If Dorian is surprised that the Bull manages to strike that all too familiar cadence, or that he manages to offer that ridiculous wink that Dorian refuses to find a little charming, he doesn't say so aloud.
"Really?" And Dorian's tone, this time, is tired in a completely different way – exasperated and impatient, though almost entirely for show. "You want to do this even now?"
But as he asks it, Dorian frees his staff from its place at his back, letting its base rest against the ground before he offers it to the Bull. He maintains his hold on the cool metal grip until the Bull takes it, until he's certain the Bull can maneuver himself to let the staff take his weight.
"Why not now?" the Bull asks with a little smile. "You want me to wait and tug on your special staff later?"
Not that any flirting right now is more than show. Not that they both don't know it. The flirting's kind of nice, though, all the same, distracting in the ways they both need it to be. Still feels a little weird, reaching out and grabbing the thing on purpose, but in a more residual way this time, because he's done this before. There's no magic sitting in it waiting to reach out at whoever grabs it. Staves don't work that way. He did this not that long ago and no weird crap happened then either, did it? And it isn't going to. The parts of his mind that don't really believe that probably wouldn't be as jumpy about it if he wasn't already all worked up, so he can ignore them. It's fine. Not that there isn't a problem with the Bull standing here holding Dorian's weapon, but that problem doesn't have anything to do with whether or not having it in his hand just feels a little bit creepy.
"Keep your hand on it too, or near it or something," he says, taking a few experimental steps. He won't have to go so slow once he's found the rhythm of it again, and that won't take long. "Don't want to slow you down if you need it."
He looks up at the path, the little spirit things Dorian's got lighting up the way, keeps his breathing deep and regular as he starts to move, gets into the pattern of it-
-and of course, once he gets out in the open, once he starts thinking he might make it onto that path and get a little cover, maybe lean against the wall, he starts to hear it. Darkspawn must not be all that good at sneaking, the Bull finds himself thinking, but they're good enough, aren't they? Good enough to take the Bull by surprise twice now, not give him enough time to hide. Shit.
He has time to glance at Dorian and try to shove the staff at him but not enough time to argue about it; if Dorian takes it back, great, if he doesn't, the Bull's still going to try and run for it, or come as close as he can get without the shitting ankle giving out. He's gone too far to get back to their little tunnel, it'd take too much time to get in and so the only hope is forward, get around that bend, hope there's something they can use there. Somewhere to hide, some solid cover - anything. The smell is getting stronger, the chitters and shrieks behind them louder and more excited, and the urge to turn and pull out his axe tugs at the Bull's mind. But if he did that it'd be the last thing he ever did and Dorian wouldn't even be smart enough to take the distraction and run, besides. Dorian would stay if he stayed, and die trying to protect him. Sometimes it's a real pain in the ass, fighting with good men at your back.
So the Bull keeps moving. Everything he had been putting into sounding like moving didn't hurt is going into speed now and rhythmic, pained noises start making their way out of him, noises it's getting harder to hear over the darkspawn but the bend in that path is getting closer, too, along with whatever's behind it. Because there has to be something behind it. He has to believe there's something behind it, anyway, believe enough to keep him moving at this stupid, hobbling pace, the bent up brace twisted around his ankle the only thing keeping him up, and if there's nothing once he gets there but more open space, well -
He'll deal with that once he sees it. He's had enough last stands already, or moments that were supposed to be. He knows how they go.
Dorian rolls his eyes at the Bull's all too obvious attempts at levity, but a small part of him appreciates it – that call to something approaching normal while they're hip-deep in shit. He only offers a curt nod at the Bull's direction, but he doesn't keep a hand on the staff. Instead, he continues to hover around the other man, using the Bull's suggestion as a guise for his hovering.
The Bull, of course, notices before Dorian does – and only when the Bull seems to tense, when his expression tightens, does Dorian hear the inhuman sounds of the darkspawn's mockery of language. The Bull tries to shove the staff back into Dorian's hands, but Dorian only spares the man a glare shoves it right back. In this case, Dorian is absolutely certain the Bull needs the implement more than Dorian does, and no mage as powerful as Dorian has ever needed a staff to be dangerous.
