"Got it," the Bull says, intending to lean on Dorian only as much as he has to to keep from slowing them down. No time to argue about it, no time to figure out if there's a way he can put any real weight on Dorian without knocking Dorian over. There's only time to go. "Lead the way."
The Bull lets out a hard breath with every other step but he sets a quick pace, and with that pace he gets there. Once they get into that next room he keeps moving, wanting to give Dorian enough room to work, and once he has the Bull leans there, takes a moment to force his breathing to slow down a little, to sit there with the pain.
"Might buy us some time," he manages, shifting his focus over after that moment to concentrate on Dorian again, gaze moving over him to look for any signs of injury, or darkspawn blood, or anything worth worrying about at all. First time he's seen Dorian since before they fell and it's hard not to compare it, to take how it felt watching Dorian standing there next to him whole and safe, wondering what expression Dorian had been wearing behind that mask, and set that next to what he's seeing now. He wonders how much everything between then and now messed his sense of time up, whether it all feels longer than it actually was. How long it's actually been. How far away the rest of their little group might be. "What are the chances the boss heard some of that? We weren't really quiet, and sound seems like it carries down here."
Dorian tucks himself beneath the Bull's arm on his bad side and wraps an arm around the Bull's waist to help stabilize him. He shoulders as much of the Bull's weight as he can – or, more accurately, as much as the Bull allows – and hurries them into the next room.
Behind them, the darkspawn howl and screech, knocking down more of the ice wall, but it holds, for the most part. By the time Dorian has led the two of them into the half-collapsed hallway, only the top portion has broken enough to allow one darkspawn to poke out its head. Dorian obligingly splays his hand and flicks his wrist, freezing the creature in place.
He leaves the Bull propped up against a nearby wall, clear of the doorway, and quickly returns to his position. An arrow whizzes through the gap of the doorway, missing Dorian's cheek by mere inches, and he grits his teeth. Green energy surrounds him as he calls upon the Fade, arms thrown out to either side, and he commands the stone boulders to fully barricade the door. They obligingly roll and float into place, and once they've dropped and settled, sending out a cloud of dust, Dorian lets himself finally take a breath.
He's shaking, he realizes. Probably from the fading battle high, but also probably from the revulsion coursing through him and twisting his stomach, and also from the exertion of casting so many powerful spells in succession. His head throbs, now that he's letting himself notice, and he feels a little nauseated – but Dorian would rather chalk that up to his exhaustion and his concussion than to the possibility that he's somehow just been infected with—
Dorian's mind quickly jerks away from that train of thought.
He glances over at the Bull, and realizes the man is examining him closely.
"I'm fine," Dorian says quickly, and he manages to sound suitably convincing. He's— well, he's not, but he would wager he's in far better shape than the Bull. "If we're lucky, we'll have made enough of a racket that half the Inquisition could find us."
He hurries toward the Bull, moving to tuck himself the man's bad side again.
"We need to find someplace safe so I can tend to your wounds."
The Bull nods, part of him focusing on his breathing, another part feeling Dorian next to him. Helpful, in a way he bets Dorian doesn't mean it to be; it's not like Dorian can hold most the Bull's total weight with anything other than magic, but the Bull can try and feel just how steady Dorian is now, look at how he's doing up close, try and gauge a little better how much all that took out of him.
It's something he'd be doing anyway but it helps, having something to focus on that isn't him. Someone else's problems. Maybe Dorian's feeling the same way. If someone can get something that isn't terrible out of this whole damn ankle thing, then Dorian should get to have it. They both probably need every little piece of whatever keeps them going that they can get right now.
"Yeah, and I bet you need a rest." He looks around, decides on a direction, takes a slower, bracing breath. Leaning mostly against the wall and a little against Dorian, the Bull starts moving. He can add some more 'not terrible' to this, he thinks. Not a lot, but for the moment, they've got time. They're alive. The mood might not get a whole lot better, but that doesn't mean the Bull can't do a better job now than he did crawling through that hallway earlier.
Dorian's here, not just a voice that was only half as strong as his heart pounding in his ears but here, close enough to see, to feel. The ceiling is too low, still, but the room is open. Not great, maybe. But better. So the Bull can do better.
"After doing all that, I mean." He pauses, takes a breath against the pain that sounds louder trapped inside the mask. Keeps going. "Hot damn, what a show!" Another pause, shorter, quieter, and after he takes that second for himself he makes his voice kind of smug and teasing. "Sometimes I almost think you actually could take me on, if you really wanted to."
Dorian manages to let out a laugh – just a puff of air that manages to hint at amusement.
"I could absolutely take you on," he replies, just the right amount of haughty, "and it would be your own fault for underestimating me if I found reason enough to best you."
The Bull is warm at his side, and more importantly alive. Perhaps the Bull had downplayed the seriousness of his injuries before, but Dorian is gratified, at least, that he hadn't been completely lying. The man is mostly intact, and while Dorian can't mend all of his hurts – he has only rudimentary knowledge of healing spells, after all – he can at least do a bit to patch things up.
He hesitates for a bit before he slowly ventures, "I'm surprised you were impressed."
There's a touch of caution to his voice. Dorian is hardly ashamed of his skills and would be the first to applaud himself, but he knows the Bull's relationship with magic is fraught, at best. And according to some people – mostly plebeians with no understanding of the nuances of magic – necromancy isn't that much better than blood magic.
The Bull glances over at him. There's no way in any world that he'd be grateful that Dorian doesn't have a mask right now, but if Dorian's face is right there to help him gauge the mood behind the comment, then the Bull is going to look.
"What?" the Bull asks, like he can't at least make a guess. There's another one of those pauses again while the Bull acknowledges the pain; right now it's a greedy thing trying to steal all his attention, and if he hands that attention out in moments then he can direct the rest of it where he really needs to. "You blow an old dwarven door right off its hinges, start raining fire everywhere, and take out as many darkspawn on your own as an entire team of warriors all just to keep my butt out of the fire and I'm going to, what? Start critiquing your form?"
