of facing whatever he's going to need to face. He sorts through it, learning what he can. The worst of it's familiar, at least, and any feelings about that, about what a healer will be able to do for a weight-bearing joint that's broken more than once before and healed a little worse each time, about what that could mean for him, about the dented, bent up brace under his fingers, none of that feeling matters right now.
Next. He rolls himself onto his knee, cautiously. Something like light might be coming through over to his left. He turns himself so his good eye can get a look at it. If that gets any brighter as he gets used to the dark, he might be able to tell if his head wrap, that whole thing the boss spent all that time figuring out how to secure on a qunari just so she could keep him safe, is still intact enough to put back together. He can feel pieces of it tangled around his horns.
When his head hits rock it hits hard. That's what happens when you try to stand expecting the ceiling to be somewhere else, and the angry, startled noise comes out of him a second before he's able to bite it back. He must have hit it hard enough to dislodge something. There's rubble moving nearby, somewhere.
Dorian's probably dead. Dorian might not be dead. The Bull isn't. Qunaris come a little tougher, usually, than humans do.
He's hunched over. He is still. He takes a slow, slow breath in through his nose and then he forces it out. He's too busy sorting through it all, locking himself down, compartmentalising; the rubble and that noise were all the sound he's going to make. It hasn't occurred to him to try and make anything else.
As they fall, Dorian is reasonably sure his short life is coming to a very violent end.
It's the easy assumption to make. He had, after all, dedicated a portion of his last moments of life to calculate how long one might take to plummet through the cavern they had found. He's a little sorry for that. There are a thousand different, better ways he could have spent that time.
The Bull is too far away, or else Dorian would have tried to pull them together, to shove every last bit of mana he has left to create one large shield for the both of them. The light of their barriers catches on something beneath them – illuminates the edges of architecture. More ruins.
It's not ideal, Dorian thinks, but at least it's better than an endless fall into blackness.
Later, he'll realize how lucky he is – that he's plummeting toward a hole in what was probably once a high ceiling, instead of splattering into stone. It gives him time to react, and he focuses, front-loading his barrier to better absorb the impact. He throws his arms out to the side, grabs the Veil again and shoves it forward. The surge of force provides some recoil, slowing his fall ever so slightly. In those last bare seconds, he curls up, guarding his head, and slams against the stone floor.
He can't be entirely sure, considering when he blinks his eyes open, it's nearly pitch black – but he thinks he must have blacked out. He can't tell if it was the impact or if something fell behind him that knocked him unconscious, but in either case, his head throbs which is— something. Someone might say it was good, that feeling any sort of pain means he's not dead, but at the current juncture, Dorian would find himself hard pressed to agree. For a few seconds, he lets himself lie there, dazed and aching, before a smaller, more rational part decides, That's quite enough of that. He pushes himself up onto his elbows, blinking into the darkness. Rocks and dirt fall away from him, and a bit of stone shifts beneath his hands. Oh, good, he thinks. What a nice thing to cushion my fall.
The hole in the ceiling admits the barest hint of light from the fissures at the surface. This might have been an office once, he thinks, squinting in the darkness. What would have been a doorway is almost entirely filled with large stones and other debris, and the idea of being trapped in this space nearly makes him panic until he realizes another wall has crumbled, leaving more than enough room for him to crawl into an adjoining space. Not exactly trapped, then, but only just.
Clumsily, he waves a hand, pulling a few wisps across the Veil, murmuring a soft incantation to bind them to him. They drift lazily around him like dust motes, their faint, pale green glow softly lighting the space. He forces himself to sit up, though it's not without a quiet groan and a hissed out, "Kaffas."
The next thing he notices is that faint smell, and his hand immediately covers his nose and mouth. Darkspawn have a distinctive stench. Decay and rot and something corrupted, something wrong. It's harder to notice when they fight the things on the surface, but here, where they spawn and swarm, it's far more noticeable. He immediately dismisses all but one wisp, and draws that final wisp closer to himself, curling his free hand over it and cupping it close to his sternum.
His face covering is gone. Of course it is. He has no face covering, and Renn was telling that delightful story about swallowing darkspawn blood, and oh, Dorian shouldn't flatter himself. He's more likely to be ripped apart than infected, but of course, of course Dorian would fall somewhere near a darkspawn settlement—
He jolts when he hears a distant noise. A thump. A choked-off grunt. The hiss and clatter of falling dirt and small rocks.