He grits out, "Go," and guards the Bull's back as the man hurries ahead.
A small, selfish voice reminds him that he is the one with knowledge of a treatment for Blight-sickness, that he is the one best able to defend himself, that he has talent and genius and so much potential. If anyone should survive, shouldn't it be Dorian? If Dorian simply hurried on ahead, certainly no one would blame him.
Be practical about this, Dorian, that voice says, and it reminds him so much of his parents that Dorian nearly wants to be sick.
The stench of decay, cloyingly bitter and sweet and wrong, hits him full force as the first few darkspawn comes into view, clambering over the rubble of some once ancient building. Dorian mutters under his breath, hands moving in a blur to trace an intricate pattern in the air. He throws both arms out to his sides, and a glyph appears before his chest, sending out a salvo of fireballs. The flames catch and set the creatures alight; they screech in agony, twisting and falling.
He immediately senses it, the transition from life to death, and once that awareness snaps, he curls one hand into the air, drawing spirits from the Fade and pressing them into the darkspawn corpses. They stand, wreathed in the purple light of Dorian's magic and the fire still burning their dying flesh, and turn on their brethren.
Five against some innumerable horde are hardly good odds, but it's better than what they had before.
After that, Dorian sinks into muscle memory, casting out basic spells to keep the darkspawn from closing in. Casting without a staff is demanding – it requires far more focus to aim his skills correctly, to temper them so he doesn't end up burning or freezing his hands with every spell he casts. He's balancing a difficult line, trying to conserve his energy while also trying to dispatch the monsters as quickly as possible. If he can keep the darkspawn at a distance, if he can prevent the two of them from being overrun, they stand a much greater chance.
"Dorian!" the Bull shouts the moment he makes it around that bend, not sparing an instant to glance back but trying to listen, trying to hear Dorian over the shrieks of the darkspawn to know whether he's still alive. "Got a lift back here! Move!"
Because it doesn't matter, now, if the thing works or not. Green light shines off exposed gears, jagged chunks of rubble and broken stone, and that lift is the only thing that this path leads up to. Either it works and they both make it up together, or it doesn't and they go out together, shoulder to shoulder. He doesn't like the idea of going out like this, like he is now, running away while someone else stays behind to cover for him. There's not any time to explain any of that, even if any of it really mattered.
He steps wrong, foot landing crooked on a rock, and he goes down. The noise he makes is pain, not surprise, and the moment he lands hard on the ground he hurls Dorian's staff onto the platform ahead of him, teeth gritted, and drags himself closer.
Still no point in looking back. The part of him that needs to know if any darkspawn made it past Dorian is the same part of him that wouldn't shut up back in that tunnel, the part that reacts, doesn't think, except this time he already knows the threat's right here behind him, able to put a stop to everything he's ever been with just one lucky hit. That makes it easier. Might sound weird if he tried to explain that out loud, but it's true.
This might be up there with the worse fights he's been in, but that doesn't matter much. What matters is that he can still move, that he doesn't waste any time.
He stops trying to hear whether Dorian's still fighting. He stops thinking about anything. If this thing doesn't move them in time nothing else is going to matter so he lets the threat behind him be what it is and turns his mind forward, watching that eerie green gleam off the pieces of the lift ahead while darkspawn howling fills his ears. He heaves himself forward one more time onto the edge of the platform, reaching out for one big, exposed gear and leaning his whole weight onto it, waiting for a still, endless moment until he feels it start grinding against something.
Only then does he try to focus on Dorian. If he didn't do everything he could to get this thing moving, how Dorian was doing wouldn't matter. But if Dorian took too long to get back here, or didn't come at all, or gets back with that bare, uncovered face coated in darkspawn blood because the Bull hadn't been able to watch his back-
He has time to look now, just for an instant. He'll decide what to do from there.
For a moment, Dorian can only spare a wordless noise of acknowledgment, a curt nod – one that he isn't entirely certain would be visible in the gloom. Still, he wastes no time in determining whether the Bull understands, and trusts, instead, that the Bull knows that Dorian's intention is to follow.