He looks over at Dorian again. Yeah the Bull didn't mention one particular part of of Dorian's whole rescue in that little recounting there, but it's kind of hard to make every single part of what Dorian did back there sound cool. Trying wouldn't sound natural, because he couldn't mean it. Might ruin his message. And the message itself is the true part anyway, not how excited he did or didn't get over every single detail. "What else did you think I was going to be?"
"Solas would," Dorian replies, trying to mirror some of the Bull's lightness. "Critique my form, that is."
But it would take a fool to notice that the Bull is making a rather glaring omission, and Dorian lets out a breath. Of course it bothered the Bull. It bothers nearly everyone outside of Nevarra, and even some people from Nevarra. Cassandra had given him a wide berth the first time he had placed a wisp into a corpse, only to later probe with questions to discover what type of person he was, whether he was the type to bind wisps to corpses and have them shambling after him like some sort of retainer. Even some mages in Tevinter find necromancy distasteful.
He frowns at the Bull's obvious pulse of pain, grip tightening on the Bull's arm before Dorian nudges them toward what might have once been a storage room. He had passed by it earlier while exploring the place – evidenced by the line of chalk he left by the doorway – and he guides the Bull in. There's a stone table – tall and sturdy enough to support a man of Bull's size – and Dorian guides him toward it.
"I save it for emergencies," he explains quietly. The Bull may be avoiding the topic, and as simple as it would be for Dorian to go along with him, Dorian won't. He's not ashamed of his magic, but in this case, he understands the worry that comes along with it – and his responsibility as a practitioner to assuage those worries. "I don't make a habit of animating skeletons and having them carry me about in a palanquin – though perhaps I should."
"Yeah, that's one way to leave an impression," the Bull says, bracing himself to move away from any wall to lean against long enough to make it to the table Dorian's moving him toward.
He feels his breath moving in harsh gusts through his nose, leans on Dorian a little more than he wants to and his bad leg a lot more than he should, and tries to drag the conversation to the top of his thoughts, think about that while the rest of him does the things it needs to. Dorian isn't really playing along; for him that means things are serious, that the topic is important enough for him to draw that kind of attention to it. Which means the Bull's answer wasn't the right one, that he must have miscalculated.
Better, then, to ask him straight out. The Bull makes it to the table, turns, hops up. The pain is still what it is, but at least he doesn't have to put any weight on the thing until they have to move again.
"Like I said," he goes on, now that the part of his mind that had been keeping him moving is free up enough to help him focus on it. "What else did you think I was going to do? Get pissed off at you? Go back and report you to the templars?"
Dorian shuts the heavy stone door behind them once the Bull has seated himself – for whatever good it will do if any darkspawn do manage to make their way into the ruins. He assumes if they're quiet, if they remain out of sight, the darkspawn would be likely to pass over the room.
The wisps still float around them, but Dorian adds a few more to their number to drift around the ceiling. It's hardly daylight in here, but it's far easier to see by.
"You might lecture me," he replies, though the expression on his face says he would prefer to avoid that. He looks the Bull over with a critical eye, now that there's time and light for it. "Tell me of the dangers of tampering with such strange forces. Or reprimand me for my cavalier and disrespectful treatment of the dead."
By his tone of voice, Dorian has had this conversation several times over.
"Is the ankle the worst of it?" he asks, clipped and business-like to conceal his worry. "Or is there any other damage I'm not seeing?"
The Bull doesn't think there's anything else, but that doesn't mean that it's a bad question. He grunts and doesn't answer for a couple seconds, leaning forward under the low ceiling with his hands braced on the edge of the table and shifting around, going over everything he feels when he moves this part of him or that one, double checking his own injuries. The bad ones can hide from you, sometimes, especially if some other hurt is taking up more of your attention.
"Pretty sure that's it," he decides. "Everything else is just the surface stuff." The gouges, the scrapes covering most of him - they're going to hurt for a while, and itch like shit once they start healing, but they look worse than they are. The leg's the only real injury there. Considering how far he fell, every place inside his body that isn't screaming at him right now can probably be traced back to Dorian.
Kind of weird to think about - how the Bull owes everything to Dorian right now a handful of times over, and Dorian still expects the Bull to give him shit for it. It's a good way to spend this little break of theirs, trying to convince Dorian otherwise. It would be nice if he could do it.
He goes through the points, one at a time. "If I start lecturing you on magic, start checking my food for weird mushrooms. I know you too well to pull that kind of crap. You don't need me to start telling you how dangerous all those forces are. And considering the kind of things you just took out? I'm pretty sure you didn't disrespect them enough."
He watches Dorian a moment. "That really the kind of stuff you think I've got to say to you?"
The response earns a small, halfhearted smile as he crouches down in front of the Bull. Dorian's healing magic is basic, at best – the sort of fundamental skills one teaches a fledgling mage to gauge his interest and aptitude. He rests both hands above the Bull's ankle, palms glowing with the same green as the floating wisps as he assesses the damage.
"You wouldn't have been the first," he replies, voice and gaze a little distant as he examines the injury. "I mostly hear it from Vivienne. Cassandra, sometimes. She enjoys telling me cautionary tales about her uncle, a Mortalitasi. She says the smell of embalming fluid makes her want to retch. Sera isn't much of a fan, either, for obvious reasons, and neither is Cole, though he's not quite so direct with his criticisms, as you might imagine. I found myself apologizing to him, nevertheless."
The boy had seemed so distressed at the time.
With the injury properly examined, he draws another wisp across the Veil, channeling its energies to partially mend some of the damage.
"This may be painful," he warns, though he's already set to work. "This will be a temporary measure a best. A healer with legitimate training will need to see to this."
The Bull tenses up but lets Dorian do his thing, holding himself still. A little more pain at this point isn't really a drop in the bucket.
"I don't know," he says, watching Dorian's hands. Getting healed by magic isn't something he's a huge fan of either, even though sometimes he couldn't fight the way he does without it. That's not a discomfort he thinks too hard about, these days. Not since the earlier days in Orlais with the Bleeders. Some things you just have to get used to. Maybe it's the topic that's making him more aware of it now, making him try harder to sort it all out and put it into words.