Dorian freezes, listening desperately, but when the sound doesn't evolve into the ugly growls or shrieks, he slowly gets to his feet.
"Bull?" It's as loud as he dares to speak, and he doesn't bother to to hide the unsteadiness in his voice. In the end, he admits he's not very loud at all. "Bull, please tell me that's you."
His head turns toward the noise. Not that looking does him any good. He can hear. He can definitely smell. But any light he's starting to get is just enough to tell him where the wall is that it's coming through.
That wall's a few inches from his left shoulder. The ceiling - for lack of a better word - is only a little bit farther above his head. He moves his head wrong, and his horns scrape against the stone. Dorian's alive.
Focus on it. Dorian's alive. One of them might make it through this.
He realises he's going to have to think of an answer.
A moment passes.
"Dorian." His voice is hard, heavy, a little rough around the edges. He isn't whispering but he's not loud. The smell's enough - for him, at least - to give him a rough idea of how far away that smell might be, and he can figure how loud a voice he can get away with without thinking about it. Probably for the best. Clear thinking might be in some short supply. Whatever he can do with instinct is probably going to have to be what the Bull leans on.
Think. Dorian's not dead. So what does Dorian need to hear from him right now? Figure it out. Say that. Then move to the right. Find out how far away the wall is in that direction, for better or for worse.
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"And besides, at this current juncture, I haven't even got one, whether it's for personal use or public enjoyment. So you could consider yourself to be winning the race, at present. Even Sera has inspired a song before I have. It's practically criminal, honestly."
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Ahead of them, the Inquisitor lets out a sound of triumph when her scavenged gears open yet another door, this one spilling out into a cavern. Dorian pauses as he regards it. It's breathtaking, admittedly, with old dwarven statues illuminated by fissures in the land above, and all that expansive emptiness stretching out beyond them.
In a whisper meant mostly for the Bull, "Well. I'm not sure whether to be humbled or horrified."
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He lets a hard breath out through his nose, trying to shake off the way Dorian just admitted that this place is getting to him, too. Yeah, the Bull had a sense outside all his own crap that there have been a couple moments when Dorian seemed to be trying just a little too hard, and there's probably a reason that he's hanging back here with the Bull rather than going up ahead with the rest of them and getting involved. But there's something about outright hearing it.
Doesn't matter. He isn't going to let his own shit turn itself into weakness again, get in the way of his willingness to do what needs to get done. "Come on," he says a little louder, and tilts his head toward the doorway as he steps up through it.
"I know this place is big," he starts once he's through and looking around, unable to keep himself from trying to ask. "But we've got to be getting closer to what we're looking for by now, right? Feels like we've been down here for a while."
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But he steels himself, following after their adventuring party. Shaper Valta seems rather enthused, making her guesses as to the area they've stumbled upon. Heidrug Thaig, she calls it, a place thought lost to the ages. How she can tell is beyond Dorian, but she is a Shaper. She's meant to be able to sense these things, he thinks.
Valta is discussing the place's history to an attentive Evelyn, while Renn and Cassandra are markedly less fascinated behind them. Cassandra says something about taking care around raw lyrium veins, and Dorian just peers out over the wide, cavernous expanse, imagining how long it would take someone to fall from that fissure at the surface before they hit something solid.
A long time, it looks like. What a terrifying thought.
He tears his gaze away from the cracks above them, away from where the light is spilling in, and focuses on the path the Inquisitor is forging. He doesn't quite clear his throat, but he does, at least, make a small sound.
Quietly, he prompts, "I'm thinking of a place."
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"Yeah?" he asks as he keeps himself walking forward, the mask over his own nerves a little more convincing than it was a couple seconds ago. He moves over as he walks, just a little, to bump his arm into Dorian's shoulder without looking at him. "Any place I've been?"
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It's darker here, even with sunlight lancing in through the cracks above. In the distance, in little pockets of what was once ancient dwarven civilizations, those lyrium-laced lamps are still glowing gamely.
"Darkspawn all over the place," Lieutenant Renn grits out. "You can see their torches."
... Ah. Not lamps, then.
"Even darkspawn appreciate a little mood lighting," Dorian says, feigning some amusement.
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This feeling doesn't have to turn itself into a weakness. It can be useful. Help him do what needs to get done.
They're prepared for this, anyway. As close to it as they're going to get.