He immediately returns to casting, feeling the weight of the Fade as he reaches across the Veil, again and again. He sticks to the basics, to the rudimentary spells they teach young initiates learning to control their abilities, in a bid to conserve what's left of his pool of mana. His earlier efforts had been draining, and while he hasn't fully depleted his energy, he fears he's getting dangerously close.
The Bull is no small man, and when he falls, Dorian whirls around.
"Bull!"
He takes an aborted step toward the other man before his good sense catches up with him, reminds him that granting the darkspawn even that breath will cost them both dearly. A small, impractical part of him wants to rush to the Bull and help him onto whatever lift the other man might have found; the reasonable part of him, the tactician his parents trained him to be, says that if Dorian falls back now, they're both doomed.
Gritting his teeth, he turns, continuing to cast, trying to keep them at a distance. His more demanding spells are used only when a darkspawn gets too close for comfort – healthy applications of fire to cauterize any wounds and minimize the risk of contamination. He draws the spirits of the fallen toward him, only occasionally using them to replenish his mana, preferring instead to use them to reanimate the dead. He remembers, once, during one of their rare civil conversations, that Solas had suggested he use a less "flashy" style to conserve energy. And at the moment, very few of Dorian's usual flourishes are on display, favoring efficiency above all else.
The screeching and grinding of long neglected gears catches his attention, but Dorian doesn't turn – not immediately. Instead, he continues to back up, sending out bursts of flame to distract the creatures. Once he considers himself close enough, he uses the last bit of his mana, murmuring under his breath as he weaves his hands through a half-familiar mnemonic. Without his staff, he instead channels the spell by stomping on the stone path, and a glyph blossoms out from the impact, the glow of it nearly blinding in the darkness of the caverns. Once it flashes, Dorian spins around, running toward the lift. Any darkspawn foolish enough to attempt crossing the glyph are blown back, as if struck away by an invisible force.
When he makes it to the lift, Dorian is flushed and sweating, gasping for breath.
"That won't last long," he pants out, and true to his word, the edges of the glyph have already started to flicker and dim. While he's visibly drained, Dorian is still tense, ready to spring back into the fight. He offers the Bull a wan smile. "Starting to feel a mite exhausted."
It's a joke, an admission, and an apology, all in one.
He's here. Doesn't look hurt. No darkspawn blood. The Bull's eye flickers over him and then he looks back to the gear, leaning on it with all his weight. He doesn't have a grin or a joke to keep Dorian's spirit up, not right now. It's not like he's not used to looking at the guy fighting next to him and knowing it might be the last time he sees whoever-it-is alive, but he can tell by the something - something he doesn't have enough time right now to pin down and identify - that rushes through him when he sees Dorian alive and probably-well that all this is going to hit him different later, if they both get a later. Different than he's used to. He has just as much time to figure out the why of that as he does to pick apart the feeling in the first place, but it doesn't take a genius to realize what a fucking shitty day it's been, and to connect the two. If he doesn't get a good fight later, work all this crap out of him, he's going to-
He won't get that though. Not for a while. The leg.
Wait on all that. Try to keep living first.
"Little longer," he says, instead of the semi-joke he should maybe meet Dorian's tired smile with. The gear shrieks under his hands with every new turn, the noise getting just this side of painful as the ancient, broken lift shakes, jerks, lurches its way upward, unsteady but moving fast. "We get up there, make sure they can't ride this thing back up, find a-" The next word's cut off with a harsh, wordless noise and a, "Shit!" a hand, an arm, an ugly, snarling face rises over the edge of the lift, the whole thing lurches underneath all of them as the Bull reaches instinctively for his axe and the stubs on his other hand scrabble against the gear like he's still got five fingers to hold it in place instead of three and two halves and the gear slips, the darkspawn takes a leap forward just as the lift falls and the Bull grabs at it with both hands and heaves at it, no last thoughts inside his head, just his breath harsh inside his throat, his teeth pressing hard against each other, this faint, disbelieving shame that this is how he goes out, this, after dragging through this whole fight like a ball and chain on Dorian's leg and dying without a weapon in his hand, and he'd always counted on dying angry and taking something else out with him but not Dorian, not when they're too high up for a lift this heavy to fall right back into a crowd of the things, and Dorian's the one who's going to suffer if he lets go now. So he doesn't let go. He's got no room to move, no hands to fight with and, quick as he usually is, no time to think anything else.