"Vivienne just doesn't like not being the biggest, baddest thing around, probably just trying to feel like she's still in control. The rest of them- eh, none of them are here, so I guess it doesn't matter. If you really want me to join that club you're going to have to start pulling that crap on someone who isn't trying to kill you, and I don't think that's going to happen. You don't feel like the type. Besides, you think you think I don't know how hard you've been working to keep me in one piece? I'm not that much of an asshole. I am actually impressed. You pulled some pretty impressive shit. I might not be that excited about all of it, but I'm alive to get over it. Not going to forget that that's all down to you just because you made a call about what needed to get done."
Briefly, Dorian glances up at the Bull, frowning at him. With the Bull's mask mostly intact, it's impossible to gauge his expression, to determine whether or not he might be telling a convenient lie to assuage Dorian's imagined discomfort. Dorian needs no such reassurances – by now, he's used to being a pariah – but he's at least a little relieved that they won't have to waste their time with the Bull launching into talks of ethics.
Dorian spends a few moments focusing, on trying not to do more damage in his attempts to fix things. After a few minutes, he rocks back, the glow fading from his hands as he settles them in his lap.
"That's as much as I'm comfortable mending." Admittedly, he thinks, it wasn't much, but it should be enough to attempt limping on, though not much else. "If I try anything more, I'm bound to get something wrong, and some healer might harangue me for making things worse."
For a second, he falls silent, before he lets out a breath. "You're certain? I know you're— not comfortable with more esoteric types of magic." An understatement, admittedly, but sometimes Dorian can manage a bit of tact, when he cares to. "If you've anything to say, now's the time to do it, while it's still fresh. I'd rather we have everything out in the open."
For those few minutes, the Bull figures that's it. He said his piece, Dorian heard him even if he doesn't look like he really believes it, and maybe that's it. So the Bull just sits there, feeling the healing magic inside his leg, looking away from it at the wisps, magic everywhere he looks - and that makes it kind of funny, when Dorian says he knows the Bull isn't 'comfortable' with it. If he cared about always being comfortable, avoiding magic altogether, hanging out with Dorian in the first place would have been a pretty dumb move.
But they're not talking about magic in general. That might be a good sign, that maybe Dorian's not as worried about whether the Bull's just uncomfortable around him altogether any more, that they're talking about this one kind of magic now instead. Doesn't necessarily mean anything, but maybe they're making progress.
Dalish never seemed to worry this much about this stuff. But then, it hasn't really come up. The mage thing is an open secret, yeah, but she doesn't wear it on her sleeve the same way Dorian does.
If it is a problem for her, she hasn't said anything about it. The Bull would have been able to tell, though. Wouldn't he? Weird thought, that one. He hasn't really wondered that before.
"You want it out in the open?" He shrugs. Maybe Dorian isn't really going to feel settled until he hears at least a little something negative. Hopefully he doesn't need the Bull to sound annoyed about it, though. If this is going to go the way the Bull wants it to, he's got to sound casual. Which isn't really hard. This is something he's got worked out with himself already and it works for him, even if Dorian hasn't quite caught up. "Sure. That stuff gives me the creeps. If you can put some 'spirit' into a dead body, if you can do all that once they're dead, how close is that to doing it while they're still alive? You or, you know, anyone else who can do any of that crap. That's what I think about when I see it. But like I said: I trust you. Say someone I'm fighting with likes to use a... I don't know, beehive on a stick to beat all his enemies. I'm going to feel a little weird about seeing it, but as long as the bees only go after the bad guys I'm going to rest easy.
"Besides, all the stuff we've gone through, even just in the past month - I get that I didn't give you as much reason as you gave me to think this way but in that uh, that temple, even just then, I got a lot of reasons to trust you. And a few more after that. A lot more of them today. I decide to throw all that away just because you can do something I don't like, I'm going to have to turn in my ben-hassrath card. You're a good guy, Dorian. You've given me too much evidence of that for me to just up and stop trusting you to make the tough calls about how to use what you can do.
"So yeah, I don't really love watching that stuff happen. But- so what? You keep using it to help people and you're good in my book. I don't know if that's the kind of open you wanted, but it's true. Can't speak for everyone, but if you're worried about what the others are going to say all I have to tell them is that you busted in like a hero and saved my ass. They don't have to know the real details."
Edited (editing things that don't really matter) 2021-02-23 01:34 (UTC)
Dorian stays silent through that little speech, a little surprised despite himself. He was almost certain things would have gone in one of two directions: either the Bull brushed him off again, tried to avoid speaking of Dorian's necromancy altogether, or else he would finally air all of his grievances. There would probably be many. There tended to be, as far as necromancy was concerned.
Dorian has a speech prepared, filled with a thousand different little reassurances, about the specific differences between necromancy and blood magic. It's a good speech. He's had to use it several times, to varying degrees of efficacy.
No need for it, apparently, and Dorian feels himself relaxing a little – not entirely relieved, but at least glad that this won't sour what goodwill has developed between the two of them. Dorian has a few things he'd like to say about the Bull's trust (is it entirely warranted?) or his continued insistence that Dorian is a good man (he is selfish and stubborn and far too proud, sometimes), but that's another argument entirely.
"Be sure to emphasize how impressive I was," he says, putting on his usual arrogance. "Perhaps a few comments about how fearsome and handsome I looked, silhouetted by flame. That should be sufficiently florid enough."
"Can do," the Bull says, noting that down and already planning to actually do it at whichever moment seems like it'll embarrass Dorian the most. "And you were in front of me the whole time, so if I really want it to sound accurate I'm going to have to go into detail about your, uh-" Conscious of the low light and his mask, the Bull tips his head down to make it clear he's looking assward. "-'nose'." Or maybe your legs. I haven't decided yet."
But that's a thought for later. The Bull takes a slow breath, bracing himself to walk again even if he isn't actually moving yet. "Anyway, do you know where we need to head next? Don't know how much you got to explore before you had to run back for me."
The pointed look is enough to to earn the Bull a disgusted scoff, and Dorian feels his face warm just a touch – hopefully it's less obvious in the dark, or can be blamed on his recent exertions.