Focus. Darkspawn aren't close yet, and Dorian still needs distracting. "So," he murmurs, just for Dorian to hear. "This place you're thinking of. We're talking countries, right? So it's no country we've ever been to together, instead of some library or whorehouse or something you just really like."
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His voice is a little louder in response – whether to force the brightness in his tone or to drown out Renn's story, it's difficult to say.
"I'm not sure any of that was a 'yes' or 'no' question, Bull." That imperiousness is back in his voice, though he lilts the words to take away the bite. He pauses, running through the Bull's comments again, before Dorian lands on an appropriate response. "As utterly charming as I've found Ferelden, yes, my mind strays to another country."
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"Hey, some of it could have been yes or no if you're creative enough." Not that he has a lot of incentive to totally play by the rules here, if him not doing it right gives Dorian something more to think about. "It can't be Tevinter, right? Too obvious. Plus, there's not a lot of places there I actually know about. Orlais then, one of the bigger cities?"
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He sighs, then, realizing that the Bull will simply continue to bend the rules. Dorian runs over the other man's comments again, head tipped back a little as he thinks. After some consideration, he holds up a hand and starts ticking off his answers on his fingers.
"No, it's not Tevinter. And no, it's not Orlais." He lifts two more fingers. "That's four questions down, so you know."
Dorian pauses, lips pressed together. Thedas is a large place, after all, and he wonders if he ought to provide a hint. It's only fair, he decides, considering the Bull had guided him on his slightly lewder round.
"It's a famous location I've yet to visit." After another considering pause, he adds, "I feel you would hate it in there."
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Not a question, so if Dorian wants to confirm that, technically it shouldn't add to the Bull's question count. "This place does the kind of magic you do that research on, then, something you'd want to go learn about? Instead of some kind that you're already good at?"
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And more than that, Dorian is grateful that the Bull's voice is just loud enough that he can't quite hear the rest of Renn's lovely story.
"I excel at anything to which I apply myself," Dorian replies automatically. After a beat, he adds a little more sincerely, "But in this case, yes, I'll admit there's more to learn. That's five, I believe?"
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Anyway, puzzling out his next guess. He's getting close, he feels like. Probably won't need the whole fifteen. "Not a lot of places famous for doing enough magic that I'd be that put off. Not a lot that you'd admit you're not the best at, either. Or are you just in a generous mood?"
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Ahead of them, Evelyn is frowning at two diverging paths split by a tall stone protrusion – one following the contours of the cavern wall, the other acting as the edge of a cliff. She decides to lead them down the cliff side – no doubt with plans to loop back around to around to explore what she missed. Thorough, she is. Nice that at least one of them can find this entire trip fascinating.
"Do you not consider me a typically generous person?" he asks, his hand pressed against his sternum as he feigns offense. "Why, just the other day, I held a door open for someone, unprompted, and even allowed them to enter the room before me."
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And if Dorian recognizes that as the bait it is, trying to get Dorian to tell him something about what branch of magic it he's talking about without spending one of his questions on it, that's fine. It isn't the most subtle bait he's ever laid. But then, it isn't really meant to be.
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Solas, for instance, gives off the air that he finds Dorian's knowledge of and skill with magic rather quaint, as though Dorian knows only enough to fill a thimble, compared to Solas. What an insufferable man.
"That being said, I would hesitate to call myself bad at anything. Less knowledgeable, perhaps, and eager to learn, but going so far as to say I'm bad at it? A few steps too far. So, no, I won't admit to a 'weak spot', as you've called it."
His smirk isn't visible, but the Bull can still probably see it in the way his eyebrow has quirked, can probably still hear it in the lilt of his voice. "That's six yes or no questions, by the way."
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And maybe he's emboldened by the dark, or by the bare distance separating the two of them from the rest of their party. In either case, Dorian adds a little more quietly, to avoid being overheard, "I was under the impression that was your preference."
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Well, damn. Maybe he has more to look forward to once they get out of here than he thought.
"Guess that means we match then," he murmurs, voice warm with promise. "That's pretty convenient."
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When the Bull answers, Dorian feels a warm flicker of something in his chest. Relief, perhaps, that the Bull hasn't decided to raise up his voice as he had earlier and make a show of it, drawing further attention to the two of them – the same way he had earlier in their game. At least Dorian won't have to hope for an excuse to disappear.
Dorian remains quiet for another beat, smiling to himself, feeling a strangely thrilling sense of satisfaction and pride. Silly of him – he's surely said and done lewder things back home in Tevinter. It's different in the south, knowing that admitting to some sort of attraction aloud would, at worst, lead him to only embarrassment, and little else.