Dorian offers only a little nod at the Bull's reassurance. The lift shudders a little as they rise, and the scrape of metal draws Dorian's attention to the staff left lying on the platform. He turns, scooping it up, resisting the urge to let himself fold over completely from exhaustion.
The platform jerks, but Dorian has already spun around at the Bull's curse. A spell jumps to the tip of his tongue – though a distant, rational part of him knows he has no mana left to cast it. The sudden fall and the abrupt stop tells him that the Bull has his hands full with the lift, and—
The darkspawn charges, and so does Dorian. He can almost imagine his ancestors screaming at him from beyond the Veil. Leave him, you half-wit. Protect yourself. He's nobody. And he can feel the thoughts flying around in his head, can feel his mind going through the brutal calculus of battle, of practicality and self-preservation.
Rather conveniently, he can't hear any of that over the rush of blood in his ears, over the constant chant in his head: save him save him save him
He skids to a halt in front of the Bull, arms flung out to shield him. The darkspawn lets out a guttural cry as its chipped, rusted sword swings down, and Dorian watches with grim resignation, teeth gritted and eyes hard. Had a decent run— a stray thought, rising to the surface. Could've done with more wine and fewer darkspawn, though.
But Dorian isn't cut down. Instead, the darkspawn screeches, reeling back and letting its sword drop to the platform. It's only when the darkspawn reaches up with both hands to grip its hilt that Dorian notices the knife sunk deeply into its eye socket. The darkspawn yanks the blade out with a wild shriek of pain, and Dorian only just manages to turn his head away from the spray of blood. He still feels it splash against the side of his head, thick and unnaturally hot against his skin, and he shudders with disgust.
Not a blink later, a second blade flies down, and with a wet squelch, it sinks deeply into the darkspawn's throat.
When he thinks about moments like this - and you have to think about them sometimes, it's not the kind of thing you get to completely bury, not unless you want it to turn into something worse - he always thinks if the Qun hadn't taught him to keep from going too deep into the fade when he slept, if it didn't usually work, this is what nightmares would feel like. Watching another one die for him in that slow, inevitable way where his mind's moving quicker than his body ever could and he knows just how the next moment's going to play out and he knows just how it's going to feel afterward and his mind's already going through the familiar motions of remembering who was closest to the dead guy, who's going to need to be told sooner, who's going to need to be watched because of this cause they can't be trusted on the field any more - that whole thing. Procedures, practicalities.
He's talked to people about nightmares, what they do, what they feel like. At one point he'd decided that's what his nightmares, if he had them, probably would focus on, really make it stretch out. That moment where he feels the levers inside his mind pulling themselves and the gears turning all on their own, the instant just before they're done and the guy who just died beside him isn't a person any more.
Dorian ending that moment by not dying instead doesn't make it better, exactly. The Bull doesn't get a moment of realising the darkspawn's shitty, rusty sword isn't about to cut through Dorian after all because he sees Dorian turn his head first while the thing shrieks, sees Dorian shudder, knows more about blood spray than a lot of the people he's ever fought next to and he's sure - right then, he doesn't doubt at all - that the moment when he feels himself disconnect is still coming, it's just been put off for a while.
How long does it take one of the tainted ones to die, or turn? Longer for Dorian, probably. He's got experience with that already.
"Kick the fucking thing off the edge!" he hears himself say, harsh and angry. His hands are still. Another moment passes, and things don't go back to the way they were. And they aren't going to. So he goes to work on the gear again, for lack of anything else. He heaves all his weight onto it, and he grits his teeth. And they make it to the top.
"Don't touch him!" the Bull snaps once they do before the boss, still waiting for them at the edge, can say whatever she just opened her mouth to. "Don't know where all the blood hit. We need him disinfected, get a healer down here."