Dorian gets to his feet, brushing himself off. The tremor from his hands has faded, though that exhaustion is still there – and will likely remain until he's had a good night's sleep or several.
"I didn't get a good look around," he admits, though there's a touch of guilt there, too. He was so focused on getting himself to the Bull that he hadn't had much of a mind on planning their escape, even though that responsibility should have fallen on Dorian, as well.
Better to present a solution than an apology, though: "I marked where I've been, though, and I have enough chalk that I can continue to do so indefinitely. I expect if we can find our way out of this ruin, we can locate one those ancient lifts. With luck, we can figure out our own way back to the base camp."
The Bull gives an unhappy grunt at the idea. It's the only good idea there is, though, and so he doesn't argue. The fact that they don't have that much of a direction to get out of here to even look for one of those lifts yet though, maybe that changes things a little.
"So, we want to go out and brave it now or wait and see if the darkspawn pass us by? One of them might be smart enough to figure out what that chalk on the wall means but if that happens it's going to take a while. You feel like going for it now or you want to hop up next to me, take a load off for a while?" Better to phrase it that way than to tell Dorian to take a break while he can - the Bull even hints at a suggestion that they do anything to benefit Dorian and he risks Dorian making the call to leave now just to prove he doesn't need it.
"Almost cozy in here, right?" he goes on, because it might work better to make staying about something Dorian actually expects so he might consider it. The Bull pats the stone next to him, angles his head so his wink will be obvious. "We can hang out, chat, get to know each other a little..."
"'Take a load off,' he says. As if this were as simple as a taking a break after one of our sparring sessions."
Dorian lets out an affronted breath at that poor excuse for a wink. While he has the urge to scrub at his eyes to rub away the exhaustion, he instead pinches the bridge of his nose, eyes shut against the dull throbbing of his head. The bruise at his temple is going to be unsightly – an ugly lump, then an uglier bruise, once it settles. Once they return to to Skyhold, he'll need several layers of makeup to hide it.
A quick, rallying breath, and Dorian looks the Bull over again. Dorian's more logical side reminds him that they're better off moving, that while they're safe for now, that may not remain true for very long. His more empathetic side reminds him that the Bull was heavily injured and nearly torn apart by darkspawn before Dorian arrived. There's little wonder why he might feel the need to take a moment to himself.
Reluctantly, Dorian approaches the desk before turning, taking a seat beside the Iron Bull. He keeps his arms crossed over his chest.
"Just for a few moments," he says. "After that, we ought to get moving, sooner rather than later."
The Bull nods, shifting to face Dorian a little more as Dorian sits down. He tries to stretch, rolling his shoulders back and trying to feel the muscles loosen under the pain of stretching the scraped up skin like that, but his horns hit the ceiling when he tries to straighten up enough to stretch his neck out too, stretch his muscles properly. He grimaces, not loving the reminder of how low the ceiling is, and the remains of the grimace linger on his face as he focuses on Dorian instead.
Digging into Dorian's problems might be a better way to spend this little break, if Dorian is into it. The problem that the Bull's got a way into is mostly settled, but he doesn't think it's the kind of settled where you have to leave it alone, so. Might as well reinforce the message.
"Nevarra's big uh, city of bodies thing, the Grand Necropolis. That's the place you wanted to visit, right?" His grimace from the ceiling finishes fading into something casual and his voice starts getting casual, too. A little too much so, something awkward underneath. "You saying it was for a kind of magic you still had more to learn about threw me off a little. I thought - well, I guess I assumed - that you knew everything about that stuff."
See? The Bull's so not bothered by seeing Dorian's necromancy that he's starting conversations about it. Conversations that invite more info. Because that's something he's okay learning more about.
It's for a purpose, at least. And if he's going to be working with Dorian for a while, maybe knowing more about it could even be useful. If it puts Dorian a little more at ease around him, and gives him something to think about that isn't everything else that's happening right now, then it'll do its job.
Dorian glances over at the noise of that sharp scrape of the Bull's horns against the stone ceiling. The ceiling is lower than Dorian likes, of course, but his height isn't as much of a detriment to him in this place as it is for the Bull.
"To be entirely fair to me, I do know a great deal already." The answer is automatic – just that quick reassurance that he is and can be the most impressive man in the room. "But— yes. I've more to learn, obviously. The Mortalitasi in Nevarra have been performing that type of magic for ages. Their research on the nature of death and its relation to the Fade is fascinating."
"My parents found my fascination with the Mortalitasi quite distasteful," he says, his tone light. He lifts a shoulder in a shrug. "While necromancy is slightly more accepted in Tevinter, it's hardly welcomed with open arms. 'Why can't you do something more impressive, Dorian? Wouldn't you prefer to become a Knight-Enchanter? Everyone is always so impressed by those big, swinging swords.'"
He casts the Bull a sidelong glance, smirking. The joke is low-hanging fruit – he hopes the Bull appreciates it, nonetheless.
"They allowed it to continue, obviously. Necromancy is a rare school of magic, and more to the point, a difficult school of magic. To master it would be a feat, in and of itself."
Once the topic starts focusing on Dorian, instead of all that fascinating research the necromancers in Nevarra all like doing, things start getting a lot more interesting. When Dorian makes a dick joke in the middle of it and pauses to smirk at him the Bull smirks back - with all Dorian's usual pushback against the crude, lowbrow stuff the Bull usually has fun with, hearing Dorian give it right back to him is always kind of a treat - but he doesn't need the joke to keep him interested.
"Weird. Easy to assume all that magic people feel weird about here is going to be popular in Tevinter. What is it they don't like about it? If getting good at it's impressive, what's knight-enchanter got that necromancy doesn't? Pushing the big swords aside, I mean, pretty sure you can swing one of those whenever you want to."
"It's the tampering with corpses, I expect. The smell alone is likely to grate. And corpses are not in high supply, as you might imagine." Like most places, Tevinter burns their dead.