His lips part to speak, except he hears a distant rumbling, like thunder.
"Brace yourselves!" Renn shouts, and he grabs hold of Valta's elbow, yanking her away from the cliff's edge, where she was admiring the ruins of the thaig. Cassandra does the same with Evelyn, the latter of whom looks back at Dorian and the Bull, her gaze darting upward and face going pale.
She shouts a warning, but Dorian's gaze has already followed hers, spotting the boulder plummetting toward the two of them. No time to grab his staff, and he shoulder-checks the Bull, pushing him toward the rest of the party. Dorian plants his feet into a wide stance, throws both of his arms out to his sides and swings them forward, hands forming into fists like he's physically yanking at the Veil. He shoves, and a green ripple of force surges from his arms to push the boulder away – just far enough to keep it from crushing the two of them.
The boulder slams into the path the two of them had just tread, and the stone starts to crack before giving way beneath the boulder's weight entirely.
Evelyn screams Dorian's name as the ground starts crumbling beneath his boots. He has a second to think a little bitterly, Maker's hairy balls, before he plummets.
Falling is an ugly, graceless thing, a distant part of him thinks, as he tumbles through the air, struggling to straighten himself out for some semblance of control. He manages to throw out his limbs, to make himself wide to keep from wildly spinning. It's only then he notices that the Bull has fallen with him, slightly above him, and he doesn't think, just reacts. He manages to flip himself around, and the rushing wind snatches away his mask. Dorian sweeps out his arm, covering the two of them with a flickering, haphazard barrier.
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The Bull's no stranger to terrible shit happening without warning, and quickly. And it isn't like he's let his guard down once since that long, grim wait to lower themselves down into this place. But there's some shit there's just no preparing for. Shit like this:
A flash of anger that Dorian shoved him out of the way, instinctive. It's supposed to be the Bull who takes the hits for the rest of the team. Fear, before that anger has time to find its way to anything more practical. That feeling you get sometimes, unreality meeting inevitable fact; the ground can't be breaking apart undreneath him. He can't be falling. When it comes down to it, no one really believes their time is up. Not even when that swooping, clenching feeling that means that means the ground's going to hit him hard is saying differently. Disbelief again, appreciation; the unnatural glowing colour of Dorian's barrier coming more or less to life around them, Dorian not accepting that their time is up yet either and still fighting. An impact on his back. He wasn't that far away from the edge when when he fell, and the rock itself doesn't cut a straight line down; it turns him in midair, and for a dizzy, stretched out moment it gets pretty hard to tell where and when he's getting hit.
A flash of something familiar, right there at the end - the bright, spreading heat of pain to come spreading down his shin, and through his ankle.
The thing he realises after that is that it's dark. Pitch black. Wait, comes the response, the first coherent thought he's had time for in an age. In maybe thirty seconds. Get your night vision first. Then decide how dark it is.
Okay.
He might have yelled at some point, he realises, as his mind starts to piece through the last less-than-a-minute and all its different, jumbled impressions. But there's no need for that now. No room for it. Put it all on the shelf until that changes. He's alive, so he needs to assess.
First priority: seeing. He's still waiting for that. Next.
Pain is probably important. Tells him how capable he's going to be of facing whatever he's going to need to face. He sorts through it, learning what he can. The worst of it's familiar, at least, and any feelings about that, about what a healer will be able to do for a weight-bearing joint that's broken more than once before and healed a little worse each time, about what that could mean for him, about the dented, bent up brace under his fingers, none of that feeling matters right now.
Next. He rolls himself onto his knee, cautiously. Something like light might be coming through over to his left. He turns himself so his good eye can get a look at it. If that gets any brighter as he gets used to the dark, he might be able to tell if his head wrap, that whole thing the boss spent all that time figuring out how to secure on a qunari just so she could keep him safe, is still intact enough to put back together. He can feel pieces of it tangled around his horns.
When his head hits rock it hits hard. That's what happens when you try to stand expecting the ceiling to be somewhere else, and the angry, startled noise comes out of him a second before he's able to bite it back. He must have hit it hard enough to dislodge something. There's rubble moving nearby, somewhere.
Dorian's probably dead. Dorian might not be dead. The Bull isn't. Qunaris come a little tougher, usually, than humans do.