His voice is still harsh, abrupt, and it gets everybody moving. The boss isn't the type to take exception to someone else snapping orders, and everyone else is smart enough to know where the priority is when it comes to injuries. He gives the gear one final push, hears it lock itself into place, waves away the few who stick around trying to help him out and focuses on the slow process of moving himself over somewhere to sit and wait for whoever's going to figure out how to get his big, useless bulk up to the surface again.
He does some breathing exercises, at first. Gives up on them. Ends up taking them up again, mostly for something to do. He's settled in and waiting. Waiting as he sits there, as he leaves and gets out of the whole damned place and looks up and sees the sky again, waiting as he sits in the back of a cart rolling its way back to Skyhold and watches someone leading his nuggalope off there in the distance. At least this shitting ankle's good for that, keeping him from riding and giving him some distance from everyone else. It's not like he's the only one feeling this way but the boss is twitchy with it, up and moving all the time, flitting between him and Dorian but spending most of her time there, darting back once or twice to ask after his leg and tell him about the semi-isolation and the guards she's sure Dorian doesn't need. In this mood she's pretty easy to redirect so she doesn't end up asking about the Bull much, and easy to distract so she doesn't end up sitting with him all that long. It's not like he can't put the right face on for her but he isn't really in the mood, and right now doesn't really have to be. He's taking it easy, after all.
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"Really?" And Dorian's tone, this time, is tired in a completely different way – exasperated and impatient, though almost entirely for show. "You want to do this even now?"
But as he asks it, Dorian frees his staff from its place at his back, letting its base rest against the ground before he offers it to the Bull. He maintains his hold on the cool metal grip until the Bull takes it, until he's certain the Bull can maneuver himself to let the staff take his weight.
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Not that any flirting right now is more than show. Not that they both don't know it. The flirting's kind of nice, though, all the same, distracting in the ways they both need it to be. Still feels a little weird, reaching out and grabbing the thing on purpose, but in a more residual way this time, because he's done this before. There's no magic sitting in it waiting to reach out at whoever grabs it. Staves don't work that way. He did this not that long ago and no weird crap happened then either, did it? And it isn't going to. The parts of his mind that don't really believe that probably wouldn't be as jumpy about it if he wasn't already all worked up, so he can ignore them. It's fine. Not that there isn't a problem with the Bull standing here holding Dorian's weapon, but that problem doesn't have anything to do with whether or not having it in his hand just feels a little bit creepy.
"Keep your hand on it too, or near it or something," he says, taking a few experimental steps. He won't have to go so slow once he's found the rhythm of it again, and that won't take long. "Don't want to slow you down if you need it."
He looks up at the path, the little spirit things Dorian's got lighting up the way, keeps his breathing deep and regular as he starts to move, gets into the pattern of it-
-and of course, once he gets out in the open, once he starts thinking he might make it onto that path and get a little cover, maybe lean against the wall, he starts to hear it. Darkspawn must not be all that good at sneaking, the Bull finds himself thinking, but they're good enough, aren't they? Good enough to take the Bull by surprise twice now, not give him enough time to hide. Shit.
He has time to glance at Dorian and try to shove the staff at him but not enough time to argue about it; if Dorian takes it back, great, if he doesn't, the Bull's still going to try and run for it, or come as close as he can get without the shitting ankle giving out. He's gone too far to get back to their little tunnel, it'd take too much time to get in and so the only hope is forward, get around that bend, hope there's something they can use there. Somewhere to hide, some solid cover - anything. The smell is getting stronger, the chitters and shrieks behind them louder and more excited, and the urge to turn and pull out his axe tugs at the Bull's mind. But if he did that it'd be the last thing he ever did and Dorian wouldn't even be smart enough to take the distraction and run, besides. Dorian would stay if he stayed, and die trying to protect him. Sometimes it's a real pain in the ass, fighting with good men at your back.