"The magic empowering a Knight-Enchanter is rare and difficult, as well – though it's rarer in Orlais than it is in Tevinter. It fills a much needed gap in a mage's defense – namely, ways of protecting oneself should one be forced into close quarters combat. Plus, well. The giant, floating sword bit looks impressive. Whether or not the mage wields it with any prowess is another matter entirely."
Dorian hesitates for a second before delicately shrugging again.
"They're in higher demand, as well. The war, you know. So many young mages looking to make names for themselves on Seheron become Knight-Enchanters."
He thinks this is a safe enough topic; they've discussed the war raging between the Imperium and the Qunari a few times already.
The Bull grunts, not minding the topic the way they usually do it, only really digging into the parts of Seheron that the Bull decides to pull up and put out there and even then, not really digging that deep, but still more interested in Dorian and how the stuff they're talking about is effecting him than anything else. "Not you, though."
Which isn't exactly a revelation. When it comes to spending every autumn chasing easy glory at the expense of whoever has the bad luck to get in his way, the Bull can't think of any 'vint less suited. Not that he knows a bunch of those in the way that he knows Krem or Dorian, but it says something about Dorian, anyway.
"So, why corpses, spirits, all that? Not for recognition, at least not the easy kind. Sure it lets you make guys shit their pants and run on the battlefield, but there are probably easier ways to go for that. What did you see in all that stuff that no one else did?"
"Not me," he echoes in agreement. "Alti who go to Seheron – those that truly fight, that is, and not those who treat it as a novel way to spend their autumn break – are those who feel they have few options. They're the fourth-in-lines, the afterthoughts and back-up heirs, who stand to inherent very little. They have something to prove and decide killing Qunari and those sympathetic to the Qun is the way to do it.
"I, on the other hand, had my future planned for me. I was to excel at my studies and climb the ranks in the Circle. Then, I was to marry a finely bred woman of my parents' choosing and sire at least one or two little children, whose care would be left in the hands of capable and austere nannies. After that, I'd ingratiate myself to the Archon and become the darling of the Imperial Senate, hoping all the while that the Archon would see fit to declare me his successor."
Dorian falls silent for a second, frowning down at his lap. He's not sure if he's ever admitted this aloud. Maybe to Alexius, maybe to Felix. He's not sure.
"I chose necromancy because I found it interesting. In Tevinter, some spirits are bound and kept as servants – though they aren't tethered to corpses, as they would be in Nevarra – and I was fascinated by it. I knew it was exceedingly difficult to master, having to open oneself up to spirits to pull them across the Veil, having to exert one's willpower over them to obey one's commands.
"And most importantly, I knew my parents would find it incredibly repugnant."
The Bull chuckles. "Can't forget that part. Good for you, making your own call about your life." That part of it, at least, the Bull can get behind. Yeah under the Qun, the idea of that one path someone's going to stick to is a pretty big one, pretty much one of the top ideas, but that only works as long as the system works. If you have people figuring out the right way to do it. It isn't the kind of thing that actually gets done unless whoever's walking that path actually wants to be put on it, and you have to work with that. Something tells him that Tevinter doesn't exactly approach it that way.
"So... 'interesting', huh?" he asks, with only the tiniest little hint of nerves about hearing the answer. "Were you thinking of it that way because of the whole willpower part of it, proving yourself, or... I don't know, it doesn't seem like it's a power trip for you, and outside that I guess I don't really get it."
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The Bull lets out a hard breath with every other step but he sets a quick pace, and with that pace he gets there. Once they get into that next room he keeps moving, wanting to give Dorian enough room to work, and once he has the Bull leans there, takes a moment to force his breathing to slow down a little, to sit there with the pain.
"Might buy us some time," he manages, shifting his focus over after that moment to concentrate on Dorian again, gaze moving over him to look for any signs of injury, or darkspawn blood, or anything worth worrying about at all. First time he's seen Dorian since before they fell and it's hard not to compare it, to take how it felt watching Dorian standing there next to him whole and safe, wondering what expression Dorian had been wearing behind that mask, and set that next to what he's seeing now. He wonders how much everything between then and now messed his sense of time up, whether it all feels longer than it actually was. How long it's actually been. How far away the rest of their little group might be. "What are the chances the boss heard some of that? We weren't really quiet, and sound seems like it carries down here."
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Behind them, the darkspawn howl and screech, knocking down more of the ice wall, but it holds, for the most part. By the time Dorian has led the two of them into the half-collapsed hallway, only the top portion has broken enough to allow one darkspawn to poke out its head. Dorian obligingly splays his hand and flicks his wrist, freezing the creature in place.
He leaves the Bull propped up against a nearby wall, clear of the doorway, and quickly returns to his position. An arrow whizzes through the gap of the doorway, missing Dorian's cheek by mere inches, and he grits his teeth. Green energy surrounds him as he calls upon the Fade, arms thrown out to either side, and he commands the stone boulders to fully barricade the door. They obligingly roll and float into place, and once they've dropped and settled, sending out a cloud of dust, Dorian lets himself finally take a breath.
He's shaking, he realizes. Probably from the fading battle high, but also probably from the revulsion coursing through him and twisting his stomach, and also from the exertion of casting so many powerful spells in succession. His head throbs, now that he's letting himself notice, and he feels a little nauseated – but Dorian would rather chalk that up to his exhaustion and his concussion than to the possibility that he's somehow just been infected with—
Dorian's mind quickly jerks away from that train of thought.
He glances over at the Bull, and realizes the man is examining him closely.
"I'm fine," Dorian says quickly, and he manages to sound suitably convincing. He's— well, he's not, but he would wager he's in far better shape than the Bull. "If we're lucky, we'll have made enough of a racket that half the Inquisition could find us."
He hurries toward the Bull, moving to tuck himself the man's bad side again.
"We need to find someplace safe so I can tend to your wounds."
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It's something he'd be doing anyway but it helps, having something to focus on that isn't him. Someone else's problems. Maybe Dorian's feeling the same way. If someone can get something that isn't terrible out of this whole damn ankle thing, then Dorian should get to have it. They both probably need every little piece of whatever keeps them going that they can get right now.