He's hunched over. He is still. He takes a slow, slow breath in through his nose and then he forces it out. He's too busy sorting through it all, locking himself down, compartmentalising; the rubble and that noise were all the sound he's going to make. It hasn't occurred to him to try and make anything else.
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It's the easy assumption to make. He had, after all, dedicated a portion of his last moments of life to calculate how long one might take to plummet through the cavern they had found. He's a little sorry for that. There are a thousand different, better ways he could have spent that time.
The Bull is too far away, or else Dorian would have tried to pull them together, to shove every last bit of mana he has left to create one large shield for the both of them. The light of their barriers catches on something beneath them – illuminates the edges of architecture. More ruins.
It's not ideal, Dorian thinks, but at least it's better than an endless fall into blackness.
Later, he'll realize how lucky he is – that he's plummeting toward a hole in what was probably once a high ceiling, instead of splattering into stone. It gives him time to react, and he focuses, front-loading his barrier to better absorb the impact. He throws his arms out to the side, grabs the Veil again and shoves it forward. The surge of force provides some recoil, slowing his fall ever so slightly. In those last bare seconds, he curls up, guarding his head, and slams against the stone floor.
He can't be entirely sure, considering when he blinks his eyes open, it's nearly pitch black – but he thinks he must have blacked out. He can't tell if it was the impact or if something fell behind him that knocked him unconscious, but in either case, his head throbs which is— something. Someone might say it was good, that feeling any sort of pain means he's not dead, but at the current juncture, Dorian would find himself hard pressed to agree. For a few seconds, he lets himself lie there, dazed and aching, before a smaller, more rational part decides, That's quite enough of that. He pushes himself up onto his elbows, blinking into the darkness. Rocks and dirt fall away from him, and a bit of stone shifts beneath his hands. Oh, good, he thinks. What a nice thing to cushion my fall.
The hole in the ceiling admits the barest hint of light from the fissures at the surface. This might have been an office once, he thinks, squinting in the darkness. What would have been a doorway is almost entirely filled with large stones and other debris, and the idea of being trapped in this space nearly makes him panic until he realizes another wall has crumbled, leaving more than enough room for him to crawl into an adjoining space. Not exactly trapped, then, but only just.
Clumsily, he waves a hand, pulling a few wisps across the Veil, murmuring a soft incantation to bind them to him. They drift lazily around him like dust motes, their faint, pale green glow softly lighting the space. He forces himself to sit up, though it's not without a quiet groan and a hissed out, "Kaffas."
The next thing he notices is that faint smell, and his hand immediately covers his nose and mouth. Darkspawn have a distinctive stench. Decay and rot and something corrupted, something wrong. It's harder to notice when they fight the things on the surface, but here, where they spawn and swarm, it's far more noticeable. He immediately dismisses all but one wisp, and draws that final wisp closer to himself, curling his free hand over it and cupping it close to his sternum.
His face covering is gone. Of course it is. He has no face covering, and Renn was telling that delightful story about swallowing darkspawn blood, and oh, Dorian shouldn't flatter himself. He's more likely to be ripped apart than infected, but of course, of course Dorian would fall somewhere near a darkspawn settlement—
He jolts when he hears a distant noise. A thump. A choked-off grunt. The hiss and clatter of falling dirt and small rocks.
Dorian freezes, listening desperately, but when the sound doesn't evolve into the ugly growls or shrieks, he slowly gets to his feet.
"Bull?" It's as loud as he dares to speak, and he doesn't bother to to hide the unsteadiness in his voice. In the end, he admits he's not very loud at all. "Bull, please tell me that's you."
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That wall's a few inches from his left shoulder. The ceiling - for lack of a better word - is only a little bit farther above his head. He moves his head wrong, and his horns scrape against the stone. Dorian's alive.
Focus on it. Dorian's alive. One of them might make it through this.
He realises he's going to have to think of an answer.
A moment passes.
"Dorian." His voice is hard, heavy, a little rough around the edges. He isn't whispering but he's not loud. The smell's enough - for him, at least - to give him a rough idea of how far away that smell might be, and he can figure how loud a voice he can get away with without thinking about it. Probably for the best. Clear thinking might be in some short supply. Whatever he can do with instinct is probably going to have to be what the Bull leans on.
Think. Dorian's not dead. So what does Dorian need to hear from him right now? Figure it out. Say that. Then move to the right. Find out how far away the wall is in that direction, for better or for worse.
Talk first.
"Sound close. You got a way out?"
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