So the Bull keeps moving. Everything he had been putting into sounding like moving didn't hurt is going into speed now and rhythmic, pained noises start making their way out of him, noises it's getting harder to hear over the darkspawn but the bend in that path is getting closer, too, along with whatever's behind it. Because there has to be something behind it. He has to believe there's something behind it, anyway, believe enough to keep him moving at this stupid, hobbling pace, the bent up brace twisted around his ankle the only thing keeping him up, and if there's nothing once he gets there but more open space, well -
He'll deal with that once he sees it. He's had enough last stands already, or moments that were supposed to be. He knows how they go.
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The Bull, of course, notices before Dorian does – and only when the Bull seems to tense, when his expression tightens, does Dorian hear the inhuman sounds of the darkspawn's mockery of language. The Bull tries to shove the staff back into Dorian's hands, but Dorian only spares the man a glare shoves it right back. In this case, Dorian is absolutely certain the Bull needs the implement more than Dorian does, and no mage as powerful as Dorian has ever needed a staff to be dangerous.
He grits out, "Go," and guards the Bull's back as the man hurries ahead.
A small, selfish voice reminds him that he is the one with knowledge of a treatment for Blight-sickness, that he is the one best able to defend himself, that he has talent and genius and so much potential. If anyone should survive, shouldn't it be Dorian? If Dorian simply hurried on ahead, certainly no one would blame him.
Be practical about this, Dorian, that voice says, and it reminds him so much of his parents that Dorian nearly wants to be sick.
The stench of decay, cloyingly bitter and sweet and wrong, hits him full force as the first few darkspawn comes into view, clambering over the rubble of some once ancient building. Dorian mutters under his breath, hands moving in a blur to trace an intricate pattern in the air. He throws both arms out to his sides, and a glyph appears before his chest, sending out a salvo of fireballs. The flames catch and set the creatures alight; they screech in agony, twisting and falling.
He immediately senses it, the transition from life to death, and once that awareness snaps, he curls one hand into the air, drawing spirits from the Fade and pressing them into the darkspawn corpses. They stand, wreathed in the purple light of Dorian's magic and the fire still burning their dying flesh, and turn on their brethren.
Five against some innumerable horde are hardly good odds, but it's better than what they had before.
After that, Dorian sinks into muscle memory, casting out basic spells to keep the darkspawn from closing in. Casting without a staff is demanding – it requires far more focus to aim his skills correctly, to temper them so he doesn't end up burning or freezing his hands with every spell he casts. He's balancing a difficult line, trying to conserve his energy while also trying to dispatch the monsters as quickly as possible. If he can keep the darkspawn at a distance, if he can prevent the two of them from being overrun, they stand a much greater chance.
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Because it doesn't matter, now, if the thing works or not. Green light shines off exposed gears, jagged chunks of rubble and broken stone, and that lift is the only thing that this path leads up to. Either it works and they both make it up together, or it doesn't and they go out together, shoulder to shoulder. He doesn't like the idea of going out like this, like he is now, running away while someone else stays behind to cover for him. There's not any time to explain any of that, even if any of it really mattered.
He steps wrong, foot landing crooked on a rock, and he goes down. The noise he makes is pain, not surprise, and the moment he lands hard on the ground he hurls Dorian's staff onto the platform ahead of him, teeth gritted, and drags himself closer.
Still no point in looking back. The part of him that needs to know if any darkspawn made it past Dorian is the same part of him that wouldn't shut up back in that tunnel, the part that reacts, doesn't think, except this time he already knows the threat's right here behind him, able to put a stop to everything he's ever been with just one lucky hit. That makes it easier. Might sound weird if he tried to explain that out loud, but it's true.
This might be up there with the worse fights he's been in, but that doesn't matter much. What matters is that he can still move, that he doesn't waste any time.
He stops trying to hear whether Dorian's still fighting. He stops thinking about anything. If this thing doesn't move them in time nothing else is going to matter so he lets the threat behind him be what it is and turns his mind forward, watching that eerie green gleam off the pieces of the lift ahead while darkspawn howling fills his ears. He heaves himself forward one more time onto the edge of the platform, reaching out for one big, exposed gear and leaning his whole weight onto it, waiting for a still, endless moment until he feels it start grinding against something.