"Yeah, and I bet you need a rest." He looks around, decides on a direction, takes a slower, bracing breath. Leaning mostly against the wall and a little against Dorian, the Bull starts moving. He can add some more 'not terrible' to this, he thinks. Not a lot, but for the moment, they've got time. They're alive. The mood might not get a whole lot better, but that doesn't mean the Bull can't do a better job now than he did crawling through that hallway earlier.
Dorian's here, not just a voice that was only half as strong as his heart pounding in his ears but here, close enough to see, to feel. The ceiling is too low, still, but the room is open. Not great, maybe. But better. So the Bull can do better.
"After doing all that, I mean." He pauses, takes a breath against the pain that sounds louder trapped inside the mask. Keeps going. "Hot damn, what a show!" Another pause, shorter, quieter, and after he takes that second for himself he makes his voice kind of smug and teasing. "Sometimes I almost think you actually could take me on, if you really wanted to."
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"I could absolutely take you on," he replies, just the right amount of haughty, "and it would be your own fault for underestimating me if I found reason enough to best you."
The Bull is warm at his side, and more importantly alive. Perhaps the Bull had downplayed the seriousness of his injuries before, but Dorian is gratified, at least, that he hadn't been completely lying. The man is mostly intact, and while Dorian can't mend all of his hurts – he has only rudimentary knowledge of healing spells, after all – he can at least do a bit to patch things up.
He hesitates for a bit before he slowly ventures, "I'm surprised you were impressed."
There's a touch of caution to his voice. Dorian is hardly ashamed of his skills and would be the first to applaud himself, but he knows the Bull's relationship with magic is fraught, at best. And according to some people – mostly plebeians with no understanding of the nuances of magic – necromancy isn't that much better than blood magic.
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"What?" the Bull asks, like he can't at least make a guess. There's another one of those pauses again while the Bull acknowledges the pain; right now it's a greedy thing trying to steal all his attention, and if he hands that attention out in moments then he can direct the rest of it where he really needs to. "You blow an old dwarven door right off its hinges, start raining fire everywhere, and take out as many darkspawn on your own as an entire team of warriors all just to keep my butt out of the fire and I'm going to, what? Start critiquing your form?"
He looks over at Dorian again. Yeah the Bull didn't mention one particular part of of Dorian's whole rescue in that little recounting there, but it's kind of hard to make every single part of what Dorian did back there sound cool. Trying wouldn't sound natural, because he couldn't mean it. Might ruin his message. And the message itself is the true part anyway, not how excited he did or didn't get over every single detail. "What else did you think I was going to be?"
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But it would take a fool to notice that the Bull is making a rather glaring omission, and Dorian lets out a breath. Of course it bothered the Bull. It bothers nearly everyone outside of Nevarra, and even some people from Nevarra. Cassandra had given him a wide berth the first time he had placed a wisp into a corpse, only to later probe with questions to discover what type of person he was, whether he was the type to bind wisps to corpses and have them shambling after him like some sort of retainer. Even some mages in Tevinter find necromancy distasteful.
He frowns at the Bull's obvious pulse of pain, grip tightening on the Bull's arm before Dorian nudges them toward what might have once been a storage room. He had passed by it earlier while exploring the place – evidenced by the line of chalk he left by the doorway – and he guides the Bull in. There's a stone table – tall and sturdy enough to support a man of Bull's size – and Dorian guides him toward it.
"I save it for emergencies," he explains quietly. The Bull may be avoiding the topic, and as simple as it would be for Dorian to go along with him, Dorian won't. He's not ashamed of his magic, but in this case, he understands the worry that comes along with it – and his responsibility as a practitioner to assuage those worries. "I don't make a habit of animating skeletons and having them carry me about in a palanquin – though perhaps I should."
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He feels his breath moving in harsh gusts through his nose, leans on Dorian a little more than he wants to and his bad leg a lot more than he should, and tries to drag the conversation to the top of his thoughts, think about that while the rest of him does the things it needs to. Dorian isn't really playing along; for him that means things are serious, that the topic is important enough for him to draw that kind of attention to it. Which means the Bull's answer wasn't the right one, that he must have miscalculated.
Better, then, to ask him straight out. The Bull makes it to the table, turns, hops up. The pain is still what it is, but at least he doesn't have to put any weight on the thing until they have to move again.
"Like I said," he goes on, now that the part of his mind that had been keeping him moving is free up enough to help him focus on it. "What else did you think I was going to do? Get pissed off at you? Go back and report you to the templars?"
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The wisps still float around them, but Dorian adds a few more to their number to drift around the ceiling. It's hardly daylight in here, but it's far easier to see by.
"You might lecture me," he replies, though the expression on his face says he would prefer to avoid that. He looks the Bull over with a critical eye, now that there's time and light for it. "Tell me of the dangers of tampering with such strange forces. Or reprimand me for my cavalier and disrespectful treatment of the dead."
By his tone of voice, Dorian has had this conversation several times over.
"Is the ankle the worst of it?" he asks, clipped and business-like to conceal his worry. "Or is there any other damage I'm not seeing?"
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"Pretty sure that's it," he decides. "Everything else is just the surface stuff." The gouges, the scrapes covering most of him - they're going to hurt for a while, and itch like shit once they start healing, but they look worse than they are. The leg's the only real injury there. Considering how far he fell, every place inside his body that isn't screaming at him right now can probably be traced back to Dorian.
Kind of weird to think about - how the Bull owes everything to Dorian right now a handful of times over, and Dorian still expects the Bull to give him shit for it. It's a good way to spend this little break of theirs, trying to convince Dorian otherwise. It would be nice if he could do it.
He goes through the points, one at a time. "If I start lecturing you on magic, start checking my food for weird mushrooms. I know you too well to pull that kind of crap. You don't need me to start telling you how dangerous all those forces are. And considering the kind of things you just took out? I'm pretty sure you didn't disrespect them enough."
He watches Dorian a moment. "That really the kind of stuff you think I've got to say to you?"
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"You wouldn't have been the first," he replies, voice and gaze a little distant as he examines the injury. "I mostly hear it from Vivienne. Cassandra, sometimes. She enjoys telling me cautionary tales about her uncle, a Mortalitasi. She says the smell of embalming fluid makes her want to retch. Sera isn't much of a fan, either, for obvious reasons, and neither is Cole, though he's not quite so direct with his criticisms, as you might imagine. I found myself apologizing to him, nevertheless."
The boy had seemed so distressed at the time.
With the injury properly examined, he draws another wisp across the Veil, channeling its energies to partially mend some of the damage.
"This may be painful," he warns, though he's already set to work. "This will be a temporary measure a best. A healer with legitimate training will need to see to this."
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"I don't know," he says, watching Dorian's hands. Getting healed by magic isn't something he's a huge fan of either, even though sometimes he couldn't fight the way he does without it. That's not a discomfort he thinks too hard about, these days. Not since the earlier days in Orlais with the Bleeders. Some things you just have to get used to. Maybe it's the topic that's making him more aware of it now, making him try harder to sort it all out and put it into words.
"Vivienne just doesn't like not being the biggest, baddest thing around, probably just trying to feel like she's still in control. The rest of them- eh, none of them are here, so I guess it doesn't matter. If you really want me to join that club you're going to have to start pulling that crap on someone who isn't trying to kill you, and I don't think that's going to happen. You don't feel like the type. Besides, you think you think I don't know how hard you've been working to keep me in one piece? I'm not that much of an asshole. I am actually impressed. You pulled some pretty impressive shit. I might not be that excited about all of it, but I'm alive to get over it. Not going to forget that that's all down to you just because you made a call about what needed to get done."
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Dorian spends a few moments focusing, on trying not to do more damage in his attempts to fix things. After a few minutes, he rocks back, the glow fading from his hands as he settles them in his lap.
"That's as much as I'm comfortable mending." Admittedly, he thinks, it wasn't much, but it should be enough to attempt limping on, though not much else. "If I try anything more, I'm bound to get something wrong, and some healer might harangue me for making things worse."
For a second, he falls silent, before he lets out a breath. "You're certain? I know you're— not comfortable with more esoteric types of magic." An understatement, admittedly, but sometimes Dorian can manage a bit of tact, when he cares to. "If you've anything to say, now's the time to do it, while it's still fresh. I'd rather we have everything out in the open."
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But they're not talking about magic in general. That might be a good sign, that maybe Dorian's not as worried about whether the Bull's just uncomfortable around him altogether any more, that they're talking about this one kind of magic now instead. Doesn't necessarily mean anything, but maybe they're making progress.
Dalish never seemed to worry this much about this stuff. But then, it hasn't really come up. The mage thing is an open secret, yeah, but she doesn't wear it on her sleeve the same way Dorian does.
If it is a problem for her, she hasn't said anything about it. The Bull would have been able to tell, though. Wouldn't he? Weird thought, that one. He hasn't really wondered that before.
"You want it out in the open?" He shrugs. Maybe Dorian isn't really going to feel settled until he hears at least a little something negative. Hopefully he doesn't need the Bull to sound annoyed about it, though. If this is going to go the way the Bull wants it to, he's got to sound casual. Which isn't really hard. This is something he's got worked out with himself already and it works for him, even if Dorian hasn't quite caught up. "Sure. That stuff gives me the creeps. If you can put some 'spirit' into a dead body, if you can do all that once they're dead, how close is that to doing it while they're still alive? You or, you know, anyone else who can do any of that crap. That's what I think about when I see it. But like I said: I trust you. Say someone I'm fighting with likes to use a... I don't know, beehive on a stick to beat all his enemies. I'm going to feel a little weird about seeing it, but as long as the bees only go after the bad guys I'm going to rest easy.
"Besides, all the stuff we've gone through, even just in the past month - I get that I didn't give you as much reason as you gave me to think this way but in that uh, that temple, even just then, I got a lot of reasons to trust you. And a few more after that. A lot more of them today. I decide to throw all that away just because you can do something I don't like, I'm going to have to turn in my ben-hassrath card. You're a good guy, Dorian. You've given me too much evidence of that for me to just up and stop trusting you to make the tough calls about how to use what you can do.
"So yeah, I don't really love watching that stuff happen. But- so what? You keep using it to help people and you're good in my book. I don't know if that's the kind of open you wanted, but it's true. Can't speak for everyone, but if you're worried about what the others are going to say all I have to tell them is that you busted in like a hero and saved my ass. They don't have to know the real details."
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Dorian has a speech prepared, filled with a thousand different little reassurances, about the specific differences between necromancy and blood magic. It's a good speech. He's had to use it several times, to varying degrees of efficacy.
No need for it, apparently, and Dorian feels himself relaxing a little – not entirely relieved, but at least glad that this won't sour what goodwill has developed between the two of them. Dorian has a few things he'd like to say about the Bull's trust (is it entirely warranted?) or his continued insistence that Dorian is a good man (he is selfish and stubborn and far too proud, sometimes), but that's another argument entirely.
"Be sure to emphasize how impressive I was," he says, putting on his usual arrogance. "Perhaps a few comments about how fearsome and handsome I looked, silhouetted by flame. That should be sufficiently florid enough."
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But that's a thought for later. The Bull takes a slow breath, bracing himself to walk again even if he isn't actually moving yet. "Anyway, do you know where we need to head next? Don't know how much you got to explore before you had to run back for me."
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Dorian gets to his feet, brushing himself off. The tremor from his hands has faded, though that exhaustion is still there – and will likely remain until he's had a good night's sleep or several.
"I didn't get a good look around," he admits, though there's a touch of guilt there, too. He was so focused on getting himself to the Bull that he hadn't had much of a mind on planning their escape, even though that responsibility should have fallen on Dorian, as well.
Better to present a solution than an apology, though: "I marked where I've been, though, and I have enough chalk that I can continue to do so indefinitely. I expect if we can find our way out of this ruin, we can locate one those ancient lifts. With luck, we can figure out our own way back to the base camp."