Only then does he try to focus on Dorian. If he didn't do everything he could to get this thing moving, how Dorian was doing wouldn't matter. But if Dorian took too long to get back here, or didn't come at all, or gets back with that bare, uncovered face coated in darkspawn blood because the Bull hadn't been able to watch his back-
He has time to look now, just for an instant. He'll decide what to do from there.
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He immediately returns to casting, feeling the weight of the Fade as he reaches across the Veil, again and again. He sticks to the basics, to the rudimentary spells they teach young initiates learning to control their abilities, in a bid to conserve what's left of his pool of mana. His earlier efforts had been draining, and while he hasn't fully depleted his energy, he fears he's getting dangerously close.
The Bull is no small man, and when he falls, Dorian whirls around.
"Bull!"
He takes an aborted step toward the other man before his good sense catches up with him, reminds him that granting the darkspawn even that breath will cost them both dearly. A small, impractical part of him wants to rush to the Bull and help him onto whatever lift the other man might have found; the reasonable part of him, the tactician his parents trained him to be, says that if Dorian falls back now, they're both doomed.
Gritting his teeth, he turns, continuing to cast, trying to keep them at a distance. His more demanding spells are used only when a darkspawn gets too close for comfort – healthy applications of fire to cauterize any wounds and minimize the risk of contamination. He draws the spirits of the fallen toward him, only occasionally using them to replenish his mana, preferring instead to use them to reanimate the dead. He remembers, once, during one of their rare civil conversations, that Solas had suggested he use a less "flashy" style to conserve energy. And at the moment, very few of Dorian's usual flourishes are on display, favoring efficiency above all else.
The screeching and grinding of long neglected gears catches his attention, but Dorian doesn't turn – not immediately. Instead, he continues to back up, sending out bursts of flame to distract the creatures. Once he considers himself close enough, he uses the last bit of his mana, murmuring under his breath as he weaves his hands through a half-familiar mnemonic. Without his staff, he instead channels the spell by stomping on the stone path, and a glyph blossoms out from the impact, the glow of it nearly blinding in the darkness of the caverns. Once it flashes, Dorian spins around, running toward the lift. Any darkspawn foolish enough to attempt crossing the glyph are blown back, as if struck away by an invisible force.
When he makes it to the lift, Dorian is flushed and sweating, gasping for breath.
"That won't last long," he pants out, and true to his word, the edges of the glyph have already started to flicker and dim. While he's visibly drained, Dorian is still tense, ready to spring back into the fight. He offers the Bull a wan smile. "Starting to feel a mite exhausted."
It's a joke, an admission, and an apology, all in one.
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He won't get that though. Not for a while. The leg.
Wait on all that. Try to keep living first.
"Little longer," he says, instead of the semi-joke he should maybe meet Dorian's tired smile with. The gear shrieks under his hands with every new turn, the noise getting just this side of painful as the ancient, broken lift shakes, jerks, lurches its way upward, unsteady but moving fast. "We get up there, make sure they can't ride this thing back up, find a-" The next word's cut off with a harsh, wordless noise and a, "Shit!" a hand, an arm, an ugly, snarling face rises over the edge of the lift, the whole thing lurches underneath all of them as the Bull reaches instinctively for his axe and the stubs on his other hand scrabble against the gear like he's still got five fingers to hold it in place instead of three and two halves and the gear slips, the darkspawn takes a leap forward just as the lift falls and the Bull grabs at it with both hands and heaves at it, no last thoughts inside his head, just his breath harsh inside his throat, his teeth pressing hard against each other, this faint, disbelieving shame that this is how he goes out, this, after dragging through this whole fight like a ball and chain on Dorian's leg and dying without a weapon in his hand, and he'd always counted on dying angry and taking something else out with him but not Dorian, not when they're too high up for a lift this heavy to fall right back into a crowd of the things, and Dorian's the one who's going to suffer if he lets go now. So he doesn't let go. He's got no room to move, no hands to fight with and, quick as he usually is, no time to think anything else.