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"So, we want to go out and brave it now or wait and see if the darkspawn pass us by? One of them might be smart enough to figure out what that chalk on the wall means but if that happens it's going to take a while. You feel like going for it now or you want to hop up next to me, take a load off for a while?" Better to phrase it that way than to tell Dorian to take a break while he can - the Bull even hints at a suggestion that they do anything to benefit Dorian and he risks Dorian making the call to leave now just to prove he doesn't need it.
"Almost cozy in here, right?" he goes on, because it might work better to make staying about something Dorian actually expects so he might consider it. The Bull pats the stone next to him, angles his head so his wink will be obvious. "We can hang out, chat, get to know each other a little..."
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Dorian lets out an affronted breath at that poor excuse for a wink. While he has the urge to scrub at his eyes to rub away the exhaustion, he instead pinches the bridge of his nose, eyes shut against the dull throbbing of his head. The bruise at his temple is going to be unsightly – an ugly lump, then an uglier bruise, once it settles. Once they return to to Skyhold, he'll need several layers of makeup to hide it.
A quick, rallying breath, and Dorian looks the Bull over again. Dorian's more logical side reminds him that they're better off moving, that while they're safe for now, that may not remain true for very long. His more empathetic side reminds him that the Bull was heavily injured and nearly torn apart by darkspawn before Dorian arrived. There's little wonder why he might feel the need to take a moment to himself.
Reluctantly, Dorian approaches the desk before turning, taking a seat beside the Iron Bull. He keeps his arms crossed over his chest.
"Just for a few moments," he says. "After that, we ought to get moving, sooner rather than later."
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Digging into Dorian's problems might be a better way to spend this little break, if Dorian is into it. The problem that the Bull's got a way into is mostly settled, but he doesn't think it's the kind of settled where you have to leave it alone, so. Might as well reinforce the message.
"Nevarra's big uh, city of bodies thing, the Grand Necropolis. That's the place you wanted to visit, right?" His grimace from the ceiling finishes fading into something casual and his voice starts getting casual, too. A little too much so, something awkward underneath. "You saying it was for a kind of magic you still had more to learn about threw me off a little. I thought - well, I guess I assumed - that you knew everything about that stuff."
See? The Bull's so not bothered by seeing Dorian's necromancy that he's starting conversations about it. Conversations that invite more info. Because that's something he's okay learning more about.
It's for a purpose, at least. And if he's going to be working with Dorian for a while, maybe knowing more about it could even be useful. If it puts Dorian a little more at ease around him, and gives him something to think about that isn't everything else that's happening right now, then it'll do its job.
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"To be entirely fair to me, I do know a great deal already." The answer is automatic – just that quick reassurance that he is and can be the most impressive man in the room. "But— yes. I've more to learn, obviously. The Mortalitasi in Nevarra have been performing that type of magic for ages. Their research on the nature of death and its relation to the Fade is fascinating."
Dorian falls silent, hands clasped loosely together.
"My parents found my fascination with the Mortalitasi quite distasteful," he says, his tone light. He lifts a shoulder in a shrug. "While necromancy is slightly more accepted in Tevinter, it's hardly welcomed with open arms. 'Why can't you do something more impressive, Dorian? Wouldn't you prefer to become a Knight-Enchanter? Everyone is always so impressed by those big, swinging swords.'"
He casts the Bull a sidelong glance, smirking. The joke is low-hanging fruit – he hopes the Bull appreciates it, nonetheless.
"They allowed it to continue, obviously. Necromancy is a rare school of magic, and more to the point, a difficult school of magic. To master it would be a feat, in and of itself."
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"Weird. Easy to assume all that magic people feel weird about here is going to be popular in Tevinter. What is it they don't like about it? If getting good at it's impressive, what's knight-enchanter got that necromancy doesn't? Pushing the big swords aside, I mean, pretty sure you can swing one of those whenever you want to."
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"The magic empowering a Knight-Enchanter is rare and difficult, as well – though it's rarer in Orlais than it is in Tevinter. It fills a much needed gap in a mage's defense – namely, ways of protecting oneself should one be forced into close quarters combat. Plus, well. The giant, floating sword bit looks impressive. Whether or not the mage wields it with any prowess is another matter entirely."
Dorian hesitates for a second before delicately shrugging again.
"They're in higher demand, as well. The war, you know. So many young mages looking to make names for themselves on Seheron become Knight-Enchanters."
He thinks this is a safe enough topic; they've discussed the war raging between the Imperium and the Qunari a few times already.
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Which isn't exactly a revelation. When it comes to spending every autumn chasing easy glory at the expense of whoever has the bad luck to get in his way, the Bull can't think of any 'vint less suited. Not that he knows a bunch of those in the way that he knows Krem or Dorian, but it says something about Dorian, anyway.
"So, why corpses, spirits, all that? Not for recognition, at least not the easy kind. Sure it lets you make guys shit their pants and run on the battlefield, but there are probably easier ways to go for that. What did you see in all that stuff that no one else did?"
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"I, on the other hand, had my future planned for me. I was to excel at my studies and climb the ranks in the Circle. Then, I was to marry a finely bred woman of my parents' choosing and sire at least one or two little children, whose care would be left in the hands of capable and austere nannies. After that, I'd ingratiate myself to the Archon and become the darling of the Imperial Senate, hoping all the while that the Archon would see fit to declare me his successor."
Dorian falls silent for a second, frowning down at his lap. He's not sure if he's ever admitted this aloud. Maybe to Alexius, maybe to Felix. He's not sure.
"I chose necromancy because I found it interesting. In Tevinter, some spirits are bound and kept as servants – though they aren't tethered to corpses, as they would be in Nevarra – and I was fascinated by it. I knew it was exceedingly difficult to master, having to open oneself up to spirits to pull them across the Veil, having to exert one's willpower over them to obey one's commands.
"And most importantly, I knew my parents would find it incredibly repugnant."
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"So... 'interesting', huh?" he asks, with only the tiniest little hint of nerves about hearing the answer. "Were you thinking of it that way because of the whole willpower part of it, proving yourself, or... I don't know, it doesn't seem like it's a power trip for you, and outside that I guess I don't really get it."
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