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The platform jerks, but Dorian has already spun around at the Bull's curse. A spell jumps to the tip of his tongue – though a distant, rational part of him knows he has no mana left to cast it. The sudden fall and the abrupt stop tells him that the Bull has his hands full with the lift, and—
The darkspawn charges, and so does Dorian. He can almost imagine his ancestors screaming at him from beyond the Veil. Leave him, you half-wit. Protect yourself. He's nobody. And he can feel the thoughts flying around in his head, can feel his mind going through the brutal calculus of battle, of practicality and self-preservation.
Rather conveniently, he can't hear any of that over the rush of blood in his ears, over the constant chant in his head: save him save him save him
He skids to a halt in front of the Bull, arms flung out to shield him. The darkspawn lets out a guttural cry as its chipped, rusted sword swings down, and Dorian watches with grim resignation, teeth gritted and eyes hard. Had a decent run— a stray thought, rising to the surface. Could've done with more wine and fewer darkspawn, though.
But Dorian isn't cut down. Instead, the darkspawn screeches, reeling back and letting its sword drop to the platform. It's only when the darkspawn reaches up with both hands to grip its hilt that Dorian notices the knife sunk deeply into its eye socket. The darkspawn yanks the blade out with a wild shriek of pain, and Dorian only just manages to turn his head away from the spray of blood. He still feels it splash against the side of his head, thick and unnaturally hot against his skin, and he shudders with disgust.
Not a blink later, a second blade flies down, and with a wet squelch, it sinks deeply into the darkspawn's throat.
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He's talked to people about nightmares, what they do, what they feel like. At one point he'd decided that's what his nightmares, if he had them, probably would focus on, really make it stretch out. That moment where he feels the levers inside his mind pulling themselves and the gears turning all on their own, the instant just before they're done and the guy who just died beside him isn't a person any more.
Dorian ending that moment by not dying instead doesn't make it better, exactly. The Bull doesn't get a moment of realising the darkspawn's shitty, rusty sword isn't about to cut through Dorian after all because he sees Dorian turn his head first while the thing shrieks, sees Dorian shudder, knows more about blood spray than a lot of the people he's ever fought next to and he's sure - right then, he doesn't doubt at all - that the moment when he feels himself disconnect is still coming, it's just been put off for a while.
How long does it take one of the tainted ones to die, or turn? Longer for Dorian, probably. He's got experience with that already.
"Kick the fucking thing off the edge!" he hears himself say, harsh and angry. His hands are still. Another moment passes, and things don't go back to the way they were. And they aren't going to. So he goes to work on the gear again, for lack of anything else. He heaves all his weight onto it, and he grits his teeth. And they make it to the top.
"Don't touch him!" the Bull snaps once they do before the boss, still waiting for them at the edge, can say whatever she just opened her mouth to. "Don't know where all the blood hit. We need him disinfected, get a healer down here."
His voice is still harsh, abrupt, and it gets everybody moving. The boss isn't the type to take exception to someone else snapping orders, and everyone else is smart enough to know where the priority is when it comes to injuries. He gives the gear one final push, hears it lock itself into place, waves away the few who stick around trying to help him out and focuses on the slow process of moving himself over somewhere to sit and wait for whoever's going to figure out how to get his big, useless bulk up to the surface again.
He does some breathing exercises, at first. Gives up on them. Ends up taking them up again, mostly for something to do. He's settled in and waiting. Waiting as he sits there, as he leaves and gets out of the whole damned place and looks up and sees the sky again, waiting as he sits in the back of a cart rolling its way back to Skyhold and watches someone leading his nuggalope off there in the distance. At least this shitting ankle's good for that, keeping him from riding and giving him some distance from everyone else. It's not like he's the only one feeling this way but the boss is twitchy with it, up and moving all the time, flitting between him and Dorian but spending most of her time there, darting back once or twice to ask after his leg and tell him about the semi-isolation and the guards she's sure Dorian doesn't need. In this mood she's pretty easy to redirect so she doesn't end up asking about the Bull much, and easy to distract so she doesn't end up sitting with him all that long. It's not like he can't put the right face on for her but he isn't really in the mood, and right now doesn't really have to be. He's taking it easy, after all.
It's going to be a long trip back.